COAST SURVEY: BELONGS TO THE NAVY: CONVERTED INTO A SEPARATE DEPARTMENT: EXPENSE AND INTERMINABILITY: SHOULD BE DONE BY THE NAVY, AS IN GREAT BRITAIN: MR. BENTONS SPEECH: EXTRACT.
Mr. Benton. My object, Mr. President, is to return the coast survey to what the law directed it to be, and to confine its execution, after the 30th of June next, to the Navy Department. We have now, both by law and in fact, a bureau for the purpose—that of Ordnance and Hydrography—and to the hydrographical section of this bureau properly belongs the execution of the coast survey. It is the very business of hydrography; and in Great Britain, from whom we borrow the idea of this bureau, the hydrographer, always a naval officer, and operating wholly with naval forces, is charged with the whole business of the coast survey of that great empire. One hydrographer and with only ten vessels until lately, conducts the whole survey of coasts under the laws of that empire—surveys not confined to the British Isles, but to the British possessions in the four quarters of the globe—and not merely to their own possessions, but to the coasts of all countries with which they have commerce, or expect war, and of which they have not reliable charts—even to China and the Island of Borneo. Rear Admiral Beaufort is now the hydrographer, and has been for twenty years; and he has no civil astronomer to do the work for him, or any civil superintendent to overlook and direct him. But he has somebody to overlook him, and those who know what they are about—namely, the Lords of the Admiralty—and something more besides—namely, the House of Commons, through its select committees—and by which the whole work of this hydrographer is most carefully overlooked, and every survey brought to the test of law and expediency in its inception, and of economy and speed in its execution. I have now before me one of the examinations of this hydrographer before a select committee of the House of Commons, made only last year, and which shows that the British House of Commons holds its hydrographer to the track of the law—confines him to his proper business—and that proper business is precisely the work which is required by our acts of 1807 and 1832. Here is the volume which contains, among other things, the examination of Rear Admiral Beaufort [showing a huge folio of more than a thousand pages]. I do not mean to read it. I merely produce it to show that, in Great Britain, the hydrographer, a naval officer, is charged with the whole business of the coast survey, and executes it exclusively with the men and ships of the navy; and having produced it for this purpose, I read a single question from it, not for the sake of the answer, but for the sake of the facts in the question. It relates to the number of assistants retained by the rear admiral, and the late increase in their number. The question is in these words:
"In 1834 and 1835 you had three assistants—one at three pounds a week, and two at two guineas a week; now you have five assistants—one at four pounds a week, three at three pounds, and one at three guineas: why has this increase been made?"
The answer was that these assistants had to live in London, where living was dear, and that they had to do much work—for example, had printed 61,631 charts the year before. I pass over the answer for the sake of the question, and the facts of the question, and to contrast them with something in our own coast survey. The question was, why he had increased the number of the assistants from three to five, and the compensation of the principal one from about $800 to about $1,000, and of the others from about $600 to about $800 a year? And turning to our Blue Book, under the head of coast survey, I find the number of the assistants of our superintendent rather more than three, or five, and their salaries rather more than six, or eight, or even ten and twelve hundred dollars. They appear thus in the official list: One assistant at $3,500 per annum; one at $2,500; three at $2,000 each; three at $1,500 each; four at $1,300 each; two at $1,000 each; two at $600 each; one draughtsman at $1,500; another at $600; one computer at $1,500; two ditto at $1,000 each; one disbursing officer at $2,000. All this in addition to the superintendent himself at $4,500 as superintendent of coast survey, and $1,500 as superintendent of weights and measures, with an assistant at $2,000 to aid him in that business; with all the paraphernalia of an office besides. I do not know what law fixes either the number or compensation of these assistants, nor do I know that Congress has ever troubled itself to inquire into their existence: but if our superintendent was in England, with his long catalogue of assistants, the question which I have read shows that there would be an inquiry there.
Mr. President, the cost of this coast survey has been very great, and is becoming greater every year, and, expanding as it does, must annually get further from its completion. The direct appropriations out of the Treasury exceed a million and a half of dollars (1,509,725), besides the $186,000 now in the bill which I propose to reduce to $30,000.
These are the direct appropriations; but they are only half, or less than half the actual expense of this survey. The indirect expenses are much greater than the direct appropriations; and without pretending to know the whole extent of them, I think I can show a table which will go as high as $210,000 for the last year. It has been seen, that the superintendent (for I suppose that astronomer is no longer the recognized title, although the legal one) is authorized to get from the Treasury Department quantum sufficit of men and ships. Accordingly, for the last year the number of vessels was thirteen—the number of men and officers five hundred and seventy-six—and the cost of supporting the whole about $210,000 a year; and this coming from the naval appropriations proper.
