The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp

by Augustus C. Buell

BATTLESHIP ALABAMA

With this exception, nothing whatever was done toward increase or betterment of our naval force from 1865 until 1883. However, in 1881, General Garfield, having been elected President the preceding year and inaugurated the 4th of March, 1881, appointed Judge William H. Hunt, of Louisiana, Secretary of the Navy. General Garfield understood the naval needs of the country, referred to the subject vigorously in his inaugural, and quite early in his administration, or about a month before he was assassinated, prompted his Secretary of the Navy to take measures looking to the modernization of our national marine. The result of this was the convening of a board early in the summer of 1881, of which Admiral John Rodgers was President. The instructions of this board were to investigate the existing state of foreign navies, to inquire into the immediate needs of our own, and to formulate a ship-building programme on modern lines, to be carried out as soon as the resources of the country would permit. On the 7th of November, 1881, this board, which is commonly known to history as the “First Naval Advisory Board,” reported in accordance with its instructions. It is not necessary here to go into detail with regard to the ship-building programme which they recommended. Suffice to say, that not one of the ships or types of ships which they recommended was ever actually built; but their deliberations and report attracted general public attention, caused the subject to be widely and patriotically, although not very intelligently, discussed in the newspapers, so that, while the action of this first Naval Advisory Board did not produce any actual or visible results, it at least served to popularize the subject of the “New Navy.”

BATTLESHIP MAINE

In 1882, Mr. Hunt was appointed Minister to Russia, and was succeeded in the Secretaryship of the Navy by William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire. Mr. Chandler was a vigorous, active man, and lost no time in taking advantage of the public interest which had been aroused. The result of the further investigations and reports which he caused to be made, and his communications to the President, and through the President to Congress based thereon, resulted in an act, approved March 3, 1883, providing for the construction of four new cruising vessels, and the launching and engining of the four double-turreted monitors “Puritan,” “Terror,” “Amphitrite,” and “Monadnock,” which at that time had been on the stocks about eight years. These were built of iron, and took the places in the Navy Register of the worthless wooden monitors of the same names.

On the first lot of new vessels and engines, the bids were all considerably below the cost estimated by the Advisory Board and the Bureaus, and the contracts were let as follows: For the four vessels, and the engines of the “Puritan,” monitor, to Mr. John Roach; for the engines of the “Terror,” monitor, to William Cramp & Sons; and for the “Amphitrite,” monitor, to the Harlan & Hollingsworth Company, of Wilmington, Delaware. Work under all these contracts proceeded with commendable alacrity.

Considerable difficulty was at first experienced in procuring material for the new steel ships. The standard established by law was very high, and the methods of test devised by the board, to say the least, did nothing to ameliorate the rigors of the statute. The steel-makers, however, bravely persevered, and finally overcame their difficulties in the main, though a historical résumé of the progress of the new navy would be incomplete without the statement that none of the contractors, under the Act of March 2, 1883, made any money, and some of them suffered serious loss; and this statement applies equally to the manufacturers who made the steel for the pioneer ships,—at least one old and well established concern being wrecked by the difficulties encountered, while others were embarrassed.

The year 1884 was signalized by a Presidential campaign of unusual bitterness, and, notwithstanding the cordiality with which all parties had joined hands in the inception of the new navy, the first session of the Forty-eighth Congress developed what for a time threatened to be at least a temporary hiatus. But wiser counsels at length prevailed, and, though no additions were made to the list of new ships authorized, sufficient appropriations were made to prevent stoppage of work on those already under contract.

The results of the year 1884 were chiefly interesting because they demonstrated, after much bitter debate and heated discussion, that the cause of the new navy had acquired impetus sufficient to vanquish the party passions of even so violent a Presidential campaign as that which marked that year. That campaign over, the Forty-eighth Congress, at its second session, took up with zeal the promotion of the new navy, and the act approved March 3, 1885, authorized four additional vessels, toward the construction of which $1,895,000 was appropriated with practical unanimity. The Act of March 3, 1885, marked an epoch in the history of the new navy. Prior to that time, the legislative practice had been to require separate enactment to authorize the construction of new vessels for the navy. In this case the authorization appeared in the body of the regular Naval Appropriation Bill, and that practice has been followed ever since. This innovation was debated in Committee of the Whole, and a point of order made to strike out the proposed authorization. The point of order was overruled by Hon. James B. McCreary, a Democratic member from Kentucky, with the approval of Speaker John G. Carlisle; Mr. McCreary being Chairman of the Committee of the Whole on the Naval Bill. Mr. McCreary ruled: 1st. That legislation in pursuance of any settled or established policy was germane in the annual appropriation bill which dealt with that subject matter. 2d. That the increase of the navy was clearly a settled and established policy, to which all branches of the government were committed. 3d. That in view of that fact the authorization of additional vessels of war could not be considered new legislation in the meaning of the rules, but must be regarded as progressive legislation in a direction previously sanctioned by Congress; that therefore the authorization of new ships was germane to the regular naval appropriation bill for each year, and was in order.

It is hard to overestimate the value of this ruling to the interests of the new navy. Every one familiar with legislative processes knows the advantage which appertains to the “right of way” enjoyed by a regular appropriation bill as compared with the average chances of an independent measure. These advantages are so marked, that it is quite proper to say that Mr. McCreary’s rule on this point was of greater importance than any other single incident in the legislative history of naval reconstruction. In the Act of March 3, 1885, appeared another clause prohibiting the repair of any existing wooden vessel when the cost of such repair should exceed 20 per cent. upon the whole cost of such vessel entirely new. This clause was adopted upon the recommendation of Secretary Chandler, made in the previous year; its obvious object being to render impossible the perpetuation of the old and obsolete wooden ships. Its effect soon became apparent in a rapid elimination of old wooden vessels from the navy, until by 1890 only sixteen of them remained on the active list, and nearly, if not quite, every one of these was then in her last commission. It is impossible to overestimate the salutary effects of this clause. 1st. It “cleared the decks” of a lot of obsolete lumber. 2d. It stimulated public opinion to demand prompt production of new and modern ships to take the places of the old and obsolete. 3d. It put an end to a policy of makeshifts which was always extravagant, often wasteful, and sometimes corrupt.