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 Reprinted from The Amebican Political Science Review, Yol. XI, No. 1, February, 1917 
 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 1 
 
 ;(A- en 
 
 ROBERT W. NEESER 
 Secretary of the Navai History Society 
 
 In the United States, the department of the navy is the con- 
 stituted organ of the government for administering the navy. 
 Its sole reason for existence is the possibility of war. The most 
 important office in the navy department, after that of the secre- 
 tary of the navy, is the office of naval operations. All the other 
 offices in the navy are merely accessory to that one particular 
 office the function of which is the preparation of the navy for 
 war. 
 
 The method of naval administration now in force in the 
 United States is the outcome of a gradual development. When 
 the Constitution went into effect in 1789, it contained several 
 references to the navy. Congress was given power to “ provide 
 and maintain a navy.” The President was made the “com- 
 mander-in-chief of the navy” and there was a clause which for- 
 bade the States from owning ships of wa^r in time of peace. 
 When, during Washington’s administration, the executive de- 
 partments were organized, there was no navy, and there was no 
 pressing need for one. Congress, therefore, vested the control 
 of the navy in the secretary of war. The frigate Constitution 
 and her sister ships were thus built under the direction of the 
 war department. But the imminent hostilities with France in 
 1798 revealed the need of a separate executive department for 
 the proper administration of our sea force, and, on April 30, 
 1798, the bill creating the navy department became a law. 
 
 The rich experience gained in the war of 1812 exposed the 
 fatuity of having the navy administered by a civilian, unaided 
 by responsible professional advisers, or even the means of carry- 
 
 1 A paper read at the meeting of the American Political Science Association 
 at Cincinnati, Ohio, December 29, 1916. 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 ing on the duties of his office. The act of February 7, 1815, 
 was therefore passed, which created the board of navy commis- 
 •sioners, consisting of three post captains, the highest rank of 
 that day. This board was attached to the secretary’s office to 
 discharge under his superintendence all the ministerial duties 
 of the office. This new legislation was a step in the right di- 
 rection. It was modeled upon the excellent naval administra- 
 tions created for the British navy in 1688. Unfortunately, our 
 legislators took only part of the system to which they had turned 
 for enlightenment. They provided an executive and military 
 branch “for the employment of vessels of war,” but they left 
 out the civil and industrial branch which has to do with the 
 construction, armament, and equipment of the war vessels, and 
 the “procurement of naval stores and materials.” Herein lay 
 the weakness of the act of 1815. Its purpose besides was mis- 
 understood from the first, and by no less a person than the sec- 
 retary of the navy, whose hands it was intended to strengthen. 
 The latter insisted that the duties of the commissioners were of 
 a civil character, and this false conception of the object of the 
 navy board gave rise to much friction, until in the end it lead 
 to the repeal of the law. 
 
 A remedy for the defects was sought in the act of August 31, 
 1842, which, in place of the navy board, substituted five naval 
 administrative bureaus, whose names were : bureau of yards and 
 docks; bureau of construction, equipment and repair; bureau of 
 provisions and clothing; bureau of ordnance and hydrography; 
 bureau of medicine and surgery. Subsequently three additional 
 bureaus of navigation, steam engineering and equipment were 
 established. 
 
 The missing left arm of the naval organization was thus sup- 
 plied; but, in the same stroke of the pen, the all important right 
 arm was severed, and the navy was left without a responsible 
 direction of its military force. In addition there was that 
 pernicious clause which provided that the “orders of a chief of 
 bureau shall be considered as emanating from the secretary of 
 the navy, and shall have full force and effect as such.” The 
 act thus unintentionally created, in practice, no less than half 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 61 
 
 a dozen secretaries of the navy, each one, in his own bureau, 
 clothed with executive authority equal to that of the constitu- 
 tional commander-in-chief. This was a flagrant violation of a 
 fundamental military principle, and it is this that caused such 
 dire confusion, extravagance, duplication of work and irrespon- 
 sibility, which, according to several secretaries of the navy, have 
 characterized the business methods of the navy department for 
 the last sixty years. Moreover, each chief of bureau was so 
 engaged with the affairs of his own bureau that the general man- 
 agement of the navy and its employment was left to a civilian 
 totally unfamiliar with naval affairs. 
 
