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Title: The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp
Author: Buell, Augustus C.
Language: English
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THE MEMOIRS OF CHARLES H. CRAMP
[Illustration: CHARLES H. CRAMP]
THE MEMOIRS OF CHARLES H. CRAMP
by
AUGUSTUS C. BUELL
Author of “Life of Paul Jones,” “History of Andrew Jackson,”
“Life of Sir William Johnson,” Etc.
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
Philadelphia and London
J. B. Lippincott Company
1906
Copyright, 1906
By J. B. Lippincott Company
Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
❦
IT is not often that the memoirs of a man cover the history of
threescore years of active manhood. Still more rare is it that the
period covered happens to be the most fruitful of progress known in the
annals of mankind. And yet more remarkable, even to the point of the
unique, is it that such a career, in such an epoch, should be
inextricably interwoven with the history of one of the fairest arts and
one of the most fascinating sciences,—Naval Architecture and
Ship-building.
All this is true of the subject of this memoir, Charles Henry Cramp.
Such phrases as “prominently identified with” or “an acknowledged leader
in” his sphere of creative activity do not adequately express Charles H.
Cramp’s personal and professional relation, or rather his individual
identification, with the maritime and naval history of his country.
Those phrases applied to his status and his rank would be commonplace.
His impress is far deeper than that, and the association of his name and
his personality with the art and its triumphs have become a symbol.
The generation of naval architects and ship-builders among whom he began
his life-work sixty years ago have long since passed away. Of them all
he stands alone, the only surviving link that binds the romantic
memories of wood and canvas to the grim realities of steel and steam.
Even the generation that knew him in the middle of his long and fruitful
career is gone. He is the only man who has alike designed and built
ships for the navy of the Civil War and for that of to-day,—alike for
the navy that fought at Charleston and Fort Fisher and for the navy that
won Santiago and Manila Bay,—twoscore years asunder! In all the history
of our country there has never been another professional career like
his. No other man ever made such an impress as he upon the life,
welfare, and progress of the nation. No other man, without ever holding
a public office, has so indelibly left his mark upon our greatest and
most vital public interests as he has done.
He has passed from the sphere of membership in his profession and has
become its exponent. His name is a synonym for the art in which he has
so long been master, and the mention of his personality instantly
suggests the science whose triumphs he has so often and so well won.
This status and this rank are by no means limited to our own country.
Mr. Cramp is as familiar in London as in Philadelphia; as well known in
Tokio and St. Petersburg as in New York or Washington.
Undoubtedly, the first impression one will derive from the study of Mr.
Cramp’s career and character as mirrored in his acts and his writings is
his singleness of purpose, fixity of resolve, and directness of method.
These are, in fact, his distinctive traits, and to them, throughout his
long and arduous life, all others have been rigorously subordinated. If
he appears to be exacting of others, he is yet more so with himself. It
is not to be expected that in a life so long, in an experience covering
literally the scope of the civilized world, and in a range of endeavor
so wide and diversified, all could be plain sailing. On the other hand,
few men have encountered more or greater obstacles. No man ever faced
them more cheerfully or combated them with more sanguine pluck. If he
did not always triumph over them, it was because they were
insurmountable, or because those upon whom he relied for a proper share
in the sum-total of effort failed him. He himself never left undone
anything that a clear head could devise or a resolute will strive for.
But with all his singleness of purpose, fixity of resolve, and
directness of method in professional pursuits, Charles H. Cramp, as a
member of society at large, is a man of the broadest vision and most
comprehensive culture. Intent as he may be upon his work, he “never
takes the shop home with him,” as the saying is. He has always possessed
the happy faculty of laying down his burdens at the close of each
working-day to find mental recreation in social occasions, in general
literature, art, and the higher order of social amusements. A clever
writer in a magazine sketch of him many years ago said, “Charles H.
Cramp knows more about more things than any other man of his time!”
Unlike most epigrams, this is true, and in terse fashion it conveys a
portrayal of his intellectual make-up. Mastery of the literature of his
own profession, rich and varied as it is, forms but a small part of Mr.
Cramp’s mental equipment. To all these attainments add the lessons and
observations of wide travel and constant association with leading minds
and controlling personalities at home and abroad, and the result is a
perfectly equipped, all-round man of affairs.
During his whole active career Mr. Cramp has held positions of command.
At the age of nineteen he began to direct operations and assume
responsibilities; and such status he has maintained for threescore
years, with constantly increasing volume of operations and incessantly
growing weight of responsibility. But through all he has kept the even
tenor of his way, neither elated by triumphs nor depressed by reverses,
and guided always by an inflexible integrity and a scrupulous honesty
that are proverbial.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
❦
CHAPT. PAGE
I. Early ship-building in Philadelphia and 11
Colonies—Paul Jones—Joshua
Humphreys—Alliance—Truxtun—Embargo—Decade
following War of 1815—Rebecca
Sims—Inauguration of Packet Lines—Thomas P.
Cope—Decay of Eastern Trade in
Philadelphia—Auction Sales of Cargoes
II. Birth—Relatives—High School—Magnetic 39
Observatory—Note on Davidson—Surf-boats for
Mexican War—First Propeller Tug
Sampson—ship-builders of New York and
Philadelphia—Clipper Ships, 1850—Zenith of
American Carrying Trade—Crimean War—Cunard
Line—Libertador—Armored Ships—Board
Appointed to Take Charge of Appropriation
to Build Them—Account of New Ironsides—The
Monitor—Speech of Bishop
Simpson—Sub-Department of
Navy—Light-draught Monitors—Sinking of the
First—Collapse of Sub-Department—Rebuilding
of Yazoo, Tunxis and
Others—Miantonomah—Origin of Fast
Cruisers—Evolution of Modern Marine
Engineering in this Country
III. Foreign Commerce in 1865—The Clyde and George 97
W. Clyde, and Introduction of Compound
Engines—Commerce of 1870—Merchant
Marine—Lynch Committee—Mr. Cramp and
Committee—Lynch Bill—American Steamship
Company—Visit to British Shipyards—John
Elder—British Methods—Interchange of
Methods—Merchant Marine, Continued—Dingley
Bill—Defects—Act of 1891, Providing
Registry for Foreign Ships—St. Louis and
St. Paul—Extract from _Forum_—Remarks on
Article—Committee of ship-builders and
Owners—New Bill Introduced by Frye and
Dingley—North Atlantic Traffic
Association—New Shipyards—Tactics of North
Atlantic Traffic Association—Our Navigation
Laws, _North American Review_—Mr.
Whitney—Unfriendly Legislation—Mr.
Whitney’s Letter—Effects of Letter—Mr.
Cramp’s Letter to Committee of Merchant
Marine—International Mercantile Marine
IV. Condition of Navy after Civil War—Admiral 154
Case’s Fleet—Virginius Scare—Huron, Alert
and Ranger—Secretary Hunt—First Advisory
Board—Secretary Chandler—Puritan
Class—Finished—Steel—Hon. J. B. McCreary
and Appropriation Bill for New Navy—Members
of Second Naval Advisory Board—Standard for
Steel for New Ships Chicago, Boston,
Atlanta and Dolphin—Secretary
Whitney—Beginning of New Navy, by Charles
H. Cramp—Baltimore, Charleston and
Yorktown—Purchase of Drawings by Navy
Department—Commodore Walker—Premium
System—Mr. Whitney’s Views—Premiums
Paid—Attack on System—Secretary Tracy—War
College Paper—Classifying Bids
V. Armstrongs—Russian war-ship 205
Construction—Arrival of Cimbria at Bar
Harbor—Visit of Wharton Barker to
Shipyard—Visit of Captain Semetschkin and
Commission to the Yard—Purchase of
Ships—Newspaper Accounts—Captain
Gore-Jones—Mr. Cramp’s Account of
Operations—Europe, Asia, Africa and
Zabiaca—Popoff and Livadia—Visit to Grand
Duke Constantine—Anniversary Banquet in St.
Petersburg of Survivors of Cimbria
Expedition—Object of Visit to Russia—Mr.
Dunn and Japan—Contract for Kasagi—Jubilee
Session of Naval Architects in London—Visit
to Russia—Correspondence with Russian
Officials—Visit to Armstrongs’—Japanese
war-ship Construction—Coming Sea
Power—Correspondence with Russian
Officials—Invited to Russia—Asked to Bid
for war-ships—Our Ministers
Abroad—Construction of Retvizan and
Variag—Maine
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
❦
PAGE
CHARLES H. CRAMP _Frontispiece_
CLIPPERSHIP MORNING LIGHT 12
CLIPPERSHIP MANITOU 24
CRUISER YORKTOWN 36
MONITOR TERROR 48
CRUISERS BALTIMORE AND PHILADELPHIA 60
CRUISER NEWARK 72
CRUISERS PENNSYLVANIA AND COLORADO 84
CRUISER COLUMBIA 96
ARMORED CRUISER BROOKLYN 108
ARMORED CRUISER NEW YORK 120
BATTLESHIP NEW IRONSIDES 132
BATTLESHIP IOWA 144
BATTLESHIP ALABAMA 156
BATTLESHIP MAINE 158
BATTLESHIP RETVIZAN IN COMMISSION 180
BATTLESHIP RETVIZAN DOCKING 192
CRUISER VARIAG 204
AMERICAN LINER ST. PAUL 216
MEDI-J-IEH LAUNCHING 228
MEDI-J-IEH IN COMMISSION 240
BATTLESHIPS INDIANA AND MASSACHUSETTS 264
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MEMOIRS
OF
CHARLES H. CRAMP
▤
CHAPTER I
Early Ship-building in Philadelphia and Colonies—Paul Jones—Joshua
Humphreys—“Alliance”—Truxtun—Embargo—Decade following War of
1815—“Rebecca Sims”—Inauguration of Packet Lines—Thomas P. Cope—Decay
of Eastern Trade in Philadelphia—Auction Sales of Cargoes.
THE historical value of the character and career of individuals must be
rated by their share in and impress upon the events of their time. This
is equally true of success and failure. For example, the most famous man
of modern time terminated his career in the most colossal failure known
to history,—Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet, if we judge by the interest the
civilized world takes in every shred of his history and by the perennial
halo that envelops his name, people do not think about either his
triumphs or his disasters, but fix their attention singly upon the
impress he made upon civilization.
On the other hand, George Washington ended his career in success and
glory. But few, except students and pedants, know much about Washington
beyond that he was the founder of a new nation and the Father of a new
country which a century after his death has become the most formidable
on earth.
Thus, in either case, whether of success or of failure, both gigantic,
mankind rates the importance of each by the impress he made upon the
events of his time and by its enduring character.
Viewed broadly, the Europe of to-day as compared with the Europe of 1775
is as completely the creation of the popular forces incarnated in
Napoleon Bonaparte, as the American Republic of to-day as compared with
the revolted Colonies of 1775 is the creation of the popular forces
whose exponent George Washington was. From this point of view, the fact
that one failed while the other succeeded in the personal sense cuts no
figure whatever.
[Illustration: CLIPPERSHIP MORNING LIGHT]
These observations, while they have none other than a general relation
to our immediate subject, are pertinent to the main thread of our theme.
The real test of greatness in an individual, and therefore of the
historical value of his character and career, being the impress he makes
upon the events of his time, it follows that, unless the mention of a
man’s name instantly suggests some great thing or things that he has
done, or in a masterful way has helped to do, that man was not great; he
made no impress upon his times, and his biography can possess no
historic value. But whenever the name of a man stands as the exponent of
some great thing done or as the symbol of notable achievement, then the
character and career of that man belong to history, and the obligation
devolves upon literature to suitably perpetuate his memory.
This, the prime test and condition of enduring fame, has been fulfilled
by the subject of this memoir, Charles Henry Cramp. Not alone in his own
country, but in Europe and Asia,—from St. Petersburg to Tokio,—the
mention of his name instantly suggests triumphs in the science of naval
architecture and marine engineering and successes in the art of building
ships. However, before proceeding to a history of the career and
life-work of Mr. Cramp himself, it seems proper to survey the historical
antecedents of his science and his art in his own field of action.
The art of naval architecture and the industry of ship-building were
almost coeval with the primitive establishment of the English-speaking
race on the American continent, and this was more particularly true of
Philadelphia than of any other place. In the earliest grants of land to
settlers, William Penn invariably included a clause requiring them, when
clearing the land granted, to “spare all smooth and large oak-trees
suitable for ship-timber.”
In 1685, three years after Penn arrived in the Colony, it was reported
to the Lords of Trade in London that “six ships capable of sea-voyage
and many boats have been built at Philadelphia.” From this early
beginning the industry grew rapidly, until in 1700 four yards were
engaged in building sea-going ships alone, besides several smaller
concerns which built fishing-boats and river-craft. Two rope-walks, two
or three block-makers’ shops, and several other special manufactories of
ship-building material, had been put in operation. At first the
spar-iron work needed was brought from England, but by the beginning of
the eighteenth century all the ship-smithing required for
Philadelphia-built ships was done on the spot.
The first four yards were located at different points along the beach,
between the foot of Market Street and the foot of Vine Street, and there
they remained until about the middle of the eighteenth century. By that
time the value of that part of the river front for commercial wharf
purposes had increased to such an extent that the ship-building industry
could not afford to hold it. In the meantime new yards had been
established down as far as South Street, others as far north as the
present foot of Fairmount Avenue. Obedient to this law of trade the four
older yards moved their plants either northward or southward, as
convenience or economy might dictate. But after 1744 no ships were built
between Market and Vine Streets. The last of these original shipyards of
Penn’s time to succumb was the largest and most important one in
Philadelphia. It was owned and managed by Mr. West, who was at that time
the leading ship-builder in the Colonies; and the ground his shipyard
occupied had been deeded to him by William Penn in part payment for a
ship he had built for Penn several years before. He removed to the
present foot of Green Street.
In 1750-51 two ships were built in West’s new yard, which exceeded in
size any merchant vessels previously constructed in America. One of them
was of three hundred and twenty and the other of four hundred tons
burthen. They were sent to England with cargoes of colonial produce, and
on arrival at London were both bought by the East India Company and
placed in the regular East India and China fleet. They were as large as
any merchant vessels built in England up to that time, and of superior
model and construction. One of them—the larger of the two—remained on
the list of the East India Company more than thirty years; and in 1751
had for one of her passengers to India, Warren Hastings, who was going
out to Madras as a young clerk in the Civil Service, to become the first
Governor-General of British India, and founder of the British Empire in
Asia.
During this period, the third quarter of the eighteenth century, a new
scheme of ship-building commended itself to the enterprise and ingenuity
of Philadelphia shipwrights. This was the construction of what they
called “raft-ships.”
The local supply of ship-timber in the forests of England, particularly
of frames, knees, keels, and the larger spars, had begun to decline to
the danger-point by 1750. The size of ships, both for commerce and for
war, was constantly increasing. This increase incessantly involved the
use of longer and heavier timbers for frames, larger knees and futtocks,
and thicker planking. Meantime the forests of England became smaller and
smaller. The great old trees had been cut down and sawed or hewn up, and
the younger stems had not found time to grow in their stead.
Indeed, before 1750, England had begun to import ship-timber from the
Baltic; but it was mostly deal boards used for cabin-work, ceilings,
sheathings, etc. Now she began to look to her American Colonies for the
heavier materials. It was difficult to load and stow this kind of timber
through the hatchways of the ships then available. The ingenuity of
Philadelphia shipwrights met this obstacle by building the timbers
themselves into the form of ships, and they were then navigated across
the Atlantic to be broken up on arrival in British ports. These
“raft-ships” were built with bluff bows and square sterns, their sides
being several feet thick. To make them water-tight, they were sheathed
with two thicknesses of boards which “broke joints,” and were caulked.
The largest of these, called the “Baron Renfrew,” measured the
equivalent of five thousand tons in a regular merchant ship. She got
safely across the ocean, but went ashore on Portland Bill in a fog and
broke up. Most of her timber, however, was picked up by English and
French vessels which cruised for weeks in search of it. Among the
mast-timber she carried was one white pine tree ninety-one feet long by
four feet eight inches diameter at the butt inside the bark. This tree
was used for the mainmast of the “Royal George,” a three-decker then
building at Chatham (1774). It was doubtless still in the ill-fated ship
when she heeled over and went down at Portsmouth in 1782. The “Baron
Renfrew” was the last of the “raft-ships.” The oncoming Revolution
stopped all kinds of commerce for eight years, and though after the
peace ship-timber was again exported to England, it went as hold or deck
cargo in regular vessels.
Summing up the colonial period, it may be said that, while the records
were imperfectly kept and some lost, enough is extant to show that
between 1684 and 1744 one hundred and eighty-eight square-rigged ships
and over seven hundred brigs and schooners, besides immense numbers of
boats, river-sloops, fishing-yawls, etc., were built at Philadelphia.
Her only rival in the Colonies during that period was Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, but Philadelphia held the ascendency over all in the size and
total tonnage of her ships.
That the Colonies should have developed the ship-building industry from
their earliest existence was natural and necessary. If you take a modern
map of the United States and draw from Maine to Georgia a heavy black
line averaging one hundred miles back from the general trend of the
sea-coast, you will have in close approximation the geography of
colonial settlement at its maximum. In this belt, this “narrow fringe of
civilization,” were concentrated for more than a century all the
energies of English-speaking pioneers, rapidly increasing in numbers and
incessantly augmenting the products of enterprise and industry which,
from surplus over home consumption, had to seek markets over sea.
In those early days the population kept within easy reach of the coast
or of the arms of the sea and estuaries which abound from the Savannah
on the south to the Penobscot on the north. The back country, forming
the eastern or Atlantic slope of the Appalachian chain, was little more
than a hunting and trapping ground or a field for primitive trade and
barter with the Indians. As for the vast “hinterland,” west of the
Alleghenies, it was, up to the middle of the eighteenth century, when
the final struggle between England and France for supremacy on this
continent began, an unbroken wilderness, inhabited only by hostile
savages, and unknown to any white men except the Jesuit priests and the
cunning traders of French Canada.
For all these reasons, the gaze of the English-speaking colonists from
the earliest settlements to the beginning of the conquest of Canada was
always bent toward the sea, and all their enterprise and energy were
directed to the commerce of the ocean. Under such conditions, the
development of skill in ship-building was inevitable; and with that
necessity was also bred a scientific alertness in marine architecture
itself which, as soon as political independence freed its scope, became
supreme throughout the civilized world.
The outbreak of the Revolution of course, for the time being, put an end
to merchant ship-building in all American ports. But in Philadelphia the
paralysis was only temporary, and the energies heretofore directed
toward construction of ships for the uses of peace were soon turned to
the conversion of available merchantmen into vessels of war or
privateers, and the building of new frigates ordered by Congress. The
first American squadron, that of the ill-starred Commodore Esek Hopkins,
was composed entirely of merchant vessels taken up in the harbor and
converted into men-of-war in the shipyards of Philadelphia during the
autumn of 1775.
It was in the selection and conversion of these four merchantmen into
cruisers that Paul Jones, founder of the American navy, first gave to
the United States his energies and his talents. Thus Philadelphia was
the birthplace of a new sea-power, and her shipyards have ever since
been the foremost contributors to its growth, until even now, though
only a century and a quarter old, it has achieved imperial rank.
In November, 1775, Congress authorized the construction of six 32-gun
frigates and seven other war vessels of less dimensions. Four of the
frigates were allotted to Philadelphia shipyards. They were the
“Washington,” the “Randolph,” the “Delaware,” and the “Effingham.” The
first two were frigate-built from their keels, but the “Delaware” and
“Effingham,” to save time, were built upon frames already on the stocks
for merchant ships when the war began. On this account they were not
quite as large as the regular frigates and rated twenty-eight instead of
thirty-two guns.
From 1775 till the peace of 1783, Philadelphia yards built a great
number of privateers and converted a few ships for the “State Navy,” as
it was called, that is to say, ships provided by the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania and assigned to the Continental service. One of these, a
converted bark of two hundred tons and mounting sixteen 6-pounders, has
passed into fame as the “Hyder Ali.” Under Lieutenant Joshua Barney she
took the “General Monk,” a regular sloop-of-war, mounting fourteen
9-pounders and four 6-pounders. The “Hyder Ali” was a small French bark
which arrived at Philadelphia with military supplies early in February,
1782. She was at once bought by the State and placed in Humphrey’s yard
for conversion into a cruiser. Within six weeks she was put in
commission, and she took the “General Monk,” April 8, about two months
after her arrival in port as a merchant vessel. This was the last
capture of an English man-of-war in the Revolution.
The peace of 1783 found Philadelphia possessing only thirteen merchant
vessels, all built before the war and nearly all of which had served as
privateers during the conflict. No new merchant keel had been laid in a
Philadelphia yard between 1775 and 1782; but the industry revived with
wonderful energy. From 1782 to 1787, one hundred and fifty-five vessels
were built, of which fifty-six were square-rigged ships averaging over
three hundred tons. From this period on the progress was very great. The
outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution in 1793 at once threw a
vast carrying trade into American bottoms, the United States being for a
long time the only neutral maritime nation. By the year 1801, when the
treaty, or truce, of Amiens was signed, nearly three hundred sea-going
ships were owned in Philadelphia, all home-built, and fourteen shipyards
were in operation,—eight in the northern or Kensington and six in the
southern or Southwark district. These were all first-class shipyards,
building the largest full-rigged ships of that epoch. In that period and
for a long time afterward the leading Philadelphia shipyard was that of
Joshua Humphreys, in Southwark, and its proprietor and manager was
himself the foremost naval architect of his time. When Congress, in
1794, authorized the construction of six frigates, and thereby laid the
foundation of what we call the modern or “regular” navy, as
distinguished from the old Continental navy of the Revolution, prominent
ship-builders were asked to submit plans, the government then having no
naval constructors. The plans of Mr. Humphreys were adopted for all six
frigates. Three of them embodied a distinct advance in size and weight
of armament over vessels of similar rate in other navies, and were
classed as 44-gun frigates. The other three were designed as 38-gun
frigates, and were an improvement upon the 36-gun ships of European
navies. These six ships were built by contract,—one of the forty-fours
and one of the thirty-eights at Philadelphia; one forty-four at Boston;
one at New York; one thirty-eight at Baltimore, and one at Portsmouth,
New Hampshire. In addition to these, a 32-gun frigate, the “Essex,” was
built at Salisbury Point, Massachusetts, by private subscription, and
given to the government.
[Illustration: CLIPPERSHIP MANITOU]
Mr. Humphreys had the contracts for the Philadelphia-built frigates, and
on May 10, 1797, he launched the 44-gun frigate “United States,” which
was the first ship of the regular navy to be water-borne. Thus to
Philadelphia belongs the credit of having fitted out the first squadron
of the Continental navy in 1775, and of launching the first ship of the
regular navy in 1797. In 1799, Mr. Humphreys completed a third frigate,
named the “Philadelphia.” This ship is described in some histories as a
“forty-four,” and in others as a “thirty-eight.” As a matter of fact,
she was neither; but properly rated, under the rules then in vogue, as a
40-gun frigate. This difference was due to the fact that she carried
thirty long 18-pounders on her gundeck as against twenty-eight
18-pounders in the “Constellation” class, or as against thirty long
24-pounders in the “Constitution” or 44-gun class. The “Philadelphia”
was beyond question the most perfect frigate of her day. She was the
same length as the “Constitution,” but of less beam, slightly less
draught, and on finer lines. In her design, Mr. Humphreys had sacrificed
to speed some of the battery power of the forty-fours, and therefore had
to substitute 18-pounders for 24-pounders on the gundeck. She was the
fastest sailing war-ship in the world, beating the “Constitution” by
nearly two knots an hour. In her first, and unfortunately her last,
voyage, from this country to Tripoli, she logged on one occasion three
hundred and thirty-two knots in twenty-four hours, and on another three
hundred and thirty-seven, the latter run being an average slightly
exceeding fourteen knots. She was lost in Tripoli harbor in 1803. It is
not too much or too little to say of either that Joshua Humphreys held a
professional rank similar to that of Charles H. Cramp, that of the
foremost naval architect of his era; and with exceptions, not worth
mention, they are the only American naval architects whose designs for
sea-going war-ships have been adopted by the navy.
It is worthy of remark in this connection, that when the plans of Mr.
Humphreys were adopted in 1794-95, the government not only had no naval
constructors of its own, but in fact no Navy Department, except a Bureau
in the War Department, so that Mr. Humphreys could have no competitors
but other private ship-builders. Mr. Cramp’s designs, however, have been
adopted under the scrutiny of a highly competent and most critical corps
of regular naval constructors and marine engineers.
The renewal of general war in Europe in 1803 gave a fresh impetus to the
neutral carrying trade of the United States, and with it a corresponding
stimulus to ship-building all along the coast, though most pronounced
and on a larger scale at Philadelphia than elsewhere. Between the above
date and 1812 nine more shipyards were established, making twenty-three
all told in operation at one time. The largest merchant vessel up to
that time built in America was one of seven hundred and five tons,
constructed by Samuel Bowers for the East India trade, and her
dimensions were not exceeded in merchant construction until after the
War of 1812-15. Her contract price was $24,000; at the rate of $34 per
ton gross measurement. At that time vessels of similar class cost ten
guineas ($50) per gross ton in British shipyards.
In a public document on the statistics of ship-building, we find a
statement that “in June, 1787, the ship ‘Alliance,’ owned by Robert
Morris and commanded by Captain Thomas Read, sailed from Philadelphia
for Canton and Batavia. She was of seven hundred tons burthen, and the
largest ship built for commerce in America at that time.”
The statement that the “Alliance” was “built for commerce” is an error.
She was the famous old Revolutionary frigate which Paul Jones and John
Barry had commanded at different times. After the peace of 1783 she was
sold to Mr. Morris, or rather turned over to him in part payment for
advance he had made to the Continental government. She was converted
into a merchant ship and made several China voyages. The government then
bought her back again in 1790, but she was not refitted as a war vessel.
During the general period under consideration, that is to say, from the
end of the Revolution to the beginning of the War of 1812, a new and
highly important deep-sea traffic came into existence, of which
Philadelphia soon obtained the supreme command. This was the East India
and China trade. The first vessel to clear from Philadelphia for China
direct was the new ship “Canton,” built by Humphreys and commanded by
Captain, afterward Commodore, Thomas Truxtun.
This was the same Thomas Truxtun who, during the Revolution, had seen
more service in privateers than any other sailor then afloat. He served
either as mate or commander in the Philadelphia privateers, “Andrew
Caldwell,” “Congress,” “Independence,” “Mars,” and “St. James,” from
1775 to 1782. His ships made altogether sixty-five captures of British
merchantmen and transports. While commanding the “St. James,” of twenty
guns, in 1781, he beat off and disabled a British 28-gun frigate. After
the Revolution he commanded Philadelphia Indiamen from 1785 to 1798,
when he was commissioned one of the original six captains in the regular
navy. In the short war with France in 1799 he commanded the
“Constellation,” 38-gun frigate, and took the French frigate
“l’Insurgente,” of forty guns.
The “Canton” sailed from Philadelphia on December 30, 1785. She returned
in May, 1787, having made the round voyage to Canton, Batavia, and home
in a little over sixteen months. Her venture was highly profitable. From
this beginning the far eastern trade grew steadily until, in 1805,
Philadelphia alone owned twenty-seven ships plying in it, ranging from
four hundred and twenty to seven hundred and five tons. Between 1805 and
1812, inclusive, the number of Philadelphia Indiamen and China ships
increased to forty-two, notwithstanding the injurious effect of
President Jefferson’s ill-advised embargo. In fact, that measure was not
much observed by ship-owners in the India and China trade. President
Jefferson did not attempt to enforce his embargo by either civil or
military power, and very soon after he proclaimed it, the understanding
became general among merchant ship-owners that if they chose to take the
risks entailed by the British “Orders in Council” and Napoleon’s
“Decrees of Milan and Berlin,” they could do so at their peril, with no
recourse for protection or indemnity in case of misfortune. Under these
conditions, ship-owning merchants, in other coast cities who traded with
European or West India ports, for the most part hesitated to take the
chances. But the Philadelphia merchant princes, who controlled the
American trade with the British and Dutch East Indies and China, were
not so easily foiled. They loaded and despatched their ships during the
embargo, a period of nearly two years, almost as freely, if not as
ostentatiously, then as they had done before or as they did afterward.
This policy was founded upon the soundest judgment. The India and China
merchants of Philadelphia understood perfectly that the titanic struggle
between England and Napoleon involved conflicting policies and ambitions
relating only to the commerce between America and Europe, not to that
between America and the Orient. Occasionally an American ship bound for
India or China or thence for home would be brought to by an English or a
French cruiser and searched. But, as those ships never carried anything
contraband of war, the worst that ever happened to them was the
occasional impressment of parts of their crews by the English or the
levying of a small tribute by the French. The voyages, as a whole, were
seldom interrupted, and almost never terminated by detention or capture.
These were the halcyon days of Philadelphia’s trade with the far East.
From 1803 to 1815 the French could not trade to the Orient at all. And
though the East India Company kept up the sailings of its fleet with
more or less regularity, yet the war rates of insurance and the expense
and inconvenience of constant convoy placed their traffic at signal
disadvantage as compared with that of the neutral Americans.
The Philadelphia-built Indiamen and China ships of that day had another
and even more important element of safety: Given plenty of sea-room and
clear weather, with sailing wind, no British or French cruiser of their
time could get anywhere near them.
For example, the “Rebecca Sims,” built by Samuel Bowers in 1801, and
overhauled, coppered, and newly sparred and rigged in the winter of
1806-07, passed Cape Henlopen the 10th of May, 1807, and took a
Liverpool pilot aboard off the mouth of the Mersey the 24th, having run
from the Delaware Capes to the Mersey in fourteen days. Notwithstanding
all the improvements in clipper ships after her time, the “Rebecca Sims”
still holds the sailing record between Henlopen and Liverpool!
The “Woodrup Sims,” built for the same owner by Mr. Humphreys in 1801,
was chartered for the China trade in 1808. She passed out of the Capes
the 8th of April and anchored in Whampoa Roads, Canton, the 6th of
August, one hundred and seventeen days from the Delaware. But from this
must be deducted two days hove-to in Table Bay, Cape of Good Hope; three
days in port at the Isle of France (now the Mauritius), and two days
hove-to in Angier Road, Java Head, the actual running time having been
one hundred and ten days. Manifestly, ships capable of that kind of
sailing had little need to fear the cruisers of England or of France.
To give an approximate idea of the value of Philadelphia’s East India
and China trade in its halcyon days, it may be related that in the
autumn of 1812 the ship “Montesquieu,” belonging to Stephen Girard, left
Canton for the Delaware _via_ Batavia. At the latter port she took on
board, in addition to her China cargo from Canton, a rich freight of
spices. She left Batavia before the news of the War of 1812 reached
there. Her commander had intended to touch only at the Cape of Good Hope
on his voyage home, that being a British colony. But when about five
hundred miles east of the Cape he spoke a Portuguese vessel bound for
Macao, whose captain informed him that England and the United States
were at war. He then ran for Tristan d’Acunha, where he obtained needed
supplies of water and wood, with such fresh provisions as the island
afforded. Thence shaping his course homeward he arrived off the Capes of
the Delaware in April, 1813. There she was brought to and taken by the
British frigate “Tenedos.” But Mr. Girard was on the alert, and, judging
about the time she ought to arrive, had been waiting for her in a
cottage he owned at or near Lewes, and she was taken in plain sight of
the shore. He at once put off in a pilot-yawl under a flag of truce,
boarded the British frigate, and after some parley succeeded in
ransoming the “Montesquieu” for £37,000 sterling in specie bills on
London! He then took his ship up the river to Philadelphia. The blockade
had raised the value of China and East India products enormously in the
American market, and Mr. Girard realized the handsome sum of $1,220,000
from the sale of her cargo over and above the $185,000 he had paid as
ransom. He was also offered a large sum for the ship herself to fit out
as a privateer, but part of his agreement with the British captain was
that she should not be used for that purpose, and so she was laid up
during the rest of the war.
Upon the conclusion of peace in 1815, the India and China trade of
Philadelphia was renewed with great vigor, and ship-building became more
brisk than ever before.
The war had nearly obliterated the whaling fleet of New England and New
York. Unable to replace those lost or destroyed as quickly as they
desired in their own ports, the whaling owners resorted to Philadelphia,
and in the seven years between 1815-1822 sixty-four ships, ranging from
three hundred to four hundred tons, were built on the Delaware for the
whale fishery to hail from New Bedford, Nantucket, New London, Sag
Harbor, and other whaling ports. A peculiarity of these transactions was
that most of the contracts for building whale-ships were taken by New
England builders and then sublet to Philadelphia yards.
At the same time, that is, in the decade following the peace of 1815, a
new element of ocean commerce came into being. This was the inauguration
of regular packet-lines. The pioneer of this enterprise on any
considerable scale was the famous “Cope Line,” founded by Thomas P. Cope
in 1820, and employing at first five ships which were among the largest
and best vessels then afloat. This line continued to run until the Civil
War. Its ships were from five hundred and sixty to one thousand two
hundred and eighty tons. They sailed from Philadelphia the 20th of each
month and from Liverpool the 8th, their trip-time averaging thirty days
and being almost as regular as the modern steamship lines. In addition
to this regular monthly service, extra ships were frequently despatched
as the exigencies of trade and travel might require.
Mr. Cramp, in one of his reminiscences, relates an interesting anecdote
of the Cope Line. Soon after Jackson was inaugurated President, he
appointed John Randolph, of Roanoke, Minister to Russia. The Cope Line
being then far ahead of all other channels of ocean travel from
Philadelphia to Europe, Mr. Randolph presented himself at its
shipping-office. In his usual grandiloquent manner he said to the first
man he encountered: “Sir, I want to see Thomas P. Cope.” He was shown to
Mr. Cope’s office, and said to him, “I am John Randolph of Roanoke. I
wish to take passage to Liverpool in one of your ships.” Mr. Cope
replied, “I am Thomas Cope; if thee goes aboard the ship and selects thy
state-room and will pay $150, thee may go.” Mr. Cope apparently could
see no reason why a Philadelphia ship-owner and head of a great packet
line should stand in awe of even a Virginia statesman.
About 1828-30 the India and China trade of Philadelphia suddenly
declined, and in a few years passed almost entirely into the hands of
New York and Boston. In a historical paper, Mr. Cramp describes the
conditions of this traffic at its zenith, and suggests the cause or
causes of its remarkable decline.
The custom, he says, was upon the arrival of the vessels to announce in
the papers not only of Philadelphia but also of New York, Boston,
Baltimore, and even less important cities, that the goods would be sold
at auction, to begin on a certain day. These auction sales brought great
numbers of merchants from other cities to Philadelphia, and during the
first quarter of the nineteenth century it was beyond doubt the most
profitable single line of traffic on the continent. The merchants
engaged in it were not mere buyers and sellers as the term is understood
now. They were important public characters, diplomatists and financiers,
and their influence extended to the remotest parts of the earth. They
amassed enormous fortunes and lived like princes. Some of them, either
singly or in associations, owned fleets that would compare favorably
with our then existing navy in numbers and tonnage. At its highest
development, say, between 1825 and 1836, the volume of Philadelphia’s
Oriental trade frequently reached sixty millions a year.
[Illustration: CRUISER YORKTOWN]
Finally, however, causes began to operate which gradually changed the
tide of affairs. These causes, as stated in the historical paper by Mr.
Cramp, were numerous. Among them was the fact that, as the original
merchants who had built up the trade grew old or died, their immediate
heirs or descendants did not care to carry on the enterprises of their
fathers or their grandfathers, and many of them lived permanently
abroad. Eventually, at the moment when the jealousy, envy, and ambition
of rivals, particularly in New York and New England, had reached the
critical stage, the Legislature of Pennsylvania enacted a law imposing a
certain tax on all auction sales within the State. This was a tax
ostensibly universal and covering the whole business of sales by
auction, but its real purpose was to get at and derive revenue from the
great auction business of the China and India trade of Philadelphia. In
those days it might easily happen that the auction sales of two or three
ships’ cargoes would exceed in value, and therefore in revenue, all the
rest of the auction sales in the State at large during the same time.
