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October, 1914 and I have never known an equal number of men of the same social standing to consume so little liquor as was consumed aboard the Utah on last year's cruise. The regulations have long since prohibited the carry- ing of distilled liquor aboard ship, nor have they allowed the carrying of any grog or liquor by the crew. They have, however, permitted the oficers to organize a sort of joint stock' company, known as the wine mess, which carries and furnishes to any ofcer who desired to pay for it, light wines, beer, cigars, etc., but the tendency among the officers. them- selves during the last few years has been to discourage the use of even light liquor when at sea, for the feel- ing of late years is strong that no man can rise to high rank whose rec- ord contains an instance of drunken- ness. Many officers who are perfectly willing to drink ashore will not touch a drop aboard ship, feeling that in case anything happens while they are on duty they cannot afford to have it... Sc that they had been seen. to take a single glass. The lack of drinking aboard ship is even more remarkable when one considers that a naval officer is. required almost continually to represent his country at social functions, and that entertain- ing and being entertained is as much a part of his duty as training for bat- tle. When a ship is being entertained in a foreign port, or even in some of our own ports, the detail ordering officers to attend "Mrs. Jones' Pink Tea" and "Mrs. Brown's Evening Re- ception" is posted the same as details for battle stations, and these orders must be obeyed in exactly the same way. As drinking is apt to occupy a rather prominent place on such oc- casions, it is almost impossible for the naval officer, especially in foreign waters, to keep from it without being tude at a time when rudeness re- flects not only upon him personally, but upon the nation he is represent- ing. Under such circumstances, it is Surprising to me that naval officers fan control their tastes in the way they do, and that there is less drink- mg among them than among any other class I know. Skill of Lake Captains A man who is used to the way lake captains handle their ships, who as seen them threading the narrow oc and congested harbors, laying their vessels alongside of each other "S gently as though they were egg : as they wait for the locks at ie Soo, or handling them along the é and coal docks, is forced to the nclusion that our naval officers ave not learned to handle the big THE MARINE REVIEW. vessels entrusted to their charge. When we reached home, the Utah went alongside a straight dock in the Brooklyn navy yard, and, not- withstanding the fact that we went in at slack tide, we were actually pushed into our berth by seven navy yard tugs and with the navy yard pilot on the bridge. She was a big, heavy ship, to be sure, but she has lots of power and quadruple 'screws, which make her much easier to handle than a heavily loaded lake vessel and yet I do not believe that any captain of a 500-foot freighter on the lakes would have: hesitated to lay his own vessel alongside of that dock without outside aid of any kind. Of course, there are many reasons which explain this condition of affairs. Whether they excuse it or not, it is a matter of opinion. Naval officers jump from one job to: another so fast «that 4 captain is in command of a ship too short a time to really become expert in handling her. He has to go along- .side of a dock only six or eight times during the entire time, nor does the system under which he works tend to cause him to improve what oppor- tunities he does get. A couple of years ago after the review in New York, the Michigan battalion was transferred to the scout cruiser Bir- mingham at Delaware breakwater, to be taken to the yard at: Philadelphia. During the four years previous, our hattalion had cruised from one end of the lakes to the other, from Buf- falo to Duluth, to Chicago and most of the way ports, going through the Detroit, St. Clair, St. Mary's and Portage rivers and being forced 'sometimes to run these rivers at night, and during all that time we had handled the ship along without aid of pilots or outside help, feeling that we must either acquit ourselves at handling the ship or else acknowledge that we were unfit for the duties de- volving upon us. Our surprise can be imagined, then, when we went upon the Birmingham bridge and found that she was being taken up the Delaware to her own home yard by a river pilot, while her captain stood idly by and watched. To us it seemed as though something was wrong, when a vessel whose only pos- sible use is scouting had to employ a pilot to get from her home berth to the sea, the only place where she can be of any value to her country, and we could not help wondering how her officers were acquiring the experience necessary to handle her in an enemy's waters with the usual aids to navigation possibly destroyed if they were delegating that work to others when in their own waters. -- It has been said in defense of this 367 situation that the pilots' association is so strong that it has forced the adoption of this practice. If such is the case, it is high time to cease pay- ing tribute to any association, espe- cially when such tribute is at the price of the proper training of her own officers. In my judgment, the watch officers of every ship should pre- pare for and pass the regular govern- ment pilot's examination covering the waters surrounding his own yard so as to be prepared to take his ship from the navy yard to sea either by day or by night without outside aid. The training would be excellent and some day might be of the greatest importance. Economical Operation One cannot help but be impressed by the earnest desire of an efficient and economical operation of the fleet at sea which is apparent on every hand, and by the fact that in the main this is highly successful. When he turns, however, to that part of the navy which is ashore and attempts to judge it according to sound busi- ness principles, he cannot help but feel that the present system is rad- ically wrong. The people of this country have an immense amount of money invested in navy yards, most of. which are small and are of. little real value from the standpoint of the modern fleet, but two or three of which are immense manufacturing establishments doing several millions dollars worth of business a_ vear. These yards are handled by officers who are detailed for a period not to exceed two years, and who can only regard their stay there as a small part of their real work. If any one of our naval militia of- ficers who has been a successful busi- ness man were to assert that he was capable of taking command of the At- lantic fleet or of one of the big battle ships and of handling it efficiently and economically, he would promptly be assigned to the asylum for the incurable, but our present system as- sumes that a naval officer, who has absolutely no business experience, whose real training, as a matter of fact, is unfitting him for manufactur- ing work, can take charge of a large plant, like the New York navy yard, can operate it in competition with highly efficient industrial plants, and at the end of 18 months or two years can go back to sea, turning his plant over to a successor likewise unquali- fied with himself, if a great steel plant or private shipbuilding company were to change its manager and all of its high executive officers at least once in two years, its failure would be considered absolutely assured; but,