 During the first few months of the civil war the defects 
 of the administrative system of the navy department attracted 
 widespread attention. The weakness of the secretary’s office 
 as a directing and unifying force was remedied in part by the 
 creation of the office of assistant secretary of the navy. This 
 was a step in the right direction toward correlating the work of 
 the several bureaus. But even then further agencies were 
 necessary to assist the secretary in his administration of what 
 Lincoln called “ Uncle Sam’s web-feet.” These Secretary Welles 
 sought in the “ commission of conference,” created to discuss and 
 determine the necessary naval plans and operation, and in a 
 second confidential board comprising the bureau chiefs for the 
 purpose of “considering and acting upon such subjects con- 
 nected with the naval service as may be submitted to them by 
 the department.” In 1863 a “permanent commission” was ap- 
 pointed to report on all questions relating to science upon which 
 professional advice was needed. During the war various other 
 temporary boards, such as the “ironclad board,” the “harbor 
 commission,” and the “board on plans and designs for the new 
 vessels,” were also created as circumstances demanded. 
 
 “The very great success of the navy in the War of Seces- 
 sion,” commented Admiral Mahan in one of his graphic studies 
 of our naval administration, “is universally admitted and needs 
 no insistence; but, though frequently narrated historically, it 
 is doubtful whether it is yet philosophically appreciated, or 
 even understood. For present purposes it is sufficient to note 
 
62 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 the fact that there was then found within the navy department — 
 nothing existing there before, but introduced fortuitously for 
 the occasion — a means by which the enthusiastic determination 
 of the nation could take shape in intelligent comprehension of 
 the issues and in strongly coordinate effort; while to the satis- 
 factory maintenance of the activity thus directed the bureau 
 system was found adequate. 77 
 
 The war showed the merits of the bureau system under fa- 
 vorable forcing conditions. But peace speedily demonstrated its 
 defects. The moment hostilities came to a close, the princi- 
 pal task of the navy department became the reduction of the 
 huge establishment which had been developed during the war. 
 The commission of conference and the other boards were dis- 
 continued. Captain Gustavus V. Fox, who, as assistant sec- 
 retary of the navy, had supplied the place of the “one navy 
 commissioner, 77 which had been urgently recommended when the 
 navy department was reorganized in 1842, resigned, and with 
 him disappeared what had been virtually an institution, rather 
 than an individual or an office. Later on, the law authorizing 
 an assistant secretary of the navy was repealed. “The lesson of 
 the civil war was thrown away/ 7 remarked one naval authority, 
 “and the department relapsed into a state looking to the early 
 advent of the millenium, when wars on earth shall cease. 77 
 
 From this dream of uninterrupted peace the country was 
 awakened in 1873, when the imminence of war with Spain, in- 
 cident upon the seizure of the Virginius, spurred the depart- 
 ment to the consideration of military questions. That part of 
 the “business 77 had been unfortunately neglected in our naval 
 administration since 1866. But nothing resulted from the war 
 scare and another lesson was lost upon us. 
 
 It cannot be said that there was any concealment of this 
 inability of the navy department of itself to deal with questions 
 of war. In 1877 an attempt was made by Secretary Thomp- 
 son to unify the separate parts of the navy department by form- 
 ing a board consisting of the chiefs of the several bureaus, but 
 the new organization effected little, for the centrifugal forces 
 of the department were too much for it. This was only one 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 63 
 
 of the several attempts made during the period 1866-1881 to 
 create some permanent board which should occupy a position in 
 the administrative hierarchy between the chiefs of bureaus and 
 the secretary of the navy, and thus bring to an end a condition 
 that was becoming intolerable. Secretary William C. Whitney, 
 in his annual report of 1885, frankly admitted the “ universal 
 dissatisfaction” with the inner workings of the navy depart- 
 ment: “It is expressed to me quite universally by the naval 
 officers, coupled with the hope and expectation that some remedy 
 may be found and speedily applied. The country has expended 
 since July 1, 1868, over seventy-five millions of money on the 
 construction, repair, equipment, and ordnance of vessels, which 
 sum, with a very slight exception, has been substantially thrown 
 away.” “It is questionable,” he went on to add, “whether we 
 have a single naval vessel finished and afloat at the present time 
 that could be trusted to encounter the ships of any important 
 power. This is no secret; the fact has been repeatedly com- 
 mented upon in congress, confessed by our highest naval authori- 
 ties, and deprecated by all. It is idle to suppose that abuses 
 of the character I have glanced at can be prevented merely by 
 a change in the personnel of the department. It is the system 
 which is vicious.” And he cites the case of the Omaha , upon 
 which four separate bureaus had been working, independently 
 and not always in harmony, in producing their respective parts 
 of the completed ship, with the result that when she was ready 
 for sea, they had so completely appropriated her space that 
 they had left barely coal room for four days’ steaming. 
 