Of course, this was a development of a tendency on the part of the rural
or country legislator of that time, which unfortunately has not entirely
died out, to tax the great cities by special enactments for the benefit
of the general revenue of the State.
As already stated, other causes had for some time been operating to
weaken or shake Philadelphia’s supremacy in the Oriental trade, but the
imposition of this tax, falling upon the heels of those causes, proved
to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The result was that
between 1825 and 1836 the great India and China traffic of Philadelphia
almost disappeared. However, and notwithstanding the diversion of this
trade to other ports, principally in New England, the marine architects
and ship-builders of Philadelphia managed to retain the better part of
the construction of vessels, which for many years afterward were
employed by their successful rivals.
This somewhat extensive and discursive survey of the early colonial and
post-Revolutionary conditions of Philadelphia ship-building seems
requisite to a proper understanding of the state of the art and its
accompaniments at the time when the subject of this Memoir first
appeared upon the scene, and it also serves to indicate or explain what
he had to do and the prior achievements which he had to equal or excel
in his pursuit of professional success and eminence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
Birth—Relatives—High School—Magnetic Observatory—Note on
Davidson—Surf-boats for Mexican War—First Propeller Tug
“Sampson”—Ship-builders of New York and Philadelphia—Clipper Ships,
1850—Zenith of American Carrying Trade—Crimean War—Cunard
Line—“Libertador”—Armored Ships—Board Appointed to Take
Charge of Appropriation to Build Them—Account of “New
Ironsides”—The “Monitor”—Speech of Bishop Simpson—Sub-Department of
Navy—Light-draught Monitors—Sinking of the First—Collapse
of Sub-Department—Rebuilding of “Yazoo,” “Tunxis,” and
others—“Miantonomah”—Origin of Fast Cruisers—Evolution of Modern
Marine Engineering in this Country.
CHARLES HENRY CRAMP was born May 9, 1828. He was the eldest son of
William Cramp and Sophia Miller. At the time of his birth his father was
a master shipwright, not yet engaged in ship-building on his own
account, or at least not the proprietor of a shipyard.
The Cramp family are of the old German descent, and they were among the
first settlers on the banks of the Delaware. The name was Krampf up to
the Revolution, when, according to the fashion at that time, it was
anglicized. They came from Baden.
The fact that the art of ship-building “ran in the blood” may be judged
from the fact that in 1788 Paul Jones, commanding the Russian Black Sea
fleet during the Turkish war of that period, under the reign of
Catherine the Great, says in his journal that among the foreign
employees of the Russian Ministry of Marine was a naval architect named
John Cramp, who held the position of secretary to the Russian Black Sea
administration and had charge of the dock-yard which had been
established at Kherson.
The Millers and Byerlys of the mother’s family were also ship-builders.
Mr. Cramp’s maternal grandfather, Henry Miller, who had become
proficient as a shipwright, at twenty-one invested his small fortune in
an interest in the cargo of a vessel in one of the earliest voyages
after the Revolution from the port of Philadelphia to the East, taking
in China, the Indies, and the Philippines. His departure was witnessed
by his fiancée, Elizabeth Byerly, who waited faithfully and patiently
his return.
These vessels were fitted out “man-of-war fashion,” with the captain and
mates, carpenter and boatswain as officers, and the latter were the
battery commanders.
They always carried a supercargo, and sold the cargoes at the various
ports and invested the proceeds in China shawls, teas, spices, and other
products of the East.
At that time the waters of the East Indies and China swarmed with
adventurers, pirates, rovers, and privateers; and the armed merchantmen
had frequent brushes with them. In fact, many merchantmen of that time
became imbued with the restless, adventurous spirit of the age and,
commanding vessels heavily armed, took possession of some of the weaker
ships they encountered, becoming veritable pirates for a time, and then
returning to their homes under peaceful guise when the profits of their
voyage had reached a satisfactory figure. The foundations of many
fortunes in our Atlantic cities were laid upon such practices.
Mr. Miller embarked again with his augmented capital, in fact, making
four voyages, each time with the profits of previous voyages in the new
one, encountering many adventures with the pirates that infested the
waters of the East and with an occasional privateer.
It was on his return from the fourth voyage when he, with the
accumulations of his original venture sufficient to secure a life of
ease and comparative luxury, and eager to meet his fiancée, who would be
patiently awaiting his arrival, was in sight of Cape Henlopen, with the
full assurance that his voyages were ended and with every anticipation
of a happy consummation of his eager wishes, a large privateer carrying
a French flag hove in sight in a position of advantage.
The privateer, carrying a heavier armament and larger crew, captured the
vessel before she could get inside of the Capes, and took the whole
party to Martinique, where the whole property was confiscated and all
the crew and officers were put in jail.
Mr. Miller, who was a Mason, was astonished to find that the French
jailer was also one, and, as a mark of kindness, took him out and made a
body-servant of him. His ingenuity and adaptability to circumstances
enabled him to escape, and he reached Philadelphia without a cent and
but little raiment. When Elizabeth Byerly was seen next day on
Point-no-Point Road in a buggy with him, she looked as happy as if
fortune was already in her hands. When they were married the next day, a
serviceable loan from a friend facilitated the marriage festivities.
His restless, adventurous spirit, augmented by his voyages at sea, now
took a different turn, and his time was taken up by trips from Pittsburg
to New Orleans in arks that he and his companions built in Pittsburg,
and with cargoes of produce and other freight they floated down the Ohio
and Mississippi, relieving each other at steering or playing the violin
and taking an occasional shot at a deer that would be found swimming
across the river. The rivers Ohio and Mississippi ran through a
wilderness at that time, and its fascinations had a wonderful effect on
him.
After the cargoes and the lumber of which the arks were built were sold
and the proceeds lost in speculation, they would make their way up to
Natchez or other river towns, where they would be sure to get a
steamboat or a flat boat or two to build, and then return to
Philadelphia for a while. Henry Miller became well known on the rivers,
and could always secure a commission to build the various craft that
were found in the waters of the West.
One of Henry Miller’s sisters married John Bennett, a ship-builder of
repute, who went to live in Bordentown while engaged with his sons at
Hoboken as shipwright and ship-builder for the celebrated Stevens
family. It was there that with other vessels they built the yacht
“Maria,” named after the wife of John Stevens. The building of the
“Maria” was an event, and Maria Stevens spent most of her spare time at
the yard in looking over her construction and finish. The Stevens
battery was begun during the Bennett period.
Mrs. Miller’s brother was John Byerly, and her sister married William
Sutton, both noted ship-builders. So when William Cramp, who had learned
his profession under Samuel Grice, married Sophia Miller, two families
of ship-builders were united.
Charles H. Cramp was two years old when his father acquired frontage on
the Delaware in Kensington and established a shipyard of his own.
This early enterprise of William Cramp, who was then twenty-three years
old, has since grown to be the great establishment known as The William
Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company.
It does not seem necessary here to recount the progress of that pioneer
enterprise. Suffice it to say that at the time when William Cramp
founded his shipyard it was one of fourteen on the Delaware at different
points on the river front between Southwark and Kensington, and it is
the only one of the fourteen that remains in existence.
Of Charles Henry Cramp’s childhood and early youth, it is not necessary
to speak here in detail. He was, it might be said, born into the
atmosphere of naval architecture and the art of ship-building, and from
his earliest activity he never practised or attempted to practise any
other profession.
When about fourteen years of age he had exhausted the educational
possibilities of the ordinary schools and entered the old Central High
School, which was then presided over by Alexander Dallas Bache, the most
consummate master of the science of applied mathematics and the physical
sciences of his time in this country, if not in the world. While at the
High School, Mr. Bache was appointed to take charge of the appropriation
of a million dollars by Congress to defray the cost of a series of
observations on terrestrial magnetism in co-operation with similar
observations along the same lines in Europe, and also for the purpose of
making certain observations in meteorology. The appropriations for the
last-named observations were made on the recommendations of Professor
Espy. This was about 1846.
While Washington was the central point of the observations, Philadelphia
was practically the head-quarters, because Professor Bache and his
associate. Major Bache, resided there.
Observations were established at Charleston, New Orleans, and Utica, and
they communicated with Toronto, the Canadian station.
Professor Bache took his observers at Philadelphia from among the pupils
of the High School for night work, and he had the day observers from the
University.
George Davidson, Charles H. Cramp, and William H. Hunter were among the
number, and the observations, after being collated at Washington, were
ultimately deposited at the Smithsonian Institute, and later on formed
the basis of the operations of the “Signal Service Bureau.” At the time
the observations were made, the magnetic telegraph had not as yet been
utilized, and the course of storms was portrayed by mail after they had
occurred.
Not long after this period, Professor Bache was appointed to succeed Mr.
Hasler as head of the Coast Survey. He invited the young men who were in
the group of the magnetic installation to accompany him in his new field
of labor, and Mr. Cramp was invited with the rest, but desiring to
engage in ship-building he pursued that art.
Mr. Davidson, who was in the magnetic observations with Mr. Cramp, and
was a school-mate and life-long friend, remained on the Coast Survey
under Mr. Bache, and spent the greater portion of his life on the
Pacific in that capacity; and it was under his direction and control
that the great Triangulation of our newly acquired possessions there
from the Rocky Mountains to the coast was made by him, and said to be by
scientists the greatest work in geodesy ever made by or under one man.
He is now Professor of Commercial Geography in the University of
California. He has filled nearly every position there that required the
highest attainments in the physical sciences. The Alaska Commission,
inauguration of Lick Observatory, expeditions for the observation of
eclipses of the sun, are a small portion of the important positions that
he has filled. His contributions to science would fill volumes.
At the end of a term of three and one-half years under the tutorship of
Professor Bache, Mr. Cramp entered the shipyard of his maternal uncle,
John Byerly. This arrangement was made, notwithstanding the fact that
his father, William Cramp, was then actively engaged in ship-building on
his own account; the idea being that it would be better, all things
considered, for him to begin his practical experience under other
tutorage than that of his own father.
About 1846, or in his nineteenth year, Mr. Cramp, having attained to a
certain point the qualifications of a practical ship-builder in his
uncle’s shipyard, went to that of his own father.
[Illustration: MONITOR TERROR]
Among the first things undertaken when in his father’s yard, Mr. Cramp
designed the pioneer propeller tug-boat ever built in the United States,
the “Sampson,” and it fixed the type now so numerous in the waters of
America. She was of a peculiar build. Her dimensions were eighty feet
long and twenty feet beam. She had as much dead rise as a pilot-boat or
“pungy,” and had a keel three feet wide at the stern-post. In getting up
the design, it was considered indispensable by the marine engineers at
that time to have the screw entirely beneath the bottom of the vessel,
and, as the screw was six feet in diameter, the engine-builders wanted
the keel six feet wide. When shown the impracticability of this, they
were content to have three feet of the screw beneath the bottom of the
ship. The propeller shaft ran on top of the floors and the bearings were
between the frames. The crank was between the frames and just cleared
the outside planking in its sweep. She proved to be a profitable
investment for the owners, Michael Molloy & Son, who ordered another
one. This was the “Bird.” She had a narrower keel, and the bearings of
the propeller shaft were secured to the top of the floors. Another one
was built a short time after, and, in view of the shallow water in which
she had to run, the keel was only ten inches wide. This was considered a
great detriment to the efficiency of the screw; but on the trial it was
found that the importance of wide keels was overestimated, and the
practice came to an end.
A considerable operation of unusual and interesting character was
undertaken by his father about that time, and in which Mr. Cramp himself
assisted. This was the design and construction of a fleet of surf-boats
intended for the purpose of facilitating the landing of General Scott’s
army at Vera Cruz. The naval and military authorities of that time were
doubtful of the capacity of the ordinary boats of the fleet itself to
land a sufficient body of troops at one time to command the shore. The
intention at first was to provide a sufficient number of boats to land
the whole army at once, and three hundred boats were contracted for upon
a design made by William Cramp.
Only a part of them was built by Mr. Cramp, but they were all built upon
his plans. They were large surf-boats of three different sizes, and were
carried to Vera Cruz on the decks of schooners chartered for the
purpose. The thwarts were taken out of the larger boats and the smaller
ones of different sizes were stowed in them.
The “Standard History of the Mexican War” shows that out of the total
number (three hundred) designed by Cramp and contracted for with
different boat-builders, only one hundred and eighty-six (186) were
actually delivered and used, and in the operations against Vera Cruz,
General Scott’s army was landed by divisions. The Regular Division
commanded by General Worth was put on shore first, then the Volunteer
Division of General Robert Patterson, and, finally, the mixed Regular
and Volunteer Division of General Twiggs.
After these boats had been used for their original purpose they were
cast adrift. Their sea-worthiness may be estimated from the fact that
some of them were picked up in mid-Atlantic months afterward.
There are stories in history about invading armies burning their bridges
behind them, but this is unquestionably the only instance where an army
deliberately cast loose the boats in which it had landed upon the soil
of an enemy. Burning bridges might mean, and doubtless would, the simple
destruction of means of recrossing a river in the case of disaster, but
the destruction or dispersion of the boats in which Scott’s army landed
at Vera Cruz meant the obliteration of any possible means they might
have had of crossing a gulf and ocean had the fortune of war been
adverse to them.
Starbuck, in his “History of the American Whale-fishery,” refers to this
incident, and says that some of these boats were picked up by
whaling-ships, whose crews highly prized them, and that they were used
for years afterward in the sperm and right-whale fisheries of the
Pacific Ocean.
At the beginning of the career of Mr. Cramp in ship-building, the
profession had arrived at its highest state of efficiency in everything
that related to the design, finish, and outfit of ships. They were with
but few exceptions all of wood, and it was in the wooden ship and during
the period between 1840 and 1860 that the art and everything belonging
to it attained its highest proficiency. Ship-building as an art,
profession, and science culminated about this time,—the great transition
from wood to iron.
From the earliest period up to that time the professional ship-builder
or “master builder,” as he has always been called, was a master in
reality. He designed, modelled, and built his own ships, and his
appreciation of the beautiful and his artistic taste were of the most
refined and cultivated character, and were everything that the term
sculptor, artist, and constructor meant. He was acutely sensitive; his
contempt for the quack and commonplace in his profession was as great as
that of the physician in regular practice for the medical quack.
The builder, the shipwright, the commander, and sailor of this period
have never been equalled in any of their professions since, and with but
few exceptions the modern steel ship is a retrograde in everything
pertaining to the real art as compared to the ship of the period we
refer to. The ships, of course, are larger now, and that is all. This
period was not only noted on account of the high character of the art,
but ship-building plants in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore turned
out the finest specimens of construction in the world. All of the
workmen—shipwrights, ship-joiners, ship-smiths, ship-painters, and
caulkers—were without equals on the planet.
The Webbs, the Westervelts, the Steers family, Jere Simonson, Smith and
Dimon and others of New York, and John Vaughan, John Byerly, the Van
Duzen family, John K. Hammett and William Cramp, of Philadelphia, were
the leaders of their profession the world over. In the navy were to be
found the Grices, the Humphreys, the Hanscoms, Delano, and others.
The introduction of the iron ship was made under very unfavorable
conditions. The first to take hold of the new material were people,
mechanically speaking, of commonplace character both here and abroad,
and the art or profession as a rule retains the original taint up to
this time. There are some exceptions; some ship-builders in Great
Britain carried their art into the Iron Age,—the Napiers, the Ingliss
family, and others in Great Britain, and the Cramps in the United
States.
Mr. Cramp’s mould loft practice and methods as carried on from the
wooden-ship period is the practice now in use in the construction of the
navy.
The great advance in the steamship of the period thence up to this time
has been in the machinery; and in marine engineering the English were
our masters. There has been no advance here in the ship-building art in
any respect.
The decade following the Mexican War and preceding that of the Rebellion
was marked chiefly by the final or ultimate development of the clipper
type of sailing-vessel, and also by the gradual surrender of sail to
steam in propulsion and of wood to iron in construction. The clipper
idea was undoubtedly of Baltimore origin, and, in fact, the name of that
city was given to the type,—the “Baltimore Clipper.” They were, of
course, sailing-vessels. In all respects of model, of structure, size of
spars and sails, dimensions of hull, etc., the type was distinctly
American. It is known, however, that the earliest clippers built in
Baltimore were intended for and used in the African slave-trade. In this
nefarious traffic they were extremely successful, because in the day of
their beginning there were no steam cruisers to enforce the laws making
the slave-trade piracy, and there was no sailing cruiser afloat which
could keep within sight of a Baltimore clipper in the slave-trading
days.
The type, though originating in Baltimore, was not developed there to
its ultimate capacity, but the idea was taken up by Philadelphia, New
York, and New England ship-builders and embodied in the famous lines
which plied between this country and the Pacific Ocean. The discovery of
gold in California also gave a great impetus to commerce in
sailing-vessels. Of course, steamships soon began to run from New York
to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and from the Pacific side to San
Francisco, but there was no railway across the Isthmus at first, so that
very little freight traffic could be handled by these steamers. The
result was that all freights between the Atlantic coast and California
had to go around Cape Horn, and in this traffic the clipper ship fully
asserted its value.
The decade of the 50’s was really the zenith of the American carrying
trade on the ocean. Relatively to the total amount of ocean commerce,
our ships carried a larger proportion of it than ever before in time of
peace. Of course, during the Napoleonic wars, when our flag was neutral,
we carried a larger proportion of our own products than in the 50’s, but
never before in a time of general peace.
The Crimean War, which happened during this period, also helped American
commerce in the ocean carrying trade, because the French and English
took up a great deal of their tonnage for transporting troops and
military supplies during the years 1854, 1855, and 1856, and to a great
extent the places of these ships were filled by vessels under the
American flag.
All these causes combined to create marked activity in American
ship-building.
To this might be added the effort to establish a trans-Atlantic
steamship line under the American flag in opposition to the heavily
subsidized Cunard Line. This was known as the Collins Line, and while
the government aid lasted it held its own in competition with its
British antagonists, but the subsidy was soon withdrawn, and with it the
Collins Line collapsed.
On the whole, so far as American ocean commerce and ship-building are
concerned, the decade of the 50’s was one of the most interesting in our
history. During that period the Cramp concern built from the designs and
under the superintendence of Charles H. Cramp a considerable number of
important sailing merchant vessels, together with several steamers,
mostly constructed for the coasting trade between the ports on the
Atlantic and on the Gulf. Cramp also built during that period seven
steamers for Spanish or Cuban account to be used in the coasting trade
of the Spanish West Indies. They were called “Carolina,” “Cardenas,”
“Alphonso,” “Union ‘Maisi,’” “General Armero,” and “Union No. 2.” The
last one was not finished until the outbreak of the Rebellion, when she
was taken possession of temporarily by the government and converted into
a gun-boat, now in the navy list as the “Union.” An interesting incident
in Mr. Cramp’s career was his visit to Havana for the purpose of
delivering these ships. In their delivery and in making settlement for
their construction he spent several months at Havana, where his
knowledge of the Spanish language, in which he always retained
considerable proficiency, was of great service to him.
The first war vessel designed by Mr. Cramp was the “Libertador,” built
for Venezuela. She was fitted with a pair of trunk engines by Messrs.
Sutton & Smith, who were noted for their skill in building trunk and
oscillating and other marine engines. She mounted a large pivot-gun on
her quarter-deck, and when fired off on her trial trip at Market Street,
the windows there were broken and the gun nearly kicked herself
overboard.
We now arrive at the period of the Civil War, in the operations
connected with which Mr. Cramp’s genius first became conspicuous in the
broad or national sense.
The work hitherto described, although important in its time and place
and under its conditions, which were those of peace, had really served
little more than the purpose of a practical training-school to fit him
for the broader and more comprehensive duties and responsibilities which
the exigencies of the Civil War imposed.
At the outbreak of that struggle, optimistic statesmen, like Mr. Seward,
dreamed that it would be over in ninety days. Those dreams went up in
the smoke of the first Bull Run. Then the authorities at Washington
awoke to the fact that they had on their hands a long and stubborn war.
It is a fact not generally known, or usually lost sight of, that during
the first six months of the Civil War, that is to say from April to
September, 1861, inclusive, the South raised and embodied a larger
number of troops than the North did, and the scale in that respect did
not turn until the government had begun to realize the results of its
call for five hundred thousand men. But the problem that confronted our
authorities was not military alone. It soon became clear to sagacious
minds that a great sea power must be created as well as an overpowering
force by land. It was a foregone conclusion that notwithstanding the
great numerical disparity between the white population of the South and
that of the North,—the proportion being about six millions in the South
to twenty-five millions in the North,—it would be impossible to overcome
them so long as their ports remained open. If the Southern people could
continue without serious hindrance to exchange their cotton for
European, principally English, arms, ammunition, military supplies, and
munitions of war of all kinds, together with provisions and clothing of
the kind which they had habitually imported, their armies could keep the
field; their railroad system could be kept in fair running order, and
the numerical superiority of the North must thereby to a great extent be
neutralized. Therefore an effective blockade became an immediate and
absolute necessity.
The total coast-line of the Confederacy, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf
together, was three thousand six hundred miles long, measured in
straight lines. The shore-line, or sinuosities, was considerably more
than twice that length. It is a coast indented with numerous inland bays
and estuaries, affording easy access to the immediate interior and safe
refuge for their ships or the ships of those with whom they traded. Of
course, a mere blockade by proclamation would not be respected by any
foreign maritime power. Paper blockade so-called had been ruled out of
consideration years before in solemn congress or conference of the Great
Powers.
At that moment our navy was at its lowest ebb, and, of the few ships
available for immediate service, many were on foreign stations and could
not easily or quickly be recalled, as the cable system of communication
was then unknown.
The task therefore became that of immediately improvising a navy capable
of enforcing a real blockade. To accomplish this, before the end of 1861
every steamer of every description that could keep the sea or carry a
gun was pressed into the service, and our commercial fleet, so far as
steam navigation was concerned, ceased to exist.
These converted vessels served a fairly good purpose _ad interim_, or
until the government could bring its resources to build a more effective
fleet of regular men-of-war.
In addition to this necessity for the immediate improvisation of a
blockading fleet, the question of armored vessels presented itself,
because, besides the blockade, bombardment of sea-coast fortifications
which had been seized by the Confederates must be an essential part of
the general plan of operations.
[Illustration: CRUISERS BALTIMORE AND PHILADELPHIA]
The idea of armored ships was then entirely novel. In 1861 only two
efforts had been made, one by England and the other by France, to
construct an _armored sea-going vessel_. To meet this necessity of
having ships capable of attacking heavily armed forts, Congress passed
an act, approved August 3, 1861, authorizing the construction of armored
vessels. This act authorized and directed the Secretary to appoint a
board of skilled naval officers to investigate plans and specifications
that might be submitted for the construction of iron- or steel-clad
steamships or steam floating batteries; and, on their favorable report,
authorizing the Secretary to cause one or more armored or iron- or
steel-clad steamships to be built, making an appropriation of $1,500,000
to carry the act into effect. Pursuant to this act, the Secretary
appointed on August 8 a board consisting of Commodore Joseph Smith,
Commodore Hiram Paulding, and Commander Charles Davis, to examine such
plans as might be submitted, and issued an advertisement, under date of
August 7, calling for plans and prices. The advertisement stated that a
general description and drawings of the vessels’ armor and machinery,
sufficient to indicate the character and probable efficiency of the
vessel, would be required; also that the offer must state the cost and
time for completing, exclusive of armament and stores, the rate of speed
proposed, etc. Persons proposing to make offers under this advertisement
were required to inform the Department of their intention before the
15th of August, and to have their propositions presented within
twenty-five days from the date of the advertisement.
On September 16, 1861, the board reported that seventeen offers had been
laid before them. All but three, however, were ruled out, mainly on
account of insufficiency of data or lack of drawings. Several of them
were, in fact, mere suggestions.
The three selected were: First, one to be built of wood and plated with
four inches of iron; to be a full-rigged ship of about three thousand
three hundred tons displacement; price, $780,000; length of the vessel,
two hundred and twenty feet; breadth of beam, sixty feet; depth of hold,
twenty-three feet; contract time, nine months; draught of water,
thirteen feet; speed, nine and one-half knots.
The second, offered by C. S. Bushnell & Co., of New Haven, was of the
low freeboard monitor type, the invention of which is commonly ascribed
to John Ericsson; and the third, offered by same parties, which was
afterward known as the “Galena.”
The first vessel described afterward became the “New Ironsides.” Her
hull was designed entirely by Mr. Cramp. Generally speaking, her type
was that of a broadside sea-going iron-clad. She was a roomy,
comfortable ship for her officers and crew. Her fighting quarters were
well protected against the shot of that day. Although engaged with forts
and batteries a greater number of times than any other one vessel in the
service, her armor was never pierced.
Perhaps at this point a description of the vessel and the conditions
attending her construction, in the form of a paper read some years ago
by Mr. Cramp before the Contemporary Club, of Philadelphia, will be more
pointed and interesting than any other delineation.
It is as follows:
“NEW IRONSIDES”
“When the ‘New Ironsides’ was contracted for there was no white oak
timber available outside of Pennsylvania. Timber of this kind was
cleaned out in Delaware and Maryland, and Virginia was for the
time-being inaccessible. So the timber that must be used was growing
in the forests of Pennsylvania when the contract was signed.
“With the exception of pine decking every stick of timber was of
white oak, and being the largest wooden ship ever built, the frames
were very heavy,—the floor timbers were two to each frame, and,
being without first futtocks and running from bilge to bilge, they
required a tree large enough to be twenty-two inches in diameter at
a height of forty-five feet from the ground. Trees of this kind were
very scarce in Pennsylvania, and frequently only a single tree would
be found in a township, which had been preserved as an heirloom by
the owner, and it was often difficult to persuade him to sell.
“During the month of October, 1861, we advertised in the country
papers that we would pay a dollar a running foot for every tree that
was brought to us by the first of January, under the requirements
that they were to be at least twenty-two inches in diameter at
forty-five feet from the ground, and the logs were to be sided on
two sides anywhere from thirteen inches up to eighteen inches.
“At this time, the beginning of the war, farming and business in
country towns being very slack, all suitable trees in the forests of
Bucks, Berks, Delaware, and Chester counties and some counties more
remote were prospected by the country-people and farmers, who worked
very hard utilizing moonlight nights as well as daytime in cutting
and shipping this timber. These counties were traversed by the North
Pennsylvania Railroad, and the various stations from Quakertown down
were soon gorged with logs that had to be delivered at our shipyard
on or before the first of January to meet our requirements. By the
first of January we had logs sufficient to make all the floors of
the ship, and quite a number were left at the stations where they
had accumulated too rapidly for the railroad to handle them, and
they could not be delivered within our time limit. This timber was
afterward bought at a reduced price.
“Not being able to get yellow pine, the beams and water-ways were
made of white oak. Some of these pieces were sixty feet long and
were sided up to sixteen inches. But notwithstanding these
difficulties and the fact that all the frame-timber was standing in
the forest when we took the contract, yet the vessel was launched in
six months after it was signed.
“The region traversed by the North Pennsylvania Railroad in
furnishing the frames, water-ways, and beams became exhausted in its
turn, so that toward the termination of the war white oak for the
beams of the light-draught monitors had to be procured chiefly in
Columbia County, in the interior of the State of Pennsylvania.
“There was also difficulty in securing timber for the curved
futtocks, which were principally made of roots and were obtained
from Delaware.
“The frames were fitted together solidly and caulked before ceiling
or planking was secured, and the outside planking below the lower
edge of armor was twelve inches thick, tapering off to the lower
turn of the bilge to five inches. So the ship in her defensive
capabilities was a war machine of no mean type.
“If the ship had been built of steel instead of wood, she would have
been sunk when she was struck by a spar torpedo off Charleston.
“The explosion took place at the height of the orlop-deck, where the
outside planking was twelve inches thick, and where the end of a
sixteen-inch beam backed the frames. The side sprung in about six
inches at the point of contact with the torpedo, ‘brooming’ the end
of the sixteen-inch oak beam, and considerable water came in for a
short time. The side of the ship, through the elasticity of the
material, came back to its original form in a short time and the
leak stopped. A gigantic marine, who was sitting on his chest at
that part of the deck near the point of the explosion was thrown
upward against the beams above him, breaking his collar-bone, and he
was the only person injured on the ship.
“The time involved in the construction of the ‘New Ironsides,’
launching in six months from the laying of the keel, was remarkable
in view of the fact that, besides the timber difficulty, nearly all
the skilled workmen and ship-wrights here had gone into the
navy-yard, and we were compelled to scour the country for men who
were mostly indifferent mechanics. A large number of ship-carpenters
and other men came from Baltimore and Maine, who had left their
homes to avoid conscription or to secure the high rates of wages
paid here.
“An interesting incident connected with the building of the ‘New
Ironsides’ was the fact that during the first half of her
construction the progress in naval ordnance had advanced so rapidly
that the authorities concluded to enlarge the caliber of her guns
sufficiently to double the power of the original design. The ship
was at first planned to carry sixteen 8-inch smooth-bore guns, which
was at that time considered the heaviest caliber that could be
worked in a broadside mount. Having in view the fact that all
war-ships heretofore built, particularly steam-ships, exceeded their
calculated draught, I determined to avoid a similar error in this
ship. I provided against it in my calculations of displacement by
allowing a foot for a margin. The draught was not to exceed fifteen
feet; I allowed for fourteen feet. The minimum height of the
port-sills above water at load draught, to insure sea-worthiness and
ability to fight the guns in sea-way, should have been seven feet,
according to our instructions. But in getting up the plans I
arranged that the port-sills with the 8-inch battery would be eight
feet above water. My calculations having been correctly made, I had
a foot to spare.
“About three months after we began work, and when the frames were up
and the beams in, the Department decided to arm the ship with
fourteen 11-inch Dahlgrens in broadside and two 200-pounders (8-inch
Parrotts). They were all muzzle loaders. This, together with the
increased weight of ammunition for the larger guns, exactly consumed
my foot of margin and brought the port-sills down to the normal
height of seven feet above water, and the draught of ship there was
not over fifteen feet, the original design.
“It may not be improper to say that I received much credit and
congratulation from the Board and others for my foresight in
allowing the margin as I did, and for the correctness of my
calculations. But for that the modified battery would have brought
the port-sills down to six feet or less, which would have rendered
it dangerous to open the main-deck ports in much of a sea.
“During the earlier stages of the construction of this ship but
little attention was paid to it by the people of the country; the
exciting conditions of the war on land; battles won and lost; the
movement of troops, etc., occupied the entire attention of the
people; so that while the yard was left open and no fence around it
there were no visitors.
“When the battle between the ‘Monitor’ and ‘Merrimac’ took place a
short time before launching the ‘New Ironsides,’ the whole world was
aroused, and their attention was called to the fact that there were
such things as armor-clad ships.
“When the number of visitors who applied for admission was so great
that we had to build a high fence around the shipyard, and only
admitted those who secured tickets issued by us, and when the launch
took place, it was under conditions of great excitement and
enthusiasm. The completion of the ship was accomplished in a very
short time, and her first scene of operations was before Fort
Sumter, which she bombarded eleven months and two days after the
contract was signed.
“At this point the history of the contracts may be stated:
“When the appropriation was made by Congress for the purpose of
constructing iron-clads, the Secretary of the Navy, as has been
remarked, created a board on armored ships, consisting of Commodores
Paulding, Smith, and Davis, who were fully authorized to carry out
the provisions of the law and make contracts, keeping in view what
had been done by England and France in the way of iron-plated
floating batteries. These gentlemen advertised for plans and
specifications accompanied by proposals for accomplishing the
purpose of the act of Congress. There were twenty-five or thirty
proposals, embracing a great diversity of projects, the principal
features of most of which were lack of well-defined plan, type, and
character.
“After considerable investigation, the board decided to accept three
plans and award the contracts. They were the ‘New Ironsides,’ the
original ‘Monitor,’ and the ‘Galena.’ Those three vessels exhibited
a vast diversity in form, construction, and outfit.
“A number of fables have originated and have come to be believed as
truths about many of the circumstances attending the selection of
plans. Among others, it was said that Mr. Lincoln himself, being
impressed with the claims of Mr. Ericsson, had to interfere, and
ordered the board to select the ‘Monitor.’ This is entirely false,
for no such demonstration was ever made by Mr. Lincoln, and the
board was not influenced at all by any considerations of that or any
other kind except their own judgment.
“The contract for the ‘New Ironsides’ was awarded to Merrick & Sons;
the design, plans, and specifications of hull complete had been made
by me in connection with Mr. B. H. Bartol, who conceived the project
and had charge of the proposal to the government,—Mr. B. H. Bartol
was Superintendent of Merrick & Sons at that time. When the contract
was awarded to Merrick & Sons, they sub-let the hull together with
the fittings to our firm, in accordance with a previous agreement
with Mr. Bartol. The contract price was about $848,000. Merrick &
Sons furnished the engines and armor plate. The engines were
designed by I. Vaughan Merrick, and were duplicates of those which
they had completed for a sloop-of-war, and were for a single screw.
The speed was about seven knots. She was bark-rigged with bowsprit.
“After completing the ‘New Ironsides,’ I proposed to build two more
of similar type with certain modifications and improvements, that
is, sea-going iron-clads, with twin screws instead of a single one,
and in increasing the speed and the efficiency of the armor. But at
that time what was known as the ‘Monitor craze’ was in full blast,
and, notwithstanding the excellent all-around performance of the
‘New Ironsides,’ she remained the only sea-going broadside iron-clad
in the navy, and was the first to fire a gun at an enemy, and fought
more battles than all other sea-going battleships past and present
put together.
“The armor plate of the ‘New Ironsides’ was made partly at Pittsburg
and partly at Bristol, Pennsylvania, and was of hammered scrap iron.
It was four inches thick, and the plates, which could now be rolled
in many mills and be considered light work, were then looked upon as
marvels of heavy forging.
“When the contract was made for the ship, wages for shipwrights were
$1.75 per day, and in less than two months they rose to $3 per day.
We contracted for all the copper sheathing and bolts the day after
signing the contract at twenty-nine cents per pound; in four months
it was sixty cents per pound. Materials in general went up from 50
to 100 per cent. before we finished the ship.
“Great and radical changes have since occurred, but, primitive as
the ‘New Ironsides’ seems in comparison with modern battleships, it
is doubtful if any one now existing will ever see as much fighting
or make so much history as she did. Last July, in an address read
before the Naval War College at Newport, I said:
“‘I cannot better illustrate my point than by comparing the first
and the last sea-going battleships built and delivered to the
government by Cramp. The first was the ‘New Ironsides,’ built in
1862. The last is the ‘Iowa,’ completed in 1897. Each represented or
represents the maximum development of its day.
“‘The ‘New Ironsides’ had one machine, her main engine, involving
two steam-cylinders. The ‘Iowa’ has seventy-one machines, involving
one hundred and thirty-seven steam-cylinders.
“‘The guns of the ‘New Ironsides’ were worked, the ammunition
hoisted, the ship steered, the engine started and reversed, her
boats handled, in short, all functions of fighting and manœuvring,
by hand. The ship was lighted by oil lamps and ventilated, when at
all, by natural air currents. Though, as I said, the most advanced
type of her day, she differed from her greater battleship
predecessor, the old three-decker ‘Pennsylvania,’ only in four
inches of iron side armor and auxiliary steam propulsion. She
carried fewer guns on fewer decks than the ‘Pennsylvania,’ but her
battery was nevertheless of much greater ballistic power.
“‘In the ‘Iowa’ it may almost be said that nothing is done by hand
except the opening and closing of throttles and pressing of electric
buttons. Her guns are loaded, trained, and fired, her ammunition
hoisted, her turrets turned, her torpedoes, mechanisms in
themselves, are tubed and ejected, the ship steered, her boats
hoisted out and in, and the interior lighted and ventilated, the
great search-light operated, and even orders transmitted from bridge
or conning-tower to all parts by mechanical appliances.
“‘Surely no more striking view than this of the development of
thirty-five years could be afforded.’
“The battery of the ‘New Ironsides’ was mounted in broadside, and
she had eight ports of a side, out of which she fought seven 11-inch
Dahlgrens and one 200-pounder Parrott, the maximum train or arc of
fire being about 45 degrees.
