Being ahead of your time

["Allen Flanigan." <Allen.Flanigan@USPTO.GOV>]

Well, since we're delving into military stuff and are on the topic of being
ahead of one's time, I think the quoting of Josephus Daniels is very apropos
(nevermind that he was on the wrong side of the "planes vs. battleships"
issue)(don't worry, this will tie in to education).

I encountered Daniels from a collection of essays by Richard McKenna
entitled "the Left-Handed Monkey Wrench" (having read and enjoyed his only
novel, "The Sand Pebbles", and being at the time a ravenous reader, I was
curious to read some more of his writings).  The featured essay was
McKenna's attempt to ressurect and/or enshrine the memory of Josephus
Daniels, who to McKenna was an atypical military leader and friend of the
common seaman.

Daniels edited the weekly Raleigh State Chronicle beginning in 1885. A
progressive, he campaigned for public funded schools and universities. He
also opposed the railroad and tobacco trusts.

Daniels was an active member of the Democratic Party and a long-time
supporter of William J. Bryan. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed
Daniels as his Secretary of the Navy, a post he held for seven years.

A number of his naval reforms included abolishing the officer's wine mess,
the introduction of women into the service, and establishment of service
schools on board ships and stations. He evinced great interest in the common
man, favoring promotion from the ranks and inaugurating the practice of
making 100 sailors from the fleet eligible for entrance into the Naval
Academy annually. Under his leadership, the Navy expanded greatly and fought
effectively in World War I.

The established Navy brass, of course, were vigorously opposed to Daniels'
progressive reforms.  According to McKenna, Daniels, a civilian, didn't know
much about the Navy, yet bucked establish Navy tradition and followed his
common sense belief in the worth ordinary sailors to lay the groundwork for
reforms which are taken for granted now (recall the entrenched caste system
that the US and British Navies operated under until the 20th century, which
many reformers like Melville had spoken out against.  Daniels was, according
to McKenna, a trailblazer who actually attempted, and succeeded to some
degree, in undoing traditional system based on assumptions that officers
were learned gentlemen and seamen were ignoramuses and incapable of becoming
officers or becoming educated).

In honor of Daniels as the kind of progressive political appointee seen all
too rarely here in Washington these days, I keep a Navy cap in my office
which bears the name of the ship commissioned in 1965 which bore the name
"USS Josephus Daniels".
-----Original Message-----
From: gbracey@EROLS.COM [mailto:gbracey@EROLS.COM]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:02 PM
To: ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU
Subject: Re: Lies Across America


Can't resist mentioning, apropos of Billy Mitchell that it helps if you're
quiet about being ahead of your time and don't make the authorities think
you're crazy.  After Mitchell said planes could sink battleships, he got
these responses:

That idea is so damned nonsensical and impossible that I'm willing to stand
on the bridge of a battleship while that nitwit tries to hit it from the
air."
Newton D. Baker, U. S. Secretary of War, 1921

"Good God! This man should be writing dime novels."

Josephus Daniels, U. S. Secretary of the Navy, 1921.

It is highly unlikely that an airplane, or fleet of them could ever sink a
fleet of N avy vessels under battle conditions.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1922

"It is significant that despite claims of air enthusiasts no battle ship has
yet been sunk by bombs."

Caption under a photograph of the U.S.S. Arizona in the program for the
Army-Navy game, November 29, 1941.

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