 Such a pitiless disclosure of “mismanagement, of wasteful 
 expenditure, of injudicious and ill-advised disposition of pub- 
 lic moneys,” should have lead to immediate and salutary re- 
 forms. Secretary Whitney admitted that the evils could not be 
 corrected under the organization of the department then exist- 
 ing. Yet nothing came of it; and four years later we read Sec- 
 retary Tracy voicing a similar complaint that the entire organi- 
 zation of the department was “without system or coherence.” 
 
 When the war with Spain broke out, the navy department, 
 for the fourth time, found itself with no organization for the 
 
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 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 strategic control of its fleets, the bureaus being fully engrossed 
 with their own administrative work. Accordingly, the so-called 
 naval strategy board was extemporized to study the strategic 
 situation and to offer sound military advice upon current affairs to 
 the secretary of the navy and to the President as constitutional 
 commander-in-chief. Fortunately, the strategy board had at 
 its command a plan for action which the naval war college had 
 thoroughly digested a few years before. This, the only one to 
 which careful thought had been given, was perforce the one 
 which Admiral Sampson’s fleet and General Shatter’s army 
 followed. 
 
 After the war, the strategy board, being merely a temporary 
 organization, lapsed, and the navy department once more re- 
 fused to admit that it had duties other than administrative. 
 But this condition could not continue long. In 1900 Captain 
 Henry C. Taylor’s views on the “ concrete” needs of the navy 
 department resulted in the formation of a general board for the 
 purpose of dealing with the military duties of the department. 
 “The American navy,” he wrote, “has for some years felt in- 
 stinctively that this, or something like this, was needed for 
 future efficiency. Evidence of this is apparent in the creation, 
 many years ago, of a war college at Newport and an office of 
 intelligence in the navy department. In those two institutions 
 are to be found many of the elements of a general staff, requir- 
 ing only a slight drawing together by a common head to create 
 a nucleus of effort around which would form a body of great 
 usefulness to the navy and to the country.” The members of 
 the general board were the admiral of the navy, the chief of the 
 bureau of navigation, the chief intelligence officer, and the 
 president of the naval war college. Its duties were to ascertain 
 the demands which our national policies were likely to make 
 on the navy, and to advise the secretaries of the measures and 
 the plans necessary to accomplish the navy’s mission. This 
 involved the preparation of the necessary plans for war, and the 
 coordinating for this end of the work of the naval war college, 
 which did the strategic and tactical thinking for the navy, and 
 the office of naval intelligence, which gathered the data for 
 studies of the mobilization plans of other nations. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 65 
 
 The jealousies and fears of the administrative bureaus for a 
 time seriously threatened the existence of the general board. 
 But the prestige which the newly formed body owed to its 
 president, the admiral of the navy, enabled it to hold its own and 
 to improve its early position as the military branch of the navy 
 department. Its role, however, was merely that of an advisory 
 body to the secretary of the navy, to whom it addressed all its 
 communications. In addition, it is well to bear in mind that 
 the general board was established only by a general order (No. 
 544, dated March 13, 1900) issued by the navy department, and 
 that it never received legislative recognition by congress until 
 1916. 
 