“The ‘Iowa’s’ four 12-inch guns are mounted in pairs in two turrets,
and train through arcs of about 260 degrees forward and aft
respectively. Her eight 8-inch guns are mounted in pairs in four
turrets, and each pair trains through an effective arc of about 180
degrees.
“The ‘New Ironsides’ had no direct bow or stern fire.
“The ‘Iowa’ fires two 12-inch and four 8-inch guns straight ahead
and straight astern.
“The maximum shell-range of the heaviest guns of the ‘Ironsides’ was
about a mile and a quarter, that of the ‘Iowa’s’ heaviest guns is
about eight miles. The muzzle energy of the ‘Ironsides’’ 11-inch
smooth bores was to that of the ‘Iowa’s’ 12-inch rifles about as 1
to 26.
“The fate of the ‘New Ironsides’ is well known: she was destroyed by
fire at League Island in 1866, about a year after her last action.”
Judged by modern standards of construction, the time expended in
building the “New Ironsides” was marvellously brief, six months,
because, as Mr. Cramp said, she was in action against Fort Sumter within
eleven months from signing of the contract.
Of course, there can be no comparison between the methods of her
construction or the nature of her appliances and those of a modern
battleship, yet in her time and for her day she was the most formidable
and powerful sea-going battleship afloat.
Mr. Cramp, notwithstanding that he was entering upon a new and untried
field without any prior guidance of observation or experience, undertook
the design and construction of this remarkable vessel with all the
confidence that a sense of professional mastery never fails to inspire;
and so confident was he that the “New Ironsides” would prove a success
that, while she was building, he proceeded to design two other vessels
of the same type, but embodying numerous improvements which his
experience in construction of the “Ironsides” from day to day suggested
to him, and when these designs were completed he offered them to the
Department.
He then discovered that the Navy Department had become entirely under
the influence of what might be called the “Monitor craze,” which
absolutely dominated the councils of the Department and of Congress in
respect to armor-clad vessels.
A combination, or “ring,” was formed, with head-quarters in New York, to
prevent the construction of any type of iron-clad vessel except
monitors, and it had sufficient power to carry its determination into
effect.
[Illustration: CRUISER NEWARK]
A sudden halt was made in the development of the armored sea-going type
which originated during the Crimean War. France had finished the
construction of “La Courunne,” “La Gloire,” and several others, one of
which had made a voyage to Vera Cruz before our Civil War, and certain
lessons derived from that ship during the voyage were utilized in the
construction of the “New Ironsides.” Both England and France were
proceeding slowly in the development of the very complete type of
battleship of the present day. While they built several vessels of an
improved monitor type and adopted the turret on a roller base, in many
cases they adhered to the course first laid out. The late British
battleships have fixed barbettes and shields for their heavy guns.
The old Timby turret is practically a revolving barbette extending above
the guns, which had to be loaded at the muzzle and the rammer being
jointed, eleven minutes being occupied in loading and firing.
In the operations before Charleston, the Confederates would leave their
bomb proofs after a shot was fired, and prepare for the next one during
the eleven minutes and retire unharmed, ready to renew the contest.
Under these conditions, the defence became a system of guns in a
casemate connecting with a bomb proof.
The old-fashioned monitor, viewed simply as a floating battery for use
in smooth water, was serviceable. It was not in any sense a sea-going
vessel, and it was always in danger of foundering as it crept along the
coast from harbor to harbor. Besides this, it was almost intolerable to
its officers and men in the living sense. In fact, service in the
monitors developed a new and distinct disease known in the war-time
pathology as the “monitor fever.” Whenever one was torpedoed, as for
example the “Tecumseh” in Mobile Bay, she sank immediately; so quickly,
in fact, that her crew below deck were unable to escape. The torpedo
which the “New Ironsides” resisted practically without injury would have
instantly sunk any monitor then existing. The “Ironsides,” on the
contrary, was a sea-going vessel of the best and stanchest type, capable
of any length of voyage with comfort and perfect safety to her officers
and crew.
A wise administration of the Navy Department, or one not affected by the
influence of cranks and combinations, would have built at least half a
dozen vessels of that type as soon as they could be constructed.
Mr. Cramp, realizing and appreciating the value of the type, and knowing
that the influences which prevented its multiplication in the navy were
unworthy, keenly felt the sting of his repulses. However, he proceeded
to build such ships as the Department required, including a monitor, and
from that time to the end of the war gave the navy the full benefit of
his experience and skill in all directions, both in new construction and
repair.
Partly through the natural unthinking enthusiasm of the people in times
of great excitement and partly through a carefully planned campaign of
sentiment adroitly managed by the ring, the monitor became almost the
symbol of patriotism.
After the repulse of the “Merrimac” in Hampton Roads, Ericsson was
almost deified, particularly by that class of people who consider rant
synonymous with eloquence. Yet such sentiments were actually cherished
at the time by a great many people who knew nothing whatever about the
actual merits of different types of vessels. But their fanaticism made
the operations of the monitor ring easy, and at the same time made it
impossible to introduce or carry forward any other type of armored
vessel during the whole Civil War, no matter how efficient or how
desirable it might be.
Captain Ericsson is popularly credited, and doubtless will be in
history, with the complete invention of the monitor. So far as the form
and structure of the hull, which was simply “scow bottom,” and the
fantastic type of its propelling engine and the Ericsson screw were
concerned, this is probably true, at least so far as known; but the main
distinguishing feature of the monitor was not its model of hull nor its
propelling engine, but its revolving turret; and this device had been
invented and patented by Mr. John R. R. Timby several years before the
outbreak of the Civil War. Timby had proposed to use the revolving
turret system for sea-coast defence, as a primary proposition. However,
in his description, upon which his letters-patent were issued, he
suggested that it might also be applied to floating structures or
batteries. All that Ericsson did in the application of the turret system
to his monitor was to appropriate Timby’s invention and act upon his
suggestion; a fact which was abundantly demonstrated afterward when Mr.
Timby received compensation for the infringement.
But all these facts probably went for little or nothing. It seemed that
the people had determined to make a demigod of Ericsson, and there was
no gainsaying them. They would have it so, and so it is.
Mr. Cramp, in a hitherto unpublished paper, deals with the history and
operations of the monitor ring with regard to its _personnel_ and the
details of its origin and methods, the origin of the “fast cruisers of
the navy,” and the “state of marine engineering of this country as it
existed at that time.” In this paper, as will be seen, he hews to the
line.
THE “MONITOR.”
“The coming out of the ‘Merrimac’ for the last time, and her
successful repulse by the ‘Monitor’ having driven her back into
Norfolk, gave a boom to the monitor system, the extent of which had
never been witnessed in this country before.
“The enthusiasm that always greets successful combats in war-time
was on this occasion of an extraordinary character, and the whole
country was aroused to the highest pitch of excitement.
“The designer of the ship, John Ericsson, already well known as one
of the principal promoters and successful advocates of screw
propulsion, and Alban C. Stimers, who was engineer during the fight,
and some of the officers, were the recipients of the most
extravagant and hysterical demonstrations in the way of hero
worship.
“An illustration of the effect that this battle had on the popular
mind at that time may be found in an address of Bishop Simpson at
the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.
“During the war, frequent addresses were made throughout the country
by well-known orators, states-men, and ministers of the gospel,
intended to promote a patriotic spirit and encourage the doubtful.
“I was present at the Academy of Music shortly after the ‘Monitor’
had been made famous by repulsing the ‘Merrimac,’ when, in referring
to Mr. Ericsson, the Bishop stated that ‘the Almighty had directly
interposed in the contest between Captain Ericsson and Robert
Stephenson in England,’ both of whom had responded to the offer of
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company of a premium of £500
sterling for the most improved locomotive engine. This was at the
very beginning of the introduction of railways in Great Britain, and
the following engine entered for the prize:
“The ‘Novelty,’ by Ericsson and Braithwait; the ‘Rocket,’ by Robert
Stephenson; the ‘Sans Pareil,’ by Timothy Hackworth, the
‘Perseverance,’ by Mr. Burstall.
“Mr. Joseph Harrison states in his book, the ‘Locomotive Engine,’
that ‘the prize was easily won by the “Rocket,” built by George and
Robert Stephenson, having fulfilled, in some respects, more than all
of the requirements of the trial.’
“Bishop Simpson, in referring to this incident, said that ‘the
Almighty had interposed to prevent Captain Ericsson from succeeding
there, so that he might become disgusted with England and shake the
dust of that country from his feet and depart for America, in order
that he might be here ready to save the country.’
“In using the words ‘in saving the country,’ Bishop Simpson looked
on the fight between the ‘Monitor’ and the ‘Merrimac’ as a great
many other people did; that is to say, if the ‘Merrimac’ had
escaped, she would have bombarded Philadelphia and New York and
other cities of the North, thereby compelling the government to
submit to the South. But the ‘Monitor’ having destroyed her before
she got out, John Ericsson was therefore entitled to all the credit
due to a person who had been specially delegated by the Almighty for
saving the country. John Ericsson had already become famous on
account of conspicuous efforts in promoting screw propulsion in the
United States generally, and particularly with reference to the use
in war-ship construction. In view of his unceasing labors in this
direction his name had become inseparably associated with the screw
propeller. This added much to the enthusiasm that prevailed at that
time, and all minor considerations being overlooked. It was
discovered a very short time after the war was ended that, even if
the ‘Merrimac’ could have escaped at that time from her encounters
with the ‘Cumberland,’ ‘Congress,’ and ‘Monitor,’ it would have been
impossible for her to go as far north as Philadelphia or New York.
It was found that she was in a very badly crippled state as a result
of her ramming the ‘Cumberland’ and ‘Congress;’ and the statement
was made by those who temporarily repaired her in Norfolk that her
bow was split to a great distance below the water.
“To use the words of one of the workmen, he had ‘put more than a
bale of oakum in the opening.’
“The construction of the ‘New Ironsides,’ ‘Monitor,’ and ‘Galena’
had already been practically taken out of the hands of the
Construction Department of the Navy by the Secretary of the Navy,
who became a convert to the monitor craze after the battle with the
‘Merrimac.’ The ‘Monitor’ had become the ideal type of armored
war-ship, and a sort of sub-department of the navy was created and
located at New York for the sole purpose of building and fitting out
monitors.
“This establishment in New York was placed under the immediate
supervision of Admiral Gregory, the active head being Chief Engineer
A. G. Stimers, who had been the chief engineer of the ‘Monitor’
during her engagement with the ‘Merrimac.’ He had associated with
him Isaac Newton and Theodore Allen, the nephew of Mr. Allen of the
Novelty Works in New York. This board was in direct communication
with the Secretary of the Navy.
“The monitor party, which may be described as the executive of the
ring or the New York section of the Navy Department, soon assumed a
position of great power and responsibility; the balance of the
Department amounting to practically mere nothing in the way of new
construction.
“Mr. Stimers and Mr. Allen were autocrats. They spent money
lavishly, ordered vessels, designed them, made contracts,
sub-contracts, made purchases, and carried everything with a high
hand.
“Mr. Lenthall, the Chief Constructor of the Navy, and Mr. Isherwood,
who was on his staff as engineer, were entirely set aside, and
practically disappeared from the scene as far as new constructions
were concerned.
“A large number of monitors were built, slightly improved in
structural detail over the original, and were engaged as soon as
finished in the operations before Charleston.
“The head-quarters in New York was often called the ‘draughtsmen’s
paradise,’ on account of the great number of draughtsmen employed
there, and who were getting twenty dollars a day. The most
extraordinary displays of drawings were issued to the various
machine-shops which were building monitors at that time. They were
particularly noticeable on account of the extravagant character of
the shading of the circular form of the turrets, smoke-stacks,
conning-towers, etc.
“The inspectors of construction that were employed by the New York
party emulated their superiors in carrying things with a high hand
at the various concerns where they inspected the vessels.
“Up to that time our concern had not built any monitors. We were not
in what was called the ‘Monitor Ring,’ not having indorsed the type
nor manner of construction, besides being the authors of the ‘New
Ironsides’ type, which the ring had determined to suppress.
“Immediately after the ‘New Ironsides’ had been engaged in a small
way in the first fight at Charleston, we recommended that the
government should build other vessels like her, but with twin screws
and with other improvements.
“By request of Assistant Secretary Fox, we prepared plans of the
proposed ships, some all iron, and others of iron and wood in the
construction of the hull; but the Department in Washington refused
to listen to or recommend anything. The New York section continued
to be paramount, and we were ruled out of naval construction for a
time.”
LIGHT-DRAUGHT MONITORS.
“The next development of the craze was that of the so-called
‘Light-draught Monitors.’ These were intended to operate in
Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds and various other shallow waters in the
South. Twenty of them were authorized, and we responded to the
advertisement of them by bidding for one or more.
“It was found that, with the exception of Harlan & Hollingsworth, we
were the lowest bidders. We were a little higher than Harlan &
Hollingsworth, but the time in which we offered to build them was
shorter than theirs.
“The government promptly gave us one and the Harlan yard one, and
notified eighteen other bidders that they could have one each at the
same price as ours, which amounted, as near as I can remember, to
$350,000.
“Some of the bids ran as high as $750,000, and these bidders had
some delicacy in accepting prices at one-half, because, to accept
the contract at one-half, it would be an acknowledgment that they
did not know what they were about, or that they were trying to rob
the government.
“The fact is, that none of the bidders except Harlan & Hollingsworth
and ourselves were ship-builders. They were in other lines of
mechanical construction, and of course they did not have the
slightest idea of what was to be done or what it would cost.
“The drawings on which the vessels were to be built were of the
crudest character; only a midship section and one or two vague
longitudinal sketches being furnished as a guide or basis of
construction.
“Notwithstanding, as I said before, we were the lowest bidder,
thereby saving millions of dollars to the government, only one was
awarded to us. The balance was offered to the other bidders at our
price, and the offer was accepted by most of them.
“Having received our contract, we promptly visited New York to get
the details of construction and engines in order to begin work and
procure materials. The demand for materials was greater than the
supply, and all were in a feverish state of excitement. To get our
orders out quickly, I immediately made application to Mr. Stimers
for plans, and had a long and detailed conversation with him and
Theodore Allen over what plans they had developed, and numerous
alterations were made to the plans as drawn.
“Their first plan permitted the boilers to come within three and
one-half inches of the bottom plating of the ship, practically
landing the boilers on the three and one-half inch angle-bars, which
had at that time no floors.
“I suggested in a rather strong way that this would not do, and
after considerable discussion they concluded to make the vessels a
little deeper, give the deck more spring, and put shallow floors in.
Other important alterations were made as the work progressed.
“We would have had our vessel overboard first, but the northward
march of General Lee previous to the battle of Antietem interfered
with the furnishing of materials, and also with our own working
force in the shipyard.
“Our employees, with those of the rolling-mills supplying materials
near Philadelphia, organized themselves into military companies for
the purpose of defence. Two companies were formed in our
establishment.
“While these delays affected us, they did not interfere with the
progress of the monitor which was building in Boston; but when this
vessel was launched, she sank to the bottom from lack of buoyancy,
and a halt was called on the nineteen other vessels.
“These vessels had been constructed on very vague plans and
conditions. Mistakes were made in the original design, and weights
added without investigating the correctness of the original sketch,
which, with the so-called ‘calculations,’ were furnished by Mr.
Ericsson; at least they had been examined, approved, and signed by
him. They were not furnished to bidders.
“The day after this launch, the ‘Monitor Ring’ was in a state of
collapse! Mr. Lenthall and Mr. Isherwood now reasserted their proper
authority. They ordered Mr. Stimers and Mr. Allen to reduce the
weights in the turrets, and wherever else it was possible to do so
sufficiently to make the vessels float.
“These reductions in equipment, outfit, etc., were communicated to
the builders at Chester, before they launched the ‘Tunxis’; but
these vessels, by the reductions, were rendered entirely useless for
their designed service, or any other.
“Finding that the Boston vessel and the ‘Tunxis,’ built at Chester,
notwithstanding the alterations, lacked efficiency to a serious
degree, they decided to rebuild most of the others by deepening
them, and the whole matter was placed in my hands by Chief Engineer
King, who with some others were designated by the Secretary of the
Navy to investigate and prepare plans for the deepening, and to
ascertain the cost of the alterations.
“After a careful investigation, I found it would be necessary to
increase the depth of the hulls about thirty-three inches, involving
the necessity of raising the solid oak decks to that extent with the
hull proper, and the armor backing and armor which had to be taken
off and replaced.
“A so-called expert was detailed to assist me in my calculations,
but, having no use for him, I did not avail myself of his services.
[Illustration: CRUISERS PENNSYLVANIA AND COLORADO Copyright, 1905,
by John W. Dawson]
“When I sent my plans and our price for the deepening of the vessel
to the Secretary, he immediately awarded us the contract for
deepening ours (the ‘Yazoo’), and accepted our price, and notified
the eighteen other people that he would give them the same price for
deepening theirs. The other contractors would not accept my price,
and they denounced me for not having put a ‘higher price on the
job,’ when I had the opportunity to do so. I told them that I had
estimated that we would make 30 per cent. profit, and I contended
that that was enough, notwithstanding we were under the influence of
war prices, and that I had been delegated to do what I considered
was right. In other words, I held that the Secretary had placed me
upon honor.
“These eighteen other builders ultimately got higher prices than we
did. They made all sorts of claims to the government through their
representatives, and made life a burden to the Secretary by showing,
or endeavoring to show, him that wages were higher everywhere else
in the localities where these vessels were built than they were in
Philadelphia.
“In fact, every one of the other builders ultimately received higher
prices than we did, and later on some were awarded additional sums
by act of Congress, notwithstanding that the drawings,
specifications, plans, and designs for the alterations were made by
me without pay! without even thanks!
“Subsequently the Department decided not to alter all alike, and
about one-half of them were finished without the turrets, and the
big guns were taken out, thereby relieving their builders of the
necessity of making them deeper. The decks were finished, and they
were designated as a sort of torpedo boat for harbor defence. These
vessels, as altered according to my recommendations, would have been
efficient factors in the operations in the southern waters if the
war had not ended before they were finished.
“The ‘Sub-Department’ in New York, with all its investitures and
appointments, was abandoned, and the Navy Department took up the
monitor matter from that time onward. But the mischief had been
done. The service had been debauched and the Treasury robbed of
millions, which an intelligent policy from the start might have
saved.
“During the alterations on the ‘Yazoo,’ the Chester light-draught
monitor was sent to our place to be altered. Notwithstanding she had
been finished with the reduced weights recommended by Mr. Stimers,
she still continued defective, and was sent to our yard to be
altered according to my new plan.
“As it was necessary to raise the turret in order to raise the deck,
and as we were compelled to haul the vessel out of the water, we
took the guns out of the turret and proceeded to remove it also.
Hoisting out the guns was an easy accomplishment, but the removal of
the turret was a difficult problem.
“At first sight, cutting out the rivets and bolts, taking apart and
rebuilding it, appeared the most feasible. This, however, was an
expensive transaction. After careful investigation, we concluded
that it could be hauled off the ship on to the dock on sliding-ways
if the work was done with the greatest rapidity with the best men at
it. The removal of guns and turret to the dock was successfully
accomplished.
“On account of the great cost due to occupying a dry-dock long
enough to make the change, it was determined to haul her out on
sliding-ways, reversing the process of launching, and that without
using a coffer-dam for laying the ground-ways.
“The vessel was hauled out by the use of six 12-inch falls, two of
which were attached to end of upper ways, two to a chain that passed
around the stem extending to amidships, the ends lashed to the ship
just above high-water mark, and the other two to holes in the bow
made for the purpose.
“When the six large ‘crabs’ were started with all of the men that
could be put on them, they never stopped until the vessel was
entirely out of the water, taking a day and a night for the
operation.
“This was by all odds the heaviest vessel ever hauled out on ways in
this country, and, in view of the simplicity of its preparations and
the limited cost, was one of the great achievements of the time
occupied by the Civil War. But little or no notice was taken of it
by the papers, as battles lost and won were the sensation of the
day.
“While the craze for constructing monitors had possession of the
country, the government built nothing else in the way of armored
vessels.
“Mr. Lenthall and Mr. Isherwood, who was on Mr. Lenthall’s staff at
that time, had no power to antagonize the monitor craze
successfully, and a large one of wood was ordered to be built in
each navy-yard, to be designed by the constructor of that particular
yard as far as the hulls were concerned. But little money of the
vast expenditures of the navy during the war was devoted to other
iron-clad constructions than that of the monitor class.
“The ‘Miantonomah,’ which was one of these vessels built in one of
the navy-yards and designed by the constructor at the navy-yard in
which she was built, was sent to Russia under command of Commodore
John Rodgers with Assistant Secretary Fox, as Special Envoy to
convey to the Emperor certain congratulations. The idea was that the
government of Russia would construct a number of large monitors. The
trip, so far as that was concerned, was a failure. Commodore
Rodgers, who went in command, was formerly in command of one of the
original monitors which had been engaged in the contests before
Charleston, and also in the Savannah sounds in the Civil War, and he
was one of the strongest of the captains in favor of that type. As a
rule, the captains and other officers were all adverse to them.
“While the Navy Department and Naval Committee of Congress were
favorable to the monitor type, Messrs. Lenthall and Isherwood were
against it; but they were very backward in doing or in recommending
anything else, and permitted themselves to be overlooked. In view of
this negligence on their part, it was argued that it was better to
try to do something, even if it turned out wrong, than to do nothing
at all.”
ORIGIN OF FAST CRUISERS.
“On account of the heavy loss of our ships captured by the
Confederate cruisers, and our failures to capture any of them with
the exception of the ‘Alabama,’ which was accidentally discovered
and destroyed by the ‘Kearsarge,’ our Navy Department conceived it
necessary to have constructed a number of very fast cruisers, faster
than any known afloat.
“The Department delegated Messrs. Stimers and Allen, when in the
height of their power in their ‘Sub-Department’ in New York, to
design and have them constructed.
“Not being naval architects, and not having any naval architect of
competent knowledge in connection with their ‘Sub-Department,’ but
having an exalted idea of their own abilities not only as naval
architects and engineers, and everything else in that direction,
they designed some ships of a peculiarly fantastic model, and
engines of equally fanciful character which they called, for short,
the ‘grasshopper engine.’
“Having the power to design these vessels and contract for them,
they invited me to inspect the plans and build two of them.
“On looking over these designs, I began to criticise them, and
recommended modifications.
“I was wound up suddenly by the observation that, as they intended
to give us two ships and give us what they considered a fair price
for them, we must build them exactly as they were designed.
“As the price they offered was high, and feeling that we would
practically have our own way with them, provided we adhered to the
general type of design, and having no responsibility, we thought
that we had better take them and make a handsome sum out of them
than to stand out on trifles and fight for glory alone.
“I had commenced at the beginning of the war with criticising the
monitors, and our concern got nothing, and the grass might have been
growing in our yard if we adhered to that course. So the price was
fixed for these ships, and we were about going on, when the fatal
contretemps of the launching of the Boston light-draught monitor
occurred. The ‘fast cruiser’ contracts of Stimers and Allen were set
aside, and a large sum of money saved to the government. The ring
was broken. They who had had unlimited power heretofore suddenly
found themselves without the power to contract for a dingy.
“This was really a great disappointment to us and several other
contractors, because the price they fixed for the cruisers was
liberal, and, as they would not listen to suggestions, they were
naturally expected to take the responsibility.
“After the matter of the fast cruisers was taken out of the hands of
the ‘Sub-Department of the navy’ after the sinking of the Boston
monitor, the Navy Department ordered each of the four navy-yards to
design one on a scheme of general dimensions, and giving the engines
out by contract to the various engine-builders, the engines, with
two exceptions, being designed by Mr. Isherwood. The machinery for
the ‘Madawaska’ was designed by Ericsson!
“At the same time, to encourage private enterprise, one was given to
us, hull and machinery of our own design. We awarded the engines to
Merrick & Sons, who built them on their own designs. All of these
vessels were constructed of wood. Our ship was called the
‘Chattanooga,’ and that built at the Philadelphia Navy-Yard was
called the ‘Neshaminy.’
“The engines designed by Mr. Isherwood were geared, the propellers
making two and one-half revolutions to the engine’s one. When these
engines were designed, gearing was supposed to be an indispensable
necessity in screw-engine practice.
“The engines designed for the ‘Madawaska’ by Ericsson were of the
same design as that of the ‘Dictator,’ and would be considered of
fantastic character at the present time; that, however, might be
said of most marine engines of that period.
“Much was expected of the ‘Madawaska’s’ engines by Mr. Ericsson’s
friends, but after a trial of twenty minutes it was stopped, as the
crank-pin and main-bearing brasses ran out into the crank-pit before
they had attained their required performance.
“The engines were subsequently taken out and compound engines of
poor design were put in by parties who had never built a compound
engine before. The performance of these engines was but little
better than that of the original.
“Having been eminently successful in the introduction of compound
engines in this country, by the construction of four compound
engines for the American Line and one set for the ‘George W. Clyde’
of our own design, we made application to the government to
substitute the design of compound engines in place of the first set
of ‘Madawaska,’ but our offer was not accepted, unfortunately for
the government.
“All of these vessels were of good model, and all built according to
the latest improvements of the great ship-builders and contractors,
and the devices in the way of rigging, spars, and other outfit,
besides the model and general arrangements were from the stand-point
and designs of the naval constructor and ship-builder at the yard
where they were built. No ships in modern times have been superior
to them in design, construction, and ship-building technique. The
engines, however, were not up to the standard, and, no matter what
else may be said of them, they were much too small.
“Some time after these vessels were laid up, an effort was made by
private parties in New York to utilize them in a trans-Atlantic line
to carry the mail, and a proposition was made to the government
covering certain conditions under which they could be operated. The
proposition meeting a favorable consideration, an exhaustive
examination of the engines was made by Mr. Norman Wheeler, of New
York. He found that the gearing of the driving-wheels and pinion had
been worn down five-eighths of an inch during their trials; the
project was abandoned, and the ships gradually disappeared.
“It has been stated that the ‘Wampanoag’ made her designed speed
from New York to Charleston in one trial.
“The British government was very much interested in this scheme of
building fast cruisers for our navy. Captain Bye-the-sea, who was
Naval Attaché of Great Britain, was ordered to investigate the
matter here. He decided to obtain the plans and drawings of the
‘Chattanooga,’ and applied to the Secretary of the Navy for his
approval. The Secretary sent a letter to us stating that, so far as
he was concerned, he had no objection. So we furnished Captain
Bye-the-sea with the drawings of the ‘Chattanooga’ in return for
some valuable information that he had, which we expected to utilize
in some construction of our Navy Department. We did not, however,
realize anything in that direction.
“The ‘Inconstant,’ built by the British government, was practically
the same model as that of the ‘Chattanooga,’ but with another deck
added to her, which gave her an entirely different appearance, and
which made her look a good deal heavier above the water than the
‘Chattanooga’ did, particularly as far as the stern was concerned.
“The ‘Wampanoag,’ one of the ships built at one of the navy-yards,
made what was designated as one quick trip from New York to
Charleston; but in doing so the teeth of the gearing were worn to
the extent of five-eighths of an inch, practically ruining her
usefulness for any future service. The vessel was laid up and never
sent to sea again.
“The ‘Chattanooga’ did not make a successful trial. The engines were
too small, and a long contest between the engine-builders and Mr.
Isherwood occurred over the construction of the machinery, ending in
the engine-builders making modifications, and the vessel was laid
up.
“As these ships were considered at that time too expensive to equip
for sea service in time of peace, they were laid up; being wooden
and very much neglected, they rotted at their wharves.
“The failure of these vessels to demonstrate the propriety of
building fast cruisers was due altogether to defective machinery and
to defective marine engineering as it generally existed at that date
in this country, and to the material of their construction being of
wood.”
EVOLUTION OF MODERN MARINE ENGINE.
“At that time a large majority of the marine engineers of the United
States were adherents of the paddle-wheel, walking-beam type of
engine, and nothing would do but that type of engine. That was
particularly the case in the city of New York.
“Philadelphia, at a very early period in the history of steam
propulsion, advocated the propeller engine, and as far as the
working of propeller engine was concerned, the degree of workmanship
and skill in its design attained there was never excelled in Europe
or America. These engines were generally small in power, and the
prejudices of the people were against them, particularly as all New
York ship-builders and marine engineers spoke of propeller engines
with the most profound contempt.
“Now and then some one in New York would build a propeller engine of
poor design which would prove disastrous, so in large enterprises
the walking-beam, side-wheel type of engine prevailed and was the
fashion.
“This was done to such a great extent that when the first line of
steamships was established between Philadelphia and Charleston,
side-wheel engines were put in them by parties who had a great deal
of interest with the management of the steamship company.
“In fact, it was this craze for the walking-beam engine and
side-wheels in New York which ruined us as a steamship building
country, and was one of the many causes for the supremacy in ocean
commerce that Great Britain ultimately attained.
“After the government had stopped the subsidy, the Collins Line,
which was run at an enormous expense, was withdrawn. We were
completely out of the business. The influence of Philadelphia, as we
had no large ships or large steamship companies, was not listened
to.
“Rather than adopt the propeller and go to Philadelphia to have the
engines built, steamship owners in New York permitted the whole
steamship business, together with all the foreign trade, to go to
foreign countries. The British began early to establish large
machine shops and to perfect the propeller engine. Though slow, they
were sure.
“There was not a time in the history of steam navigation that we did
not feel that we could equal or even excel the English builders of
propeller steamships that were coming to this country. But, as I
said before, we could not induce the New York merchants to embark in
the enterprise.
“I am sure that if we had abandoned the side-wheel and commenced
with the propeller at the time the British did and continued with
steadfastness, we never would have lost it.
“The ships of this country were right, of the best form and model,
and they were in advance of anything in Great Britain, as far as
hull construction and design were concerned; but, while the
ship-builders in New York were among the greatest in the world, the
builders of marine engines there were the poorest in the world.
“When it was discovered that the propeller steamship was in every
respect the best and had come to stay, it was too late to try to
recover our trade.
“The construction of monitors and machinery during the latter end of
the war was very demoralizing, and had its effect upon naval
constructions long after the war was over.
“The Construction Department, which had not shown much enterprise
during the war, had become very much deteriorated, and the system
was inaugurated, principally by Mr. Isherwood, which exists at the
present day, of dividing the executive department into many bureaus;
and, to strengthen their heads and give them power, it was also
provided that the appointment of these heads of bureaus should be
made by the President and confirmed by the Senate, thus making the
Senate a coördinate factor in their existence, and the heads of
bureaus independent of the Secretary of the Navy.
“This was started, as I said before, by Mr. Isherwood, who was on
Mr. Lenthall’s staff. He organized the Bureau of Steam Engineering
as an independent bureau, not subordinate to the Secretary, and
having its head appointed by the President and confirmed by the
Senate. Of course he was made its Engineer-in-Chief.”
That being started, other bureaus as they practically exist at present,
the heads of which are independent of the Secretary, were established
the same way. A great deal of friction occurred between the various
branches of the Navy Department at that time, the effects of which
continued for a good while. Nothing was built by the government,
although the Secretary of the Navy had full power to do practically as
he pleased with the appropriations. The appropriations in Congress at
that time were made in bulk, and the Secretary could give vessels out by
private contract or build them in the navy-yards.
Some few vessels involving antique ideas were started in the navy-yards
and were principally of wood. The engines were contracted for by the
various engine-builders of the United States. They were constructed
practically on one general design.
On account of some irregularities and misunderstandings in the way of
giving out contracts and certain favoritisms, together with the
jealousies and bickerings of the various heads of the Departments and
officers of the Navy, Congress became more and more exacting in their
appropriations, until at last nothing was done in the Navy Department
without a special appropriation for the particular purpose.
At the end of the Civil War in 1865, a large number of United States
vessels under contract were uncompleted. In some cases, notably of the
monitor type, work was immediately suspended upon them, and settlements
were made after long and tedious delays. The Cramp concern, as already
mentioned, had one vessel in hand under these conditions, the
first-class fast cruiser “Chattanooga;” but the government provided for
her completion, which was carried out, and her delivery concluded the
relations of Mr. Cramp to the navy of the Civil War.
[Illustration: CRUISER COLUMBIA]
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CHAPTER III
Foreign Commerce in 1865—The “Clyde” and “George W. Clyde,” and
Introduction of Compound Engines—Commerce of 1870—Merchant
Marine—Lynch Committee—Mr. Cramp and Committee—Lynch Bill—American
Steamship Company—Visit to British Shipyards—John Elder—British
Methods—Interchange of Methods—Merchant Marine continued—Dingley
Bill—Defects—Act of 1891, Providing Registry for Foreign Ships—“St.
Louis” and “St. Paul”—Extract from _Forum_—Remarks on
Article—Committee of Ship-builders and Owners—New Bill Introduced by
Frye and Dingley—North Atlantic Traffic Association—New
Ship-yards—Tactics of North Atlantic Traffic Association—Our
Navigation Laws, _North American Review_—Mr. Whitney—Unfriendly
Legislation—Mr. Whitney’s Letter—Effects of Letter—Mr. Cramp’s Letter
to Committee of Merchant Marine—International Mercantile Marine.
THE return of peace in 1865 found the country without sea-commerce
either coastwise or foreign. Such ships as had not been taken up by the
government had, with the exception of a few whaling-vessels in the
Pacific Ocean, been transferred to foreign flags to save them from the
ravages of Confederate pirates or cruisers which, to all intents and
purposes, so far as construction, armament, equipment, and crews were
concerned, were nothing but British privateers in disguise. In the mean
time England had taken every advantage of the situation, and by 1865 had
practically absorbed all the magnificent ocean-carrying trade which the
United States enjoyed prior to 1860. American ship-building was at a
stand-still. The government at once threw upon the market all the ships
which it had taken up for gun-boats, auxiliary cruisers, transports,
etc., during the war. They were sold for anything that they would bring,
and they were bought up as a speculation by new companies unfamiliar
with the shipping business, and as a consequence they all failed. The
ships were obsolete or worn out and soon passed out of existence.
Certain coastwise lines continued to do a small business, but little or
no attempt was made to restore our foreign trade; first, because none of
the vessels which the government threw on the market were in a condition
to undertake it; and, second, because, in consequence of the inflated
prices of everything, any attempt to compete either in seafaring labor
or material with England would have been absurd. Besides this, the whole
energy and capital of the country were immediately directed to an
extraordinary expansion of railway systems, so that the attention of the
people was entirely diverted from the sea and fixed upon the interior.
For the next five or six years little or no ship-building of any
description was done anywhere in the United States.
It was at this time that the Cramp Company considered it indispensable
to attach engine building to the construction of hulls, as no
satisfactory arrangement could be made to secure accurate performance
that involved two independent and diverse handicrafts in the
undertaking. They secured the services as engineer of Mr. J. Shields
Wilson, whose training in the I. P. Morris Company, and at Neafie &
Levy’s works had demonstrated his fitness for the post, and as to whose
methods they were familiar.
One of the first achievements of the new enterprise was the design and
construction of the compound engines for the “George W. Clyde,” finished
in the spring of 1872, the first present accepted type of compound
marine engines built in America. Immediately following them in 1873 and
1874 were the four ships for the American Line, the “Pennsylvania,”
“Ohio,” “Indiana,” and “Illinois.”
The “George W. Clyde” was built for Thomas Clyde, who was the first
ship-owner to introduce screw propulsion in ocean commerce in the United
States by building the twin-screw steamship, the “John S. McKim,” built
in 1844, which he used in the trade of the Gulf of Mexico and as a
transport when the war with Mexico occurred.
Having built the first screw steamship, the “John S. McKim,” and the
first steamship with compound engines, the “George W. Clyde,” Mr. Clyde
responded with alacrity to the recommendations of Mr. Cramp in favor of
the use of the triple-expansion engines by building the “Cherokee.”
The “Mascott” for Mr. Plant was built at the same time.
Mr. Clyde had formed the acquaintance of Mr. Ericsson soon after his
arrival in this country in 1839, just before the “John S. McKim” was
constructed, and became an early convert to his fascinations in
exploiting the superior merits of screw propulsions over every other.
