A Brief History of Civilian Personnel in the U. S. Navy Department

By Robert G. Albion
Recorder of Naval Administration
October 1943

A Brief History of Civilian Personnel in the U.S. Navy Department

Its civilian employees might well be called the Navy's stepchildren. Overshadowed by blue uniforms and gold braid, not only in their working surroundings but also in the popular mind, their essential but unglamorous duties too often have escaped adequate attention, supervision and reward. There have been times in the past decade, when they were virtually as numerous as the uniformed officers and enlisted men of the Navy, but, for all that, they have remained pretty much forgotten men.

This brief study is based primarily upon the devoted delving of my secretary through nearly a century of the fat Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Navy, including accompanying reports of the bureau chiefs. Numerous pertinent Acts of Congress have also been consulted, along with reports of special commissions and committees. Charles O. Paullin's valuable articles on the history of naval administration as usual threw light on many points. Finally, for the events of this century, it has been possible to draw upon the recollections of participants. Unique and valuable, particularly to this Department with its excessively rapid turnover in personnel, was the opportunity to sit at a luncheon at a table with three veteran specialists in the Navy's civilian personnel, who had served in the Department since 1897, 1901 and 1904 respectively, and draw upon their memories to fill in gaps remaining after reading the printed record.

The generalities about civilian personnel, of course, do not hold true of the "topside" civilians, who have consistently topped in authority the highest ranking admirals; the President, himself, who in at least one case has regarded himself as more than a nominal Commander-in-Chief; and the Secretary, with his cabinet rank and responsibility to the President for the conduct of the Navy. At times, moreover, one might add the occasional powerful chairmen of congressional naval affairs committees, such as Senator Eugene Hale or Representative Vinson, whose long connection with Naval problems has given them a commanding weight in the Navy's affairs. All these men have represented civilian influence, but could scarcely be termed "employees". Just below them have come a diminishing group of civilians in positions of administrative importance whose status brings up some important considerations, of which more later.

From the very outset, the civilian employees proper have fallen into two major groups - the "white collar" workers and industrial labor. The former, represented primarily by the clerks in the Navy Department itself, have received annual salaries fixed, and too often frozen, by Congress. The latter, typified by the navy yard mechanics and artisans, have received wages on a per diem or hourly basis geared in a fairly sensitive fashion to the pay of laborers in a nearby private industry. The common differentiation between "Department" and "Field" is a less pertinent distinction. To the clerk in a navy yard, the geographical closeness to the workers on ships outside his office is not as significant as his functional kinship to the clerks in the Secretary's Office or the bureaus in Washington.

The clerk and the shipwright have little in common beyond the fact that both are employed by the Navy Department and do not wear uniforms. A corrollary [sic] to that latter fact, however, has meant special problems in the handling of civilian,

(p.1)

as distinct from naval personnel. The officer or enlisted man is held in line by rigid discipline; Navy Regulations curb the temptation to take a day off or walk out on the job; they behave, or "else". The civilian employee is compensated for his lack of symbolic garb by a much greater freedom of action - a situation which at times presents difficulties to those who depend upon his performance.

On the whole, the Navy has not been particularly aware of its civilian problems. There were long periods when the annual reports scarcely gave indication that there were such things as civilians in the Navy; recommendations for improvement of their status were generally concentrated into a few brief periods. Attention was devoted to navy yard personnel between 1883 and 1893; and to the Department workers between 1904 and 1913; and again during and after the First World War. Beyond that, the reports said little beyond the occasional effort of a bureau chief to get a raise for his chief clerk and the never-failing annual howl of the Hydrographic Office over the difficulty of securing scientists at starvation salaries. Perhaps the Navy Department workers were handicapped, as compared with those in the Treasury, Interior, or Agriculture Departments by the desire to get raises for the men in uniform; anyone who has read the Army and Navy Journal in peacetime realizes that questions of promotion and pay were seldom absent from the officers' minds. Perhaps the Department did not want to scatter its efforts by trying to get advances for everyone.

With these general considerations in mind, we might now go back to the gradual development of the Navy's civilian personnel problems in the 145 years since the Department was established in 1798. For the sake of clarity, it seems best to tell first the story of the departmental workers in Washington, and then of their salaried "white collar" counterparts in the field before taking up the peculiar circumstances of the much more numerous group of industrial laborers in the Shore Establishment.