 On the whole the organization of the, navy department re- 
 mained based upon its former plan. The several bureaus con- 
 tinued to exercise the same duties as heretofore, with one ex- 
 ception. This concerned the bureau of navigation, whose prin- 
 cipal functions were the administration and direction of the 
 personnel, which was also an administrative bureau of the de- 
 partment. Congress having failed to provide a department 
 with “command duties,” there grew up the custom of entrusting 
 ♦the military duties of the navy department to this bureau, “in 
 addition to its other duties.” By law, the bureau of naviga- 
 tion had no precedence over the other bureaus, yet it acquired 
 a priority in rank by reason of its directive duties. But the 
 material bureaus that supply the requirements of the military 
 branch did not always feel obliged to conform to the standards 
 set by the bureau of navigation, and the bureau, on the other 
 hand, was so deeply involved in its own routine of personnel 
 administration that it sometimes could not fully appreciate its 
 “additional duties” of preparing the navy for war. 
 
 In his annual report for 1900, Secretary John D. Long offered 
 a plan for the simplification of the department’s organization. 
 This referred to the consolidation of the material bureaus of 
 construction and repair, steam engineering and equipment. 
 “The union of these three bureaus, the chief function of which 
 is to deal with the material of the ship, into one bureau, the 
 consolidation of their several corps of assistants and inspectors, 
 
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 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 and the conduct of the really integral work of building and 
 equipping vessels under the management of one responsible 
 chief instead of three chiefs, would promote the efficient and eco- 
 nomical administration of this important part of the business of 
 the navy department/’ Nothing could be done without the 
 cooperation of congress, however, and as that body took no 
 action upon this recommendation, the opportunity of securing 
 harmony by consolidation was passed over. 
 
 In the meantime Admiral Taylor, as chief of the bureau of 
 navigation, was continuing his efforts to secure “an efficient 
 administration of the fleet.” In his annual report for 1902, he 
 dwelt at length upon this all-important subject. The efforts 
 made by the navy since 1893 to bring about a “larger control 
 and a closer responsibility,” had been attended with partial suc- 
 cess. The bureau of navigation, the general board, the office of 
 naval intelligence, the war college, and the board of inspection 
 and survey had been drawn steadily closer together as compo- 
 nent parts of a general staff. All this had been accomplished 
 without legislative assistance; but “we can go no further,” he 
 remarked, “without congressional legislation, which shall es- 
 tablish a general staff with the control necessary to administer 
 more effectively the affairs of the fleet. A complete plan is 
 prepared, which will require only legislative recognition of the 
 existence of a chief of a general staff and the several sections 
 necessary to carry out the various details. Without such an 
 organization, the power to establish thorough reforms will be 
 lacking.” 
 
 This and subsequent recommendations failed to bring about 
 the desired action by congress. In 1909 the President appointed 
 a board to consider the principles which should form the foun- 
 dation for the reorganization of the department. The members 
 of this board were ex-Secretaries William H. Moody and Paul 
 Morton, rear admirals Stephen B. Luce and Alfred T. Mahan, 
 and Congressman A. G. Dayton. Their report was so plain and 
 so eloquent an appeal for reform that the very soundness of its 
 recommendations should have convinced the stubborn legisla- 
 tors at the Capitol. But this, unfortunately, was not the case. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 67 
 
 Congress refused to heed even the best professional advice, and 
 did nothing. 
 
 One of the first acts of Secretary Meyer, after he came to the 
 navy department in 1909, was to appoint the Swift board to 
 consider the means of properly coordinating the work of the in- 
 terdependent bureaus. “Advice on all subjects may be had 
 for the asking, or even without asking,” wrote Mr. Meyer in his 
 annual report for 1909, “but as a rule, it would not be advice 
 that it would be wise to follow. Its authors are not responsible.” 
 The secretary of the navy was, as should be under our form 
 of government, a civilian, but, being a civilian, he lacked expert 
 knowledge adequately to direct all the varied operations of the 
 navy. It was essential, then, that he should be provided with 
 assistants in the different lines of duties. As any administrative 
 legislation by congress seemed improbable, the Swift board 
 recommended measures which could be put into effect by the 
 secretary alone. The business administration of the navy de- 
 partment logically divided itself into groups under personnel, 
 material, and the operations or management of the fleet. Per- 
 sonnel included the bureaus of navigation, medicine and sur- 
 gery, and the marine corps. Material covered the bureaus of 
 construction and repair, ordnance, equipment, steam engineer- 
 ing, and supplies and accounts. Public works were the prov- 
 ince of the bureau of yards and docks. To each of these divi- 
 sions was detailed an officer of rank on the active list whose duty 
 it was to advise the secretary on the matters pertaining to his 
 particular division, but who actually had no “supervisory or 
 executive power or authority.” Paragraph 109 of the Navy 
 Regulations for 1913 read, “To assist the secretary of the navy in 
 coordinating and carrying on the work of the four divisions, 
 there shall be on duty in the office of the secretary four officers 
 of the navy on the active list, not below the grade of captain, 
 to be known, respectively, as the aid for operations, aid for 
 personnel, aid for material, and aid for inspections. The four 
 aids shall constitute the secretary’s advisory council, which shall 
 meet daily to consider important questions arising in any di- 
 vision affecting the general policies of the department with a 
 