The “John S. McKim” and engines were designed by Mr. Ericsson, and built
near Front and Brown Streets, Philadelphia.
Mr. Jacob Neafie, of Reaney, Neafie & Co., celebrated engine builders,
who began business soon after by constructing propeller engines, had
considerable practical experience in the construction of the “John S.
McKim’s” engines before Reaney, Neafie & Co. had started business.
Mr. Ericsson had early secured the friendship of Commodore Stockton, and
had a boat built for towing purposes by the celebrated ship-builders
Lairds, of Berkenhead, called the “R. F. Stockton.” Commodore Stockton
had been already biased in favor of screw propulsion on account of the
invention of the screw propeller as it practically exists to-day by John
Stevens in 1803. Mr. Stevens was the head and front of the organization
of the bay, river, and canal navigation between the two great cities of
New York and Philadelphia, of which Commodore Stockton was a member.
The successful introduction of screw propulsion in the United States was
certainly owing to the combined efforts of Stevens, Ericsson, and Clyde.
Mr. Clyde was always to the front where new improvements were to be
made.
The Cramp Company, having taken the lead in these new departures in
engine construction at the beginning, have continued to remain there.
They have ceased to construct wooden vessels, sail or steam, since the
construction of the “Clyde,” of iron. This vessel was for Mr. Thomas
Clyde, and preceded the “G. W. Clyde.”
By 1870 the deplorable state of the American merchant marine attracted
the attention of the Administration and Congress. The House of
Representatives organized a select committee to investigate the causes
of its decline, with instructions to submit in its report suggestion or
recommendation of remedy. This is known in Congressional history as the
“Lynch Committee,” from its Chairman, the Honorable John R. Lynch,
Member of Congress, of Maine. This committee surveyed the situation
exhaustively, taking the statements of a large number of ship-owners and
ship-builders, and while there was considerable divergence of views as
to the sum-total of causes, there was little or no diversity of opinion
as to the most immediate and effective remedy.
This committee, after thorough investigation and mature deliberation,
reported that, in view of the policy of foreign maritime nations,
particularly Great Britain, in the way of subsidies and other methods of
aiding and promoting their merchant marines, it would be impossible for
American ship-owners to compete with them in the absence of similar
expedients on the part of our own government. In other words, the Lynch
Committee reported in effect that the primary requisite toward a
resurrection of the American merchant marine would be the adoption of a
policy of subvention, or, as it is commonly termed, subsidy.
However, while the Lynch Committee was logical in its suggestion or
recommendation of remedy, its investigations, so far as the sum-total of
the causes of decline were concerned, and its estimate of those causes
were incomplete and inconclusive, because it started out with the dogma
that the then existing depression of the merchant marine was due wholly
to the ravages of the war; and it did not take into account the
correlative or co-operative facts of the situation, which were much
broader and deeper in their application and effect than the mere
suspension or destruction of our merchant marine by the war itself. In
other words, the Lynch Committee failed to grasp or appreciate the fact
that, while the war was wrecking our sea-going commerce, foreign
maritime powers, and particularly the English, were making the most
gigantic efforts not only to take the place of our ruined trade, but
also to provide for a perpetuity of the substitution, so that at any
time between the close of the war and the investigations of the Lynch
Committee it had become impossible for an American ship-owner to operate
a ship or a line of ships in any route of ocean traffic. By means of
liberal subsidies under the guise of mail pay, the British had in the
interim covered every sea-road and appropriated every channel of ocean
commerce. This fact the Lynch Committee seems to have ignored, although
it was really the prime factor in the situation, as it stood in 1870.
Mr. Cramp, in his statement before the Lynch Committee, went altogether
out of the beaten path pursued by most of the other ship-builders or
ship-owners who appeared. He said in effect that while the Civil War had
been an immediate cause of the destruction of our merchant marine as it
existed at the beginning of that struggle, still that was purely a
physical cause, and in the absence of other causes need not operate
after the war ended.
He called attention to the fact that the war had now been ended five
years, but that the condition of our merchant marine, particularly in
foreign trade, remained as pitiable as it had been in the height of the
struggle. This he said argued the existence of other and more lasting
causes than the simple destruction by war, whether by the government
taking up our merchant-ships for its own use, or by the transfer of a
great many of them to foreign flags to get the benefit of neutrality, or
by the actual depredations of Anglo-Confederate privateers.
He explained that during our misfortune the English took every advantage
in the way of appropriating to themselves and to their own ships the
traffic which our ships had formerly carried; that when the war closed,
they had absolute command of the ocean-carrying trade, our own as well
as theirs.
He said that not only did the British government subsidize and otherwise
aid their ships and ship-owners, but that they also brought to bear all
the tremendous resources of their navy to help and encourage British
ship-builders. Notwithstanding her enormous and well-equipped public
dock-yards, the English government built a very large percentage of its
hull construction in private shipyards, and not only that, but _all_
their marine-engine work was let out by contract to private
engine-builders, mainly independent establishments.
He stated that the result of this policy had been to develop the
industry of marine engine building in Great Britain to a degree unknown
anywhere else in the world.
On the contrary, our own government had done little for its navy since
the war, and what little it had done had been carried out entirely in
navy-yards.
This not only deprived private ship-building of the kind of aid and
encouragement which England lavished upon her private shipyards and
engine-shops, but the navy-yards themselves were a constant menace to
the good order and content of mechanics working in private shipyards.
Moreover, he said that the same class of mechanics who, immediately
prior to the war, worked for $1.75 a day, now (1870) demanded and
received $3.00 to $3.50 a day; whereas ship-building wages remained the
same in England as in 1860.
He warned the committee that the day of wooden ships, particularly
steamships, was past, and that the iron ship had come to stay, not only
in England but everywhere else in the world.
He said that to enable the business of building iron ships and heavy
marine machinery to become firmly established in this country, a very
large amount of manufacturing machinery must be supplied, and in view of
the present outlook no one would invest any considerable amount of
capital in that direction without assurance of some aid and
encouragement from the government similar to that which England rendered
to her ship-building industry.
He then dwelt at considerable length upon the demoralization among
mechanics produced by the government’s policy in confining its naval
construction to the navy-yards.
He reviewed briefly the struggle between the Cunard and Collins Lines
prior to 1858, and showed conclusively that the downfall of the American
Collins Line was due to the persistent and constantly increasing
subsidies lavished by the British government upon the Cunard Line, which
our government in 1858 met by withdrawing the Collins subsidy and giving
them instead the sea and inland postage on mail matter actually carried.
In this respect he said Congress indirectly came to the aid of the
Cunard Line and helped it to overthrow the Collins Line. He hoped that
the committee would give these particular facts their earnest attention.
He said that they did not require deep or intricate investigation,
because they were matters of common notoriety, known to everybody who
was at all conversant with the commercial history of the country.
The admission of material for building iron ships free of duty, he said,
would be an advantage, of course, and many believed that if our
ship-builders could be relieved from the tariff and get their material
free they could compete successfully with foreign builders; but the
difference in wages was too great to be entirely overcome by the mere
admission of materials duty free. As for materials, he would always
prefer American iron for the construction of ships to foreign iron,
provided it could be got at the same, or very nearly the same, price.
There were many inconveniences, he said, attendant upon sending abroad
for iron plates. He informed the committee that it was necessary to get
the form of every plate and have it sketched before it was ordered, and
if, after doing that, we must send abroad to have them made, very great
inconvenience and delay would result.
This statement of Mr. Cramp before the Lynch Committee, of which the
foregoing is only a synopsis, was really the key-note to all subsequent
argument in favor of government aid to American ship-building and
ship-owning. It presented the matter in a new light, or a light which
was new in 1870.
[Illustration: ARMORED CRUISER BROOKLYN]
It might be remarked here, in referring to his statement that “the form
of every plate must be sketched before it is ordered, etc.,” that Mr.
Cramp himself was the originator of that system in this country, a
system of ordering plates sheared to sizes at the mill. (See “American
Marine,” W. W. Bates.) Until he established this innovation, plates for
building iron vessels had been rolled as nearly as possible to the sizes
required and then sheared and trimmed at the shipyard. This itself was a
very remarkable and striking innovation, and was immediately taken up by
all iron ship-builders in the country, and is now the universal
practice.
The legislative result of the first effort of Congress to take
cognizance of the condition of the merchant marine was the bill
introduced by Mr. Lynch, February 17, 1870.
Mr. Lynch’s bill, although it may be described as the pioneer effort for
the resurrection of the American merchant marine, proposed in concise
form and plain, easily comprehensible terms, without any unnecessary
verbiage or circumlocution, as practical and as sensible a system of
subvention as has ever been put forward since. It was comprehensive in
its scope, universal in its application, and liberal in its provisions.
Later bills, more elaborately framed and more diffuse in their verbiage,
have hardly improved upon the simple matter of fact form in which Mr.
Lynch embodied his proposed policy.
This was the beginning of a Parliamentary war between American
ship-owners on the one hand and the influence of foreign steamship
companies on the other; a war which has at this writing lasted more than
thirty years.
One subsidy was granted by Congress at this early date, that of the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company; but hardly had that subsidy begun to
operate, when an exposure of certain methods by which it was procured
brought about a great public scandal, which for the time-being put a
peremptory end to the whole policy.
Whether the charge that the Pacific Mail subsidy was obtained by corrupt
methods was true or not, the means in obtaining it were no more corrupt
than those which have been employed by foreign steamship interests to
defeat legislation in Congress favorable to American shipping from time
to time ever since.
Notwithstanding these discouraging conditions, a group of Pennsylvania
capitalists formed “the American Steamship Company,” and decided in 1871
to try the experiment of an American Line to Liverpool. They contracted
with the Cramp firm for four first-class steamships, to be superior in
sea speed, comfort, and other desirable qualities to any foreign
steamship then in service. These four ships were designed by Mr. Cramp,
and built under his superintendence between 1871 and 1873 inclusive, and
were put in service under the names of the “Indiana,” “Illinois,”
“Pennsylvania,” and “Ohio,” now commonly known as the old American Line.
That these ships were designed with the highest degree of ability and
constructed with the utmost skill is sufficiently attested by the fact
that they are all in serviceable condition at this writing (1903), over
thirty years old. These ships broke the record in speed which was held
by the “City of Brussels,” and consumed less than half of the coal in
doing it.
As soon as the construction of these ships had been awarded to his
Company, Mr. Cramp determined to examine the conditions of marine-engine
development abroad, and with that object in view sailed immediately for
Europe. His narrative of the trip and its results are as follows:
VISIT TO BRITISH SHIPYARDS.
“When the organization of the Company was perfected, the compound
engine as developed by John Elder had made its appearance, and a
fierce opposition to its introduction was made by engine-builders in
Great Britain generally.
“Its advocates were among the ablest engineers in that country,
foremost among whom was Mr. MacFarland Gray, whose unassailable
attitude in its favor in the columns of ‘Engineering’ vindicated its
claims and successfully established its introduction. While the idea
was an old one and had been introduced before Watt’s time, it
failed, as most improvements do when they do not get into proper
hands to be developed.
“To John Elder belongs the credit of its permanent and practical
introduction into ocean navigation, and but little improvement has
been made in his work up to this time.
“Mr. B. H. Bartol, who occupied a high position for intelligence and
sagacity in the business world and as a practical marine engineer of
the highest attainments, was one of the directors of the new
steamship company, and, desiring that the ships should be in advance
of the times, he recommended that I should go to Great Britain and
make an exhaustive examination of the compound-engine question.
“Mr. J. Shields Wilson, who had been selected by me as the engineer
of our Company, which had recently added engine building as a
department of its business, accompanied me. Mr. Wilson had already
gone very deep into the investigation of the compound question, and
had acquired a strong bias in its favor; and he had already designed
the compound engines for the ‘George W. Clyde.’
“Mr. Bartol recommended the steamship company to appropriate $10,000
to pay our expenses in the investigation, arguing that the money
could not be spent in a better way, and that they could not get
another party better equipped than we were to undertake it. He also
stated that he would oppose the construction of any steamers until
he became convinced that they would be of the most advanced type in
everything that pertains to most modern requirements.
“The money was promptly appropriated, and with Mr. Wilson I took
passage in the ‘Italy,’ the first trans-Atlantic steamer with
compound engines of John Elder’s make and type, whose reported
performance in economical coal consumption was considered at that
time marvellous.
“We soon made the acquaintance of the chief engineer of the ship,
whose name also was Wilson, and Mr. Wilson practically lived with
him. He was permitted to take cards under varying conditions, and
secured an accurate account of coal consumption and of all other
matters likely to be of interest.
“When we arrived at Liverpool, we visited the Lairds’, being the
first English shipyard that either of us had ever visited.
“We then visited every great marine engine and ship-building works
on the Thames and Clyde, beginning with the Thames, whose shipyards
at that time stood higher in the _art_ of ship-building and in the
proficiency of marine-engine construction than the Clyde shipyards.
When we started on our tour we determined to adhere to a fixed
policy and procedure wherever we went, which was to frankly praise
whatever we thought deserving of it and to adversely criticise
whatever we thought deserved such criticism; and particularly to
make no secret of the principal object of our visit.
“Our Company was practically unknown then in Great Britain, and
steamship building was supposed to be an unknown art in America; but
we were received with much cordiality and frankness, probably from
mere curiosity, if nothing else.
“Fortunately for us, we visited the works of Mr. Zamuda first, where
a capable engineer was delegated to show us around. It having been
noticed that we had registered our names, one as ship-builder and
constructor and the other as marine engineer, the Superintendent was
anxious to have our dimensions taken. There was no time wasted, and
our questions and remarks covering everything in sight or in the
field of ship-building methods were showered on him in a deluge. He
had expected to get through with us in a very short time, thinking
that a sort of perfunctory visit ‘in one door and out at the
opposite’ would be sufficient; but finding that he had been
mistaken, he sent a boy out with a note and soon received an answer.
We spent the greater part of the morning there. When it became noon,
he explained that he had sent a note out to Mr. Zamuda, stating that
we were well up in everything pertaining to the business, etc. Mr.
Zamuda’s reply was to send us in to him when we were through. He
received us with much consideration and politeness, invited us to
take luncheon with him, and devoted much time to questions as to
wages of workmen, materials, and where they were secured, prices,
character of output, etc.
“When he found that we were doing considerable in the way of iron
ship-building, principally coastwise, he was much astonished to know
that most of the workmen as well as Mr. Wilson and myself were
native to the soil, and he had much to say on the subject.
“When he had finished with us, and after we had informed him of the
purpose of our visit and that we wanted to see the principal
shipyards in the country, he stated that he would facilitate our
purpose by giving us letters to the Superintendents of the principal
places; explaining that they would take time to show us what was
worth seeing, while, if we went to the office, we would only be
hurried through in a careless manner.
“It was due to this act of kindness on his part that our visits
afterward were so successful in the acquisition of valuable
information, and as to the generous hospitalities that we received.
We visited first the Thames Iron Works, John Penn & Sons, Mandsleys,
and others. From the Thames we went direct to the Clyde, where we
visited the Thompsons, the Lairds, Tod and McGregor, John Inglis,
Elders, and some others.
“The consensus of opinion of the different shipyards on the subject
of compound engines was, as a rule, unfavorable. We found that the
opposition was principally due to the fact that the change from the
old type to the new involved important and radical modifications in
the constructions of boilers and of engines, so they hesitated to
discard their old plans, patterns, and methods, the value of which
they were sure of, and to grope into an unknown field of augmented
costliness.
“Of course, these arguments to us were not convincing, and as we
advanced to the north we found ourselves quite biassed in favor of
the new type. Whatever doubts we may have had up to the time of our
arrival at the Fairfield Works, they were forever removed when we
visited their magnificent erecting shop. We saw there _thirteen
compound engines_ in various states of completion, with their
various parts ready for assembling, some about ready for
installation in the ship, the whole exhibiting everything in the way
of finish and arrangement both in their various parts and in the
whole erection. Up to this time we had encountered engines of the
oscillating type, the trunk, the plain vertical, and horizontal in
every varying form and construction. It was the same old story,—an
old one before we left home; and now, without any preparation
whatever for it, this vision of thirteen actualities of the new
departure burst upon our view. We spent the entire day there, the
Superintendent affording us every opportunity to examine the parts
and discuss the subject. We found as much novelty in the boiler
construction as in the engine.
“An old Philadelphia boiler had made its appearance here as ‘the
Scotch Boiler’; this differed from the old one only in the thickness
of the plates, due to the necessities of the use of higher steam.
“After this there was nothing to be seen, and we hastened home, and
in a very short time the Elder type of compound engines was under
construction for our new ships practically before any of the various
shipyards in Great Britain other than John Elders’ took hold of
them.
“To John Elder belongs the entire credit of introducing and
perfecting the compound engine, and there has been but little
improvement in his work up to this time. MacFarland Gray at that
time was a persistent advocate of this engine, and his work on
‘Engineering’ was of great value. He took especial pains to aid us
in our investigations.
“This trip was a most useful one besides the investigation of
compound engines; it gave us an opportunity of examining every
method pertaining to hull construction and equipment there, and to
discuss all of the problems and methods belonging to it.
“Two great changes in mechanical method and practice in certain
details of engine building took place in Great Britain as a result
of our visit, and the arrival of the ‘Pennsylvania,’ the first of
the American Line; although we took no active measures in that
direction.
“We found during this trip that the art of flanging boiler-plates in
Great Britain was entirely unknown, and that all British
boiler-heads were secured to the side plates and to the furnace ends
by means of angle bars in the corners, a crude and primitive method
of construction. It was impossible for us to understand this
backwardness or ignorance on the part of the British, as the
flanging of boiler-heads had always prevailed here.
“We called the attention of the British builders generally to this
superiority in boiler construction, but little or no attention was
paid to what we said at that time; but when the four ships of the
new line arrived in Liverpool, draughtsmen from all quarters were
sent to make sketches of the boiler work, and of many other devices
new to them, besides the boiler construction, one of which was the
use of white metal in bearings and journals. This feature in the
engine construction the British had not taken up when we visited
their works.
“We can claim to have introduced boiler flanging and the use of
white metal in British ship construction on account of our
recommendations, and the practical illustration of their utility on
the arrival of the ships of the American Line.
“The builders there, however, were very slow in the general adoption
of these methods. At first boiler-heads were delivered at
engine-works flanged by the mills that made the plates, and Sampson
Fox added boiler flanging to his business of making corrugated
furnaces. Having seen a boiler furnished with corrugated furnaces by
Sampson Fox in England, I introduced them in two yachts built for
George Osgood and Charles Osbourne, the first furnaces of the kind
in America. These yachts were known as the ‘Corsair’ and the
‘Stranger.’”
The construction of the four pioneer ships went on as it had begun,
without promise of aid from the government, which steadily maintained
its attitude of neglect as to the national merchant marine, while
hundreds upon hundreds of millions in the shape of guarantee bonds and
public land grants were poured out by the Congress in favor of western
railroads, but not one dollar for the merchant marine.
Still, notwithstanding these discouraging conditions, Mr. Cramp did not
abate in the slightest degree his endeavors to keep the needs of the
country in the direction of a national merchant marine before Congress
and the public. A compilation of the articles he published and of his
statements before the committees of both Houses of Congress would, on
the whole, fill several volumes like this one. It is therefore
impracticable to reproduce here the actual text of his arguments and his
expositions.
Newspaper organs of the foreign steamship interests published in this
country denounced him as a “subsidy beggar” and other like epithets,
which was all that they had to offer in answer to his deductions and
arguments; but even that did not disturb the even tenor of his way.
Finally, in the Forty-seventh Congress, a joint select committee of
three Senators and six Representatives was organized, of which Nelson
Dingley, of Maine, was chairman; and this organization led to the
formation of a new standing committee of the House known as the
Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Mr. Dingley’s committee
spent an entire summer in going from point to point on the sea-board and
taking testimony and statements of all classes of business men
interested in any way or informed to any responsible degree as to the
condition of the merchant marine and as to the possible or probable
means to bring about its resurrection.
The investigation of the Dingley Committee led to the formulation of a
comprehensive measure known as the “Dingley Shipping Bill.” It was
thoroughly and exhaustively discussed through three Congresses, until
finally, in the last hours of the short session of the Congress ending
March 4, 1891, a bill was passed providing for a meagre and wholly
insufficient subsidy in the shape of special pay for carrying the ocean
mails of the United States. This bill was not only meagre in its
provisions, but it was not comprehensive in its application. It did not
result in any immediate increase of foreign tonnage. The following year,
however, Mr. Cramp, in a spirit of meeting the free-ship people
half-way, agreed to a compromise which provided that certain ships of
foreign (British) registry might be admitted to American registry,
provided their owners would contract to build two ships of equal class
and tonnage in the United States. This was the act by virtue of which
the English steamships “New York” and “Paris,” belonging to the
International Navigation Company, an American corporation and owned by
American capital, were brought under the American flag, and the “St.
Louis” and “St. Paul” were contracted for and built to meet the
condition imposed by this law.
The principal dimensions and qualities of these ships are as follows:
Length between perpendiculars, 535 feet 8 inches.
Length over all, 554 feet 2 inches.
Extreme beam, 62 feet 9 inches.
Depth from first deck to flat keel, 42 feet 4 inches.
Depth of hold for tonnage amidships, 23 feet 2 inches.
Height of bow above water-line at load draught, 39 feet.
Number of decks, 5.
Number of water-tight compartments exclusive of ballast tanks, 12.
Gross register, 10,700 tons.
Load displacement (about), 15,600 tons.
Dimensions of main dining-saloon, 109 feet 4 inches by 46 feet.
Dimensions of second cabin, 39 feet 6 inches by 56 feet.
Seating capacity of main saloon, 322.
Seating capacity of second cabin, 208.
Berthing capacity of steerage (about), 900.
[Illustration: ARMORED CRUISER NEW YORK]
The propelling machinery is a pair of vertical inverted
quadruple-expansion engines, to carry a working steam-pressure of two
hundred pounds and develop from 18,000 to 20,000 collective indicated
horse-power. These are the largest and most powerful marine engines ever
built in America, and, as the principle of quadruple expansion has never
before been applied on so large a scale, its results in this case have
been watched with interest by the entire profession of marine
engineering.
Structurally, the art of naval architecture has been exhausted in their
design, and the skill of the best mechanics in the world was tried to
the utmost in their construction. Whatever may have been their
performance as to speed and time of passage, nothing is hazarded in
saying that in safety, seaworthiness, and comfort they are not surpassed
by anything afloat.
In the general public or patriotic sense the chief element of interest
in these ships is the fact that they represent the inception of an
effort to restore the prestige of the United States as a maritime
commercial power. The condition of affairs existing at the time the new
American Liners were projected was the culminating point of our
feebleness on the ocean.
The Act of 1891 was framed to expire by its own limitation in ten years
from its date. Taken in connection with the Act of 1892, already
referred to, it brought about the construction of two first-class
American trans-Atlantic greyhounds (the “St. Louis” and “St. Paul”).
Other companies or lines running to the West Indies, Mexico, and South
America were also stimulated to build a few new ships, but, generally
speaking, the effect of both these acts was limited, and produced no
serious impression for the better on the American merchant marine in
general.
This fact became evident very soon after these acts went into effect,
and it became clear that a broader and more comprehensive policy must be
adopted in the same direction if any great or lasting improvement of the
condition of our merchant marine was to be expected.
This led to the framing of a new act, thoroughly comprehensive in its
scope and universal in its application, on lines similar to those of the
Dingley Bill of 1882, but broader.
Prior to 1891, Mr. Cramp had confined the statements, deductions, and
arguments based upon his experience and observation wholly to hearings
before committees of Congress, with now and then a newspaper interview,
which in the nature of things must be transitory and soon forgotten. But
in the fall of 1891 he determined to place his knowledge before the
public in a more permanent form. This he began with a paper in the
_Forum_ for November of that year. The limits of this Memoir do not
admit of the reproduction of this paper in its entirety. It filled
sixteen pages of the _Forum_. The summary of the conclusion, however,
may be reproduced. After an exhaustive analysis of the existing
conditions and their causes, together with a survey of the probable
effects of the act approved the previous March (March 3, 1891), Mr.
Cramp summed up as follows:
“The commercial disadvantages resulting from a monopoly of our
ocean-carrying trade by foreign fleets attracted public attention
many years ago. From the first there was practical unanimity as to
the existence of these disadvantages, and a like concurrence in the
opinion that ‘something ought to be done’ to improve the situation;
but upon the question of remedy there have always been wide
divergences of view. It having been generally conceded that the
remedy must at least begin in national legislation, the dispute has
been simply as to what the character of that legislation should be.
A certain faction contended that nothing was required beyond a
simple repeal of the navigation laws, to permit the free importation
and registry of foreign-built vessels; and bills to that effect have
been introduced, and in many cases discussed, in nearly every
Congress since 1870. In no case has a bill of this character passed
both Houses of Congress, and but once has the measure received a
majority in either House. That was in the Forty-seventh Congress,
when a ‘Free Ship Amendment’ was proposed by Mr. Candler, of
Massachusetts,—a bitter opponent of American ship-building,—to what
was known as the ‘Dingley Shipping Bill,’ and Mr. Candler’s
amendment was attached to the bill by a small majority. The result
of this amendment was to kill the bill. It is not my purpose to
discuss the merits of this proposition, further than to say that
whatever increase in American tonnage might accrue from it would be
gained at the expense of the destruction of American ship-building.
That may be set down as an axiom to be observed as a necessary
factor in every discussion of the subject. As pointed out at the
beginning of this paper, the ship-building industry in Great Britain
has been developed to such enormous proportions, and the facilities
of construction enlarged to such a scale, that our own comparatively
few and feeble shipyards would be instantly overwhelmed in the
competition the moment our market was thrown open to them to unload
their old and worn-out wares on American ‘bargain-hunters.’
“This fact is now so well understood, that I think there is no
hazard in saying that a large majority of the best minds of all
parties are convinced that the experiment of trying to augment our
merchant marine by a policy calculated to destroy our ship-building
industry would not be conducive to the general public interests.
“The other mode of remedy advocated has been that of adopting, in
behalf of our own shipping, a policy similar to the one which has
produced such striking results elsewhere; that is to say, public
encouragement to the ownership and operation of American-built
vessels in the foreign trade. This subject has for many years
claimed a large share of the attention of Congress, commercial
organizations, and the press. Its discussion has taken a wide scope,
involving several exhaustive inquiries by congressional committees,
numerous petitions and resolutions from boards of trades and
chambers of commerce, with almost innumerable papers in the public
prints, and speeches in our public halls; the whole forming what may
be called the ‘Literature of our Merchant Marine.’ Its volume is so
vast, that but the barest reference to its details can be made here.
Suffice it to say, that it covers every conceivable point at issue;
and it has been so universally published, that no person of ordinary
intelligence and education can have excuse for ignorance or
misinformation on the subject.
“The results of this agitation and discussion have been bills in
Congress from time to time, providing for a more liberal and
enlightened policy on the part of the government toward the national
merchant marine. Some of these bills proposed special compensations
to particular lines for carrying the mails. Such bills have failed
in consequence of the objection that they involved the principle of
special legislation. Other measures proposed a general bounty based
upon tonnage and distance actually travelled in foreign trade. This
plan at the outset seemed more popular than any other, and there was
at one time strong probability of its enactment into law. But it
finally failed, partly on account of clashing of diverse interests,
and partly by reason of ‘party exigencies,’ real or supposed, in the
House of Representatives. It is hardly pertinent at this time to
point out the benefits that would have accrued, directly and
incidentally, to every branch of our national life and industry,
from a tonnage law properly administered. I have never hesitated,
and do not now hesitate, to declare that ten years of its operation
would result in placing our merchant marine in the foreign trade on
a footing second only to that of Great Britain in amount, and vastly
superior to it in character and quality of vessels. And I still hope
to see such a policy adopted at no distant day.
“I have gone into detail to this extent because it seemed necessary
to do so in order to show that, loud as has been the outcry of
‘subsidy’ raised against the act recently passed, it is still, as a
matter of fact, less liberal than existing provisions of the British
government for their own ships already in the trade to be competed
for.
“Thus far I have dealt with facts only; and I have been careful to
avoid any matter susceptible of controversy. In conclusion, I will
venture a few deductions of my own, based upon the foregoing
statements of simple facts. I will assume at the start that our
internal development of farms, workshops, mines, railways,
coastwise, lake, and river commerce, etc., has reached a point at
which capital has reached its zenith of profitable investment in
them, and must look for some new field, not only for further
original investment, but also for the protection or betterment of
investments already made. In my judgment, our energy and enterprise
during the last twenty-five years have exhausted all the large
chances of fortune within the boundaries of the United States. Our
existing industries of every description represent an enormous
volume of local ‘plant’ and productive organizations quite up to our
local requirements for some time; hence it is necessary to seek
outlets for an inevitable surplus of product, and, in default of
such outlet, there must be a plethora of production which is bound
to result in stagnation, or, in other words, national apoplexy. For
this there can be but one preventive, ‘an ounce’ of which is said on
traditional authority to be ‘worth a pound of cure,’ and that is in
the development and retention of external market outlets. It is my
opinion that we can never secure these until we can ourselves
command the avenues to them. Commerce has its ‘strategy’ no less
than war. In war, strategy depends on lines of operation and
communication. At this time we possess neither for either commerce
or war. Our great rival controls both in every sense of the word.
To-day we could not even defend our own coasts against her obsolete
iron-clads in war, and we cannot control our own foreign commerce as
against the poorest and least seaworthy of her myriad of ‘ocean
tramps.’ If, for any reason, she were to withdraw from our trade the
vessels which, by virtue of our acquiescence, do all our
trans-Atlantic fetching and carrying for us, our peerless nation
would be laid helpless under an embargo compared to which that of
Jefferson’s administration would be but a mere trifle of annoyance.
It has seemed strange to me that so little attention is paid to this
fact. What would our political independence be worth, if
circumstances, likely to occur at any moment, should visit upon us
the consequences of our commercial servitude to England? and in a
less, though still important, degree to Germany?
“This is a plain statement of fact that I do not think any
reasonable person will have the temerity to dispute. For the present
I have only to add, that we have done nothing as yet to lift this
yoke from our necks. It cannot be done except by restoring our
merchant marine and our naval power to their former status upon the
high seas. The attempts thus far made in that direction are but
feeble. I am not sanguine that they will be strong in our time, but
I hope so. It may be that this result will not come until we have
received a sterner lesson of our weakness and helplessness than any
one now anticipates.
“This pitiable condition on the ocean is emphasized by the contrast
of our unrivalled power, resource, and enterprise within our own
borders. It seems, indeed, the strangest anomaly of modern
civilization, that the most enlightened, most ambitious, most
energetic, most productive, and internally most powerful nation on
the globe should be externally among the weakest, most helpless, and
least respected.
“The sole remedy for this situation is ships with seamen to handle
them, whether for peace or for war; whether to carry our enormous
exports, and bring our immense imports, and receive therefor the
tremendous tolls which now flow into foreign coffers, or to
vindicate the majesty and power of our flag abroad in the world to a
degree befitting our status in the community of nations.
“There is no lack of raw material, no lack of skill to fashion it
into the instruments of commerce. We have the iron and the steel; we
have the men to work them into the finished forms of stately ships;
we have the money to promote the most colossal of enterprises by
sea. All we need is assurance of a steady national policy of liberal
and enlightened encouragement, based upon a patriotic common
consent, and elevated above the turmoils of politics or the
squabbles of parties. One decade of such a policy would make us
second only to Great Britain on the high seas, either for commerce
or for defence; and two decades of it would bring us fairly into the
twentieth century as the master maritime power of the globe.”
These observations, though written and printed in 1891, are as true and
pertinent now as they were then; and they will remain true and pertinent
indefinitely because they embody the practical logic of a situation;
they point out the consequences it entails, and they suggest the only
remedy that has been approved by the cumulative experience of other
nations. The lines of fact are broad, plain, and unmistakable. No one
disputes them.
As before remarked, a quite brief experience demonstrated that the Ocean
Mail Pay Act of March 3, 1891, was both inadequate in its scope of
operation and insufficient in its volume of aid to produce any marked
betterment of the condition of our foreign trade. The restricted nature
of its application and the comparatively small amounts paid were not
sufficient to encourage the establishment of new lines, the opening of
new sea routes, or the construction of new and up-to-date vessels under
the American flag. One result of this development was the formation of a
committee, composed of the most prominent ship-builders and ship-owners
in the country, known as the Committee on the Merchant Marine. Of this
committee Mr. Cramp was one of the originators, and always among the
most prominent and active members. Its object was to concentrate the
power of individuals in a concerted body for the purpose of furnishing
facts and disseminating knowledge with regard to the condition of the
merchant marine and its needs not only in Congress, but also among the
people throughout the country. Hitherto the efforts of individuals had
been exerted singly and often divergently; but it was hoped and believed
that, by the organization of this committee and through the concerted
action which would result from its deliberations and researches, a
harmonious and uniform scheme might be brought forward which would
ultimately command the public support of all men animated by a patriotic
desire to see the American flag restored to its former proud rank on the
high sea.
The first result of this policy was the formulation of a bill based upon
tonnage and distance travelled. It was to some extent analogous to the
system then prevailing in France commonly known as the tonnage bounty
system.
When this bill was first brought forward, being introduced by Mr. Frye,
of Maine, in the Senate, and by Mr. Dingley, in the House of
Representatives, the foreign steamship owners or their agents in this
country at once became greatly alarmed. They had not offered a very
vigorous resistance to the passage of the Ocean Mail Pay Act of 1891,
because their knowledge of the business and their keen sense of the
situation taught them that there was not much danger to their interests
in that bill. They made a show of opposing it, of course, but they spent
very little money or time and made no really determined effort to beat
it. In fact, the foreign steamship owners and the managers of the
foreign lines which were doing the ocean-carrying trade of the United
States realized before that bill became a law what it took our people
two or three years to find out. But when the tonnage bounty bill was
brought forward, with the general applicability of its provisions to all
kinds of vessels engaged in the foreign carrying trade, and proposing,
as it did, a rate of bounty which would have gone far toward equalizing
the difference in cost of seafaring labor and subsistence as between
American and foreign ships, the owners and managers of the steamship
lines[1] and tramps that were carrying the commerce of the United States
determined that it must be beaten at all hazards and at any cost. This
struggle began in 1894. The original tonnage bill passed the Senate, but
was smothered in the House. The owners and managers of the foreign
steamship lines could not control the Senate, but they appeared able to
affect the action of the House of Representatives negatively, at least,
if not positively.
Footnote 1:
These managers of foreign lines proceeded systematically. Whatever may
have been the activity of their competition for the carrying trade of
the United States, they were unanimous in their determination to
prevent the growth of an American merchant marine. Acting under the
guise of a pretended business combine, which, for convenience, they
termed “The North Atlantic Traffic Association,” they raised funds,
hired lobbyists,—among whom appeared ex-officials of positions as high
as the Cabinet,—and by every possible means known to modern ingenuity
thwarted every effort of those favoring American interests, both in
and out of Congress. This combination has no reason for existence
except that of organized and systematic lobbying against American
interests in the corridors and committee rooms of the American
Congress.
A similar measure was brought forward again in the Congress elected with
President McKinley in 1896, and the bill passed the Senate, again to
meet the same fate as its predecessor in a Republican House of
Representatives with a thorough working majority, notwithstanding that
the policy of aid to American shipping had been a cardinal plank in the
platform of that year, upon which that House had been elected. The
defection was almost wholly among Western Republicans.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIP NEW IRONSIDES]
During the contest over the bill in the Congress under consideration,
the tactics of the foreign steamship owners and managers, personally as
well as through their hired agents, were a disgrace to the good name of
American legislation. They threw off all disguise and openly lobbied on
the floors and in the corridors and committee rooms of the House to
prevent consideration of the bill. In that Congress there was every
prospect that if the Senate Bill could be brought up for consideration
it would pass with some trifling amendments, which could easily be
adjusted in conference committee. The whole strategy of the alien
shipping interests was to prevent consideration, which they ultimately
succeeded in doing by working upon the susceptibility or the
apprehensions of certain Republicans from the far Western States.