NAVY DEPARTMENT

In recent times, the civilian employees of the Navy Department (and the War Department as well) have differed from those in purely civilian departments in the matter of "the career open to the talents". The immediate status and work of the lower clerks has been pretty much the same; only when they have begun to contemplate the future have the differences become apparent. The ambitious youth starting out as a messenger or clerk in the Treasury, Interior, Agricultural or Post Office Departments knows that there is a possibility of rising to be a section, division or bureau chief; he may even become an assistant or under secretary. Not so in the Navy Department. Except in the secretariat, which is generally drawn from outside higher levels, the better posts are usually held by officers in uniform. That situation has become progressively more acute throughout the Navy's history, but it took a full century for the implications of the situation to become evident.

It was difficult in the beginning. Of the four clerks who made up the Secretary's Office in 1806 (Jeffersonian economy had cut out the two or three additional ones who started in 1798) one was a virtual Assistant Secretary, another was a sort of one-man Bureau of Naval Personnel; another handled the central procurement of supplies; and only the fourth concentrated on correspondence. A slightly larger group staffed the Accountant's Office. The stress of the War of 1812

(p.2)

swelled the departmental total to twenty men - all civilians, each of whom was pretty close to the center of authority. The naval constructors were all civilians, as were the navy agents who procured supplies in the field and in some cases served also as heads of navy yards until 1813. Later, civilians served as heads of some of the bureaus. Gradually, one of these jobs after another would go into uniform.

Outstanding in the early departmental setup was the status of the chief clerk. Throughout the formative years of the Navy Department, this was held by one man - Charles W. Goldsborough. He had started as a clerk at the very beginning in 1798; from 1802 to 1843, with only one brief interval, he served as chief clerk. Because of frequent comings and goings of secretaries and later of naval officers, which would always give an atmosphere of impermanence to the Department, he stayed on as a permanent fixture, influential because he was an intelligent repository of tradition and experience. Though not brilliant, Goldsborough was a man of sufficient caliber to fill the position adequately. He came of a good family and two of his sons served as flag officers in the Civil War. He was to our young navy what Samuel Pepys had been to the Royal Navy - an able, permanent high-grade civil servant who could give continuity to the shifting scene.

Unfortunately, there was a fairly steady deterioration in the caliber of his successors. One, to be sure, was promoted to serve briefly as the second Assistant Secretary just after the Civil War, but the departmental setup did not attract a supply of adequate understudies. Too many simply piled up experience without accumulating wisdom. Though the title lasted on until the present war, the functions became more and more perfunctory and routine, while the old powers and influence passed to Assistant Secretaries who were seldom in office long enough to acquire the full benefits of experience. One of the major needs of the Department today is a setup which would attract more first-rate men who would be ready to make top-flight civilian administration a career.

However that may be, our main concern here is with the rank and file in the departmental offices. The numbers grew only very slowly. When, in 1842, Congress established the bureau system, it stipulated specifically the civilian staffs for each bureau, increasing the Department's civilian force to thirty. Recruiting was not a serious problem when positions were so few, (the "spoils system" had an occasional influence, though not as serious as in the navy yards). Nor was supervision and training anything of the problem it would become later, for the occasional newcomer would be broken in under the immediate eye of the chief clerk of the Department or bureau. And, since they were the repositories of tradition and no one else bothered much about civilian personnel, the need for intelligent recruiting and supervision crept up unnoticed for many years.

As for classification, a third major problem in civilian personnel, Congress took a definite hand in the matter. At the outset, in establishing the Navy Department in 1798, it had tied the salaries to those in other departments:

"The respective clerks in the office of the said department shall receive the same compensation, and be subject to the same regulations, as are provided by for an act, supplemental to the act establishing the Treasury Department."

Later, however, it began to legislate specific jobs, at specific rates, in the separate departments, with the result that annoying inequalities began to arise.

(p.3)

Congress established a major landmark when it rectified these inequalities in its appropriation act of March 3, 1853, modified upwards on April 24, 1854. (Statutes at Large, X, pp.209, 276) the former act stipulated:

"That? the clerks in the Departments of the Treasury, War, Navy, the Interior, and the Post-Office, shall be arranged into four classes."

and proceeded to specify the number allotted to each office and bureau; as for example:

"In the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, four of class two, six of class three, and one of class four.