Thus, sir, the navy does a good deal, and pays a good deal, towards this coast survey; and my only objection is, that it does not do the whole, and pay the whole, and get the credit due to their work, instead of being, as they now are, unseen and unnoticed—eclipsed and cast into the shade by the civil superintendent and his civil assistants.
I have shown you that, in Great Britain, the Bureau of Ordnance and Hydrography is charged with the coast survey; we have the same bureau, both by law and in fact; but that bureau has only a divided, and, I believe, subordinate part of the coast survey. We have the expense of it, and that expense should be added to the expense of the coast survey. Great Britain has no civil superintendent for this business. We have her law, but not her practice, and my motion is, to come to her practice. We should save by it the whole amount of the direct appropriations, saving and excepting the small appropriations for the extra expense which it would bring upon the navy. The men and officers are under pay, and would be glad to have the work to do. Our naval establishment is now very large, and but little to do. The ships, I suppose, are about seventy; the men and officers some ten thousand: the expense of the whole establishment between eight and nine millions of dollars a year. We are in a state of profound peace, and no way to employ this large naval force. Why not put it upon the coast survey? I know that officers wish it—that they feel humiliated at being supposed incompetent to it—and if found to be so, are willing to pay the penalty, by being dismissed the service. Incompetency is the only ground upon which a civil superintendent and a list of civil assistants can be placed over them. And is that objection well founded? Look to Maury, whose name is the synonym of nautical and astronomical science. Look to that Dr. Locke, once on the medical staff of the navy, and now pursuing a career of science in the West, from which has resulted that discovery of the magnetic clock and telegraph register which the coast survey now uses, and which an officer of the navy (Captain Wilkes) was the first to apply to the purposes for which it is now used.
And are we to presume our naval officers incompetent to the conduct of this coast survey, when it has produced such men as these—when it may contain in its bosom we know not how many more such? In 1807 we had no navy—we may say none, for it was small, and going down to nothing. Then, it might be justifiable to employ an astronomer. In 1832, the navy had fought itself into favor; but Mr. Hassler, the father of the coast survey, was still alive, and it was justifiable to employ him as an astronomer. But now there is no need for a civil astronomer, much less for a civil superintendent; and the whole work should go to the navy. We have naval schools now for the instruction of officers; we have officers with the laudable ambition to instruct themselves. The American character, ardent in every thing, is pre-eminently ardent in the pursuit of knowledge. In every walk of life, from the highest to the lowest, from the most humble mechanical to the highest professional employment, knowledge is a pursuit, and a laudable object of ambition with a great number. We are ardent in the pursuit of wealth—equally so in the pursuit of science. The navy partakes of this laudable ambition. You will see an immense number of the naval officers, of all ages and of all ranks, devoting themselves, with all the ardor of young students, for the acquisition of knowledge: and are all these—the whole naval profession—to be told that none of them are able to conduct the coast survey, none of them able to execute the act of 1807, none of them able to find shoals and islands within twenty leagues of the coast, to sound a harbor, to take the distance and bearings of headlands and capes—and all this within sixty miles of the shore? Are they to be told this? If they are, and it could be told with truth, it would be time to go to reducing. But it cannot be said with truth. The naval officers can not only execute the act of 1807 but they can do any thing, if it was proper to do it, which the present coast survey is engaged in over and beyond that act. They can do any thing that the British officers can do; and the British naval officers conduct the coast survey of that great empire. We have many that can do any thing that Rear Admiral Beaufort can do, and he has conducted the British coast survey for twenty years, and has stood examinations before select committees of the British House of Commons, which have showed that no civil superintendent was necessary to guide him.
Mr. President, we have a large, and almost an idle navy at present. We have a home squadron, like the British, though we do not live on an island, nor in times subject to a descent, like England from Spain in the time of the Invincible Armada, or from the Baltic in the times of Canute and Hardicanute. Our home squadron has nothing to do, unless it can be put on the coast survey. We have a Mediterranean squadron; but there are no longer pirates in the Mediterranean to be kept in check. We have a Pacific squadron, and it has no enemy to watch in the Pacific Ocean. Give these squadrons employment—a part of them at least. Put them on the coast survey, as many as possible, and have the work finished—finished for the present age as well as for posterity. We have been forty years about it; and, the way we go on, may be forty more. The present age wants the benefit of these surveys, and let us accelerate them by turning the navy upon them—as much of it as can be properly employed. Let us put the whole work in the hands of the navy, and try the question whether or not they are incompetent to it.