In 1898, the tonnage bounty bill in a modified form was brought forward
again; this time with a limitation of the amount to be expended under
its provisions in any one fiscal year to nine millions of dollars, but
it met the same kind of opposition that had beaten its two predecessors,
and it shared their fate, passing the Senate and being denied
consideration in the House.
Finally, in the Congress elected in 1900 and assembling in 1901, a
tonnage bill still further modified was brought forward and passed the
Senate. For a time it was believed that the alien ship-owners and
managers would not be able to beat this bill as they had its
predecessors, and strong hopes were indulged by its friends that it
would receive consideration in the House. Even up to the last few weeks
of the closing session of the Fifty-seventh Congress which expired March
3, 1903, the Chairman of the Committee on Merchant Marine and other
advocates and friends of the bill believed that they would be able to
get a rule for its consideration even at the last moment. But that hope,
like all the others, passed away.
* * * * *
To go back a little, it may be worth while to remark here that the
national misfortune did not even end with the failure of these bills,
and the consequent continued depression or paralysis of the American
foreign carrying trade. There was from time to time sufficient prospect,
or at least possibility, of the passage of a practical and effective law
for the aid and encouragement of American shipping to induce the
investment of a large amount of capital by sanguine persons in new
ship-building plants of considerable magnitude, whereby the trade as it
stood was not only greatly overdone, but the skilled ship-building labor
of the country was overdrawn. There seemed to be a theory that plenty of
money to invest in plant or to sink in unprofitable enterprises could be
depended on to make up for the lack of experience in the management of
shipyards and want of skill in ship-building labor. The result was
disastrous not only to the investors in the stock and bonds of the new
shipyards, but also to the entire ship-building industry, as it had been
developed on a practical and legitimate basis.
With the final failure of all legislation to promote American commerce
in the foreign carrying trade, there was no resource left for either the
new shipyards or the old except such work as the coastwise trade might
provide and the construction of naval vessels. As for the coastwise
trade, it was already well provided with new and highly serviceable
steamships likely to fill the demands of the traffic for several years
to come, so that little or no new work could be expected from that
quarter.
The naval programme did not in any year put forward as many ships as
there were ship-yards. The government itself seemed to adopt the policy
of fostering and promoting the new shipyards at the expense of the old,
whereby the former were overloaded with work which they could not do,
and they invariably became so hopelessly delinquent as to make the time
clause of the contracts an utter farce. New shipyards, which had never
completed a ship of any description, were loaded with 15,000 and
16,000-ton battleships of the most complex and difficult construction,
requiring the highest skill and the most approved experience in every
respect to carry on the work required for their completion.
It is not necessary to particularize further on this point, except to
say that very large and important vessels, awarded to new and
inexperienced concerns with a contract time for completion of three
years, could not by any possibility be finished inside of six or seven.
So the question naturally has arisen as to whether, in the formulation
of its ship-building programmes or in its output of awards to
contractors, the government really desires to augment its naval force in
the shortest possible time or to figure as a good Samaritan toward new,
inexperienced, unskilled, and needy shipyards, owners, and managers.
Such a policy is based upon the fundamental error that what is called
“plant” makes a shipyard. The real shipyard is not merely ground,
waterfront, buildings, and machinery, commonly called plant; but with a
thoroughly organized _personnel_ in staff and working-men; with a
generation or more of training and experience behind them. That is a
complete shipyard. So far as mere plant is concerned, the size of a new
shipyard or the amount of money spent on it cannot create a range of
capabilities. The indispensable and over-ruling requisite is the trained
staff and trained men that are in it. The lay-out of land, buildings,
and machinery is but a small factor in the operation of an effective
shipyard. Another thing to be primarily considered is that there are no
enterprises of industrial, railroad, or mining interest that can be
compared with a large modern shipyard for intricacy of professional and
mechanical subdivisions in its organization.
Every handicraft or mechanical pursuit is to be found in such a shipyard
or closely correlated with and contributory to it. The grouping of these
diverse elements into a harmonious working whole needs the hand not only
of a master, but a master of long continuous training; and in the
adjustment of the various parts of the group, it is time, experience,
and knowledge of the men composing it which are indispensable.
Returning now to the main theme, it seems proper to explain what the
real bone of contention is in this struggle between the impulse of
American patriotism and the greed of foreign ship-owners. It all goes
back to the fundamental navigation laws of the United States which
prohibit the registry of any foreign built ship under the American flag
except in certain cases provided by law, which are not sufficiently
numerous to be formidable.
In their warfare against government aid and encouragement to American
shipping, the foreign ship-owners and ship-builders have not met the
issue squarely or fairly face to face. They have invariably resorted to
a subterfuge which is commonly known as the doctrine of free ships, the
meaning and significance of which are not understood by the general
public, and its consequences are realized most imperfectly, if at all.
The phrase viewed as a glittering generality is seductive, and it is
regarded by many people as a mere proposition to enable American
ship-owners to buy their ships where they can get them the cheapest, as
the saying is. It is a curious fact that, with all the learning and the
so-called logic of political economists, they have never yet, from Adam
Smith down, clearly defined to us what really constitutes cheapness in
all its elements, or what constitutes the reverse, or costliness. A mere
difference in dollars and cents for a given thing to perform a certain
work by no means expresses the difference. It may, and often does in
fact, befog or confuse the mind. A bad or poorly constructed thing may
be called cheap, and a good, well-constructed thing may be termed
costly, measured by dollars and cents, and yet practically, in view of
efficiency, durability, and all the other elements of desirability, the
so-called costly thing may be actually cheaper than the so-called cheap
thing, both being intended for the same purpose.
A free ship law, or the repeal of our existing navigation laws, would
unquestionably load our registry with ships cheap in dollars and cents,
but they would prove dear in everything else. In order to do what lay in
his power to correct these misapprehensions and clear away this fog of
ignorance on that particular subject, Mr. Cramp, in the _North American
Review_ for April, 1894, printed a paper entitled “Our Navigation Laws.”
In the course of this paper he called attention to certain facts of
permanent historical value which there seemed a tendency to forget or
ignore:
“At the time of the Franco-German War of 1870-71, even so sturdy a
patriot as General Grant, then President, was persuaded for a time
that it would be a good thing for our commerce, as a neutral nation,
to permit American registry of foreign-built vessels, the theory
being that many vessels of nations which might become involved in
the struggle would seek the asylum of our flag.
“Actuated by powerful New York influence, already conspicuously
hostile to the American merchant marine, General Grant, in a special
message, recommended that Congress enact legislation to that end.
This proposition was antagonized by Judge Kelley, of
Pennsylvania,—always at the front when American interests were
threatened,—in one of his most powerful efforts, couched in the
vehement eloquence of which he was master, which impressed General
Grant so much that he abandoned that policy, and subsequently
adhered to the existing system.
“I will not stop here to point out in detail the tremendous
political and diplomatic advantage which England would enjoy when
dealing with other maritime powers, if she could have always at hand
an asylum for the lame ducks of her commercial fleet in time of war.
Her ocean greyhounds, that could either escape the enemy’s cruisers
or be readily converted into cruisers themselves, might remain under
her flag; but all her slow freighters, tramps, and obsolete
passenger boats of past eras would be transferred by sham sales to
our flag, under which they could pursue their traffic in safety
during the war under peace rates of insurance, and without any
material diversion of their earnings, which would of course be
increased by war freight rates, returning to their former allegiance
at the end of the war. The lack of such an asylum amounts to a
perpetual bond to keep the peace.
“From the end of the Civil War to about 1880 there was but feeble
effort to revive ship-building in this country. All our energies of
capital and enterprise, as I have remarked elsewhere, were directed
to the extension of railways in every direction, to the repair of
the war ravages in the South, to the settlement of the vast
territories of the West,—in a word, to purely domestic development,
pending which England was by common consent left to enjoy her ocean
monopoly.
“Such was the state of affairs in 1883-85, when the adoption of the
policy of naval reconstruction offered to American ship-building the
first encouragement it had seen in a quarter of a century.
“When we began to build the new navy, every English journal, from
the _London Times_ down, pooh-poohed the idea that a modern
man-of-war could be built in an American yard, modern high-powered
engines in an American machine-shop, or modern breech-loading cannon
in an American forge. Many of the English ship-builders rubbed their
hands in actual anticipation of orders from this government for the
ships and guns needed; and they blandly assured us that they would
give us quite as favorable terms as were accorded to China, Japan,
and Chile. And, to their shame be it said, there were officers of
our navy who not only adopted this view, but did all they could to
commit our government to the pernicious policy.
“In 1885, when Secretary Whitney took control of the Navy
Department, the efforts of English ship-builders to secure at least
a share of the work were renewed. By this time the English were
willing to admit that the hulls of modern ships could be built in
the United States; but they were satisfied that our best policy
would be to buy the necessary engines, cannon, and armor from them.
Secretary Whitney, however, promptly decided that the only article
of foreign production which the new navy needed was the plans of
vessels for comparison. This was wise, because it placed in the
hands of our builders the results of the most mature experience
abroad, at comparatively small cost. But one of the earliest and
firmest decisions of Mr. Whitney was that our naval vessels,
machinery and all, must be built at home and of domestic material.
“The efforts of the English builders to get the engine-work for our
new navy were much more serious and formidable than is generally
known. A prominent member of the House Committee on Naval Affairs
proposed an amendment to a pending naval bill empowering the
Secretary at his discretion to contract abroad for the construction
of propelling machinery for our naval ships. The language was, of
course, general, but every one knows that the term ‘abroad’ in this
sense would be synonymous with Great Britain, and nothing more.
“Mr. Whitney promptly met this proposition with a protest in the
shape of a letter to the Naval Committee dated February 27, 1886. He
said that, so far as he was concerned, he would not avail himself of
such a power if granted. There was no occasion for such power; and
it could have no effect except to keep American builders in
suspense, and thereby augment the difficulty of obtaining capital
for the enlargement of their facilities to meet the national
requirements. Mr. Whitney’s protest was so vigorous that the
proposition died from its effects in the committee and has been
well-nigh forgotten. The proposer himself became satisfied that he
had been misled by the representations of naval officers who were
under English influence, and did not press his amendment.
“I have brought these facts forward for the purpose of emphasizing
my declaration that the promotive influence behind every movement
against our navigation laws is of British origin, and whenever you
put a pin through a free-ship bill you prick an Englishman.
“The portion of Mr. Whitney’s letter referring to the proposed
free-engine clause in the Naval Bill of 1886 was as follows:
“‘I think our true policy is to borrow the ideas of our neighbors as
far as they are thought to be in advance of ours, give them to our
ship-builders in the shape of plans; and, having this object in
view, I have been anxious to acquire detailed drawings of the latest
machinery in use abroad, and should feel at liberty to spend more in
the same way in getting hold of the latest things as far as possible
for the purpose of utilizing them. We have made important
accumulations in this line during the last six months. I think I
ought to say to the committee that I have placed myself in
communication with some of the principal marine-engine builders of
the country within the last three months for the purpose of
conferring with them upon this subject. I detailed two officers of
the navy,—a chief engineer and a line officer,—who, under my
directions, visited the principal establishments in the East. They
recognize that in the matter of engines for naval ships we are quite
inexperienced as compared with some other countries. It is this
fact, doubtless, which the committee has in view in authorizing the
purchase and importation of engines for one of the vessels
authorized to be constructed under this act. If the committee will
permit me to make the suggestion, I find myself quite satisfied,
after consultation with people engaged in the industry in this
country, that it would not be necessary for me to avail myself of
that discretionary power in order to produce machines of the most
advanced character. Our marine-engine builders in general express
their inability at the present moment to design the latest and most
approved type of engines for naval vessels,—an inability arising
from the fact that they have not been called upon to do anything of
importance in that line. At the same time, they state that if they
are given the necessary time, and are asked to offer designs in
competition, they would acquaint themselves with the state of the
art abroad and here, and would prepare to offer to the government
designs embodying the latest improvements in the art. And they are
ready to construct at the present time anything that can be built
anywhere else if the plans are furnished. As I find no great
difficulty in the way of purchasing plans (in fact, there is an
entire readiness to sell to us on the part of the engine-builders
abroad), I think the solution of the question will be not very
difficult, although it may require some time and a little delay.’”
At this writing (1903), only eighteen years have elapsed since the date
of Secretary Whitney’s letter. The wisdom of his policy needs no eulogy
beyond the history of the development of steam-engineering in the United
States during that brief period. In fact, no other eulogy could be a
tenth part as eloquent as that history is.
The policy of Secretary Whitney was in fact an echo of the sturdy
patriotism that framed the Act of December 31, 1792, dictated by the
same impulse of national independence and conceived in the same
aspiration of patriotic pride.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIP IOWA]
And now, in the face of this record so fresh and recent, the same old
demand for English free ships is heard again in our midst, promoted by
the same old lobby and pressed on the same old lines. Are we never to
hear the last of it? Is there to be a perennial supply of American
legislators willing to promote a British industry by destroying an
American one? To all history, to all logic, they oppose a single phrase:
“Let us buy ships where they are cheapest.” Well, if national
independence is valueless, and if everything is to be subordinated to
cheapness, why not get our laws made in the House of Commons? The
members of the House of Commons legislate for nothing. Senators and
Representatives charge $5000 a year for their services, besides
stationery allowance and mileage. The House of Commons makes laws
cheaper than our Congress does. Our ships and our capacity to create
them are as much a symbol of independence as our laws are; and if it is
good policy to get the former where they are cheapest, why not get the
latter on the same terms?
British warfare against American ships and shipping by no means stopped
at extravagant subsidies to her own ships; did not stop at determined,
and thus far successful, efforts to defeat American legislation of a
similar character; did not even stop at vigorous and often corrupt
attacks upon our navigation laws through the lobbies of our own
Congress.
Of course, all these considerations at this writing (1903) have become
ancient history. The iron ship has not only completely dominated British
naval architecture, but that of all other European countries, and has
established itself on an equally permanent and secure footing in the
United States. A few wooden ships are still built in this country, but
they are mostly schooners for the coastwise trade, and really cut little
or no figure in commercial conditions outside of our own coast. Yet,
although it be ancient history, viewed in the light of the enormous
changes that have occurred in thirty or thirty-five years, still, it is
instructive to know the springs and motives of the public statecraft and
the private commercial strategy which forced the iron ship in and the
wooden ship out. That this was bound to come in the nature of things
does not admit of doubt; but it is equally clear that the policy of
interested parties forced the situation in favor of British shipping
interests, and at the time adversely to those of the United States both
as to ship-owning and as to ship-building, which are inseparably
interdependent.
In 1897, Mr. Cramp, being prevented by other business from attending a
hearing before the Committee on the Merchant Marine on the day set for
his appearance, addressed to it a letter, in which, after briefly
reviewing the conditions and causes already set forth, he said:
“The interests of ship-owning and ship-building are identical,
because no nation can successfully own ships that cannot
successfully build them.
“No nation can either own or build ships when, unprotected and
unencouraged, if it is brought in competition with other nations
that are protected and encouraged.
“This is the existing condition of the ship-owning and ship-building
interests of the United States.
“The resulting fact is that the enormous revenue represented by the
freight and passenger tolls on our commerce and travel is constantly
drained out of this country into British, German, and French
pockets, in the order named, but mainly British; while the vast
industrial increment represented by the necessary ship-building
inures almost wholly to Great Britain.
“For this drain there is no recompense. It is sheer loss. It is the
principal cause of our existing financial condition.
“So long as this drain continues, no tariff and no monetary policy
can restore the national prosperity.
“Until we make some provision to keep at home some part at least of
the three hundred and odd millions annually sucked out of this
country by foreign ship-owners and ship-builders, no other
legislation can bring good times back again.
“It is a constant stream of gold always flowing out.
“The foreign ship-owner who carries our over-sea commerce makes us
pay the freight both ways.
“For our exports we get the foreign market price less the freight.
“For our imports we pay the foreign market price plus the freight.
“No fine-spun theory of any cloistered or collegiate doctrinaire can
wipe out these facts.
“The fact that so long as the freight is paid to a foreign
ship-owner, so long will it be a foreign profit on a foreign
product, is fundamental and unanswerable.
“The English steamship is a foreign product, and its earnings, which
we pay, are a foreign profit.
“No sane man will argue that a foreign profit on a foreign product
can be of domestic benefit.
“Add to this the fact, equally important, that the carrier of
commerce controls its exchanges, and the condition of commercial,
financial, and industrial subjugation is complete. Such is our
condition to-day.
“Great Britain has many outlying colonies and dependencies.
“The greatest two are India and the United States.
“She holds India by force of arms, whereby her control of that
country costs her something. She has to pay something for her
financial and commercial drainage of India.
“She holds the United States by the folly of its own people, whereby
her control of this country costs her nothing. She has to pay
nothing for her financial and commercial drainage of the United
States.
“But the amount of her annual drainage of gold from the United
States far exceeds that from India.
“Therefore the United States is by far the most valuable of all the
dependencies of Great Britain.
“In the relation of India to England there is something pitiable,
because India is helpless.
“In the relation of the United States to England there is nothing
that is not contemptible, because it is the willing servitude of a
nation that could help herself if she would.
“England is wide awake to those conditions, and keenly appreciates
their priceless value to her.
“The United States blinks at them, half dazed, half asleep,
insensible of their tremendous damage to her.
“England, clearly seeing that in this age more than ever before
ocean empire is world empire, strains every nerve to perpetuate her
sea power and exhausts her resources to double-rivet the fetters
which it fastens upon mankind.
“Though in 1885 England already had a navy superior to those of any
two and equal to those of any three other powers, if not to all
others, she has since that date built a new navy which, with what
remains most available of the old one, overshadows the world, and
makes the sea as much British territory as the County of Middlesex.”
While this contest was going on between American ship-owners and
ship-builders on the one hand and the alien combinations who control our
ocean commerce on the other, a vast amount of American capital was
gradually invested in shipping under the British flag, and at least an
equal amount awaited any reasonable encouragement to build ships in this
country to sail under the American flag. Of course, it would have been
folly for the men who controlled this capital to invest it in American
ships with a clear handicap of at least 15 to 20 per cent. against them
in operating expenses, ton for ton, in competition with the aided,
fostered, and subsidized fleets of England, Germany, and France. For a
long time this mass of capital was held in hope of the adoption of a
policy by our government that would tend to lift the handicap and
equalize as far as possible the burdens of operating American ships as
compared with others. But when Congress adjourned March 4, 1901, leaving
the shipping question where it had been ever since the Civil War, and
offering, if possible, less hope than ever before, the mass of American
capital that had been held back was let loose. Soon rumors that a great
merger of British steamship lines with the International Navigation
Company was in progress filled the air. It soon appeared that there was
plenty of American capital to invest in ships under foreign flags, but
none under the American flag so long as the existing situation might
last. The ship-owners may have been patriotic, but their patriotism was
not enthusiastic enough to make them willing to pay a penalty of 15 to
20 per cent. for the sake of it. This movement soon took shape in the
organization of the International Mercantile Marine Company, in which
was merged the control and management of the International, the White
Star, the Leyland, and the Atlantic Transport Lines; the whole forming
by far the greatest aggregation of vessels and tonnage ever grouped
under one control. This control was American,[2] but the ships were of
British registry except six, built by the Cramps and several others,—the
“St. Louis,” “St. Paul,” “Kroonland,” and “Finland,” American built, and
the “New York” and “Philadelphia” (formerly the “Paris”), British built,
but admitted to American registry by the special Act of 1892.
Footnote 2:
Since this was written, the whole ownership of the Line is British.
The Americans were determined to own and operate ships. They would have
preferred to run them under the American flag, but Congress—or rather a
fraction in the House of Representatives—compelled them to use the
British ensign! The commercial and financial effect of this was that the
American investors got the benefit of the lower wages and cheaper
subsistence of foreign seafaring labor. The vessels were American as to
ownership only. No American officer or seaman or engineer or fireman was
employed in them. They added nothing to the sea power of the country;
they did nothing toward forming a nursery of American sailors to be in
readiness for an emergency. On the contrary, they were a constant school
for the Naval Reserve of a power that might become as hostile
politically as she has been industrially and commercially from the
beginning of our existence as an independent nation. None of these great
facts appealed to the narrow and demagogic faction in the House. They
could see in it nothing but “a trust,” and their parrot-cry resounded
from the banks of the Wabash to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains.
Many men, hitherto hopeful, believe that any further effort to restore
our foreign carrying trade under the American flag must be in vain. They
argue that, if the Houses of Representatives elected in 1898 and 1900
would not pass a Shipping Bill, none can ever be chosen that will. If
foreign influences and alien doctrines could prevent consideration in
those two Houses of bills that had already passed the Senate in each
Congress, those influences and those doctrines are likely to maintain
their potency indefinitely. If this be true, the American flag in the
foreign trade is doomed to utter extinction within a few years on the
Atlantic Ocean, and its survival in the Pacific is a matter of extreme
doubt.
A strange feature of this contest in its later stages was the fact that
the confederated trades-unions of the country arranged themselves
unanimously against the American and in favor of the alien policy.
Trades-unionism is founded upon a doctrine or dogma of protection more
sweeping and more drastic than any other ever known. They cheerfully
maintain and sometimes exultantly proclaim that, when nothing else will
serve to accomplish their ends, violence and crime become logical and
legitimate instrumentalities for enforcement of their protective
doctrine. They take no account of the fact that the enactment of a
favorable shipping law would open new and wide avenues of remunerative
employment for American mechanics that are now closed. Their motive in
opposing such legislation seems to be a sort of blind, groping revenge
against a few ship-builders and ship-owners who have resisted their
unreasonable and ruinous demands. It is a remarkable fact that the
leaders and managers of the confederated trades-unions are all
foreigners.
Naturally, such organizations, so led, fall easy dupes to the wiles of
the alien ship-owners, who have never left any stone unturned or any
expedient untried to defeat or smother in our own Congress legislation
calculated to promote and extend our merchant marine.
Whatever the distant future may bring forth, there seems to be at this
time and for the near future as little prospect of the development of a
new and purely American merchant marine in the foreign trade as there
has been at any time since the old one was destroyed.
Whatever may be the fate of the American merchant marine, it cannot be
said that during the campaign for its resurrection, lasting almost
continuously for over thirty years, Mr. Cramp has ever withheld from its
advocacy any part of his knowledge, study, observation, and experience;
and if, partly through the feebleness of our own patriotism in
legislation and administration, and partly through the superior and more
aggressive patriotism of foreign ship-owners and ship-builders, the
American merchant marine should become extinct, it will not be his
fault.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV
Condition of Navy after Civil War—Admiral Case’s Fleet—“Virginius’s”
Scare—“Huron,” “Alert,” and “Ranger”—Secretary Hunt—First Advisory
Board—Secretary Chandler—“Puritan” Class—Finished—Steel—Hon. J. B.
McCreary and Appropriation Bill for New Navy—Members of Second Naval
Advisory Board—Standard for Steel for New Ships, “Chicago,” “Boston,”
“Atlanta,” and “Dolphin”—Secretary Whitney—Beginning of New Navy, by
Charles H. Cramp—“Baltimore,” “Charleston,” and “Yorktown”—Purchase of
Drawings by Navy Department—Commodore Walker—Premium System—Mr.
Whitney’s Views—Premiums Paid—Attack on System—Secretary Tracy—War
College Paper—Classifying Bids.
AFTER the Civil War the navy was neglected, being, so far as its
cruising vessels were concerned, a wooden navy of not only obsolete
types, but decayed or decaying vessels, which gradually became a
reproach to the country and a laughing-stock for other maritime powers.
At the time of the “Virginius’s” difficulty with Spain, which occurred
about five years after the close of the Civil War, a “grand fleet” was
assembled at Key West under the command of Rear-Admiral Case. This fleet
consisted of a large number of wooden cruising steamers of various types
and classes, all obsolete, many of them unseaworthy, and all incapable
of meeting an up-to-date ship of that period (1874-75) with any chance
of success whatever. To these wooden hulks were added the
double-turreted monitors “Terror,” “Amphitrite,” and “Monadnock,” which
were built at the navy-yards of wood, and a batch of old worn-out
single-turreted monitors. The bottoms of the wooden monitors were so
weakened structurally that, whenever an effort was made to wedge up the
spindles so that the turrets could revolve, the bottom went down instead
of the turret going up, the latter necessarily remaining immovable.
Unquestionably any one, or at most any two, of our first-class modern
battleships at this writing, 1903, could have annihilated and sunk the
entire fleet in two or three hours, although it consisted, all types and
classes taken together, of over forty vessels. This was an object
lesson, and it to some extent aroused the sensibilities of the country;
but the then existing administration of the Navy Department was under
the absolute control of the navy-yard rings, and all naval work of every
description was done in navy-yards. The “Spanish Scare,” as it was
called, did, however, have the effect of spurring Congress to provide
for the construction of eight (8) new vessels, the first provided for
since the Civil War. Of these, three were given out to be built by
contract; two, the “Huron” and “Alert,” small iron sloops-of-war or
gun-vessels, were given to John Roach and built at his works at Chester;
and another of the same class, the “Ranger,” was given to Harlan &
Hollingsworth, of Wilmington, and built there. The other five were built
in navy-yards, and were completed at different periods between 1875 and
1879.
[Illustration: 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.”
[Illustration: 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.
The building of the four pioneer ships involved several new departures.
The Congress that authorized their construction and made an
appropriation toward it, also made provision for creating what was
termed a second “Naval Advisory Board,” which was to have charge of the
details of their building. By this expedient Congress hoped to avert the
evils of the Bureau system on the one hand, and to limit the one-man
power of the Secretary on the other. This board consisted of five
members, three naval officers and two civilians, to be selected by the
Secretary of the Navy. Of the two civilians, one was a ship-builder, the
other a mechanical engineer. The ship-builder was Henry Steers. This
gentleman was a nephew of George Steers, a somewhat celebrated naval
architect in his time, whose principal achievement was the design of the
yacht “America,” which won the cup which the English have struggled ever
since to recapture. The famous steam-frigate “Niagara,” built a short
time before the war, though constructed in a navy-yard, was designed by
Henry Steers. During the paralysis of American ship-building which
followed the Civil War, Mr. Steers became discouraged at the outlook
and, having a considerable fortune, went into the banking business.
The other civilian member, the mechanical engineer, was Miers Coryell,
of New York. This gentleman was connected in his professional capacity
with the Cromwell Line of steamships plying between New York and New
Orleans. He had shortly before the time under consideration designed an
engine for the “Louisiana” of that line, which Mr. Roach built,
involving an entirely new departure in sea-going engine construction.
Perhaps the most concise way to describe this engine would be to say
that it represented an effort to introduce the walking-beam of a
side-wheel river steamboat into the engine compartment of a screw
steamship. The advantage claimed for it was that it permitted the use of
vertical cylinders within a deck-height not sufficient to admit the
regular type of vertical inverted cylinders. This it undoubtedly did;
but there its merit stopped. For the rest it was cumbrous, complicated,
and of weight exceedingly disproportionate to its power. This
unspeakable device Mr. Coryell offered to the Advisory Board, and, to
the speechless amazement of the engineering world, it was adopted as the
propelling machinery of the most important ship then authorized for the
navy. It is worthy of remark here that these beam-engines were
subsequently taken out of the “Chicago,” and a pair of vertical inverted
or slightly inclined engines of the usual type substituted. And it might
also be observed that this work, with some alterations in the hull, was
done in the New York Navy-Yard at a cost of $1,300,000 as against an
original contract price of $889,000 for the whole ship new; or, in other
words, the cost of re-engining and overhauling the “Chicago” in a
navy-yard was 40 per cent. more than the first cost of the new ship
under contract in a private shipyard!
The Navy Bureaus were not slow to discern what the creation of the
Advisory Board meant for them. At first they tried to defeat it. Finding
that impossible, two of the Bureau chiefs besought the Naval Committees
of the Senate and House to provide that at least one of the four ships
be built in a navy-yard. No member of the Senate committee favored this
proposition, and but two members of the House committee, both of whom,
it is hardly necessary to say, represented navy-yard districts and
danced to the music of labor agitators. Thus, at the inception of the
new navy the navy-yard snake was “scotched,” if not killed.
When the contracts and specifications were drawn up in form, two facts
became evident: One was that the knowledge of the new conditions of
naval construction possessed by the authorities of the navy itself was
altogether academic; and the other was that neither naval authorities
nor civilians interested had any adequate idea of what the requirement
of the law in regard to material actually signified. The law said that
the ships must be built of “steel, of domestic manufacture, having a
tensile strength of 60,000 pounds to the square inch, and an elongation
of 25 per cent. in eight inches.”
Verbally, this was the English Admiralty standard for mild steel plates
and shapes. But the English had an elastic system of inspection which
left much to be determined by the judgment and knowledge of the
inspector. The system adopted by our earlier inspectors of material was
rigid as a rock and inelastic as cast-iron. The letter of the law, not
the spirit of it, was their guide. These requirements and the mode of
enforcing them would have been drastic had the mild-steel industry been
in a flourishing condition. But as a matter of fact it had not been
developed at all in this country; so they were formulating crucial
requirements for the product of an industry which did not exist. The
production of mild steel, or at least its use in naval construction, was
still in the experimental stage then, even in England, its native home.
The “Iris” and “Mercury,” the first all-steel ships built in England,
had not been in commission more than two years, when the requirements
for our new ships were formulated by the naval authorities and embodied
in an Act of Congress.
Bessemer steel was produced in large quantities here at the time for
making rails and tank-plates. But Bessemer could not stand the navy
tests. Nothing but open-hearth steel could do it, and at the time when
bids were asked for the first four ships there was not an open-hearth
mill in the country that could make the ingots required for the plates
and shapes of the sizes and qualities demanded. Still, American
steel-makers were found willing to undertake the task, though the sequel
soon proved that their conceptions of what confronted them were quite
vague. When one surveys the open-hearth steel industry as it exists in
the United States to-day (1901), largely exceeding that of Great
Britain, and greater than that of all the rest of the world, exclusive
of the United Kingdom, put together, it seems impossible to realize that
it is all the growth of a score of years. As late as 1887 there was no
forging-mill in this country that could forge a three-throw crank-shaft
in one piece, and the “Baltimore’s” crank-shafts of that description had
to be imported from Whitworth’s works in England.
Such were the conditions which confronted the ship-builders who made
estimates and offered bids for the construction of the four pioneer
steel ships of the new navy. When the bids were opened early in July,
1883, it became apparent that the views of bidders as to the character
of the task they proposed to undertake were quite divergent. To avoid
prolixity, we will deal only with the “Chicago,” which was, in fact, the
representative ship. For that vessel there were but two bidders worth
considering,—Mr. Cramp and Mr. Roach. Mr. Roach bid $889,000 for the
hull and machinery. Mr. Cramp bid a little over $1,000,000, or about 14
per cent. in excess of his competitor. As the sequel proved, Mr. Cramp,
conservative as his bid was, or as it appeared to be, underwent no
misfortune in failing to get the “Chicago” at $1,025,000. Whether Mr.
Cramp could have been more successful than Mr. Roach was in creating the
new open-hearth steel industry required to produce the material demanded
by the law and the specifications need not be discussed. It may,
however, be said that the excess of his bid over that of Mr. Roach was
due wholly to his misgivings on this point; because on all other points
involved, such as experience, skill, and efficiency of organization, he
had some advantage.
Mr. Roach got all the ships. The contracts were signed July 26, 1883.
The keel of the “Chicago” was laid December 5, 1883; she was launched
December 5, 1885, only fifty-two days before the contract date for
completion, which was January 26, 1886. Meantime the first of the ships,
the despatch-boat “Dolphin,” had been completed, put on trial, and had
failed to meet the requirements of the law. Here the evils of the
inflexible, inelastic, or “cast-iron” form of contract became instantly
evident. The Navy Department could not accept the ship under those
conditions without violating the law. Mr. Roach thereupon threw up his
hands, and the government, as provided in the contract, had to take
possession of the ships as they stood in his shipyard and complete them
with its own resources, at the risk and expense of Mr. Roach and his
bondsmen. This action on his part is hard to understand or explain. He
was perfectly solvent. Although, as the law and the contract stood, the
Navy Department could not accept the “Dolphin,” in view of her
deficiency in performance, Congress was soon to assemble, and Secretary
Whitney was ready to ask for an amendment or modification of the law
which would enable him to accept the ship with an equitable penalty for
her deficiency, which, by the way, was not great. It was said at the
time that Mr. Roach acted upon the advice of certain political friends
holding high rank; that a certain group of Republican politicians
believed that their party needed a martyr just at that juncture, and
they thought Mr. Roach would make a good one. Be this as it may, the
government finished all the ships in the Roach yard, and the “Chicago,”
contracted for July 26, 1883, was ready for her first commission the
middle of April, 1889,—five years and nearly nine months building. We
have dwelt with some prolixity on this branch of the subject for two
reasons: first, because it was the beginning of the most important epoch
in our naval history; and, second, because the errors, miscalculations,
and consequent disasters it developed became themselves of very great
value as object lessons for guidance or warning in subsequent
transactions.
When Mr. Whitney became Secretary in March, 1885, he found ready to his
hand authorization for four more ships, the designs of which had been
partially worked out by the Bureaus during the previous winter. He,
however, proceeded slowly; so deliberately, that the contract for the
first of the four ships built under the authorization of March 3, 1885,
and August 3, 1886, was not signed until December 17, 1886, a year and
nine months after he assumed the office. This delay was due to a variety
of causes, the most important of which are interestingly and
instructively described by Mr. Cramp himself in an account of his
personal connection with the transactions. It may be premised that when
Mr. Whitney became Secretary of the Navy, he very soon sought to avail
himself of Mr. Cramp’s experience, professional ability, and practical
knowledge. Mr. Cramp responded in the same spirit of frankness and
candor as that in which the Secretary invited him. There was no mincing
of matters in any direction. Mr. Cramp hewed to the line on all the
abuses and shortcomings of the old régime, and he also pointed out
methods by which they could be overcome or, at least, compelled to get
out of the way. Mr. Whitney was a thorough business man and an able
lawyer. Far removed both by character and by fortune from any possible
temptation, Mr. Whitney’s sole object in taking the navy portfolio was
to promote the public welfare, and thereby add lustre to his name.
But let Mr. Cramp tell his own story in his own way.
THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW NAVY.
“The practical beginning of the new navy occurred under the
Administration of Mr. Chandler, and while he was Secretary of the
Navy the ‘Chicago,’ ‘Boston,’ ‘Atlanta,’ and ‘Dolphin’ were
constructed.
“The hulls of these vessels had been designed by the Advisory Board,
and were about equal to any vessels constructed abroad at that time
so far, I might say, as the models and general designs were
concerned. Their outfit and guns were not fairly up to the
prevailing practice abroad, and their engines were very inefficient
and commonplace. They were not designed by the board, but were
principally the designs of the contractor. The ‘Chicago’ had engines
of quite a fantastic design, suggested by one of the members in the
board. The models and designs of the hulls, as compared with what
had preceded them in the Navy Department after the end of the Civil
War, were great achievements over the ridiculous specimens of the
ship-building art that we were loaded with during that time. They
were the production principally of Messrs. Steers and Fernald,
assisted by Mr. Bowles, and were up to most of the requirements of
the time.
“When the vessels were tried under the following Administration,
that is, during the Secretaryship of Mr. Whitney, it was found that
the power of the engines and the consequent speed developed were not
up to the requirements of the law, although it might be said that
they were up to the requirements of the contract.
“There was some considerable delay on the part of the Secretary, Mr.
Whitney, in receiving the ships from the contractors on that
particular account, a decision having been made by the
Attorney-General that vessels contracted for and subsequently not
coming up to the requirements and not in full accordance with the
law were worthless, and would not be accepted.
“A violent uproar pervaded the entire country at that time on
account of what they called the hesitating attitude of Mr. Whitney.
“The political administration of the government having changed, it
was asserted that it was on account of the politics of the
contractor that the vessels had not been accepted. Among the people
who argued thus, all considerations of contract requirements of law
were entirely ignored, and Mr. Whitney received untold denunciations
from these sources; but he was one of those men whom adverse
criticisms as to what he had done never disturb in the slightest
degree.
“Mr. Whitney finally accepted the vessels conditionally, after more
or less contention which consumed some little time. But no more
unfair denunciation or criticism of the actions and efforts of any
man ever occurred than fell to his lot at that time.