In the Bureau of Construction, Equipment and Repairs, one of class one, seven, including the draughtsman, of class two, and one of class four."

and so on. A year later the salaries for the first three classes were increased:

Act of Mar. 3, 1853 Act of Apr. 24, 1854
Class 1 $ 900 $1,200
Class 2 1,200 1,400
Class 3 1,500 1,600
Class 4 1,800 1,800


After that one quick raise within fourteen months, there would be little change in the compensation of those four basic classes for the next seventy years! In fact, the major changes would be downward; by the Act of Jan. 16, 1883, $1,200 was no longer a minimum salary, but pretty well up in the scale, because of the creation of five lower classes:

Class A Less than $720 Class 1 $1,200-1,399
Class B $720-839 Class 2 $1,400-1,599
Class C $840-899 Class 3 $1,600-1,799
Class D $900-999 Class 4 $1,800-1,999
Class E $1,000-1,199 Class 5 $2,000-2,499
Class 6 $2,500 or more


The handful of chief clerks and others who would profit by the two new top classes were offset by the large numbers in the new lettered classes below the old $1,200 minimum. The general average of salaries in any particular group actually declined because of these newcomers in the lower groups. Many of the latter, of course, performed duties less responsible than the small group of clerks at the earlier period. Eve in the Secretary's Office, which included most of the choicest civilian positions, the elapsing of a half-century would show an almost static condition:

(p.4)

1854-55 1904-05
1 chief clerk at $2,200 1 chief clerk at $3,000
1 clerk, 4th class at 1,800 1 clerk to Secretary at 2,500
1 clerk extra as disbursing clerk 200 1 confidential clerk to Secretary at 2,260
6 clerks, 3rd class 1,600 1 disbursing clerk 2,250
4 clerks, 2nd class at 1,400 1 appointment clerk 1,900
1 messenger at 700 1 clerk to chief clerk 1,900
1 asst. messenger at 400 1 private secretary to Asst. Secretary at 1,800
14 $20,500 2 clerks, 4th class at 1,600
2 clerks, 2nd class at 1,400
4 clerks, 1st class at 1,200
2 clerks at 1,000
1 telegraph operator at 1,200
1 carpenter at 900
4 messengers at 840
4 asst. messengers 720
4 laborers 600
31 $39,780


This pay situation has been carried ahead of the story to indicate the longevity of that 1854 settlement; by the end of the half-century, the clamor would begin to arise against the static situation, and there, in 1904, we shall pick up this particular story again. Relief, however, would not come until the great classification act of 1923.

There was, however, a temporary outcry during the Civil War, when the depreciation of the greenback about doubled the cost of living. Considering the magnitude of the Union naval effort, and the problems imposed in that period of technical transition, it seems remarkable that the clerks and draftsmen at the Navy Department increased only from 39 to 66, even with the creation of three new bureaus. By 1864, however, there was difficulty in holding even that small number; Secretary Welles reported to Congress:

"In consequence of the greatly increased prices that prevail, many who are in the clerical employment of the government, at a compensation established prior to the war, are receiving a remuneration wholly insufficient. The state of currency, with other causes, has so affected prices that these men are receiving relatively but about one-half the pay of former years, and the effect has been such as to compel many of the best clerks in this department to leave the government service. This is a public injury, especially in the crisis like the present. The place of an experienced and accomplished clerk is at no time easily supplied; but when such place is vacated for the reason that it is not remunerative, or that the pay is below corresponding positions in private establishments, the difficulty is increased. It is therefore suggested that the salaries of the clerical force, or a portion of the clerical force, be increased until the close of the war, or until the currency shall return to a specie standard.

This recommendation is made with some reluctance, and only under a sense of its absolute necessity at this time."

(p.5)

Nothing happened; a year later he renewed his plea, but by that time the war was over.

The Civil War had an important influence at the top level. Welles, who had been civilian chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing (forerunner of S. &A.), knew the departmental setup better than most new secretaries. He brought in a new chief clerk, but wanted a more substantial official at his right hand and secured the creation of the office of Assistant Secretary, "on whom," as he later reported to Congress, "might be devolved many of the details that now occupy no inconsiderable portion of the time of the Secretary." The first incumbent was a very happy choice. Gustavus V. Fox, like Welles, already knew the Navy well, having served for years as a regular line officer before retiring to civil life. He proved one of the most successful administrators in the history of the Department. When he retired in 1866, the chief clerk, William Faxon, was made Assistant Secretary, but the post was allowed to lapse three years later, not to be revived until 1890. For the first few months of the Grant administration, the Navy Department was virtually run by Admiral D. D. Porter, who dominated even the Secretary himself.

By that time, the Navy was settling into the most depressing period of its history. During those "dark ages" from 1869 to 1882, it was starved by Congress and even fell back into a preference for wood and sail over iron and steam. During those sorry years, the annual reports had not a word about civilians, but an act of Congress in 1876 provided that:

"Whenever, in the judgement of the head of any department, the duties assigned to a clerk of one class can be as well performed by a clerk of a lower class or by a female clerk, it shall be lawful for him to diminish clerks of the lower grade within the limit of the total appropriation for such clerical service."