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 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 view to an effective coordination of the work of the four divi- 
 sions.’ 7 The aid for operations was to advise the secretary as to 
 strategic and tactical matters in conjunction with the general 
 board, and also advise regarding the movements and dispositions 
 of naval vessels; the aid for personnel was to advise the secre- 
 tary on matters which fell under the bureau of navigation, the 
 bureau of medicine and surgery, the office of the judge-advocate- 
 general, and the naval examining and retiring boards; the aid 
 for material was to advise the secretary generally on matters 
 concerning the construction, arming, equipment, and supply of 
 naval vessels, and the management of the navy yards; the aid 
 for inspections was to advise on all inspections ashore and afloat 
 coming under the board of inspection and survey for ships, the 
 board of inspection for shore stations, and the special inspecting 
 officers. “It must be distinctly understood,” wrote Mr. Meyer, 
 “that the purposes contemplated for the aids cannot be effected 
 without an entirely broad view, each of his own field of activity, 
 and without any participation in the details of the bureaus. 
 The aids will not be allowed to burden themselves with the de- 
 tails, and will thus be free to discuss policies and reforms with 
 the secretary.” This was as it should be, and in accordance 
 with the suggestions made by Admiral Mahan in 1903, when he 
 emphasized the “two points: (1) that the advisers, one or a 
 board, should be wholly clear of administrative activity; and 
 (2) that he or they be advisers only, pure and simple, with no 
 power to affect the individual responsibility of the decision. 
 This must be preserved, under whatever method, as the secre- 
 tary’s privilege as well as his obligation.” 
 
 In practice, Secretary Meyer’s plan of naval reorganization 
 was an improvement over the conditions existing when he 
 came to the department. It placed the military branch in par- 
 tial direction of the military direction of the navy, and brought 
 about an improvement of the departmental routine, due to the 
 advice of the ‘aids, which was “exceedingly gratifying.” The 
 one imperfection of the plan was that it had not the force of law. 
 Under any new secretary that organization might lapse back to 
 the basis of the statute where the civil branch was given full 
 
THE DEPAKTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 69 
 
 power to work without consulting the military branch, which, 
 after all, was alone ultimately responsible for the successful 
 prosecution of naval campaigns. 
 
 This was what actually happened when Secretary Daniels 
 succeeded Mr. Meyer in the navy department. One aid after 
 another disappeared from the secretary’s council. The only 
 addition was an aid for education, created to further the secre- 
 tary’s ambition to familiarize each gun-pointer and coal-passer 
 with the mysteries of the English language and the problems of 
 elementary mathematics. 
 
 Then came the outbreak of the European war, with naval 
 operations on a scale unheard of in the world’s history. Before 
 the superb organization of the British navy, which at the outset 
 checked the activities of the high sea fleet of Germany, the 
 American people stood aghast. If there is one thing the Ameri- 
 cans have prided themselves upon it is their common sense, their 
 practical appreciation of the adaptation of means to ends. To 
 the administration of their navy, one would have thought that 
 they would apply some of the principles of efficiency which they 
 had used in their mastery of the ancient frontier and of the wil- 
 derness and the western deserts. Yet, to the surprise of thought- 
 ful citizens, their sea power, the all important factor of their 
 national defence, they permitted to develop along the most 
 “ haphazard lines.” The lessons of the immediate present were 
 too serious to be entirely neglected. In fact so serious was 
 the warning to us that naval officers felt emboldened to speak 
 their minds more freely than was their wont, and the naval com- 
 mittees of congress in their hearing learned truths which, under 
 ordinary circumstances, they would have preferred to silence. 
 The people at last became aroused. Patriotic societies every- 
 where lent their aid to organizing public opinion which, for once, 
 was beginning to urge what it should have demanded of its rep- 
 resentatives in congress years before. This time congress was 
 willing to listen. By the first week in January, 1915, the sub- 
 committee of the house committee on naval affairs reached a 
 decision to recommend constructive legislation of far-reaching 
 importance to the United States navy. This was the establish- 
 