“The second lot of vessels was given out by Mr. Whitney, who
succeeded Mr. Chandler. Two of these vessels were built on plans
provided by Mr. Whitney, and two were on modified plans of Mr.
Chandler.
“In compliance with the provisions of the act which authorized the
‘Secretary to prepare drawings,’ Mr. Whitney purchased from
Armstrong the drawings that had been prepared for the Spanish
government, and the drawings of the ‘Naniwa Khan,’ which ship they
had built for Japan. These two vessels became the ‘Baltimore’ and
‘Charleston.’ Cruiser No. 1 of Mr. Chandler’s plans was not given
out; as the bids were above the limitation price, the smaller
cruiser was given out under modified conditions. This vessel became
the ‘Yorktown.’
“Before the advertisement was printed, Mr. Whitney invited all of
the expectant bidders to examine the plans and specifications which
he had purchased, and without exception all recorded their
indorsement, and some in extravagant terms. After Mr. Whitney’s
retirement, the contractor who had indorsed them in the most
extravagant manner was the first and only one to find fault.
“We bid on all the vessels and in accordance with the conditions of
the advertisement with the exception of that of the ‘Yorktown.’ On
that vessel we bid on the government designs, and designs of our own
which embodied a proposition to install the first triple-expansion
engines in the navy. Our bid for the ‘Newark’ being higher than the
government allowance, we did not get her. As I said before, she was
not awarded.
“When it was found that Mr. Whitney had purchased abroad the
drawings that I have already referred to,—the drawings of the
vessels that ultimately came to be the ‘Baltimore’ and
‘Charleston,’—he was fiercely assailed by certain parties in the
Navy Department, while certain others indorsed his action; but the
Bureau of Construction and Repair and the Bureau of Steam
Engineering were conspicuous in their opposition. The most
conspicuous in support of the Secretary was Commodore Walker. We
received our share of adverse criticism because we had indorsed the
steps he had taken.
“The design of the ‘Baltimore’ and the ‘Charleston’ represented the
best types of vessels that were constructed up to that time. They
were far in advance of any other war-ships of that period, and in
fact they really formed the basis of future constructions in the
world’s navies.
“It was more by good luck than by good management that Mr. Whitney
secured those particular drawings which proved to be of such
superior character. They were offered to our Naval Attaché, who
happened to be abroad in England at that time, by the Armstrong
Company. They had designed the two vessels which subsequently became
the ‘Baltimore’ and ‘Charleston’ of our navy. The design of the
‘Baltimore’ was made in competition with Thompson for the Spanish
government. For certain reasons, which I need not mention here, the
designs of Thompson were accepted and the contract for the
construction of the ship was awarded to them. She was known as the
‘Reina Regente.’ It was at this point that the Armstrongs presented
their rejected drawing and the drawings for the ‘Naniwa Khan’ for
sale to our Naval Attaché there. They had already built two vessels
like the ‘Naniwa Khan’ for the Japanese navy. These vessels were
looked upon by the experts of the naval world as being the two best
specimens of their type that had ever been built up to that time.
“At the time the sale was made, the Armstrongs, knowing nothing of
the capabilities of this country and having, like most British
ship-builders and many Americans at that time, a very mean and very
poor opinion of every ship-builder in this country, they suggested
that, in awarding the contract, a condition should be inserted
providing for the payment of superintendents whom they should send
over from their works to superintend the building, and designing of
the engines, and operating them after their completion. Considering
what to them appeared a barbarian incapacity on our part, they were
loath to risk their reputation without protection.
“We accepted the condition at the time, anxious to get the
contracts, feeling sure that it would never be needed, and that we
could prevail upon Mr. Whitney and the naval people as to the
impropriety of it.
“After the contract was awarded and the work was started, Mr.
Whitney concluded that, notwithstanding the provision was there, he
would never use it, and never require it of us.
“In fact, we made a great many improvements in the boilers of the
‘Baltimore,’ and some improvements in the engines. These
improvements in the boilers of the ‘Baltimore’ formed the basis and
the standard of construction of all the Scotch boilers that have
been built for the navy since that time.
“At the beginning of our work on these ships we did not get much
co-operation on the part of some of the Bureaus, in view of the
foreign character of most of the work, and in view, too, of the fact
that some of it was of our own, both being equally obnoxious, as
they originated outside of the Bureaus. We met with a great deal of
opposition at the beginning in getting up the specifications and
plans.
“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.
“The Bureaus that had denounced Mr. Whitney for buying foreign
drawings had been spending money very lavishly for some years in
_securing plans abroad_. The Bureau of Steam Engineering and the
Bureau of Construction were spending about $100,000 a year in the
purchase of drawings.
“The hull of the ‘Yorktown,’ which was designed by the Bureau, was
based on the design of the ‘Archer’ class.
“The ‘Newark,’ which was also designed by the Bureau at that time,
was based on the design of the ‘Mersey’ class as to specifications
and general construction, while the model was not of that class.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIP RETVIZAN—RUSSIAN]
“The Bureau of Engineering, which had been laboring for some years
with a view to a consolidation of all of the constructive
departments of the navy,—hulls, engines, guns,—under their Bureau,
bought abroad entire plans of ships, hulls, and engines combined. I
saw a complete set of plans and drawings of the ‘Polyphemus,’ which
was designed as a sort of ram by the British government, and also
the two vessels ‘Warspite’ and ‘Impérieuse,’ rather of a fantastic
design, which the British government was building. These vessels
were somewhat of a departure from previous vessels constructed in
the British navy and were very crude. They were designed by some one
in England who was not up to the capabilities of his
fellow-constructors there. They were not duplicated. They are the
poorest specimens of ships in the British navy.
“Mr. Whitney was exceedingly fortunate in the officer whom he found
at the head of the most important Bureau. This was Commodore John G.
Walker, then Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and unquestionably
the ablest and most forceful man of his time in the navy. American
naval officers, as a rule, are able men in the professional sense;
but Walker, while equal to the very best and superior to most of
them in that regard, possessed an additional fund of tact,
equipment, and energy in purely administrative directions seldom
equalled and never surpassed in the history of our navy. He had
enjoyed, also, considerable experience in civic responsibility,
having been for a considerable period identified with the management
of an important railway corporation prior to his appointment as
Chief of the Bureau in 1881. His term of four years was about to
expire when Mr. Whitney assumed office, but at the instance of the
latter he was immediately reappointed, and served through the entire
term until 1889. Commodore Walker was exactly the man for the place,
which was that of chief adviser to the Secretary. To a perfect
acquaintance with the _personnel_ of the service, he joined a
freedom from narrow predilections and selfish aims seldom found in
any veteran regular officer of any branch, and his sense of the
material needs of the navy was broad, keen, and practical. Moreover,
in mental character and manly temperament he was congenial to Mr.
Whitney. For these reasons, and imbued with a common purpose,
Commodore Walker and the Secretary coalesced from the first day of
their association, and remained in the most perfect accord
throughout the four most important years in the history of the new
navy. On some occasions it happened that Walker sustained the
Secretary and helped him carry out most important reforms and
policies of progress against powerful opposition in the navy itself
and in the Department.
“Commodore Walker’s influence among Senators and Representatives in
Congress, built up during his first four years in the Bureau, was
superior to that of any other officer, and occasionally it proved
equal to that of a considerable majority of them combined. His
powers were uniformly exerted in behalf of the readiest and most
practical methods of increasing the navy in number, excellence, and
force of its ships and in organization and training of its
_personnel_. Against all efforts to perpetuate the obsolete,
cumbrous, and abnormal navy-yard system of construction he set his
face with all the strength and resolution he possessed. For detailed
discussion of the questions involved in this phase of the subject,
neither the limitations of space nor the patience of scientific
readers offer opportunity. Suffice it to say, that the antique,
red-tape-ridden and muddle-brained policy of trying to build new
ships of the modern type under military methods was in the main
abandoned.
“Commodore Walker also ably supported Mr. Whitney’s policy of
purchasing modern designs and plans of hulls and machinery abroad, a
policy which a large and influential group of naval officers
vehemently opposed. On the whole, it is not too much to say that, in
the all-round importance of his usefulness to the new navy,
Commodore Walker fairly divided honors with Mr. Whitney himself.
“That Walker’s all-round ability and energy were understood and
appreciated by others besides Secretary Whitney is abundantly
attested by the fact that upon his retirement in 1897, at the age of
sixty-two, he was appointed chairman or president of the Isthmian
Canal Commission, which he still holds at this writing (1903), in
his seventieth year. Taking his career altogether from graduation at
the Naval Academy in 1856; then through the Civil War, in which he
played a distinguished part; then for some time in the civic
pursuits already mentioned; then as Chief of Bureau and principal
adviser to the Secretary for eight years; then as Admiral in command
of the ‘White Squadron’; and, finally, as president of the Canal
Commission, it is safe to say that few officers in our navy have
done more important public service than John G. Walker.”
The most important matter adjusted in the conferences of Mr. Cramp with
Mr. Whitney was the arrangement of the form of contract so that it might
be, within a narrow margin, flexible or elastic. The operation of other
contracts had clearly shown the need of such modification, and a
solution was reached without difficulty, though not without much
deliberation.
The matter under immediate consideration was the form of contract for
the “Baltimore.” The guarantee to be required was that her engines
should develop a mean of 9000 collective indicated horse-power for four
consecutive hours, a lower or minimum limit being also prescribed. They
had before them the form of contract for the Roach ships.
Mr. Cramp remarked that the guarantee for the “Baltimore” was 9000
indicated horse-power.
“Suppose, Mr. Secretary,” he said, “that we should use that form of
contract, and the engines of the ‘Baltimore’ should develop only 8999
indicated horse-power, what could you do?”
“Well, Mr. Cramp, under this form of contract, construed according to
law, I could not accept her. There ought to be a way of averting such a
possibility. What can you suggest?”
Mr. Cramp then proposed to apply to our naval contracts the principle
often recognized in agreements for construction of merchant steamships
and also in the naval contracts of foreign governments, namely, a
sliding scale of penalties for deficiency in performance, with a minimum
limit; and, in case the ship should prove unable to reach the minimum
limit after a fair number of trials, the owner (if a merchant vessel) or
the government (if a naval ship) might at will either reject her
altogether or accept her under a supplemental agreement. Mr. Cramp also
explained the usual basis upon which penalties for deficiency were
computed and imposed in our own merchant practice and in foreign navies.
The Secretary assented to this suggestion, and pronounced it the only
business-like plan for solution of the difficulty he had heard. But he
said that, in order to make the arrangement perfectly equitable, there
should be a premium for excess over and above guaranteed performance,
corresponding to or commensurate with the penalty for deficiency.
These discussions led to the adoption of what became known as the
premium system. Some time afterward, when Mr. Whitney was before the
Naval Committee, the subject came up, and one member referred to it as
“a bonus to contractors.”
“If you use the word ‘bonus’ in the sense of a gift,” said the
Secretary, “it is a misapprehension. It is part of an equitable
transaction. Performance is a prime element of value in a ship-of-war.
We stipulate in our contracts for a specific performance. We consider
the guaranteed performance as representing the normal value of the ship.
If upon trial the performance falls below the normal, it reduces the
value of the ship to that extent, and we meet it with proportionate
penalties deducted from the contract price. But if upon trial the
performance exceeds the normal, the value of the ship is increased, and
we propose to meet such cases with premium proportionate to the excess
of guaranteed performance. In either case we simply pay for as good a
ship as we get, be it above or below the normal. It is a poor rule that
won’t work both ways.”
Mr. Whitney’s terse observations embodied the whole logic of the penalty
and premium system, and his argument was so conclusive that no further
discussion seemed to be desired. The system remained in effect nearly
ten years, and was applied to every vessel built for the new navy up to
and including the “Iowa” and “Brooklyn.” Every ship built by Mr. Cramp
earned a premium for excess of either indicated horse-power or speed.
None of his ships exhibited deficiency. The list is rather interesting,
because it exhibits more graphically than any other method could do the
actual extent to which the contract requirement was exceeded in each
case.
“Yorktown” (horse-power) $39,825.00
“Baltimore” (horse-power) 106,441.00
“Newark” (horse-power) 36,857.00
“Philadelphia” (speed) 100,000.00
“New York” (speed) 200,000.00
“Columbia” (speed) 300,000.00
“Minneapolis” (speed) 414,600.00
“Indiana” (speed) 50,000.00
“Massachusetts” (speed) 100,000.00
“Iowa” (speed) 217,420.00
“Brooklyn” (speed) 350,000.00
–––––––––––
$1,915,143.00
When the administration of Mr. Whitney ended in March, 1889, he left
over to his successor the most important work in the way of new
departure yet attempted. Of his successor, General B. F. Tracy, of New
York, Mr. Cramp, speaking of the man and the task before him, says:
“Secretary Tracy entered the Navy Department under very favorable
auspices. He was himself free from entanglements, political or
personal. His previous public life, aside from service as a colonel
and brigadier-general in the Civil War, had been confined to legal
and judicial positions, his highest post having been that of Justice
of the New York Court of Appeals, the Court of last resort. To the
affairs of the Navy Department in general he applied the judicial
habits formed on the Bench. In technical matters, he enjoyed at the
outset of his administration the continuing services of
Commodore—now become Rear-Admiral—Walker, whose term extended till
December, 1889; and who, by the way, had the honor, after eight
years of service as Chief of Bureau, to command the first American
squadron of modern war-ships known to history as ‘the White
Squadron.’
“With regard to the task of rebuilding the navy, which was then, and
still is, the chief responsibility of a Secretary, Mr. Tracy had but
to carry on a programme already well begun. He was not, however,
content with following simply the lines laid out before him. He at
once proceeded to lengthen them and to widen their scope. Under his
administration was begun and carried out the ‘battle-ship and
armored cruiser programme’ which gave to the navy the fleet that
made our success in the Spanish War so swift and so easy.
“The distinguishing traits of Tracy’s administration were the
unbroken co-operation between the executive and legislative branches
of the government in everything pertaining to the new navy, and the
remarkable progress made in size, power, speed, and other prime
qualities of war-ships, together with the almost incredible
development of all contributory industries. In this connection
should also be mentioned the constant and powerful support which
President Harrison gave to the Secretary of the Navy in every
possible manner, from first to last.
“In his methods of considering propositions laid before him, Mr.
Tracy was always deliberate and cautious; but in executing a
programme once resolved upon, he was equally prompt and peremptory.
He never determined to begin anything until he could foresee the end
of it, and when he had reached a conclusion on that basis he was
wont to push practical operations with untiring energy. In some
respects, when giving preliminary consideration to subjects, he may
have been less self-reliant or more disposed to feel the influence
of his military subordinates than Mr. Whitney was; but in energy of
execution he had no superior. As a general consequence, Mr. Tracy’s
four years in the Navy Department made a history that compares
favorably with that of any predecessor from the foundation of the
Department itself in 1797 to his own time.
“One of the first and most important matters that came before
Secretary Tracy was the design of the armored cruiser ‘New York,’
the appropriation for its construction having been one of the last
acts of the Congress that went out with Mr. Whitney. This ship was
intended to be an echo to the ‘Blake’ and ‘Blenheim’ type of
protected cruisers, and they were the largest heretofore
constructed. The question was asked by the Secretary of the head of
one of the Bureaus, during the discussion of the details of the
ship, if there could not be an improvement in the salient features
of the design over the ‘Blake,’ as merely copying her was obnoxious
to him. He had heard of the ‘Dupuy de Lome,’ the first of the
armored cruisers, and he conceived the idea of adding vertical armor
on the sides of the ship in addition to the sloping armor of the
protected deck as an additional protection, and of sufficient
importance to warrant its adoption in the new design. He argued that
no projectile could penetrate the outer plates and strike the
sloping plate at the same angle in both, etc.
“Strong objections were urged by the head of the Bureau who had been
consulted about it, and the legend of weights of the ‘Blake’ as
published and the distribution of them in the ‘Blake’ were shown
with the assertion that nothing could be done. The Secretary became
more persistent as the opposition increased, and the wires between
the Department and the British Admiralty became hot from the number
of messages that passed as to the ‘Blake’ and ‘Blenheim.’
“While the Secretary was perplexed with the opposition of officers
who should have aided rather than opposed him, we happened to meet,
and he asked if I could duplicate the ‘Blake’ and her performance if
side armor of moderate thickness were added, and also asked my views
of the ‘Dupuy de Lome’ and other ships of the same kind.
“I promptly stated that I could do it, and explained the idea of
‘Dupuy de Lome,’ also giving him the names of three other armored
cruisers the French had under way. I went into the Secretary’s room
at 3 P.M. and discussed the whole subject with him till 8 P.M.; then
left, and promised to return promptly with additional information.
“At the next interview I furnished the Secretary with a complete
detail of what would be required to make an armored cruiser on the
‘Blake’s’ dimensions and performance, and stated that I would like
to bid in Class II on an alternative design with side armor.
“The Secretary handed my details and allotment of weights to the
proper officer, and the Department proceeded to get up the plans and
specifications. Frequent interviews with the Secretary occurred as
the work progressed, and I felt sure that under Class II, permitting
alternative designs, the contract would be awarded. Before the time
for awarding the contract had arrived, I found that the plans were
being developed under the conditions that I had given the Secretary;
but when the plans were exhibited before bids were sent in, it
transpired that the boilers had been placed three abreast in the
government plans, bringing them within a few feet of the side of the
ship.
“I then designed a plan for arranging the six boilers in pairs,
making the coal-bunkers on the sides of the ship. This arrangement
of coal-bunkers facilitated the prompt coaling of the ship and the
handling of it. It also permitted a liberal amount of ‘coal
protection’ for the boilers and engines, which was considered of
important value at that time, and, what was of more weight than any
other consideration, the introduction of two longitudinal bulkheads
that extended the entire length of the engine and boiler spaces on
each side of the ship. With three boilers abreast, the ship was
liable to be sunk at any time by a collision with a coal-barge or
passing schooner; any penetration of the side abreast of boiler,
besides resulting in a speedy foundering, would certainly unship the
side boiler, adding thereby an explosion to the other damage.
“With the boilers in pairs, it would be necessary for a ramming
vessel to penetrate the side and two bulkheads and enter ten feet to
do any damage, so the chances of being destroyed by ramming would be
reduced to a minimum. I also lengthened the vessel over the
Department’s plan, but kept all the conditions of specifications
intact, except as to dimensions.
“After the bids were opened, it was found that ours was the lowest
in Class II, and lower than any other bid, taking the competition as
a whole. The Secretary then called a conference, at which all the
bidders and the Chief Constructor were present, and, after thorough
discussion of all the points involved, awarded the contract to the
Cramp Company under the bid in Class II on the modified plan I had
suggested and offered as to boiler arrangement and other details
conformable to it.
“The ship was named the ‘New York,’ and on trial trip she largely
exceeded her contract speed and requirements of coal endurance and
in all other respects; while the ‘Blake’ on trial was a failure; her
engines had to be practically rebuilt, and then did not come within
the scope of reasonable competition.
“Mr. Tracy can fairly claim credit for the design of the ‘New York,’
and the project for the construction of the ‘Indiana,’
‘Massachusetts,’ and the ‘Oregon’ class of battleships was also due
to his foresight.”
It is not within the scope of this Memoir to trace the progress of the
new navy ship by ship, or even by naval programmes from year to year.
For the purpose of this work, it suffices to say that, of the total
number of battleships, armored cruisers, and first-class protected
cruisers actually in service at this writing (1903), Mr. Cramp has built
about a majority as against all other American ship-builders combined.
There are ten battleships in commission, of which Mr. Cramp has built
five; two armored cruisers, both built by him; ten protected cruisers of
the first class, of which five hail from Cramps’ shipyard: that is to
say, a total of twenty-two vessels, all first-class in their respective
types, of which Mr. Cramp has built twelve as against ten by all other
American ship-builders put together, navy-yards included.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIP RETVIZAN—DOCKING WITH SUBMARINE]
Of course, we exclude from this reckoning the two show-ships built by
Armstrong for a South American government and foolishly bought by our
Navy Department in the paroxysmal flurry incident to the outbreak of the
Spanish War. The main excuse for buying them was that, if we did not,
Spain would. So be it. Better to have let Spain buy them, if they could
not have strengthened her navy more than they did ours. At any rate, had
Spain bought them, we might have captured or destroyed them, as we did
nearly all her ships. They would probably have been worth capture or
destruction, but they were never worth buying.
Since 1887, a period of sixteen years, Mr. Cramp has completed fifteen
ships for the navy (including the “Vesuvius” and “Terror”), and is
building three more at this writing. In every case these ships embody in
plan and design more or less of his own knowledge, skill, and
experience. In some cases the designs are altogether his own. In others
the machinery is his, with important modifications of the Department’s
hull. In no case has he built a ship wholly upon the plans of the
Department. While this has redounded to the benefit of the navy, it
would be idle to say that it has been in the long run advantageous to
Mr. Cramp. On the other hand, its tendency has been otherwise: A certain
class of naval officers have chosen to consider Mr. Cramp’s constantly
recurring propositions to modify and improve their designs as having the
force and effect of criticisms, and, to say the least, they have not
been grateful to him for his pains. On the contrary, no little jealousy
and some resentment have been the results, and he has been made to feel
their consequences more than once. The chief misfortune of this state of
affairs is that it precludes the cordial co-operation which should exist
between officers of the Navy Department and a contractor engaged in
building naval vessels, and creates in its stead a sense of antagonism
which tends to augment the difficulties of naval construction, which are
great and perplexing enough at the best.
But Mr. Cramp has not concerned himself with the building of naval ships
alone. He has delved into the problems presented by the uses to which
the ships are put when completed. The results of his observations in
this direction were embodied in an address to the Naval War College read
before that institution, June 18, 1897, by invitation of the Commandant,
a little less than a year before the Spanish War. The experience of that
struggle, brief as it was, and decided almost wholly by sea power, made
this paper little short of prophetic.
Some extracts from it will serve to exhibit the trend of Mr. Cramp’s
thought in the direction of the practical uses and needs of ships-of-war
after they leave the ship-builder’s hands. Among other things he said:
“The accomplishment of the objects of sea-warfare will depend partly
upon the character of the armaments and partly on the wisdom with
which their operations are directed; nor can any one gainsay that
the wisdom of direction will depend on the conversancy of officers
with the nature and necessities of the material units of which the
armaments are composed.
“These propositions being taken for granted, it becomes clear that
there can be no effective system of teaching the art of naval
warfare which does not embrace exhaustive study of and consequent
close familiarity with the instruments by which the principles of
the art are to be carried into force and effect.
“From this point of view it must be admitted that questions within
the province of the naval architect and problems which he is best
qualified to solve form an essential part of such a curriculum in
its largest and most comprehensive aspects.
“The unvarying tendency of naval progress is to exalt the importance
of the naval architect and to augment the value of the constructor
as a factor in the sum-total of sea power.
“The naval armament of to-day is a mechanism. If we view it as a
single ship, it is a mechanical unit whose warlike value depends on
its excellence as a fighting machine. If we view it as a fleet, it
is an assembly of mechanical units, the warlike value of which will
depend alike on the excellence of each unit as a fighting machine,
and on the adaptation of each unit to its consorts to produce the
most symmetrical efficiency of the group as a whole.
“For this reason, the word seamanship, in the old-fashioned or
conventional sense, has ceased to cover adequately the requirements
of knowledge, skill, and aptness which the modern conditions of
naval warfare impose upon the officer in command or subordinate.
“By this I mean not to depreciate seamanship pure and simple, but to
point out that modern conditions require an enlargement of the
meaning of the term and a broadening of its scope of function far
beyond the exactions of any former period.
“In the old days there was no essential difference in ships except
in size. Experience in a sloop-of-war qualified an officer to
assume, at once and in full efficiency, equivalent duties in a
frigate, a seventy-four, or a three-decker. Familiarity with one
ship, irrespective of rate, was familiarity with all ships. Tactical
lessons learned in manœuvring one fleet were alike applicable to the
manœuvring of all fleets. Even the application of steam as a
propulsive auxiliary in its earlier stages did not radically alter
the old conditions. At all events, it did not practically erase
them, as the present development has done.
“This growth of complexity and elaboration, and this almost infinite
multiplication of parts and devices in modern ships, have entailed
upon the naval architect and constructor demands and difficulties
never dreamed of in the earlier days. The staff required to design
and construct an ‘Iowa’ is multiplied in number, and the complexity
of its organization augmented, as compared with that required for
the design and construction of the ‘New Ironsides,’ almost
infinitely.
“Similar conditions apply to command and management; so that, while
the building of a modern battleship entails enormous work and
responsibility on the naval architect, constructor, and staff, the
effective use of her as a tool in the trade of war presents an equal
variety and intricacy of problems to students of the art of naval
warfare in this college.
“Such questions and such problems cannot be relegated to the
category of details. Even if we consider the art of naval warfare in
the aspects only of strategy and tactics, both will be affected for
better or for worse by the behavior and performance of the units
composing the force in operation. This being admitted, it follows
that the behavior and performance of the units will be as the
knowledge and capacity of captains and their staffs, and that no
extent of skill and capacity in the admiral directing the whole can
overcome or evade the consequences of incapacity and failure on the
part of a captain commanding a part.
“As the speed of any fleet is that of its slowest ship, so will its
manœuvring power be limited by the capacity of its poorest captain.
As it might easily happen that the slowest or least handy ship and
the poorest captain would be joined, the quality of the other ships
and the ability of the other officers would go for nothing.
“In view of the complex character of the ships themselves, and the
difficulty and danger of manœuvring them under the most favorable
conditions, as pointed out, the experience of the first general
action will demonstrate the necessity of having all the battleships
in a fleet as nearly alike as possible in size, type, and capacity
of performance. Such provision would not equalize the personal
factor of different commanding officers, but it would at least give
them all an equal chance at the start.
“For this reason I have always considered it unwise to multiply
types or to modify seriously those which the best judgment we are
able to form approves.
“These considerations seem conclusive against multiplication of
types, and in favor of adhering to one that plainly meets the
requirements of our national situation and policy.
“The composition of a battleship fleet under such conditions would
minimize the tactical dangers and difficulties referred to earlier,
but they would still remain very great, and nothing can mitigate
them except frequent and arduous drill in squadron of evolution, so
that our captains may become familiar with their weapons before
being called upon to use them in actual battle. There will be scant
opportunity to drill a battleship squadron after the outbreak of
war.
“In my judgment, it is hardly possible to overvalue the importance
of homogeneity in fleet organizations, and I am sure that the very
first and perhaps greatest lesson taught by an encounter between
fleets of modern battleships will be the advantage of similarity of
type and equality of performance in the units of action.
“To this element of the art of naval warfare, then, I would invite
your most earnest and penetrating attention and study.
“Assuming this problem to be satisfactorily solved and the material
of the fleet in the most effective possible condition, so far as
relation of units to each other and to the sum-total is concerned,
we have still left for consideration the difference between men, the
lack of uniformity in _personnel_. Homogeneity of material may be
attained by adherence to a wise programme of design and
construction; but homogeneity of _personnel_, in the sense of
uniform capacity and efficiency among individuals, is beyond human
art or science to produce, because the difference between men is the
decree of a higher power. The existence of this college is itself a
devout recognition of that great fact, because its whole objective
is to mitigate or minify as much as possible this inherent human
frailty, by exhausting the resources of training and study, of
precept and example.
“I do not by any means argue that the commander of a ship should be
a naval architect or constructor. But, having familiarized himself
with the principles of that art which touch directly and immediately
his function of handling his ship under sea conditions of common
occurrence, and having gained sufficient knowledge of her traits, he
should be able to form an instant and correct judgment as to her
point of best behavior in any sea-way. It goes without saying that
sea experience is the only school in which these problems can be
worked out.
“Knowledge of that character cannot be acquired by study of the
experience of others. Close and earnest attention to this course of,
at best partial, information cannot serve as a substitute for
experience of one’s own. At most it can only provide a sound basis
on which to take quick advantage of one’s own experience, when
confronted with an actual situation.
“This brings me to the proposition that the modern battleship, with
all its complexities, weights, and peculiarities of design and
model, entails upon commanding officers a new requirement which I
can find no better terms to describe than ‘battleship seamanship.’
It is a development of the seafaring art which, as events have
proved, is by no means yet mastered in the greatest and most
actively exercised navy of the world; therefore it would be too much
to expect its mastery in navies of far less magnitude and, hence,
less means for distribution of opportunities to gain experience.
“It therefore follows indisputably that navies of the lesser
magnitude should constantly exhaust their means of enabling officers
to gain sea experience by keeping all their large ships in active
evolution all the time.
“Having thus viewed the modern battleship as a mechanical unit
herself, we may profitably pass to brief consideration of the great
number and variety of mechanisms composing her. In the strict
professional or technical sense, these mechanisms concern mainly the
engineer and the electrician. But as the foundation of all warlike
efficiency in _personnel_ is discipline, and as the foundation of
all discipline is the inevitable principle of a single head, one
commander, who is to all intents and purposes an absolute monarch,
it should follow that ‘the king can do no wrong.’
“I have already remarked that the captain need not be a naval
architect or constructor to comprehend and be able to apply the
group of principles of that art which touch his functions directly
in managing his ship as a whole; likewise, I would say here that he
need not be engineer or electrician in his relation to the numerous
and diverse mechanisms whose proper operation and control are
essential to the efficiency of his command.
“But, if he really commands, he must know enough about the
instruments that do his work to know when they are doing it well and
when not; to know whether his subordinates immediately in charge of
the several devices are operating them properly or not; to know when
defects exist and when they have been made good. If he does not know
or cannot learn these things, he must depend wholly on subordinates
immediately in charge; and their reports will be law to him, or if
not law, at least decisions from which he has no appeal. Manifestly
such a situation is utterly incompatible with the independent and
self-relying autocracy which is the essential and fundamental
principle of naval command, without which discipline must sooner or
later vanish into mere empty form or conventional myth. These facts,
even more than any other considerations, argue for uniformity of
type, previously touched upon, so that in learning the traits of one
battleship the officer acquires experience and knowledge applicable
at once to the discharge of his duties in another.
“The foregoing discussion is limited to matters affecting the unit
of action, the single ship, and the captain. Passing to
consideration of the unit of operation, the fleet and the admiral,
we find another array of problems equally within the scope of this
paper.
“Let us assume that the composition of the fleet has been made as
nearly homogeneous as possible, by carrying out the principles
previously stated for ships and their captains, and that the admiral
finds himself in command of an ideal fleet as to material and
_personnel_. Actual differences in efficiency among the several
units of action will still remain, and it will become the first duty
of the admiral to ascertain and locate these diversities with
unerring judgment and unsparing perception. He should know to a
nicety the personal equation of every captain and the effective
individuality of every ship.
“Among the captains he should be able to differentiate the traits of
relative quickness of perception, promptness of action, readiness of
responsibility, and boldness of execution.”
Among the most important services of Mr. Cramp to the new navy was his
instrumentality in bringing about the system of classifying bids. Prior
to 1885, whenever contract construction was to be done, the plans of the
Department, pure and simple, were the standard. If any bidder proposed
to deviate from them in any way,—no matter how palpable the
improvement,—his bid would be held irregular and thrown out. The issue
came on the machinery of the ships authorized by the Act of March 3,
1885. Of these four ships, the “Baltimore’s” plans had been purchased
abroad, hull and machinery, and were accepted practically without
change. But the Department’s design involved the then nearly, if not
quite, obsolete compound engine for the other three, “Newark,”
“Yorktown,” and “Petrel.” Mr. Cramp, desiring to bid on the “Newark” and
“Yorktown,” was doubtful whether he could develop the indicated
horse-power, which the form of contract required him to guarantee, with
the Department’s compound engines. He was, however, confident that he
could do it with triple-expansion engines of his own design.
To overcome the difficulty, he suggested to Secretary Whitney that, in
issuing the circular asking for proposals, a classification of bids be
provided for. This suggestion was at once adopted, and bids were
authorized to be offered in three classes: Class I, the Department’s
plans pure and simple; Class II, the Department’s plans modified by the
bidder as to hull or machinery or both; and Class III, the bidder’s
plans wholly. This arrangement broke up the embargo of the Bureaus, and
admitted the results of the study, experience, and skill of practical
ship-builders. Some of the Bureaus fought the plan with all their
energy, but the contest they made had no other result than to convince
them that Mr. Whitney was the _de facto_ as well as the _de jure_ head
of the Department,—a quite novel experience for them! Some time
afterward Classes II and III were merged, so that all departures from
the Department’s plans, whether modifications of them or complete
substitution of bidder’s plans for them, were grouped under Class II,
which has become the established practice in inviting proposals. Mr.
Cramp’s bids have usually been in Class II; involving in most cases more
or less extensive modifications of the Department’s plans, and in two
cases, the “Philadelphia” and the “Maine,” his own plans complete. The
value of this new departure lay in the fact that it gave the Navy
Department the benefit of all the progress of the country in the
ship-building art as actually practised by men who were building ships
for a living, and emancipated it from the dominion of the cloister. It
has become a part of the permanent policy of the government.
[Illustration: CRUISER VARIAG—RUSSIAN]
The history of Mr. Cramp’s contributions to the new navy must, at this
writing, be left an unfinished chapter. Having built and delivered to
the government five first-class battleships, two first-rate armored
cruisers, five first-class protected cruisers, together with a
double-turreted monitor, a gunboat and a torpedo vessel, he is yet
building three armored cruisers of the largest dimensions and most
approved type. His contributions to the literature of the subject,
ranging over a score of years, have been in their way of hardly less
importance and interest than his achievements in producing its warlike
material. Their full test, in all forms and through all
channels,—hearings before committees, communications to the Navy
Department and its Bureaus, newspaper interviews and magazine
papers,—would, if reproduced in extenso, fill two volumes larger than
this one. Suffice it to say here that there is no practical subject
pertaining to naval art or science, from the design and construction of
ships-of-war to their management in service, which he has not from time
to time discussed as opportunity offered or occasion required. If he has
at times shown a spirit approaching intolerance when dealing with
invasions of his profession by inexperienced, untrained, or incapable
men, it may be explained by the logic of a favorite quotation of his
own, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!” Be this as it may, it
is yet to be said that, if not always charitable in his criticisms and
not always liberal in the standard of competency which he has set so
high and maintained so vigorously, his professional motives have always
been worthy and his efforts sincere and earnest. Whatever may be the
future growth or achievements of the modern American navy, the name of
Charles H. Cramp will ever be found indelibly stamped upon its
historical origin and primary development. The ships he has built have
won battles, gained campaigns, and vanquished the enemies of the country
in war. They have held the lead in renewing the one-time waning naval
prestige of our flag, and in restoring the sea power of the United
States to its rightful rank among the nations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER V
Armstrong’s—Russian War-ship Construction—Arrival of “Cimbria” at
Bar Harbor—Visit of Wharton Barker to Shipyard—Visit of
Captain Semetschkin and Commission to the Yard—Purchase of
Ships—Newspaper Accounts—Captain Gore-Jones—Mr. Cramp’s account of
Operations—“Europe,” “Asia,” “Africa,” and “Zabiaca”—Popoff and
“Livadia”—Visit to Grand Duke Constantine—Anniversary Banquet in St.
Petersburg of Survivors of “Cimbria” Expedition—Object of Visit to
Russia—Mr. Dunn and Japan—Contract for “Kasagi”—Jubilee Session of
Naval Architects in London—Visit to Russia—Correspondence with Russian
Officials—Visit to Armstrong’s—Japanese War-ship Construction—“Coming
Sea Power”—Correspondence with Russian Official—Invited to
Russia—Asked to bid for War-ships—Our Ministers abroad—Construction of
“Retvizan” and “Variag”—“Maine”
THE old Latin poet Horace introduces his First Book of “Sermons or
Satires” by addressing to his great patron, Mæcenas, the question:
“Qui fit, Mæcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem
Seu ratio dederit, seu fors objecerit illa
Contentus vivat? laudet diversa sequentes?”
(“How is it, Mæcenas, that no one lives content with the lot that
endeavor has given to him or that fortune has thrown in his way? but
emulates those following other pursuits?”)