The Navy, however, was apparently prejudice, for some time to come, against "female clerks". It is said that during the Civil War, the Treasury Department had employed some women, who had thereby lost caste in Washington as brazen hussies. The position of "stenographer" first appears in the Navy personnel lists in 1878, but the first ones were apparently men. According to tradition, the first woman on the Navy Department payroll was a Miss Barney of a prominent naval family, who became librarian around 1890. It was many years, however, before they became numerous. Another effect of that period of doldrums was a suspicion of corruption, which was rampant in the Grant administration. Other departments provided worse and more tangible scandals, but a hostile congressional committee unearthed some rather unsavory details in naval administration.

Two legislative measures, a few months apart, signalized the Navy's renaissance from that dreary period. On August 5, 1882, came the first authorization of the "New Navy", of modern steel ships. Five months later, on January 16, 1883, came the so-called Pendleton Act, inaugurating Civil Service reform. The immediate effect of those two movements, as we shall see, was felt particularly in the navy yards, but the Department did not escape. The steady increase of the new navy would impose heavier and heavier demands upon the departmental clerical

(p.6)

forces, which would not be increased to keep pace adequately and would eventually be swamped. The departmental clerical force was brought fairly quickly under civil service, though it did not become general throughout the naval establishment until 1896.

The dwindling prestige of the departmental chief clerk was reflected in a vigorous passage of Secretary Chandler in 1884. Doubtless recalling Fox's excellent work as Assistant Secretary, he wrote:

"It is necessary to call attention once more to the impossibility of properly conducting the business of the Navy Department without further civilian assistance than is now at the command of the Secretary. There should be, in addition to the head of the Department, at least two responsible departmental officers, whose training is that of civil life, and who shall represent the civil authority. These should be an Assistant Secretary and a Solicitor. The technical subjects, which in great number and variety fall under the consideration of the Department, are distributed among eight bureaus and additional offices, whose chiefs must, by law, be officers of the Navy. The task of conducting, in conformity with the laws of Congress and the policy and will of the President, these many military sub-organizations as a harmonious and efficient whole is too great for any single person from civil life, unless aided in the details of business by responsible civil subordinates. The necessary assistance cannot be given by the chief clerk, whose duties at the head of the clerical force are sufficient to occupy fully his attention. A laborious experience of two years and a half forces irresistibly the conclusion that an Assistant Secretary is indispensable for the proper transaction of the business of the Department. If such aid is not provided, Congress should give authority for the appointment of the chiefs of the bureaus from civilians.

He did not get his Assistant Secretary, nor did Secretary Whitney when he urged a $4,000 appropriation for the position. In 1890, however, Congress finally revived the office, this time permanently. The chief clerk would never be the same again.

The chief clerks of bureaus underwent a similar eclipse with the gradual appointment of military assistants to the chief. For years, various bureau heads urged raises for their chief clerks, with arguments similar to the following from the Chief of Construction and Repair in 1886:

"The chief clerk, under the law, acts as Chief of the Bureau in the absence of that officer, and must be competent to take charge of the Bureau. His duties are arduous, and fully deserve the salary herein estimated ($2,250), a rate of pay not more than is now paid to others in the Executive Departments who have to perform similar duties of equal responsibility."

Three years later, the Chief of Yards and Docks recommended a raise for his chief clerk who had been employed in the bureau for 32 years. Gradually, however, the tune changed. In 1899, the Chief of Steam Engineering wrote:

(p.7)

"In my last annual report I repeated my former recommendations that a request be made to include provision in the naval appropriation bill for the detail of an experienced engineer officer as assistant to the chief of this Bureau. I have been placed in embarrassment by the failure to secure this desired addition, especially at times when the technical work has been so arduous and important as to make it unwise to commit official decision to the hands of the chief clerk, who while of the highest competence in his regular capacity, can not be held to be a technical expert upon the more abstruse points in the science of steam engineering. As the law stands the chief clerk is acting chief of the Bureau whenever I am absent, but there is every reason to relieve him from such entangling duty and to secure an engineer officer as permanent assistant. Most of the other naval bureaus have had this provision made for them, and I request you will lay stress upon this matter in your recommendations this year."

Eventually, every bureau had its assistant, with a consequent further diminution of the influence of the permanent civilians.

The Spanish-American War was over too quickly to affect the Department seriously. The only real complaint came from the Chief of Supplies and Accounts who declared, "The largely increased work of the Bureau incident to the war has been accomplished with but slight temporary increase in clerical force, though it has been necessary for many of the clerks to work overtime." He went on to say that with the increased size of the navy, the work of the Bureau "must necessarily grow in proportion" and could not be handled without an increased staff. That was the advance guard of mutterings which would gradually increase.