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 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 ment of an office of naval operations whose sole duty was to 
 be the preparation of the fleet for war. 
 
 As finally approved, the act of March 3, 1915 left much to 
 be desired. It was, however, a step in the right direction, and 
 the newly appointed chief of naval operations proceeded at once 
 to place the navy on a practical war basis. Without additional 
 legislation, the office took steps towards organizing the industrial 
 resources of the country behind the navy. In less than ten 
 months definite plans for the mobilization of the entire naval 
 force of the United States were approved and placed into opera- 
 tion so as to bring into active cooperation all the various bureaus 
 and elements of the navy department, together with the part each 
 naval station was to play in case of war. All the vessels of the 
 merchant marine were inspected and their particular duties in 
 case of war assigned. An immense amount of detail was worked 
 out and was placed on file ready for immediate reference. A 
 definite division of mining and mine sweeping was put into 
 operation, the naval districts and the part they were to play 
 were definitely organized, the radio service was completely 
 systematized. All these duties essential to the proper prepa- 
 ration of the fleet for war were attended to by the new office, 
 which the administrative bureaus heretofore had been unable 
 and incapable of transacting. 
 
 Whatever shortcomings there were in the law were rectified 
 in the naval appropriation bill approved on August 29, 1916. 
 The chief of naval operations was promoted to the rank of ad- 
 miral ; to assist him in his duties were no less than fifteen officers of 
 and above the rank of lieutenant-commander of the navy or major 
 of the marine corps. He was “ charged with the operations of 
 the fleet, and with the preparation and readiness of plans for 
 its use in war,” and during the temporary absence of the secre- 
 tary and assistant secretary of the navy he was to be next in 
 succession to act as secretary of the navy. The chief of opera- 
 tions now became by law, as well as in name, the responsible and 
 coordinating factor in the affairs of the department. 
 
 After this somewhat detailed resume of the development and 
 historical antecedents of the navy department, we are prepared 
 to deal with the present. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 71 
 
 The naval administration has at its head the secretary of the 
 navy, a civilian, who is the personal representative of the Presi- 
 dent. His is the sole control and the single responsibility. He 
 has subordinates, but no associates. The duty of decision is, 
 therefore, his alone. 
 
 The details of the administrative machinery of the navy are 
 as we have seen of two principal kinds: those that concern the 
 operations of the fleets, in peace and in war, which is the mili- 
 tary side of the naval administration; and those that relate to 
 the creation and perservation of the material in its several 
 varieties — ships, guns, engines, etc. — which is the civil side. 
 The aggregation of duties under these two heads being too great 
 for any one man to discharge, they have been again subdivided by 
 law. For this purpose there exist side by side the two phases 
 of the system, the military and the civil, the secretary being at 
 the head of each, as the agent of the President. 
 
 To assist the secretary in the field of civil administration, 
 there is an assistant secretary of the navy (act of July 11, 1890), 
 who, in the temporary absence of the secretary, is next in suc- 
 cession to act as such. 
 
 The direction of activities in themselves essentially mili- 
 tary — originally delegated to the board of navy commissioners, 
 but vested from 1842 to 1915 in the secretary of the navy — is 
 entrusted to the chief of naval operations who has the rank of 
 admiral, and, under the direction of the secretary of the navy, 
 is “ charged with the operations of the fleet and with the prepa- 
 ration and readiness of plans for its use in war.” In the tempo- 
 rary absence of the secretary and assistant secretary of the 
 navy, he is the next in succession to act as secretary of the 
 navy, but the orders issued by him have at all times full force 
 and effect as emanating from the secretary. 
 
