The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp

by Augustus C. Buell

“Certain subsequent changes in the personnel that were made in the Bureau of Steam Engineering—Mr. Melville having been placed at the head of it—modified the situation, and he joined the Secretary in his efforts with his usual vigor. A part of the trouble I refer to in getting a start on the work was owing to lack of experience and knowledge of contract and specification requirements which were placed in the Law Department of the navy for the first time.

“The Law Department of the navy at that time was beginning to make a show, and to them, under some mistake, was delegated the getting up of the contracts and specifications. It was here where my trouble commenced. The Law Department endeavored to provide for everything that could possibly occur, or everything that they thought would occur, and for many matters that could not be considered at all; and the specifications soon began to assume enormous proportions, being filled with impossible requirements.

“I got over most of these difficulties and minor details which they intended to lug into the contract by having introduced at the termination of certain paragraphs of the specifications, where explanations were unsatisfactory, misleading, and inadequate, a clause using the words: ‘As the Department may determine.’

“My previous experience with the Navy Department and naval officials generally led me to believe that I could always make out my case when it was right.

“At the beginning of the work, Mr. Whitney notified us that he considered himself and all the naval officials as partners and associates of the contractor, each mutually interested and determined to get the best vessel they could for the navy. He considered that the government ought to co-operate with the contractors, and that the contractors should in turn co-operate with the government; that the inspector was not an enemy, and never once considered him so. He considered it was his duty to afford all encouragement possible in aiding the contractors to carry out the plans. During the close of a conversation which I had with Mr. Whitney at one time during that period, he said to me: ‘I want you to inform me of what you see going wrong, no matter where the fault originated; and I will hold you personally responsible in every case where you neglect to inform me whenever anything is not going right or not being done right, whether it be your own fault or that of the government.’

“Coming back to the ships and referring to the purchasing of the drawings abroad: At the time that Mr. Whitney bought those drawings, it occurred to us that the triple-expansion engine which was being developed by Kirk was a marked advance over the plain compound of Elder; and I suggested to Mr. Whitney the propriety of buying plans of triple-expansion engines from us for the smaller ship which afterward was the ‘Yorktown.’ Of course this was before the ships were given out. He told us to go ahead. We went to work and made the drawings, which we thought were much in advance of anything of that kind in existence, and we fully expected that they would be bought by Mr. Whitney, as he had purchased the foreign drawings. When the drawings were finished, I took them down to Washington and showed them to him. He was at this time so disgusted with and tired of the great uproar that had been made about purchasing drawings abroad, that he did not say much about it. He did not decline, however, to buy them; but, finding that he was not enthusiastic, I accepted promptly the situation, and simply exhibited them to him as something we had gotten up. I then returned home and threw them aside, and prepared for the coming opening of the bids which had been advertised for in the papers. The day before the bids were to be opened, I suddenly conceived the idea of giving the triple-expansion plans another chance by making an alternative bid on the ‘Yorktown,’ embodying engines of the triple-expansion type. So I rushed back to Philadelphia, got the drawings that we had previously prepared, and returned to Washington in time to put them in with our other bid for the ‘Yorktown.’ As we were responsible for the horse-power, weight, etc., we felt that we could get it a great deal better, and more satisfactory results all around, with triple-expansion engines than with uncertain and unknown performance of the Bureau drawings. Our bid being lowest on triple-expansion engines, being the only one, the contract was awarded to us.

“The success of these engines in the ‘Yorktown’ was of a highly marked character, and it emboldened us to introduce them in our bids for the new lot of construction that had been advertised for.

“It was at this time the New York Herald published in large type a paper of mine on the triple-expansion engine, and Commodore Walker had it printed in the Reports of the Information Bureau. Walker was always in the front when a good thing was to be promoted, and was conspicuous in his co-operation with Mr. Whitney.

“When the ships that followed the ‘Baltimore’ were given out, we secured the contracts for the construction of the ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Newark.’ We bid on the ‘Newark’ a second time. A great deal of unpleasant feeling was manifested on the part of the Bureau of Construction when we failed to bid within the limitation price at the time she was first advertised. We introduced in her, however, the triple-expansion engine in place of the Department’s. We also bid on ‘Philadelphia’ with hull duplicate of the ‘Baltimore,’ with triple-expansion engines of the same type as the ‘Yorktown.’

“What ultimately became the ‘San Francisco’ was given to Mr. Scott, who bid on the basis of ‘Baltimore’s’ plans of hull with the ‘Baltimore’s’ engines. After the contract was awarded to him, he agreed to substitute the ‘Newark’s’ hull plans in place of the ‘Baltimore’ type with a design of engine that the Bureau of Steam Engineering had made at our shipyard by some of their officers who were on duty there and certain of our draughtsmen,—a type of engine that they considered to be an improvement over the ‘Baltimore’s’ engines. The Department granted this substitution.