The storm broke in 1904, and for several years to come, problems of departmental personnel occupied a prominent place in the annual reports. The static salary scale could no longer stand the pressure of outside competition in a period of rising cost of living, particularly since the Navy Department seems to have let most, if not all, of the other departments secure more favorable terms. Three bureau heads all wrote in the same vein. The Chief of Equipment summed up the situation:

"It is a difficult matter to obtain efficient clerks at the rates of pay which new employees entering the Department are required to accept. When efficient employees are obtained it is difficult to retain their services, for it is the rule, with exceptions of course, that efficient clerks will not remain in the service of the Bureau; as soon as conditions with regard to pay and their chances of promotion are learned they seek for a transfer to some other Department where superior advantages are offered, and are too often successful.

The taking of untrained employees and educating them for Department work, only to lose their services after they have become valuable, is uneconomical and is detrimental to the interests of the Department. In addition to a loss of efficiency in the administration of the duties of the Bureau, time is lost and considerable expense involved, as new employees must be instructed in their duties and carefully watched until they have become proficient, which requires not only their own time but the time of their instructor."

(p.8)

The Chief of Ordnance remarked, in part:

"The work of the Bureau has suffered greatly from the constant change in its force of clerks by transfers to other departments and by resignations, 14 persons having left since April 30, 1900, or 82 per cent of its present working force. In nearly every case the clerk left because he was offered more salary or better inducements than he received in the Bureau."

The Chief of Supplies and Accounts went into details as to the immediate cause of trouble:

"The clerical force in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts is not nearly so efficient as it should be, because the initial rate of pay is too low and opportunities for advancement are too meagre.

It has been the practice to appoint copyists, bookkeepers, and stenographers at $2.48 and $2.80 per diem, and (since the making of per diem appointments has been discontinued) at $840 per annum, while employees in other departments enter the service at $900 per annum as the lowest acceptable salary, it is evident that any establishment which offers less than that amount can not expect to be on an equal footing with its more liberal competitors.

Nine hundred dollars per annum may appear ample for beginners, and particularly as compared with salaries paid to clerks in commercial establishments; but the entrance examination required of civil service clerks is calculated to exclude all except those who possess, at least, more than the average of clerical ability; and, as a matter of course, it is with other branches of the Government service, rather than with commercial establishments, that this Bureau must compete in securing its clerical force."

Year after year, similar complaints went on. In 1911, Secretary Meyer presented some pertinent facts:

"The total number of officers and enlisted men authorized for the Navy and Marine Corps has increased from 27,862 in 1899 to 60,074 in 1911, an increase of 114 per cent. In the same period the classified civilian force in the department proper at Washington has increased from 507 to 700, an increase of 38 per cent.

The Census Bureau prepared a statement, as of date July 1, 1907, giving statistics of employees in the executive civil service of the United States. Comparing the civilian force of the department proper in Washington, the Navy ranked lowest as to average rate of compensation, the Department of Agriculture not being included, as the figures for that department were based on the total number of employees in and outside of Washington. The conditions, so far as the Navy Department is concerned, have not been materially bettered since the statement referred to was prepared. Eliminating the technical, messenger, laboring, and watch force, the discrepancy between the Navy Department and the other executive departments is still more pronounced. Concrete examples can be cited of positions involving duties of a high character where the discrepancy is unusually large. A provision of law in the legislative act

(p.9)

approved June 22, 1906, prevents the transfer of an employee from one executive department to another until such employee has had at least three years service. This provision has worked to the advantage of the Navy Department so far as employees in the lower grades are concerned, but the loss by transfer is still felt and is due, in a large measure, to the universal impression that the chances for advancement in the Navy Department are much less than in other departments of the Government, owing to the low rate of compensation for positions requiring a higher order of clerical or technical ability.

During the past few years great stress has been laid, by heads of departments and others, upon the fact that the schedule of salaries for clerical employees in the executive departments in Washington has not been revised since the passage of the act of April 22, 1854.

As a matter of fact, the schedule of 1854 has been revised downward. Of the employees engaged in clerical and technical work in the departments in Washington, approximately 25 per cent now receive less than $1,200 per annum, the minimum salary prescribed for clerical services in the act of 1854, and in the Navy Department this percentage is 33."