 In practice, the scope of the duties embraced by the office of 
 the chief of naval operations includes the direction of all strategic 
 and tactical matters, organization, maneuvers, target practice, 
 drills and exercises and the training of the fleet for war. This 
 includes also the naval war college at Newport, the office of 
 naval intelligence, the office of target practice and engineering 
 
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 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 competitions, the operation of the radio service and other sys- 
 tems of communication, the operations of the aeronautics ser- 
 vice, the division of mines and mining, the naval defence dis- 
 tricts, the naval militia, and the coast guard when operating with 
 the navy. 
 
 Next after the chief of operations come the seven bureaus 2 of 
 the navy department, whose duties are limited in application to 
 activities subordinate to military operations, and therefore essen- 
 tially civil in character. They are, by title, as follows: Yards 
 and docks, navigation, ordnance, construction and repair, steam 
 engineering, supplies and accounts, and medicine and surgery. 
 The several navy yards, and the designing, building and mainte- 
 nance of their dry docks, wharfs and building, are in charge of the 
 bureau of yards and docks, the chief of which is a civil engineer. 
 The bureau of navigation has, “by a historical devolution / ’ as 
 Admiral Mahan pertinently remarked, “of which its name gives 
 no suggestion, inherited the charge of the personnel of the navy, 
 as well officers as enlisted men.” It regulates their admission, 
 supervises their training, preserves records of their service, and 
 distributes them among the vessels of the fleet. In addition it 
 is charged with the upkeep and operation of the Naval Academy 
 and of the naval war college. Ordnance is a word which speaks 
 for itself; this includes the manufacture of guns, torpedoes, 
 mines and ammunition, as well as the maintenance of the naval 
 gun factory, the naval proving ground and powder factory and 
 of the various powder depots and magazines in the seaboard 
 states. The bureau of construction and repair, whose personnel 
 consists of naval architects, is charged with all that relates to the 
 building and maintenance in repair of the hull part of the ships 
 of the navy. Steam engineering includes the designing, build- 
 ing, maintenance and repair of machinery for all our vessels. 
 The bureau of supplies and accounts is the purchasing agency 
 of the service. It buys for other bureaus, subject to their 
 requisition and inspection, and buys and supplies, on its own 
 account, the provisions, clothing and supplies required for the 
 
 2 The bureau of equipment was abolished by the act of June 30, 1914, and its 
 duties distributed among the other bureaus. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 73 
 
 ships in commission. It keeps, also, the pay accounts of the 
 officers and men, and pays them at stated times. The hygiene 
 of the navy is in charge of the bureau of medicine and surgery, 
 the importance of which may be gauged by considering how far 
 a well man is more useful than an invalid. 
 
 In addition to the bureaus, the organization of the navy de- 
 partment includes the judge advocate general of the navy, whose 
 office considers and reports upon all legal questions relating to 
 the personnel, and the solicitor, who attends to the other ques- 
 tions of law, such as the drafting and interpretation of statutes, 
 and the drawing up of contracts. 
 
 The general nature of the functions of each bureau is appar- 
 ent. To particularize further would be to become involved in a 
 mass of technical details. The important fact to note is that 
 each bureau has a distinct and mutually independent duty. 
 
 There is little question that the department administration 
 would be greatly benefited by the creation of an office of inspec- 
 tions, which, constituted independently of the bureaus, would 
 supervise the work done by the bureaus and make reports on 
 the same directly to the secretary. In this way there would be 
 provided a check upon the work of the several branches of the 
 civil administration such as exists in every modern business for 
 the purpose of obtaining greater efficiency in methods. 
 
 Before the establishment of the office of naval operations, 
 the coordination and reconciliation of the divergent opinions 
 inevitable between so many parties depended solely upon the 
 secretary's appreciation of the necessities of the navy — not only 
 from the point of view of the bureaus, but also from that of the 
 fleet. It is true that, in matters of policy, the secretary, since 
 1900, has had the deliberations and reports of the general board 
 to guide him, but that body being purely advisory, its recom- 
 mendations have on many occasions been disregarded by him. 
 