Mr. Cramp reached the condition described by Horace early in the last
decade of the nineteenth century. He had exhausted the opportunities of
American ship-building, both for war and for commerce. A fleet, not only
respectable in number but formidable in type and power,—a fleet
embracing battleships, armored cruisers, and protected cruisers,—bore
the impress of his art and heralded the distinction of his name. To this
compact war-fleet he had added two ocean greyhounds, the first of their
type built in the Western hemisphere. In prosecution of all this
advancement, if we take the decade from 1885 to 1895, he had multiplied
the area of the shipyard by two, and its capacity alike in number and
size of steamships and their machinery more than three. In 1889, some
people—and among them his own associates in the ownership of the
yard—were afraid to undertake the armored cruiser “New York.” Mr. Cramp
met this obstruction with radical action, as was his wont in every
emergency; and in four years from that time he had laid the keels of
Atlantic greyhounds whose register tonnage was more than two thousand
tons greater than the total displacement of the “New York.”
Mr. Cramp had long been emulous, some Englishman might say envious, of
the wonderful career of Sir William Armstrong and of his marvellous
success in securing foreign contracts. On one occasion, returning from a
visit to Elswick with a party from the British Institution of Naval
Architects, of which he is a member, Mr. Cramp remarked that “Armstrong
and his establishment had ceased to be ship-builders in the ordinary
acceptation of the term and had become navy-builders. They do not
trouble themselves,” he said, “with isolated ships; to all intents and
purposes they undertake to build whole navies in bulk for ambitious
maritime states in South America and Asia.” At the time of the visit
referred to, with exceptions hardly worth mention, the navies of Brazil,
Argentine Republic, Chile, Japan, and China had been built, engined,
armed, armored, munitioned, equipped, and outfitted at Elswick; and
every ship was ready for battle when she finally sailed from Armstrong’s
works. In addition to this, Elswick had done a great deal of work for
European states, having, at one time or another, contributed in some
degree to every European navy, great or small, except those of France
and Russia.
To a man of Mr. Cramp’s untiring aspiration and restless ambition, this
was a spectacle not to be supinely endured. He therefore determined to
see what could be done, and he selected what seemed to him the most
promising directions of effort,—Russia and Japan. In dealing with the
Russians he had initial advantages. The first was that Russia never had
a war-ship, except the nondescript “Livadia,” built in England, though
she had been a liberal patron of English engine-builders. The second
point of advantage was that in 1878-79 a considerable volume of work had
been done by Cramp for the Russian navy, involving conversion of three
large merchant steamships into auxiliary cruisers and the construction
of one small cruiser.
The history of this interesting event, an event of international
importance, is as follows:
In the early part of the year 1878 the North German Lloyd steamer
“Cimbria” appeared at Bar Harbor with about sixty Russian officers and
about eight hundred men. Their presence at that place created a great
sensation. Visitors thronged there; and the officers were entertained at
Bangor and also in the neighboring towns. The common sailors, however,
who were allowed to go ashore about one hundred and fifty at a time,
were cruelly disappointed. They would go along the streets searching for
vodka in vain. The Maine law, which was in full force, was something
beyond their comprehension. “There is everything in the world here but
vodka,” they would say to one another, and even to their officers, when
they returned to their ship from shore liberty.
Almost at the same moment when the “Cimbria” arrived in the waters of
Maine, Mr. Wharton Barker visited Cramps’ shipyard. The banking concern
of Barker Brothers was at that time the representative of the Barings,
who were the financial agents of Russia. Mr. Barker informed Mr. Cramp
that he was delegated to arrange for the conversion and fitting out of a
number of auxiliary cruisers for the Russian navy, and that he had
selected the Cramp Company as the professional and mechanical
instrumentality for that purpose. He arranged for a visit of a number of
Russian officers to the office of the Cramp Company. These officers had
come over independent of the “Cimbria,” but arrived about the same time.
They were the Committee or Board which had been appointed to decide on
all questions that might arise in connection with the naval project
mentioned. The head of this Board was Captain Semetschkin, Chief of
Staff of the Grand Duke Constantine, who was then General Admiral of the
Navy. Besides Captain Semetschkin, the Board consisted of Captain
Grippenburg, Captain Avalan, Captain Alexeieff, Captain Loman, Captain
Rodionoff, and Naval Constructor Koutaneyoff. This was in 1879. At this
writing (1903) Captains Semetschkin and Loman have passed away; Captain
Avalan is now Vice-Admiral and Imperial Minister of Marine; Captain
Alexeieff, now Vice-Admiral, is also Viceroy of Manchuria; Captain
Rodionoff is an Admiral; and Naval Constructor Koutaneykoff is
Constructor-in-Chief of the Russian navy.
Upon examination of Cramps’ shipyard, they decided that Mr. Barker’s
selection was well judged, and approved his recommendations that the
work projected be done there.
The war between Russia and Turkey was still in progress, and there was
every indication at that moment of British intervention. The purpose of
the Russians was to fit out a small fleet of auxiliary cruisers or
commerce destroyers to cruise in the North Atlantic in the route of the
great British traffic between the United States and England. Their idea
was that the fitting out of such a fleet with its threatening attitude
toward their North Atlantic commerce might or would deter the British
from armed intervention in behalf of the Turks.
At first the Russians made pretence of great secrecy as to their
movements. “Pretence of secrecy” is the only phrase that can adequately
express their attitude. On the other hand, the appearance of the
“Cimbria” on the coast of Maine at Bar Harbor, filled with Russian naval
officers and seamen, was not concealed, but on the other hand
ostentatious. It of course instantly attracted the attention of the
British Ministry and excited their apprehension as to the possible
outcome; apprehension which the stories that for the time being filled
the papers of New York and New England certainly did nothing to abate.
An examination of the files of the _Evening Star_ and the _North
American_ at this time would be interesting reading. The _Evening Star_,
May 1, 1878, has an account headed, “_What brings the Russian Steamer to
Maine?_” May 2: “_Suspicious Craft._” May 6: “_Suspicious ‘Cimbria’ to
leave her Station._” Some accounts “_to stir up the Irish_.” May 8: “_An
Account of the ‘egg-eating’ incident_.”
The _North American_, May 13, states that the captain of the “Cimbria”
“has said that Russia is preparing to attack Great Britain by sea;” and
refers to the disastrous effects on our commerce during the Civil War by
the work of the Confederate cruisers which practically drove the
American flag from the ocean.
Captain Gore-Jones, the Naval Attaché of the British Legation at
Washington, and others visited Bar Harbor at the time the “Cimbria” was
there. They made their visit incognito, as they imagined, and they
located themselves daily on the landing pier near the Bar Harbor Club
House, where all the Russian officers who were aboard the ship landed
every day. It happened that one of the officers knew Gore-Jones
notwithstanding his disguise. The British Attaché was sitting upon the
pier with a slouch hat on his head and a fishing-rod in his hand,
intently watching and patiently waiting for a bite, and apparently
oblivious to all that was going on except at the other end of his line.
When this officer passed him on the pier, he said in very good English,
“Captain Gore-Jones, the fish do not seem to be anxious to make
acquaintance with you!”
The visit of these officers to the shipyard of course was carried out
with a great deal of real secrecy, and arrangements were made to buy
three or four fine and up-to-date merchant ships and to transform them
into cruisers, and also to build a small new cruiser.
Mr. Cramp first applied to the American Line to buy three of their
ships, but the president of the company was too much astonished to give
him any satisfaction; or, at least, he was not prepared to act as
promptly as the occasion required, and lost the chance of selling the
ships, to the most profound disgust of Mr. Thomas A. Scott, of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, which corporation had a paramount interest in the
ships and wanted to sell them!
The “State of California” was on the stocks at Cramps about ready to
launch. This board of officers inspected her. They also looked at the
“Columbus,” sailing between New York and Havana, a ship that Cramps had
built for Mr. Clyde,—and the “Saratoga,” a ship that had belonged to the
Ward Line, built by Mr. Roach for that same trade, and were favorably
impressed.
Up to this time the presence of these gentlemen in Philadelphia was not
known or suspected; but when the purchases were made, Mr. Barker decided
that, while the time had arrived when it was necessary to remove the
veil of secrecy, the Cramps should continue to maintain it as to the
actual work and its progress.
Mr. Cramp arranged with Mr. Alexander McCleary with this end in view.
Mr. McCleary was at that time the principal reporter of the _Evening
Star_, and a friend and member of the Harrison Literary Association, to
which Mr. Cramp belonged. The whole affair was managed by him most
admirably. On May 16 the _North American_ and _Evening Star_ made the
first announcement that indicated what the Russians really intended to
do. These papers gave an account of the sale of the “State of
California,” and that $100,000 was paid on account to A. A. Low & Co.,
the agents of the Pacific Coast Navigation Company. May 16 was the day
of the launch, and on the next day preparations were made to remove the
joiner and cabin work, a full account of which appeared in the daily
papers.
Mr. Cramp ultimately purchased in addition the steamships “Columbus” and
“Saratoga.” These two and the “State of California,” after being
converted into auxiliary cruisers, were named the “Europe,” “Asia,” and
“Africa.” Then the Russians contracted for a small cruiser which they
called the “Zabiaca” (Mischief-maker). This ship was a regularly
designed man-of-war of a special type, and at the time of her completion
was the fastest cruiser in the world. The four ships were fitted out
under the direction of their captains respectively. The commander of the
“Europe” was Captain Grippenburg; of the “Asia,” Captain Avalan; of the
“Africa,” Captain Alexeieff; and the commander of the new cruiser
“Zabiaca” was Captain Loman.
The three ships purchased and converted into commerce destroyers were,
so far as internal arrangement and outfit were concerned, altered
altogether as to the respective ideas of their commanders, and they all
differed very much. They embodied very complete and somewhat ornamental
accommodations, and every modern convenience as understood at that time
was included in their design.
During these operations the show of secrecy was maintained, but Captain
Gore-Jones still zealously endeavored to keep himself and his government
_au courant_ with everything that was going on. In pursuit of this duty,
he managed on one occasion to get into the shipyard in the disguise of a
workman and on the pass or ticket which was then issued for the
admission of workingmen. He was, however, soon observed by Captain
Avalan of the “Asia,” who at once reported the fact of his presence to
the office. Captain Gore-Jones was then politely but firmly ushered out
of the shipyard and requested not to enter it again.
[Illustration: AMERICAN LINER ST. PAUL]
This incident of Captain Gore-Jones’s futile attempt to play detective
attracted wide attention and much comment. Among the newspaper articles
on that subject was one in the columns of the Washington _Sunday
Capital_, a journal then having national reputation for wit and humor.
The material part of it was as follows:
“Among the ornaments of the Diplomatic Corps is a possible, though
not altogether probable, successor of Nelson. He appears in the
Congressional Directory as Captain Gore-Jones, Naval Attaché of H.
B. M. Legation. Neither one of his two names, viewed separately,
suggest aristocracy. Both viewed together in normal condition are
not calculated to excite suspicion of blue blood. Still, Gore-Jones
is an aristocrat. The hyphen is what does it. For the rest,
Gore-Jones, being an English naval officer, is a Welshman born in
Ireland.
“His duties are supposed to be the observing of things naval in this
country. Being unable to discover a navy, or anything resembling
one, in possession of the United States, it occurred to him that
perhaps he might find here a navy or part of one belonging to some
other power. In fact, it was rumored in the Corps Diplomatique that
Gore-Jones had been notified that he must either find a navy in this
country somewhere and belonging to somebody or lose his job.
Naturally, his first quest would be at our navy-yards (so-called),
but at none of these could he even detect symptoms of naval
intention. All he could find was a few old hawse-holes. He was
informed that these had been accumulated by that jolly old tar, the
rotund Robeson, with the intention of building wooden tubs around
them whenever Grant might happen to run for a third term. He was
also informed that the present reform administration of the
venerable Richard W. Thompson, of Indiana, viewed these hawse-holes
with suspicion. This was because they were hollow; whereas the
venerable reformer believed that everything about a ship should be
solid.
“Despairing of the navy-yards, Gore-Jones turned his attention to
places where merchant-ships were constructed. He heard that the
Cramps, of Philadelphia, were building something that did not look
merchant-like. He resolved to see it. Incidentally, he had heard
rumors that the queer craft at Cramps’ was being paid for along by
instalments of Russian money.
“Trouble was brewing between Russia and England. Aha! At last!
Gore-Jones had struck it rich. Let him unearth this foul conspiracy
to imitate in 1879 the pious example England had set with the
‘Alabama’ in 1863, and he would surely get a star. He might even get
a garter.
“But how? Cramp had views of his own as to private property. He was
not under diplomatic jurisdiction, as were the navy-yards. In fact,
the sign was out at Cramps’, ‘No English need apply!’ This, however,
was rather incentive than obstacle to Gore-Jones. He needn’t be
English. Nature had endowed him with an assortment of mental and
bodily peculiarities, mostly bodily, that adapted him to almost any
nationality. He resolved to be an Irishman. He at once began an
arduous practice of the brogue. First he had to get rid of the
cockney drawl which is enjoined by regulation in the English navy.
Demosthenes is said to have overcome a tendency to stutter by
orating with his mouth full of pebbles. Gore-Jones got rid of the
regulation cockney drawl of the English navy by talking with his
mouth full of Irish whiskey.
“Finally, he considered all preliminary difficulties overcome, and
began a siege of Cramps’ shipyard by regular approaches. Finding it
impregnable to front attack, he resolved to flank it. This he
accomplished by taking possession of an adjoining lumber yard in the
night-time. Early in the morning he entered the fortress by its
sally-port. Success was in his grasp,—almost. It glittered, then it
glimmered, then it fizzled out. There was one peculiarity he
couldn’t overcome. That was his remarkable resemblance in form and
figure to ‘Punch’s’ standard cartoon of ‘John Bull.’ He could smoke
a short, black pipe with the bowl turned down equal to the most
Corkonian Irishman in Fishtown. He could also fairly imitate that
peculiar accent produced by filtering conversation through the
teeth, commonly known as the brogue, particularly when the
conversation was diluted with a mouthful of Irish whiskey. But he
couldn’t escape his shape. One of the Russian officers on duty at
Cramps’, with that keenness characteristic of Napoleon’s ‘scratched
Tartar,’ penetrated all his disguises. Then he was ignominiously
ejected by one of those decrepit men who, when they get too old to
build ships, are usually employed by Cramps’ as watchmen. _Sic
transit gloria mundi._ Exit Gore-Jones. But he will remain with us.
He will hold his job. He deserves to. He has done what no American
has ever been able to do since the collapse of the Rebellion. He has
discovered a navy—an actual, real, live navy—in the United States.
The fact that it is a Russian navy and not an American one,
humiliating as it may be to us, is a huge feather in the cap to him.
We hasten to doff our editorial chapeau to Gore-Jones. We are
confident he will get his star. We fervently hope he may get also
the garter.”
At this point Mr. Cramp’s own narrative of the subsequent proceedings
will be more graphic and interesting than any other form of description
could be:
“Great activity marked the progress of alterations and fitting out
of the vessels. The yard was filled with men, some working night and
day, and the vessels were all fitted out at a very early date,
considering what had to be done. They were more than rebuilt. Each
ship was fitted out for an admiral and the accommodations for
officers and men were ample. They were full sparred and
square-rigged.
“The indications that the English would join the Sultan at any time
still prevailed at the time the vessels were ready to go to sea.
When the ‘Europe,’ ‘Asia,’ and ‘Africa’ were ready to depart, they
had to go without any guns, because all the loose guns that the
Russians could spare from the navy were mounted on forts, and none
could be appropriated for these ships, so they had to depart without
guns. They expected when they came here to be able to purchase guns
in this country from some of the gun manufacturers, and they were
very much amazed to find that our government had not permitted any
gun factories to exist here. So they had to go without.
“The captains all showed great determination and pluck, but their
going away was not under the conditions usually attending the
departure of war vessels. They expected when they left that England
would openly espouse the cause of Turkey before they arrived at the
other side, and they were all prepared to sink their ships rather
than surrender. They felt that their case was particularly hard and
that their hands were tied, and having no guns they were at the
mercy of the enemy. They could not find much satisfaction of sinking
with their own ships unless they had done some damage to the enemy,
so under the circumstances their sailing was a very sad occasion.
“The ‘Zabiaca’ being a new vessel, it took longer to finish her, and
by the time she was finished the war with Turkey was over, and they
managed to get guns to put aboard her.
“The fitting out of this small fleet of commerce destroyers had the
effect that the Russians originally intended it to have. It deterred
the English from going in with the Sultan. The merchant fleet of
England is too great and too vulnerable to permit their country to
go to war for a trifle. England would suffer more in a war than any
other nation on account of the large number of merchant-men under
her flag; and it was because of the great number of her ships and
the danger and loss from their destruction that made the British
government and its people labor so hard to have our navigation laws
repealed, so that a fictitious sale could be made and the vessels of
their merchant marine could be put under the protection of the
American flag. As two of our statesmen said (Henry C. Carey and
Judge Kelley), ‘As long as our navigation laws remain as they are,
England will be under perpetual bonds of indemnity to keep the peace
with all the small nations in the world, because their
merchant-ships cannot fly to the protection of the American flag.’
In this case the English saw the scheme of the ‘Alabama’ applied to
themselves.
“These vessels went abroad, and most of them became flag-ships on
foreign stations.
“The ‘Europe’ and ‘Africa’ became flag-ships, and the ‘Asia’ was
afterward taken by the Grand Duke Alexis, who made a yacht of her,
and a very handsome one she made. She remains the Grand Duke’s yacht
to this day.
“The rest of the history of this transaction is generally known. The
vessels were fitted out, went to sea, and made their way to Russian
ports without interruption, and a final treaty of peace was effected
through the Congress of European Powers at Berlin. I believe that
the strongest argument the Russian government could offer to
persuade Great Britain against intervention was the fitting out of
these vessels as commerce destroyers in our shipyard.
“The next year during a trip abroad I visited Paris. I found there
Captain Semetschkin, who told me that the Grand Duke Constantine was
in the city and would like to receive me. The captain arranged that
I should call the next morning, and at the same time informed me
that the Grand Duke had given a contract for a new ship, afterward
called the ‘Livadia,’ designed by Admiral Popoff and Dr. Zimmerman,
to be built at the Fairfield Works at Glasgow. Admiral Popoff was a
notable example of that type of man to which, for example, De
Lesseps, and Keely of motor fame, and Eads belong. Such men affect
an almost celestial knowledge in everything they undertake, and that
affectation, coupled with an apparent sincerity of manner,
earnestness of purpose, and unflinching nerve, often enables them to
captivate people of good information on general topics, but
unacquainted with the technique of engineering problems; and who
therefore are unable to detect the cunning charlatanry of such
pretenders.
“Admiral Popoff had fascinated the Grand Duke Constantine with his
peculiar type of war-ship, which was a circular floating turret of
large dimensions that could be revolved by means of her propellers,
so that, porcupine-like, she could present her ‘bristles’ in every
direction to an enemy.
“Quite a number of the Popoff type of floating batteries were built,
and a dry-dock was constructed for their special accommodation when
repairs might be necessary. The ‘Livadia’ was the last production of
Admiral Popoff, who, as I have already remarked, designed her with
the assistance of Dr. Zimmerman, of Holland. She was not circular
like her predecessors, but was oval in shape, the transverse
diameter being almost but not quite equal to the conjugate, and she
was fitted with three screws entirely under the bottom. Captain
Semetschkin informed me that the Grand Duke was much impressed with
this new design, and that nothing could shake his belief in its
success. Being thus forewarned, I could avoid giving him an adverse
criticism in case he brought the subject up by simply exercising a
little diplomacy, as it was not my desire or intention to cross his
predilections in any way. When I called on the Grand Duke at the
Russian Legation, I found him reclining on a sofa, having severely
injured his leg in a fall. He arose as I entered and invited me to
take a seat in front of him. Being full of the subject, he
immediately asked me if I would visit Glasgow soon, and when I
stated that I intended to go there at an early date he gave me a
letter to Captain Goulaieff, Russian Naval Constructor, who he said
had charge of the construction of the new ‘Livadia,’ and that he had
had prepared a working model fifteen feet long with engines complete
as an experiment, and he wanted me to see it.
“I am sure he fully believed in the successful future of this type.
He stated that he was confident that it would revolutionize
merchant-ship as well as war-ship construction, and his enthusiasm
was unbounded in the contemplation of it.
“When he had exhausted the subject, which took some time, in elegant
English and with fascinating fluency of speech, he changed the
subject, and I was subjected to one of the most severe examinations
in naval construction, equipment, and technical practice that I ever
encountered. Of course, there was a change from my attitude of
listener to that of a sort of principal in the conversation that
followed.
“In referring in a complimentary way to the new fleet that we had
turned out,—the outcome of the ‘Cimbria’ expedition,—the Grand Duke
stated that one quality in them that impressed him more than any
other was the large coal carrying capabilities of the vessels, and
he asked me how I explained it. I stated that the models of the
ships were of the best American type with certain improvements of
our own.
“Expressing himself in a complimentary manner as to what we had done
and as to what I said, he then put the question to me with much
‘empressement’ and sympathetic interest of manner: ‘Mr. Cramp, from
what school of naval architecture did you graduate?’
“Fully appreciating all that was involved in the question from his
stand-point and what he considered of paramount importance,—the
necessity of the Technical School for Naval Officials—I was prepared
for the question, and determined that my answer should be apropos;
and that I would not permit myself and my profession to be
disparaged, knowing that in Russia and on the Continent generally
there were no great private shipyards, and that if a naval architect
or ship-builder there did not graduate from a technical school, he
was practically nowhere at that time. Trained as I was in
Philadelphia in a first-class shipyard, surrounded by others of the
same kind and in close contact with New York, which city occupied
the head and front of the ship-building profession in the world, I
felt myself doubly armed and more than confident when my answer came
promptly after the question.
“I said: ‘Your Imperial Highness! when I graduated from my father’s
shipyard as a naval architect and ship-builder, there were no
schools of naval architecture. I belong to that race which created
them!’
“This unexpected answer, and the gravity of my manner, astonished
for an instant the Grand Duke, who glanced at Captain Semetschkin,
and rising to his feet he bowed profoundly to me and sat down.
“The history of the ‘Livadia’ is well known,—encountering a storm in
the Bay of Biscay she was somewhat battered up under the bottom
forward. On account of her peculiar shape and light draught she did
not respond quickly to the motions of a head sea; when her bow was
lifted clear of the water, the following seas would strike the
bottom very severely before she would come down.
“After serving at Sebastopol somewhat under a cloud, she was laid
up; the propeller engines were ultimately put in three new
gun-boats.”
The departure of the “Cimbria” from Russia was a great event there, and
all the officers who left Russia on that expedition have continued ever
since to meet yearly on March 28 (O. S.), that being the date of their
departure from Russia. On March 29, 1898, twenty years afterward, Mr.
Cramp happened to be in Russia arranging for the contract between his
Company and the Russian government for the construction of the
battleship “Retvizan” and the cruiser “Variag.” A committee of officers
at the time called and invited him to be present at their annual banquet
as a guest. This committee was composed of some of the younger officers
who were on the “Cimbria” expedition. They stated that no guest had ever
been invited to one of these banquets, but they considered Mr. Cramp’s
connection with the fitting out of that fleet entitled him to the
distinction of being the only guest they ever had on one of those
occasions. He found there Vice-Admiral Avalan, the Assistant of the
Minister of Marine and now Minister of Marine,—he had been captain of
the “Asia;” Admiral Grippenburg, who had been captain of the “Europe;”
and also about thirty of the sixty officers who left on the “Cimbria” on
its first voyage. Of those absent, a great many had died, and some, of
course, were away. Admiral Alexeieff was in China.
Mr. Cramp had begun his overtures with a view to naval construction for
Russia as early as the fall of 1893. During that period the Russian
Atlantic fleet was present in our waters to take part in celebrating the
four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’ discovery. The Grand Duke
Alexander was an officer in that squadron, which during its stay in our
waters was at anchor for some time in the Delaware, and its officers
freely visited the shipyard, carefully inspecting and examining all the
work then going on. The general result was that they became enthusiastic
with regard to the development of the art in this country and with the
character of work being done toward the rebuilding of our navy, and they
were also profoundly impressed with the facilities of Cramps’ shipyard
which might be utilized for increase of the Russian navy. They frankly
said, however, that just at that moment it did not seem to be the policy
of their government to have important work done for the Russian navy in
foreign shipyards. This was, of course, true, for at that time Russia
was not building any kind of naval construction more important than
torpedo-boat destroyers outside of her own domain. During the following
years (1894, 1895, 1896) certain correspondence passed between Mr. Cramp
and high officials in the Russian Ministry of Marine; though little
progress was made during those years except to call the attention of the
Russians in a vivid and forceful manner to the capacities and facilities
which he controlled, and to strengthen the _entente cordiale_ which had
so long existed between the Russian naval authorities and himself.
At this point it becomes necessary to take up a new branch of the
general subject, which is that of foreign work.
[Illustration: MEDI-J-IEH LAUNCHING—TURKISH
Copyright, 1904, by John W. Dawson]
While the correspondence with the authorities of the Russian government
above referred to was going on, our Minister at Tokio, Mr. Dunn, called
the attention of the Japanese government to the fact that their
expenditure of vast sums of money on a new navy in England principally,
and also in France and Germany on a smaller scale, was well known; and
in a diplomatic way he suggested that some of that kind of patronage
bestowed upon the ship-building interests in the United States would be
extremely gratifying to the American people. He also thought that the
popularity of such a project in this country would be made universal if
part of the proposed patronage should be awarded to the Atlantic and
part to the Pacific coast. Minister Dunn’s suggestion was taken up by
the American Trading Company in the Orient, and their joint advocacy of
the scheme was crowned with success. Acting upon intimation of such a
suggestion, the Cramp Company and the Union Iron Works of San Francisco
sent agents to Japan, and when they returned, contracts were made with
the Japanese Minister Toru Hoshi, representing the Imperial Government,
and the two ship-building companies above mentioned. The ship built by
Cramp is now known in the Japanese navy list as the “Kasagi,” and that
built by the Union Iron Works of San Francisco as the “Chitose.”
Up to that time the Japanese navy had been built almost exclusively in
England, and with unimportant exceptions wholly by Armstrong. Of the
vessels which won the naval battles on the Yellow Sea in the
Chino-Japanese War of 1894 almost all, with the exception of a few
torpedo craft, were built by Armstrong & Company at Elswick.
There was, however, one difficulty in the way of Japanese patronage of
American shipyards in the construction of naval vessels. This difficulty
soon came to the surface, but was averted by the urgency of diplomatic
considerations. It grew out of the fact that the money which Japan was
using to augment her navy was that which she realized from the Chinese
Indemnity paid under the provisions of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. This
indemnity had been furnished by Russia and financed in England or by
English capitalists; and it appeared that there was a sort of tacit, if
not express, understanding that most of it was to be spent in naval
construction, and that the ships which it was to pay for should be built
in English shipyards. However, the Japanese naval authorities were
extremely desirous of adding one or more American-built ships to their
fleet; their idea, from the professional point of view, being that, as
they were then about prepared, or had been for some time engaged in
preparing, to build ships at home in their own dock-yards, the
possession of one or more American-built ships would be of value as
samples, models, or object lessons. Finally, after considerable
negotiation carried on partly with or through the Japanese Minister at
Washington, and partly at head-quarters in Tokio, the Japanese
government awarded a contract to Cramp for the construction of a
first-class protected cruiser of the highest attainable speed. This
contract was signed by Mr. Cramp on behalf of the Company and by Toru
Hoshi, the Minister, on behalf of his Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. The
vessel, the “Kasagi,” was originally designed to be of about 5000 tons
displacement, but was modified to a displacement of about 5500 tons. The
guaranty was 17,000 indicated horse-power and twenty-two and one-half
(22½) knots speed, to be determined by four runs, two each way over a
measured course ten knots long. Upon her completion the ship was taken
in charge by the Japanese captain and crew, and upon her arrival home
immediately took a conspicuous place in the Japanese navy. Although this
vessel gave the most profound satisfaction in every respect, and
although she had been built in the United States at a cost that compared
quite favorably with relative contract prices elsewhere, the Japanese
did not repeat the experiment for reasons already intimated. In fact,
all the influence of British diplomacy upon the policy of Japan was
successfully employed in securing the maintenance of the British
alliance in opposition to the advance of the Russians in the direction
of the Pacific and to retain the monopoly that English ship-builders,
principally Armstrong, had previously enjoyed, and to prevent or
prohibit the construction of any more vessels of war in the United
States or in American shipyards.
Mr. Cramp continued his active correspondence with the Russian
authorities with constantly increasing prospects of success. So
promising had the situation become in the summer of 1897, that Mr.
Cramp, who had gone to Europe to attend the Jubilee Session of the
British Institution of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, concluded
to make a flying visit to St. Petersburg before the meeting. His stay
there was not long, only about a week. His object was to survey the
ground and to ascertain definitely what prospect there was for the then
rumored intention of the Russian government to put forth a large and
formidable naval programme during the ensuing winter.
Mr. Cramp returned to England from St. Petersburg, and took part in the
many meetings of the Jubilee Session referred to. One of the events of
that occasion was a visit to the great Elswick Shipyards and Ordnance
Works of Armstrong & Company, which Mr. Cramp himself describes in a
private letter as follows:
VISIT TO THE ARMSTRONG WORKS.
“The officers of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine
Engineers of the United States with certain officers of the American
navy were invited to meet the representative Naval Architects and
Marine Engineers of foreign nations and participate in the meetings
of the International Congress of these bodies in London during the
month of July, 1897.
“After various entertainments under the auspices of the Institute
and a visit to and reception by the Queen at Windsor Castle, the
party went to Scotland; after visiting Glasgow and stopping at
Edinburgh, where Sir Andrew Noble and Philip Watt, of the Armstrong
Works, met them; they were to be escorted to the Works in the
afternoon. Feeling sure that a visit of that kind to such a shipyard
with a great crowd and in such limited time would be very
unsatisfactory, and its results necessarily incomplete, I concluded
to go on to Newcastle the night before and make an exhaustive visit
to the works there before the arrival of the large crowd. This being
the greatest shipyard in the world, I desired to examine its new
constructions in progress, with regard to their novelties in device
and design, in my own way and my own time, without being carried
along by a great crowd as in a ‘personally conducted’ tour. I
therefore went on to Newcastle the night previous to the projected
visit. When I arrived at the hotel in Newcastle, I found a Russian
Naval Architect, Mr. Tchernigovsky, in the act of registering, and
had gone there for the same reasons that I had, and we concluded to
go to the works together. When we arrived at the Armstrong Works and
had registered our names and had asked to be conducted through the
works, we found that all the principals had gone to Edinburgh, to
return with visitors, and, after some hesitation on the part of the
official in charge, we were escorted through the works by one of the
clerks.
“We found that there were eighteen war vessels on the stocks! a list
of which was found in the programme of the visit given us in the
afternoon. The destination of the majority of the ships was known,
but not indicated in the programme. Before we left Newcastle, I was
enabled to locate all of the ships.
“We had not gone far in the shipyard before I saw a 7-inch armor
plate suspended on slings ready for hoisting in its place on what
appeared at first to be a high-speed, large protected cruiser, but
on ascending the brow stage we found it to be an armored cruiser of
advanced type and speed and with very heavy armor for that type of
vessel.
“When we asked the young man as to the nationality of the ship he
could not tell, but stated that was one of the ships building on
account of the firm. This was as interesting to Mr. Tchernigovsky as
it was to me, and our examination was rather prolonged, no objection
being made by the young man who escorted us, who not being a
mechanic was indifferent as to our actions. We found before we left
the works that there were two or three battleships of advanced type
and superior model and three or four armored cruisers, whose
destination was unknown to the people at the works outside of the
office. There was one thing that we were sure of, that these ships
were not building by the company for sale, and that there was an
important mystery to be solved.
“By the time we returned to the office, we found that the Edinburgh
crowd had arrived, ready for luncheon, after which the whole party
went through the works; there was but little time to see what was
going on, and the character and the existence of these important
ships entirely escaped the notice of the visitors. There were a
number of Japanese and Chinese officers present with the visitors.
“We had for some time before this visit secured possession in China
of copies of certain plans and specifications for an advanced type
of armored cruiser, and after an examination we found that they were
proposals of the Thames Iron Works for raising a loan and for
building a fleet for the Chinese navy.
“The resemblance between the armored cruisers building and the
Chinese plans was so great, that I am sure the Japanese ships were
made from copies of the Thames Iron Works drawings. The whole scheme
of the Thames Iron Works was excellent and feasible, and the Chinese
lost a fine navy by not accepting the offer.
“I thought that the construction of such an advanced type of war
vessel under the conditions was of sufficient importance to inform
Lieutenant Colwell, our Naval Attaché at the United States Embassy.
When I called on him, he seemed surprised to find that I had made
the ‘discovery;’ and he stated that he had wired a cipher despatch
to Washington describing the ships, and that they were for the
Japanese, and that he had been informed of it by the Chinese Naval
Attaché, who was a very bright man and whose knowledge of the fact
was from an absolutely correct source. Mr. Colwell stated that no
one but the Chinese Attaché and himself was aware of it outside of
the Armstrong’s and the British government. Of course, the last
persons to be suspected of knowing anything about the matter were
the Japanese. Mr. Colwell was well posted as to the object of the
great enterprise.
“It was easy for Armstrong’s to keep a matter of this kind quiet, as
they had built so many war vessels for various countries, and with
eighteen on the stocks they would not be noticed; and, besides, they
were never without one or two vessels under construction for sale.
“The character of the vessels and the information that I gathered
from Mr. Colwell and the Chinese Attaché, and the fact that London
was filled with foreign naval officers, diplomats, and others in
attendance on the festivities, gave me opportunities to secure much
important information as to what was going on behind the scenes. The
Japanese in numbers and importance exceeded the delegates of the
other nationalities that participated in the Naval Architects’
ceremonies, and they were treated in the most obsequious and
deferential manner by all of the British dignitaries, ship-builders,
ordnance and armor makers, dealers in supplies, and the English
people generally.
“Soon after the Armstrong visit I met a Japanese nobleman, Marquis
Ito, or Iendo, at the Lord Mayor’s reception. He was the head and
front of the Japanese contingent, judging from the amount of
adulation that prominent British dignitaries and ship-builders
accorded him. Desiring to be sure of the facts in relation to the
Japanese ships at the Armstrong Works I accosted him with an air of
knowing all about it and as if there was no use of his denying
it,—hurrying along with my description in elaborate detail, giving
him no opportunity to reply,—I said: ‘Oh, Marquis Ito! I have just
examined your very fine ships at the Armstrong Works. They are
superior to anything in any navy, British or any other, and with the
speed of twenty knots and 7-inch armor and excellent model, etc.;’
running along without giving him time to reply until I got out of
breath and stopped.
“During my talk his face was a study. It was impossible to note or
guess at his impressions, and I was extremely doubtful as to the
result; but the fact that we were then building a Japanese war
vessel, the ‘Kasagi,’ led him to believe that I knew something,
particularly as my elaborate description in detail of the qualities
of the ships under construction was correct; so, being sure that I
was thoroughly posted, he made no denial, but bowed smilingly and
with an air of approval. I had no opportunity of discussing the new
fleet with Mr. Tchernigovsky after we left the Armstrong Works, but
from information I subsequently received I was satisfied that his
early visit to Newcastle was not accidental.
“The discovery of the construction of this fleet was the origin of
my article on ‘The Coming Sea Power’ in the _North American Review_
of October, 1897.
“I ascertained while in London, from additional sources not to be
mentioned here, that the construction of these ships was undertaken
in consequence of a secret alliance between Great Britain and Japan
to prevent the United States from securing possession of the
Sandwich Islands and to head off the Russians in the Pacific, etc.
“The great engineering strike in Great Britain during this time
delayed the delivery of the Japanese vessels and the construction of
the great fleet of British ships then under way for two or three
years, and the whole thing fell through because the favorable
opportunity had passed. The delay gave them time to think it over.
And, besides, we were beginning to make a show of naval power. It
was also at this time that the Germans were beginning to show their
practical aspirations in the direction of ‘sea power.’