There was grave concern not only for the present, but also for the future. If young men of ambition continued to shy away from the Navy Department, the later supply of senior civilians was bound to suffer. Secretary Meyer in 1905 made a suggestion which still seems valid, in its general aim if not in detail. He proposed to make conditions attractive enough to get first-rate men to enter the Department as a career:

"Many of the young men furnished by the operation of civil-service law are too competent and ambitious to remain permanently in the Government service, in which the prospect of advancement practically disappears after the attainment of a salary which a cable young American is unwilling to consider enough for him to expect for the balance of his life. ?

I suggest, as a remedy for these evils, that there be organized a small civilian force attached to the Navy, to be recruited from the most competent men in its civil establishment, and which should have relative rank and right of retirement on the same basis as the other noncombatant branches of the service. The number of those admitted to this force should be very moderate, since it would contain only men thoroughly qualified by character, attainments, and experience for permanent employment; but the mere possibility that faithful and zealous service might be thus rewarded would be, in my opinion, a strong incentive to the class of men we are now losing to remain in the employment of the Department. For minor clerical positions, involving routine duty and offering little prospect of promotion, I have endeavored to encourage the employment of women, against which some measure of more or less unreasonable prejudice seems to exist on the part of some officers."

A year later, he returned to the attack, with something like an Irish bull in his proposal of "a small corps of commissioned officers, to be known as 'Civilians'."! They were to be "attached to the naval establishment, employed in the higher posts now filled by civil employees in the Department and at the more important naval stations, and recruited from the most competent and deserving members of the Civil Establishment." Those "Civilians" in uniform, of course, never materialized.

(p.10)

Two other reforms suggested during this decade sounded less fantastic, and would eventually be realized. One was the establishing of an adequate retirement system for civilian employees; the other was a recommendation of the elimination of "the endless endorsements and letters" and periodic effort "to check the growth of paper work."

Low pay was not the only grievance. In many other ways the unreformed Department was creaking and groaning under the burden of an ever-expanding fleet. The Chief of Supplies and Accounts told of "several specific instances of evidently approaching breakdown among the clerks who have thus far kept up the work by excessive overtime labor." The Department, moreover, was outgrowing its sector of the old State, War and Navy Building. As early as 1900, the Chief of Navigation said that

"In one office room of the Bureau, where much of its most important correspondence is prepared, and where accuracy is most desirable in the information which it constantly furnishes to other branches of the Department, are two officers, four stenographers and typewriters, and a clerk, working on a floor space with less than 10 feet square clear of desks or office furniture."

Early in 1902, a board, appointed to examine the situation, reported that "We find the congestion in the office rooms fo [sic] the several Bureaus almost inconceivable. It is unbusinesslike, insanitary, and detrimental to the proper conduct of the Navy." At the board's recommendation, the Mills Building was rented as an overflow, but the congestion still continued. In 1907, Secretary Metcalf told that

"It has become necessary to line the walls and crowd the interior spaces of working rooms with files and records and to thrust them, in some instances, into undesirable places in the basement, under steps, and in garret spaces, where they can not be properly cared for and are not readily accessible. The demands for room in order properly to transact the business of the Department are constantly growing more and more imperative and can not longer be ignored without serious detriment to the public service. Furthermore, it is feared that the overcrowding of the clerical force of many of the rooms assigned to the Navy Department is objectionable not only from the consideration of the efficient dispatch of business, but upon sanitary grounds as well."

Even in 1913, the Chief of Supplies and Accounts, a bureau never given to suffering in silence, complained that

"The quarters are inadequate and lacking in ordinary convenience. The resultant insanitary conditions have an enervating effect. Immediate action should be taken to better affairs. Especially in the matter of providing hygienic toilets and a lavatory is the need of improvement a pressing one. In this respect the requirements are not merely desirable; they are mandatory, in the interests of both health and comfort."

Such was the rather sorry state of the Department when it was called upon to undertake a tremendous war burden in 1917. The earlier conflicts gave no hint of

(p.11)

the unprecedented increase in working force which would be demanded. The War of 1812 had been handled by increasing the departmental workers from about 14 to 20 and the Civil War by the equally moderate rise from 39 to 66. World War I, on the other hand, saw it leap from some 787 in the middle of 1916 to almost 6,400 at the end of 1918 - an eightfold gain. Even that, of course, would be moderate compared with what lay ahead a quarter century later.

These 6,400, however, were not real civilians; about 4,000 of them were Naval Reservists, men and women, "employed on work ordinarily performed by civilian employees." That expedient was necessary because of the very unattractive conditions of civilian service in the Department. With living costs increasing and good pay available in war industry, the old 1854 salary scale, with the later lower levels, simply would not attract half enough workers to handle the terrific rush of business. Even the civil servants already in the Department were in danger of being lured elsewhere, despite a grant of $120 extra as a partial offset to the cost of living. The unsatisfactory working conditions just described were probably a further deterrent - the present Constitution Avenue building, hastily erected, was not ready for occupancy until a few weeks before the Armistice.

