Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 138, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1904 — THIS IS THE NAVAL WAY. [ARTICLE]

THIS IS THE NAVAL WAY.

Treasury Pays Expenses of Recruiting Officer in a Peculiar Fashion. Officers of the navy who have charge of the recruiting for that service have devised a means of extracting money from the federal treasury. According to a decision recently made by Comptroller Tracewell it is unlawful to pay the cxpences Incurred by officers detailed for recruiting duty. He holds that all they are entitled to receive is their mileage, amounting to 8 cents for each mile actually traveled. Mileage will not cover the expenses, because most of the journeys are short and the stays in a particular city rather long.

The plan Is to send the officers arotind Robin Hood’s barn,. When it Is desired that an officer shall open a recruiting office in Baltimore for a week or ten days he is to be ordered to St. Louis and then to Baltimore. His stay In St. Louis is to be limited to about five minutes. By the operation the officer comes into possession of about SIOO, out of which he has to pay about SGO for railroad fare. The remainder will pay his expenses for a two weeks’ stay in Baltimore. After he has “done” Baltimore Fittsburg may be his next stopping place. Instead of going there from Baltimore and getting about $24 he, under the new plan, will journey to Denver and return before beginning operations in Pittsburg, and so on to the end of the recruiting Itinerary. It Is believed that the comptroller will not dare question the discretion of the Secretary of the Navy to send an officer wheresoever he thinks his services are required and that the scheme will work. If It will not, then recruiting will have to come to an end until Congress can act. That would be a calamity, as the navy needs 1,500 men to man the ships In commission. The* seaboard cities are not good recruitikg grounds, because there the satisfactory men know too much about the life of an enlisted man In the navy to be persuaded to enlist, except as a last resort or as ft means of bracing up. As there is no way for an enlisted man to get a commission so he can become a “gentleman,” there Is no such incentive for an ambitious boy to enlist In the navy ns there Is in the army, where, after two years’ service, he is eligible to be ordered up for an examination, which, If successfully passed, means a commission and a life Job at good pay and a pension for hla wldov and minor children.