“The construction of the ships and their object was known also to
Captain Gregorovitch, Russian Naval Attaché in London, and that
probably accounted for the visit of Mr. Tchernigovsky.
“One interesting circumstance in connection with this strike and its
consequences was the fact that under the operations of the strike a
very large number of the best English shipyard workmen and engineers
went to Germany, and became permanently located there in the
shipyards; and while their absence crippled Great Britain, they more
than any other cause advanced the construction of the German navy;
so that while the leaders of the strike in England gained nothing by
it there for the engineers but disaster to themselves and their
country, they were conspicuously instrumental in assisting the most
powerful rival of England.
“It would be an interesting subject for reflection or discussion as
to what might have been the consequences if the strike had not
occurred and the Japanese and British fleets had been finished two
years before they were.
“At the time these fleets were started there existed throughout the
naval world a lull in war-vessel output, particularly so in Russia
and the United States, until some time after the announcement of the
Japanese policy. The Germans had, however, been much in advance in
the way of waking up and realizing the real situation.”
The programme of the visit to the Armstrong Works embraced the following
list of war vessels then building there. This programme did not indicate
the destination of any of these ships, so far as they were being built
for foreign account, and that designation included all of them except
one third-class cruiser of 2800 tons displacement building there for the
English navy. Therefore the destinations of all war-ships then building
at the Armstrong Works which are noted in the margin of the programme
are those dropped from other sources of information, all of which turned
out to be absolutely true. It should be explained here that the policy
of the Armstrong Company in building vessels of war for foreign navies
always was to keep their destination secret as long as possible. And
here it may be added that Brassey’s “Naval Annual,” the most
comprehensive work of its kind that ever existed, did not in its issue
for the year 1897 contain the destination of any of these ships building
at Armstrong’s for foreign account, and that the same work for the next
year did give their destinations based upon the disclosures made by Mr.
Cramp in connection with Commander Colwell, our Naval Attaché in London,
and the Naval Attaché of the Chinese Legation there. With this
explanation, we present a copy of the programme of the visit, with Mr.
Cramp’s annotations as noted above.
THROUGH NEW SMITH’S SHOP TO
ELSWICK SHIPYARD.
Sir W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Limited, have now under
construction the following vessels of war:
Tons. Speed in For
Knots.
One armored-clad battleship 14,800 18 (Japan.)
One armored-clad battleship 12,200 18 (Japan.)
Two first-class armored cruisers, 9,600 20 (Japan.)
each of
One first-class armored cruiser 8,500 20 Chile.
Two fast protected cruisers 4,500 24 China.
Two fast protected cruisers 4,300 22½ (Japan.)
Portugal.
One fast protected cruiser 4,250 21 Chile.
Two armor-clads 3,800 17 Norway.
Three fast protected cruisers, each 3,450 20 Brazil.
of
One third-class cruiser 2,800 18 England.
One training ship 2,500 14
One torpedo-boat destroyer 300 30
Two first-class armored cruisers, 9,750 20 (Japan.)
contracted for Besides mercantile
vessels at their shipyard at
Walker.
By the end of the year 1897, or rather during this year, besides the
ships enumerated above for Japan there were in course of construction
elsewhere:
One battleship (“Fuji”), in commission.
One battleship, 14,800 tons, building at Thames Iron Works.
One battleship, 14,800 tons, building at Thompson’s.
One battleship, 10,000 tons, under consideration, the Armstrong Works
(contract not signed).
One armored cruiser, 9600 tons, ordered at Vulcan Works.
One armored cruiser, 9600 tons, ordered at St. Nazaire.
Four torpedo-boat destroyers of 30 knots, similar to British destroyers
of 30 knots, building at Yarrow.
Four torpedo-boat destroyers of 30 knots, similar to British destroyers
of 30 knots, building at Thornycroft.
One torpedo-boat destroyer of 30 knots (?), similar to British
destroyers of 30 knots, building at Schichau.
Eight torpedo boats of 90 tons, Schichau.
Four torpedo boats of 90 tons, Normand.
The Japanese battleships are named “Yashima,” “Hatzure,” “Mikasa,”
“Asahi,” and “Shikisima.”
[Illustration: MEDI-J-IEH IN COMMISSION
Copyright, 1904, by John W. Dawson]
The first-class armored cruisers with seven-inch side armor at
Armstrong’s were the “Asama,” “Idzumo,” “Iwate,” and “Takima;” at St.
Nazaire, France, “Azuma;” and at the Vulcan Iron Works, Stettin,
Germany, the “Yakumo.” Five battleships, 6 armored cruisers, and 21
torpedo boats under construction in 1897, in addition to the ships in
their own yards.
Soon after his return to America, Mr. Cramp decided that the results of
his visits to the Armstrong Works should be given to the public, as
there were no obligations of secrecy imposed on him, and particularly as
he thought that the United States was, or should be, interested in the
matter; besides, he desired to extend the field of the operations of
their ship-building works abroad and secure a small portion of the
construction of war-ships which England, France, and Germany had
monopolized, and for that purpose he prepared a paper, which was printed
in the November number of the _North American Review_ for 1897. This
paper added a considerable scope of discussion applying directly to the
relative naval activity of Russia and Japan, and drawing, or rather
pointedly leaving for inference, the conclusion that Russia was not
keeping pace with the development of her already great and rapidly
growing rival in the Oriental Pacific.
This paper was as follows:
“THE COMING SEA POWER.”
“Most well-informed people have a pretty clear general idea that the
present is an era of unexampled naval activity throughout the
civilized world; that great fleets are building everywhere; that the
ships composing them are of new types, representing the highest
development of naval architecture and the most exquisite refinement
of the art of naval armament. Doubtless, a much smaller number of
persons are aware that a new factor of imposing proportions has come
into the general situation; that the newest member of the family of
civilization is with rapid strides reaching a status of actual and
potential sea power with which the older nations must henceforth
reckon most seriously.
“It is, however, questionable whether any one not intimately
conversant with the current history of modern ship-building, or not
qualified to estimate properly the relative values of actual
armaments, can adequately conceive the vast significance of the
prodigious efforts which this youngest of civilized nations was
then, and still is, successfully putting forth toward the quick and
sure attainment of commanding power on the sea.
“In order to estimate accurately the significance of the current
naval activity of Japan, it is requisite to trace briefly her prior
development as a maritime power.
“The foundation of the Japanese navy was laid by the purchase of the
Confederate ram ‘Stonewall,’ built in France in 1864, surrendered to
the United States in 1865, and shortly afterward sold or given to
Japan. This ship was soon followed by another of somewhat similar
type, built at the Thames Iron Works in 1864-65, now borne on the
Japanese navy list as the ‘Riojo,’ and used as a gunnery and
training ship.
“From that time to the period of the Chinese War the naval growth of
Japan was steady, and, considering her very recent adoption of
Western methods, rapid.
“At the beginning of that war, Japan, though possessing a very
respectable force of cruisers and gunboats, mostly of modern types
and advanced design, had no armored ships worthy of the name. The
old ‘Stonewall’ had been broken up, the ‘Fu-So,’ the ‘Riojo,’ the
‘Heiyei,’ and the ‘Kon-Go,’ built from 1865 to 1877, were obsolete,
and the ‘Chiyoda,’ the only one of modern design and armament, was a
small armored cruiser of 2450 tons, with a 4½-inch belt, and no guns
larger than 4.7-inch caliber.
“The unarmored fleet, however, on which she had to rely, was for its
total displacement equal to any in the world. It embraced three of
the ‘Hoshidate’ class, 4277 tons and 5400 horse-power; two of the
‘Naniwa’ class, 3650 tons and 7000 horse-power, which had been
considered by our Navy Department worth copying in the ‘Charleston;’
the ‘Yoshino,’ 4150 tons and 15,000 horse-power, and about fifteen
serviceable gun-vessels from 615 to 1700 tons. All of the cruisers
had been built in Europe, but most of the gun-vessels were of
Japanese build, and represented the first efforts of the Japanese
people in modern naval construction.
“Among the results of the war was the addition of several Chinese
vessels to the Japanese navy, including the battleship ‘Chen Yuen,’
of 7400 tons and 6200 horse-power, and the ‘Ping Yuen,’ armored
coast defence ship, which had been captured by the unarmored
cruisers of the Mikado.
“At the end of the war Japan had forty-three sea-going vessels,
displacing in the aggregate 79,000 tons, of which seven serviceable
ships, with total displacement of 15,000 tons, were prizes.
“The navy of Japan in commission at that time (1897) embraced
forty-eight sea-going ships, of 111,000 tons displacement, and
twenty-six torpedo boats. The five sea-going vessels, of 32,000 tons
total displacement, which had been added since the war, represented
the most advanced types of modern naval architecture, and included
two first-class battleships of 12,800 tons each, the ‘Fuji’ and
‘Yashima.’
“The ship-building programme then in progress of actual construction
was calculated to produce by the year 1903 a total effective force
of sixty-seven sea-going ships, twelve torpedo-catchers, and
seventy-five torpedo boats, with an aggregate displacement of more
than 200,000 tons.
“To the navy in commission or available for instant service, already
described, Japan now adds, in plain sight under actual construction
in various stages of forwardness, a new fleet vastly superior to it
in power and efficiency.
“Here I desire to say that the word ‘progress,’ in its conventional
sense, does not adequately indicate the naval activity of Japan. The
word implies continuity, by more or less even pace, in one of two
directions, or in both; one direction is an increase in tonnage,
with but little or no improvement in efficiency; and the other is a
marked advance of new ships in all the elements of offence, defence,
staying power, and economy.
“The first condition of progress is represented by the present
activity of most nations who are sailing along evenly and with
self-approval in fancied superiority. The second condition is
represented by Japan, who suddenly appears as a cyclone in a smooth
sea of commonplace progress.
“Japan is not only building more ships than any other power except
England, but she is building _better ships in English shipyards than
England herself is constructing for her own navy_. While other
nations proceed by steps, Japan proceeds by leaps and bounds. What
other nations are doing may be described as progress, but what Japan
is doing must be termed a phenomenon. She is building:
“(1) Three 14,800-ton battleships, which are well advanced at the
Armstrong Works, Thompson’s, and Thames Iron Works, respectively.
“(2) One battleship of about 10,000 tons, commencing at the
Armstrong Works.
“(3) Four first-class armored cruisers of 9750 tons displacement and
twenty knots speed at the Armstrong Works; one at the Vulcan Works,
Stettin, Germany, and one in France.
“(4) Two 5000-ton protected cruisers of about twenty-three knots
speed; one at San Francisco and one at Philadelphia.
“(5) One protected cruiser of 4300 tons and about twenty-three knots
speed, at the Armstrong Works.
“(6) Four thirty-knot torpedo-boat destroyers at Yarrow’s.
“(7) Four more of similar type at Thompson’s.
“(8) Eight 90-ton torpedo boats at the Schichau Works, Elbing,
Germany.
“(9) Four more of similar type at the Normand Works, France.
“(10) Three 3000-ton protected cruisers of twenty knots, three
torpedo gunboats and a despatch vessel, at the Imperial Dock-yard,
Yokosuka, Japan.
“(11) The programme for the current year embraces a fifth armored
cruiser of the type previously described (9600 tons and twenty
knots), to be built also at Yokosuka.
“This is Japan’s naval increase actually in sight. Excepting the
ships building at Yokosuka, the whole programme has come under my
personal observation.
“Comparison with the current progress of other powers discloses the
fact that Japan is second only to England in naval activity, being
ahead of France, much in advance of Germany, and vastly in the lead
of Russia and the United States. It must also be borne in mind that
the new Japanese fleet comprises throughout the very latest and
highest types of naval architecture in every respect of force,
economy, and efficiency.
“The spectacle of Japan surpassing France and closely following
England herself in naval activity is startling. Considering the
shortness of the time which has elapsed since Japan entered the
family of nations or aspired to any rank whatever as a power, it is
little short of miraculous. Yet it is a fact, and to my mind it is
the most significant single fact of our time. Nations do not display
such energy or undertake such expenditure without a purpose.
“It can hardly be maintained that Japan aims her vast preparations
at the United States; at least, not primarily. The pending Hawaiian
affair has given rise to some irritation, but its importance has
been systematically exaggerated by the English press. It cannot, in
any event, go beyond the stage of diplomatic exchanges. Japan will,
doubtless, receive from the United States sufficient assurance that
the rights of her subjects in Hawaii will be protected in case of
annexation, and thus far she has asked no more than that. She is
certainly entitled to no less.
“The object of the English in encouraging Japan to make a bold front
against the United States was and is, like all their objects, purely
commercial. They hoped to stir up in the Japanese mind an
ill-feeling that would prevent the award of any more contracts to
American shipyards, and even this characteristic stratagem is not
likely to have more than a temporary effect. Thus I think it may be
assumed that Japan’s immense naval preparation is not made with the
United States in hostile view; certainly not mainly.
“Assuming these conditions to be beyond dispute, and considering
that the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway will at once make
Russia a great Pacific power, politically and commercially, her
naval situation in those seas must become a matter of prime
importance; perhaps not of equal importance with that of the United
States now, but at once sufficient to challenge the best efforts of
her statesmen.
“Having all these facts in view, and being in a position to judge
with some accuracy of the significance and value of preparations
which came under my own observation during a recent tour of Europe
in my professional capacity, I could not help remarking the vast
difference between the naval activity of Japan and that of the other
two first-rate pacific powers, Russia and the United States. The
existing situation in Russia and the United States, relatively
speaking, can hardly be called more than the merest perfunctory
progress, whereas the activity of Japan is really marvellous. If she
were simply meditating another attack on China alone or unsupported,
no such fleet as Japan is now building would be needed; certainly
not the enormous battleships and the great armored cruisers. It must
therefore be assumed that Japan’s purpose is the general one of
predominant sea power in the Orient.
“Japan may, and probably does, meditate a renewal of her efforts to
establish a footing on the Asiatic mainland. Possibly, she may have
in view the ultimate acquisition of the Philippine Islands! (This
was written the year before the Spanish War.) But, whatever may be
her territorial ambitions for the future, it is as plain as an open
book that she intends, before she moves again, to place herself in a
position to disregard and defy any external interference. This may
be the true meaning of Japan’s extreme activity in naval preparation
at this time.
“I may say without violation of confidence that a Japanese gentleman
of distinction, a civilian, not long ago remarked in conversation on
this subject that ‘while Japan was forced by circumstances to yield
much at Shimonoseki that she had fairly conquered, she still secured
indemnity enough to build a navy that would enable her to do better
next time!’
“In view of all these facts, the question at once arises: Are Russia
and the United States prepared or are they preparing to meet such
conditions, and to maintain their proper naval status as Pacific
powers? My answer to that question, based on observations of Japan’s
naval strength already in sight and on what I know of her intended
programme for further increase in the immediate future, as compared
with the relative conditions of Russia and this country, would be in
the negative.
“Just now Russia is trying the experiment of reliance on her own
Imperial dock-yards, including two semi-private shipyards under
government control; while the United States has halted completely.
The Russian dock-yards are efficient, as far as they go, and turn
out good work, judging from such specimens as I have seen. But their
capacity is not adequate to the task that is presented by the
situation which I have delineated. No other nation relies wholly on
its own public dock-yards for new naval constructions. England, with
public dock-yards almost equal in capacity to those of the rest of
the world combined, builds over 65 per cent. of her displacement and
97 per cent. of her horse-power by contract with private shipyards
and machine-shops. France, with very great dock-yard facilities,
builds a large proportion of her hulls and machinery by contract.
The same is true of Germany, Italy, and the United States. But
Russia has no great private ship-building facilities, and there are
no visible signs of the immediate development of resources of that
description.
“Japan, on the contrary, though she has some facilities of her own,
is drawing upon the very best resources elsewhere to be found; she
is drawing on the ship-building power at once of England, France,
Germany, and the United States. Not only that, but more than that;
the vessels Japan is building in the shipyards of England, France,
and Germany are superior to any vessels those nations are building
for themselves, class for class.
“Hence, viewing the situation from any point at will, the conclusion
of any one qualified to judge must be that, in the race for naval
supremacy in the Pacific, Japan is gaining, while Russia and the
United States are losing ground.
“It requires little prescience to discern that the issue which is to
settle that question of supremacy as between the powers may not be
long deferred.
“Though Japan’s naval activity is primarily significant of a purpose
to secure general predominance in Oriental seas, and though, as I
have suggested, there is no immediate reason for, or prospect of,
trouble between Japan and the United States involving naval
armaments; yet, in the broad general sense of dignity on the sea,
our country can by no means safely ignore or be inattentive to the
progress of our Oriental neighbor toward the rank of a first-class
sea power in the Pacific Ocean. The completion of her fleet now
building will, inside of three years, give Japan that rank, and the
future programme already laid out will accentuate it. The superior
quality of Japan’s new navy is even more significant than its
enormous quantity. She has no useless ships, none obsolete; all are
up to date.
“Meantime, the attitude of the United States seems quite as supine
as that of Russia. It is not necessary to go into minute detail on
this point. Suffice it to say that, taking Russia, Japan, and the
United States as the three maritime powers most directly concerned
in the Pacific Ocean, and whose interests are most immediately
affected by its command, Japan at her present rate of naval
progress, viewed with relation to the lack of progress of the other
two, must in three years be able to dominate the Pacific against
either, and in less than ten years, against both.
“I have heard the question raised as to the character and quality of
the Japanese _personnel_; I have heard the suggestion that,
magnificent as their material may be, their officers and men are not
up to the European or American standard. It is not my intention to
discuss this phase of the matter. But it is worth while to observe
that, if the Japanese officers with whom we are in daily contact as
inspectors of work we are doing for their government are average
samples, they have no odds to ask of the officers of any other navy
whatsoever as to professional ability, practical application, and
capacity to profit by experience. And it should also be borne in
mind that they have had more and later experience in actual warfare
than the officers of any other navy, or of all other navies. While
all other navies have been wrestling with the theoretical problems
of war colleges, or encountering the hypothetical conditions of
squadron evolutions, fleet manœuvres, and sham battles, the Japanese
have been sinking or taking the ships, bombarding the towns, and
forcing the harbors of their enemy. I do not know how others may
view this sort of disparity in experience, but in my opinion it is
the most portentous fact in the whole situation, and because of it
no navy that has not done any fighting at all has the slightest
license to question in any respect the quality of the _personnel_ of
the Japanese navy that has done a good deal of extremely successful
fighting.
“On the whole, the attitude of Japan among the powers is in the last
degree admirable. Her aspirations are exaltedly patriotic, and her
movements to realize them are planned with a consummate wisdom, and
executed with a systematic skill, which nations far older in the
arts of Western civilization would do well to emulate.”
In this paper, it need hardly be said, Mr. Cramp hewed to the line. He
did not flatter the Russians nor did he omit to advise them of the full
extent and unquestionable consequences of their procrastination and
supineness. When the paper was prepared and had been finally revised,
Mr. Cramp still hesitated about publishing it in that form. “The
Russians,” he said, “are extremely sensitive; they know their weakness,
or the best minds among them know it quite as well as I have pointed it
out in this paper. Of course, I intend it as an appeal to their
patriotism and to their sense of their country’s needs; but I am afraid
that it will hurt the sensibilities of some of them.” However, after
further consideration, Mr. Cramp determined to print the paper as it
stood, and it was done. Probably no article appearing in an American
magazine in many years, if ever, received as widespread or as earnest
attention in Europe as did Mr. Cramp’s paper on “The Coming Sea Power.”
As soon as the _North American Review_ arrived in Europe, the paper was
translated and printed in Russian and German and a copious synopsis of
it in French, in the naval periodicals of the respective countries. It
was also extensively discussed and criticised in the English press, both
in the service papers and in the regular daily journals. In St.
Petersburg, besides being translated and printed in the principal
Russian magazine and discussed in the newspapers, it was made the basis
of an address by one of the most eminent Admirals in the Russian navy.
Mr. Cramp’s cautious apprehension, already referred to, that it might
touch the susceptibilities of Russian officers proved groundless; and it
has been openly admitted by high officials of the Russian Ministry of
Marine that the arguments and considerations so vigorously advanced by
Mr. Cramp had an effect of no little potency in turning the scale of
Russian policy, which a few months later found expression in the great
naval programme of 1898.
Early in the following spring Mr. Cramp received advices from St.
Petersburg that the Ministry of Marine would be glad to entertain plans
and proposals from him for the construction of at least two first-class
battleships, two first-class protected cruisers of the highest speed,
and thirty torpedo boats, under the new programme which had then,
February, 1898, been finally authorized by the Ministry and approved by
the Emperor Nicholas II.
Upon receipt of this information or suggestion, Mr. Cramp lost no time
in preparing for the voyage. Although the time of year, early in March,
was the most inclement season for a visit to the great northern capital,
he cheerfully accepted the situation. So far as the general scheme and
outline plans were concerned, he had substantially worked them out in
anticipation, and not much delay was caused on that account. Early in
March, 1898, Mr. Cramp sailed on the American Line steamship “St. Paul,”
bound for St. Petersburg by the way of Southampton. Upon his arrival at
the Russian capital, he was immediately turned over to the tender
mercies of what is known as the Technical Board. This in Russian naval
administration is a Board composed of officers representing all the
branches of the service,—Line, Construction, Engineering and Ordnance,
or the Artillery Branch, as they call it. The membership of this Board
is considerable in number. For several weeks they subjected Mr. Cramp to
a species of inquisition which might well have appalled a man of less
resources, less determination, or less confidence in his own ultimate
mastery of the situation. It is not worth while, even did our limits of
space admit, to go into detail of Mr. Cramp’s discussion of his proposed
designs and plans with the members of the Technical Board. Suffice to
say, that after some weeks of consideration, taking the widest possible
range, a general agreement was reached, leaving but few questions open
for subsequent determination, none of which were of vital importance.
The sequel of the whole transaction was that on the 23d of April, 1898,
contracts were signed by Mr. Cramp on behalf of the Company, and by
Vice-Admiral V. Verhovskoy, Chief of the Department of Construction and
Supply, on behalf of the Emperor, for the construction of two vessels,
one first-class battleship, now known as the “Retvizan,” and one
first-class protected cruiser of the highest practicable speed, known as
the “Variag.”
In his operations at St. Petersburg leading up to these important
contracts, which aggregated nearly seven millions of dollars, including
extra work ordered during construction, Mr. Cramp encountered powerful
and persistent opposition from three widely diverse sources. First,
there was an element strongly intrenched in the Ministry of Marine, who
opposed the award of contracts to foreign builders other than the
French. This element of opposition was powerfully represented on the
Technical Board, and its influences were shown particularly in the
Ordnance installation and in the Engineering section, who wanted
everything done in Russia. It proved factious and troublesome, though
not otherwise formidable, because the decision to have some of the ships
in the programme of 1898 built abroad had already been reached in higher
quarters. In fact, though not definitely so announced by the Russian
government, it was known by the middle of March, 1898, at least by those
intending to bid, that the Ministry of Marine had decided to award
contracts for the construction of two first-class battle-ships, one
armored cruiser, and three first-class protected cruisers of the highest
speed in foreign shipyards, and a large number of torpedo boats.
The French and German shipyards were represented not only by their own
agents and experts, but they were backed, and their claims to
consideration urged, with all the power and influence their respective
Embassies and banking houses could command at the Court of St.
Petersburg.
However, this situation was not at all unforeseen or unexpected by Mr.
Cramp. To encounter opposition from the agents of the foreign banking
houses and diplomats was a normal condition of this kind of business.
Fortunately for Mr. Cramp, or, rather, fortunately for American
industrial interests at large, we also had an ambassador at St.
Petersburg in 1898. He was not of the common run of American diplomatic
representatives “near” foreign Courts. He was different. Almost from the
foundation of our government, a rule—amounting to unwritten law—had
prevailed which forbade American diplomatic representatives abroad to do
or say anything in aid or furtherance of commercial or industrial
enterprises of American citizens in the country to which they were
accredited.
Object lessons were before them. During Polk’s Administration, James
Buchanan, then Secretary of State, had removed, or rather transferred to
another post, a United States Minister to one of the South American
Republics on the Pacific slope. This Minister had committed the, in
United States “diplomacy,” unpardonable offence of indorsing the drafts
of certain whale-ship captains upon their owners in New Bedford and
Nantucket. The ships of these captains were in distress, having been
dismasted in tempestuous passages around Cape Horn, and they had made
their voyage to Valparaiso under jury-masts. Arrived there, they needed
money to repair and refit their battered and storm-beaten ships. Our
Minister to Chile used his good offices to help them get their drafts
cashed so they could repair their vessels and pursue their voyages.
This, from the view-point of primitive United States “diplomacy,” was of
course a crime, and the Minister was made to suffer for it! Ultimately
this unwritten law or tacit doctrine found expression on the floor of
the Senate, in a debate on the Consular and Diplomatic Appropriation,
from the lips of Thomas F. Bayard:
“The purity and dignity of our foreign representation,” he said,
“must be preserved! The law now recognized, though unwritten, should
be made statutory! If an American Minister abroad should use any of
the influence or employ any of the prestige or credit which he may
derive from his status as a representative of this country to aid or
further or promote any scheme or project of American citizens in
that country, having private gain in view, he should be held
answerable for official misdemeanor!”
Buchanan and Bayard have already found their proper levels in American
history, and need not be discussed here, even if their memories were
worth discussion. But the theory they applied to our diplomatic
representation was for many years the rule. The result was that our
“diplomatic service” (so-called) down to, we may say, the end of
Cleveland’s last Administration, had become little else than a hospital
for political cripples, or a sanitarium for over-worked old lawyers and
nervously prostrated college professors. It was the laughing-stock of
foreigners and the object of cynical, albeit good-natured, contempt on
the part of our own people. It had become a symposium of urbane
uselessness and solemn stupidity.
All this was changed in our representation at St. Petersburg in 1898.
Our Ambassador there was the Hon. Ethan Allen Hitchcock, of Missouri. He
was neither a political cripple, nor an overworked old lawyer, nor a
college president needing a gilt-edged vacation.
He was a great and successful manufacturer, a man of broad and keen
business instincts, and he thought that any scheme calculated to
disburse about seven million dollars among the workingmen and steel
mills of the United States was well worthy the earnest attention and the
best officers of the most dignified Ambassador. Imbued with such ideas,
Mr. Hitchcock helped Mr. Cramp all he could. He may not have been as
noisy about it as the German Ambassador or as strenuously in evidence as
the French Ambassador, but he was none the less active or effective in
his efforts to subserve and promote the interests of his country and her
citizens. The maw-worm doctrine of Buchanan and the raven-like croaking
of Bayard were lost upon such a man. Taking the situation altogether, it
is safe to say, so far as diplomatic representation was concerned, the
commercial and industrial interests of the United States and of American
citizens in the Russian Empire were quite as well guarded in 1898 as
were those of France and Germany.
The third element of opposition which Mr. Cramp had to encounter and
overcome was of a purely technical or mechanical character. His plans
involved installation of water-tube boilers of the Niclausse type. But
up to that moment, ever since the adoption of the water-tube system by
the Russian navy, the Belleville type of boiler had held undisputed sway
there. The enormous wealth of the Belleville people, their straightway,
open-handed mode of doing business with naval officials, not only in
Russia but in England as well, and their aptness in placing valuable
things where they would do the most good, were all notorious. They had
for some time admitted that the Niclausse system was their most
formidable rival, and naturally they were ready to exhaust their
resources to prevent its introduction into the Russian navy, where their
monopoly, up to that time, had been perfect and invulnerable. This
discussion was, of course, carried on wholly between Mr. Cramp and the
Russian technical authorities. It was a subject that could not be
touched by diplomacy or by personal influence; a contest to be fought
out wholly on the mechanical merits of the respective systems and
decided entirely by skilled judgment. In this kind of contest Mr. Cramp
was at home, and he won. His staple argument was that for any naval
power to surrender itself to a single type of proprietary boiler,
thereby creating a monopoly against itself, could not be else than
unwise; that the era of water-tube boilers was still in the experimental
stage, that perfection was yet to be developed, and was doubtless a long
way off. Exhaustive trials already made had demonstrated a wide range of
efficiency and consequent merit in the Niclausse system, and while it
was no part of his contention to decry or depreciate the rival type,
comparative performances of official record beyond dispute argued that
sound marine engineering policy would forbid the exclusion of the
Niclausse system. By the weight of these arguments Mr. Cramp carried all
his points. The ultimate result of a six weeks’ campaign was the award
of contracts for construction of six vessels in foreign shipyards: one
first-class battleship and one armored cruiser to the Forges et
Chantiers, of France; one first-class battleship and one large protected
cruiser of the highest attainable speed to Mr. Cramp, and two protected
cruisers of type similar to the last-named to Germany yards, the
“Germania” of Kiel and the “Vulcan” of Stettin.
Upon these awards, Mr. Cramp came home and began construction at once.
Indeed, while still in St. Petersburg, he had placed orders for
important parts of the material required, and had contracted for the
necessary armor. At the outset some delay occurred, due to the extreme
deliberation observed by the Russian Inspectors in approving detail
plans and specifications, and to some changes made in the character and
quality of material for protective decks after the contract was signed.
But notwithstanding these delays, Mr. Cramp completed and delivered both
his ships long in advance of either the French or German builders, and
such time penalties as had accrued by reason of the initial delays
already referred to were remitted by direction of the Emperor Nicholas
II himself.
The trial conditions imposed upon these ships were the most drastic and
crucial ever known; they being required to develop their maximum speed
for twelve hours continuously, as against four-hour or measured mile
trials in other navies.
Upon the completion and delivery of these ships, Mr. Cramp had achieved
the distinction of having done the greatest volume and highest value of
ship-building for foreign accounts ever performed in an American
shipyard. On their arrival at St. Petersburg, both ships were personally
inspected by the Emperor, who was so pleased with the “Variag” that he
ordered her detailed as escort to the Imperial yacht in a trip to
Cherbourg.
It is worthy of remark that in the fall of 1898 our Navy Department
advertised for proposals to construct three battleships, now known as
the “Maine” class. The plan put forth by the Department was a modified
and slightly enlarged “Alabama,” with a speed requirement of seventeen
knots as against sixteen in the original type. Mr. Cramp offered to
build an eighteen-knot ship within the statutory limit prescribed for
one of seventeen knots, and used his Russian battleship as a basis of
design. His proposition was accepted, and the other bidders—Newport News
and the Union Iron Works, to each of whom one ship was awarded—were
required to adopt Mr. Cramp’s conditions of dimension and performance.
In this manner the American navy as well as the Russian profited by Mr.
Cramp’s interesting and remarkable “Campaign of 1898.”
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CONCLUSION
THE foregoing chapters have dealt wholly with Mr. Cramp in what may be
termed his public capacity,—in his attitude of a public servant of most
important rank and most unfailing usefulness. The fact that he has been
such a public servant, without official position or emolument, stands
doubly to his credit. Viewing him in that relation alone, it may be said
that he has designed and built, or has been responsible for the
designing and building, more than three hundred ships of all kinds,
classes, and destinations during more than half a century. It requires
more than a second thought to adequately measure the impress a man makes
upon the fortunes and the destinies of his era when he creates over
three hundred ships either for commerce or for war.
[Illustration: BATTLESHIPS INDIANA AND MASSACHUSETTS]
Dismissing for the moment all thought of the perishability of things
made by human hands, the imagination does not need a free rein to fancy
an imperishable monument in legend, in tradition, and in history. The
ships themselves run their course, meet their fate, and pass away. But
the descendants of the men who sailed in them to the uttermost parts of
the earth, if merchant vessels, or the progeny of the men who fought in
them to save the country or to set a weaker people free, if men-of-war,
will forever cherish their memories. In such a way Charles H. Cramp has
linked his name with the era of his lifetime; and nothing has been
attempted in the foregoing Memoir but to make, in assembled form,
permanent record of the most important relations he has sustained to the
destiny-shapers of mankind, the most arduous of the tasks he has
undertaken, the most signal of the triumphs he has achieved, and the
most perplexing of the difficulties and obstacles he has encountered.
No attempt has been made to portray the gentler and more genial side of
his nature; that could be found in a survey of his social personality
for its own sake and dissociated from professional striving or public
service. From this point of view purely, another volume equal in extent
to the foregoing could be written. But here the opportunity is denied.
The boundless hospitality, the unflagging generosity, the inevitable
good cheer and helpfulness to all who had in any way earned his
confidence or invoked his gratitude, must be passed over with simple
mention.
Immersed though he always was in affairs of the most practical and
matter-of-fact nature, Mr. Cramp could always find time for the society
of the clever Bohemians of literature, art, and the drama. No other
association was so congenial to him. No other business man of his time
numbered so many friends and close acquaintances in that fraternity as
he. In him they always found quick appreciation of their abilities and,
when occasion might require, ready and cordial responsiveness to their
incidents of vicissitude. During the scores of years through which he
figured in a capacity as public and in affairs as momentous as ever fell
to the lot of the highest official, constantly engaged in operations
closely affecting the vitality and integrity of the nation, incessantly
subject to a scrutiny hardly less searching than “the fierce light which
beats upon a throne,” the files of American print for a lifetime may be
searched in vain for an ill-natured personal criticism upon his acts or
achievements or an aspersion upon his character. Even partisans of his
rivals, no matter what might be the bitterness of contention or the
rancor of faction, always halted at personal animadversion upon him.
This was not because he himself was reticent in criticism or always
cautious in comment. Having always ready and welcome access to the
columns of the most noted periodicals and the greatest newspapers, and
being by no means stingy of rhetoric, his innumerable newspaper
interviews and frequent magazine papers invariably “spoke his mind” with
neither extenuation nor malice, and always hewed to the line.
On one occasion he submitted a professional paper in manuscript to a
friend of literary pursuits whose judgment he held in high esteem. “In
that paper,” he said, “I have done my best to avoid all controversial
tendency. Please look it over and give me your view as to whether or not
I have succeeded.”
It was a paper on the subject of water-tube boilers involving discussion
of the various types, and referring to the policies of different naval
administrations at home and abroad in dealing with them.
“Well,” he inquired, when his friend returned the paper, “what do you
think of it?”
“I understood you to say, Mr. Cramp, that you desire to avoid
controversial matter in this paper?”
“Yes.”
“And you would strike out anything that might partake of that nature?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in that case, there would be little left but the title of the
paper!”
The fact is, that whenever Mr. Cramp undertook to write or dictate for
publication upon professional topics, he was almost instinctively
controversial, almost intuitively combative. His long experience and his
drastic training enabled him to see through any device within his
professional sphere as through a pane of glass, and he could read its
shortcomings or its defects as an open book. In such premises, it was
never his wont to be sparing. But his criticisms were so uniformly
sound, his comments so logical and practical, and his motives so
palpably beyond question, that he was seldom combated at all, and never
successfully.
In the foregoing chapters we have reproduced extracts from his published
papers and correspondence upon purely professional subjects. As the
reader has perceived, they involve not only knowledge of everything
within the immediate sphere of his own vocation, but also a broad and
generous group of the problems of international politics and diplomacy.
Mr. Cramp was not merely an adept in the design and construction of
ships, he was equally versed in that more subtle array of physical and
moral forces which in our day have come to be grouped under the general
head of “Sea power;” and his conception of the ultimate international
objects to be subserved and wrought out by the ships he built was as
clear as his knowledge of the details of their building.
In the domain of general thought, of history, and of ethics, Mr. Cramp
was only a little less prolific than in the literature of his own
profession. His address to the Netherlands Society on the Anglo-Dutch
Wars of the seventeenth century, delivered at the Union League, January
24, 1898; his “Forecast of the Steel Situation,” published January 18,
1900, which events two years later converted into prophecy, and a recent
article written for the journal of the Central High School (_The
Mirror_) on the subject of Fakes and Pretenders, introducing as his text
the notorious Keely and his “motor,” with many others like them, must be
passed over with simple mention. Reproduction of them even by extract or
in synopsis could only reinforce the impression, already clear, of the
wide diversity of his thought, the vast scope of his observation, the
keen thoroughness of his research, and the wonderful assimilative
capacity of his mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s note:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ The Table of Contents was reformatted to save space.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
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