Under those circumstances, the uniform had to be used as bait. Several thousand men were enlisted in the Naval Reserve for clerical work. But the real innovation for the Navy was its wholesale use of women. The Chief of Supplies and Accounts wrote in 1918:

"The additional clerks have been obtained as needed from the numerous sources - the College Women's Division of the Department of Labor furnishing clerks of unusual ability. Every effort has been made to employ capable women, to the end that every man of draft are now on duty in S and A may eventually be replaced by a woman."

Since they would not come in adequate numbers as civilians, the Navy took the unheard-of step of enlisting them as "yeomanettes". Aside from the glamor [sic] of the uniform, they were financially better off than at the miserable civilian wages available, when one considered the free board, room and clothing. From the Navy's standpoint, there was the advantage that they were "in" for the duration. Civil turnover was all too heavy - "S and A" had lost nearly three-quarters of its old civil service workers by the middle of 1918. Unlike the Waves of the next war, no women were commissioned as officers in World War I.

Secretary Daniels, summing up their performance in 1919, remarked:

"There was a time when the Navy was said to be the one department of Government that could get along without women. But the war taught us that this supposition was incorrect. Before the war it had been found necessary to enroll women nurses in naval hospitals and in aiding the native women of the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and the Virgin Islands. Their service entitles them to the highest consideration. The imperative need for thousands of stenographers, typewriters and clerks in the early days of the war was met by enlisting women in the yeomen branch of the enlisted force, and, in all, more than 11,000 were enrolled. It had never been done before, but there was no law against it, and the new departure enabled the Navy to meet the emergency call and aided it greatly in the good record it made for efficiency.

(p.12)

In obedience to the act of Congress, all the Yeomen (F), as they were called, (F signifying female), have been demobilized. Many of them remain as civilian clerks, Congress having made provision for their retention as clerks for the fiscal year. Numbers have taken the civil-service examination and will have permanent positions.

It was with genuine regret that the Yeomen (F) passed with the passing of war. They were truly enlisted for patriotic service in Washington and in every shore station, they released men for duty as soldier or sailor, and made a record of efficient performance of duty when their service was of the highest importance. Women also served in making and assembling the more delicate parts of torpedoes and in other branches of war service calling for skill and deftness."

The quantitative relationship of the various types of departmental workers - men and women in uniform, men and women in civilian clothes - is indicated by the statistics of one bureau - Supplies and Accounts:


1 July 1917
30 Sept. 1918 Increase
Male Female Total Male Female Total
Civil Service 159 30 189 145 437 582 307 per cent
Reservists 72 81 153 317 628 945 517 per cent
Officers 24 24 151 151 529 per cent
Civilian experts 8 8 14 14 75 per cent
Total 263 111 374 627 1,065 1,692 Male, 138 per cent
Female, 859 per cent
Total, 352 per cent


The overall picture, in the department and in the field, is shown in the table (on the next page) taken from the Annual Report for 1921 which, strangely enough, includes the male and female yeomen Reservists under the heading of civilians.

(p.13)

Approximate number of "civilian" employees under the Navy Department
Naval Estab. At large
Navy Dept. at Washington - clerks, messengers draftsmen, technical employees, policemen, etc. Clerks, messengers, draftsmen, technical employees, policemen, etc. Supervisory shop employees, mechanics, helpers,
laborers,
etc. Total no. Naval Establishment Total no.
under Navy
Department
June 30, 1914 735 2,670 24,410 27,080 27,815
June 30, 1915 731 2,795 26,748 29,543 30,274
June 30, 1916 787 3,000 32,265 35,265 36,052
June 30, 1917 (1) 1,309 (1) 5,307 55,708 61,015 62,224
June 30, 1918 (1) 1,364 (1) 10,266 88,762 99,028 100,392
Dec. 31, 1918 (2) 6,388 (3) 24,872 98,563 123,435 129,843
June 30, 1919 (4) 3,694 (5) 30,472 97,761 118,233 121,927
June 30, 1920 (6) 2,620 (7) 14,054 73,258 87,312 89,932
Mar. 1, 1921 2,231 11,979 71,426 83,405 85,636
June 30, 1921 2,112 10,031 71,531 81,562 83,674
Oct. 1, 1921 1,809 9,875 47,765 59,640 61,449


(1) On these dates there were large numbers of Naval Reservists employed on work ordinarily performed by civil employees, but numbers are not available.
(2) Of this number approximately 4,000 were Naval Reservists employed on work ordinarily performed by civilian employees.
(3) Of this number approximately 15,000 were Naval Reservists employed on work ordinarily performed by civilian employees.
(4) Of this number approximately 2,500 were Naval Reservists employed on work ordinarily performed by civilian employees.
(5) Of this number approximately 10,000 were Naval Reservists employed on work ordinarily performed by civilian employees.
(6) Included in this number are 1,109 former Naval Reservists.
(7) Included in this number are 4,238 former Naval Reservists.

