HE RESORTS TO THE PEN 39 



therefore, that he has often been referred to as the father 

 of this famous institution. 



Continuing his discussion of the needs of the navy as to 

 personnel, Maury recommended a reorganization and 

 standardization of the number of officers in the various 

 grades and a system of promotion that would keep alive 

 the spirit and ambition of the officers. Surplus officers, 

 he thought, might go into the merchant marine and 

 constitute a naval reserve; while the revenue service 

 should be taken over by the regular navy. 



Maury then turned to the question of material and 

 devoted a great deal of attention to the graft and in- 

 efficiency connected with the building and repairing of 

 ships. ''Honorable legislators", he wrote, ''are warned 

 that the evils are deeply seated in the system itself, and 

 are not to be removed by merely the plucking of a leaf, or 

 the lopping off of a limb: the axe must be laid at the 

 root — for nothing short of thorough and complete re- 

 organization w^ill do". His attack was directed particu- 

 larly against the Board of Navy. Commissioners; and 

 when this board attempted a reply, he answered with the 

 most devastating article of the whole series, in which he 

 piled up figures, and multiplied instances of graft and 

 ruinous waste. As a summary, he wrote, "Vessels are 

 built at twice the sum they ought to cost — they are re- 

 paired at twice as much as it takes to build — the labor 

 to repair costs three times as much as the labor to con- 

 struct — the same articles for one ship cost four or hve 

 times as much as their duplicates for another — it costs 

 twice as much to repair ordnance and stores for a ship 

 as it takes to buy them". Maury advocated in place 

 of this board a bureau system with divided responsibility. 

 The Secretary of the Navy, he thought, should have an 