 According to the navy regulations the various chiefs of bu- 
 reaus, and the assistant secretary of the navy, the chief of naval 
 operations, the major general commandant of the marine corps 
 and the judge advocate general of the navy, form the secretary 
 of the navy's advisory council. Meetings are held every week 
 
74 
 
 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW 
 
 at which the discussion relates to the various important matters 
 of detail. Provision is also made for conferences between the 
 chief of naval operations and the various bureaus when neces- 
 sary to facilitate the transaction of business. 
 
 As at present developed there is every reason to believe that 
 the organization of the navy department has reached the point 
 where it may attain and preserve substantial unity of executive 
 action, while at the same time it provides for the distribution 
 among several individuals of a mass of detailed duties beyond 
 the power of one man to discharge. 
 
 Admiral Mahan defined the test of a system of naval ad- 
 ministration as “its capacity — inherent, not spasmodic — to keep 
 the establishment of the navy abreast of the best professional 
 opinion concerning contemporary necessities, both in quality and 
 quantity. It needs not only to know and to have what is best 
 today, but to embody an organic provision for watching and 
 forecasting to a reasonable future what will be demanded. This 
 may not be trusted to voluntary action or to individual initia- 
 tive. There is needed a constituted organ to receive, digest, 
 and then officially to state, in virtue of its recognized office, what 
 the highest instructed professional opinion of the sea officers 
 holds concerning the needs of the navy at the moment and for 
 the future as far as present progress indicates.” For forty years, 
 the misconception and jealousy of our politicians prevented the 
 navy from gaining the organization which it knew it must have 
 if the fleet was to be effective in war. In the upbuilding of 
 the new navy, the public mind also was centered too much on 
 the power of the single ship; it took no account of the various 
 accessories essential to the maintenance of the fleet. The 
 greatest war of all time, however, has taught us that the admin- 
 istration of a navy consists not merely in building ships, in 
 buying material, in repairing vessels, in enlisting men, in man- 
 ning ships, or in developing navy yards and naval stations; 
 it is the coordination of all these duties and their welding into 
 an effective instrument of war. The responsibility for the 
 efficiency of that instrument of war cannot therefore be di- 
 vided. Each separate activity must be thoroughly controlled 
 and made to cooperate toward the ultimate object of developing 
 
THE DEPAKTMENT OF THE NAVY 
 
 75 
 
 the battle of efficiency of the fleet. The acts of March 3, 1915, 
 and August 29, 1916, which established the office of naval op- 
 erations, have paved the way for such a coordination in the de- 
 partment through the creation of a constituted military organ, 
 senior to the existing administrative civil bureaus, and respon- 
 sible for the preparation of the navy for war. The military 
 branch of the department has been brought to the fore. But 
 the prerogatives of the chiefs of the several civil bureaus granted 
 by the act of August 31, 1842, unfortunately still prevail. While 
 the office of naval operations has been installed in its proper 
 place in the department, the bureaus have not yet received 
 proper attention from our legislators. In time a more effective 
 coordination may be brought about between these conflicting 
 elements, but it will entail much effort and the waiving by the 
 bureaus of some of their cherished but injudicious executive 
 powers. 
 
 The spirit of our government requires that a civilian shall 
 be at the head of the navy department. That is as it should 
 be. But in this very lack of permanent tenure by the secretary 
 himself lies one of the weaknesses of our system. As Mr. Meyer 
 wrote in 1909, “in the past seven years there have been six 
 secretaries of the navy.” How can a civilian, lacking expert 
 knowledge, under those circumstances direct all the varied op- 
 erations of the naval service? With unlimited time a secretary 
 could acquire that personal knowledge of details and acquaint- 
 ance with the characteristics of his subordinates which are 
 essential to the successful administrator. No such incumbency 
 is to be expected under our system of government. To supply 
 the defect inherent in temporary tenure and periodical change, 
 there has been created in our naval administration the office 
 of naval operations which may obtain for the navy a “tradition 
 of policy,” — “analogous in fact” to quote Admiral Mahan's 
 words, “to the principles of a political party, which are continu- 
 ous in tradition, though progressive in modification. These 
 run side by side with the policy of particular administrations; 
 not affecting their constituted powers, but guiding general lines 
 of action by influence, the benefit of which, through the assur- 
 ance of continuity, is universally admitted.” 
 
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