(p.14)

Whatever one may say of the handling of departmental personnel at times in this war, the analysis, intelligence, energy and organization at the present are infinitely ahead of the setup in 1917-18. Civilian personnel had been handled before the war by a relatively small group in the Secretary's Office serving under the chief clerk. Those in charge of the work seem to have striven manfully to do their best, but they lacked the support of the aggregation of talent concentrated on the problem at present.

Demobilization brought its own problems, some of which were hinted at in Secretary Daniels' remarks on the yeomanettes. The Armistice, coming so much sooner than was generally expected, made sudden improvisation necessary. Hundreds were discharged with scarcely a day's advance warning, and often lacked money enough to get home. The Naval Act of July 11, 1920 authorized civil appointments of many former Naval Reservists, some of whom found their way into permanent service. The whole experience of demobilization in the last war is worth careful study in preparation for the problems which lie ahead at the end of this war. No attempt has been made in this brief space to analyze the matter thoroughly. In addition to existing printed matter on the subject, some of the principals in that experience are still available for consultation.

By 1920, bureau chiefs were once more complaining that they lacked personnel enough to handle their business adequately. Once again, as before the war, "a large amount of overtime work without compensation has been voluntarily performed during the year." From "S and A" came the complaint that the drastic cut in appropriations had caused reductions in forces ranging from 40% to 76%:

"An alarmingly serious situation has resulted from these reductions and it has been demonstrated that the present force can not furnish the various bureaus of the Navy Department with the detailed data necessary to permit proper control by them over their work or appropriations; nor can issues be promptly made to the fleet or to yard industrial departments. Mechanics and laborers are not being paid on time, payments for contracts for materials delivered and services rendered have been delayed, requisitions for the replenishment of stocks are not being promptly handled; nor are fleet requisitions for supplies being promptly filled."

Such complaints would continue through many lean years to come.

Meanwhile, the old 1854 classification was under heavy fire again, and a drastic overhauling of the whole classification system was impending. The Hydrographer, who had something to say on the subject every year, was particularly worthy of quotation in 1920, for he, in turn, summarized the high points of a significant commission report:

"It is believed that nothing better can be written in regard to this situation than is contained in the Report of the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries, transmitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives on March 12, 1920; and, in view of the extreme seriousness of the matter, the Hydrographer feels justified in here quoting certain extracts from that report as follows:

(p.15)

The lack of a comprehensive and consistent employment policy, and of a central agency fully empowered to administer it, has produced most glaring inequalities and incongruities in salary schedules, pay-roll titles, and departmental organization, with much resultant dissatisfaction, inefficiency, and waste (p.8).

Wages in the Government service should never be permitted to become static. They should be changed to meet the fluctuations in the cost of the necessaries of life and the ever-changing standard of living of a virile, progressive people (p.10).

Certain principles (as to changes in pay) should be borne in mind, however. A change in salary should always be made to affect all the employees in a given class, and never an individual within a class, except in the highest administrative, scientific, and professional classes (p.10).

The incumbents of these positions (the "highest administrative, scientific and professional classes") are the real leaders of the civil service of the Republic. It goes without saying that they should be given adequate compensation. Those whose salaries have been fixed within the last two or three years have little cause to complain. The others are underpaid, and your commission hopes that Congress will grant them proper increases. In the judgment of your commission it should be understood that these salaries are not fixed in the same sense as are the salaries of other classes, but that they will be subject to constant review and readjustment by the appropriating committee of Congress (p.10).

Your commission believes that every employee in the Government service should be given an opportunity, through industry and increasing efficiency, to secure a position of increased responsibility and, of course, of increased compensation (p.12).

We are asking the Congress to remove the barriers which have been set up between the various departments and which have made it extremely difficult for an employee in one department to secure a more lucrative place in another department. We believe the service should be regarded as an entity and that promotions should go to the best qualified without regard to departmental lines (p.12). ?"

The commission also found:

"That there is serious discontent, accompanied by an excessive turnover and loss among the best trained and most efficient emplo