Who might, with those fair tresses shorn,
'The Maid of Orlean' casque have worn;
Herself the Joan of our Arc,
For every shaft a shining mark."
It is one thing to be a good ship-builder for the government, and quite another thing to be in favor with the Secretary of the Navy, at Washington. This is the lesson, and the only lesson, which can be deduced from the two dispatches which have been transmitted over the country, namely: that the "Dolphin" has been rejected, and that John Roach, her builder, has failed.
The case has its value as a warning to American ship-builders. They are given to understand that the closest compliance with the requisitions of the department in the process of constructing a vessel, and that under the direction of experts, perfectly competent to determine what is good work and what is bad, will avail them nothing unless they are in favor with the Secretary when the vessel is offered for acceptance. And they are warned that the Department of Justice holds it perfectly legal for the Navy Department to lay upon them such conditions as to construction as must determine the capacity of the vessel for speed, and yet reject the vessel as not fast enough. They may be fined heavily for not having used their discretion, and yet may have been denied discretion as to the plans used.
It will be remembered by all who have watched the case, that the "Dolphin" was found satisfactory and in full accordance with the terms of the contract by one naval board, and that it was then condemned by another board of no greater weight or capacity. If this fact be remembered, it should be weighed with the full understanding that naval officers, chosen by Mr. Whitney for this service, are just as much dependents of the new Secretary as their predecessors were of Mr. Chandler. The last set of officials, as experts, were not superior to those which constituted the first; and yet Mr. Whitney bases his refusal to accept the vessel upon the contradiction of the first report to the second. If the first report was worthless, why not the second, in the light of all the facts?
What is needed to-day is a board of examiners fully competent to pronounce on the merits, of not only the "Dolphin" but of any and every other ship that shall be built, and fully sundered from, and independent of, political and official relations with the Navy Department. The nearest approach to this is the report of the body of experts—ship-builders, and ship-captains, experts in ship's materials, and the like—whom Mr. Roach invited to examine the "Dolphin." The report of these gentlemen flatly contradicts Mr. Whitney's board on points which are matters of fact, and not of opinion, and therefore throws the burden of proof upon Mr. Whitney himself. Until some equally unpolitical and unofficial body refutes it, the treatment Mr. Roach has received will be set down to other motives than the best.