ARMY & NAVY: White House to War

A grey-haired, ruddy-faced, fiftyish man named William Howard Gardiner constitutes himself civilian watchdog of the U. S. Navy. He is president of the Navy League of the U. S., a 25-year-old organization of civilians and retired naval officers who contribute $30,000 per year to propagate the Big Navy idea from headquarters in Washington. Mr. Gardiner is pleased when his friends call him “The Admiral.” Boston-born, he worked as a chemist, got into electrical engineering, became an associate partner of Utilitarian Henry Latham Doherty, made enough money to retire to a comfortable home on Manhattan’s East 57th Street. Mrs. Gardiner is Mary Ruth McBurney, interior decorator.

“Admiral” Gardiner has never served a day in the Navy. Yet he is reputed to be so well posted on its problems that the august General Board would welcome him as a competent colleague. He hobnobs regularly with real admirals, talks their “shop.” Steaming back & forth between his Manhattan home and his Washington headquarters, he battles ceaselessly for his patriotic Cause—a Navy second to none. Presidents may come and Presidents may go but he is always there to care for the Navy. Last week his vociferousness got him into a front-page war with the White House over fundamental U. S. naval policy.

Across the half-mile of parked lawn and public buildings between the White House and the Navy League headquarters, “Admiral” Gardiner fired the first shots: Abysmal ignorance! Bigger and bloodier wars!

President Hoover replied with an angry broadside: Untruths and distortions! A tissue of falsehoods!

Old Feud. Mr. Gardiner began growling at President Hoover before the London Naval Conference of 1930. He said the President was “starving” the Navy. He accused him of “congenital pacifism.” He loudly deplored the London agreement, which required the U. S. to put part of its auxiliary naval strength into small 6-in.-gun cruisers, as a “surrender to the British.” When the London Treaty was ratified, he set up a clamor, as the Navy League’s president, for speedy cruiser construction which would bring the U. S. fleet up to its authorized strength. A $767,000,000 Navy League building program was advanced. When President Hoover and Secretary Adams last month began to hack down the Navy’s budget, Propagandist Gardiner cried out in pain and protest. The proposal by Italy’s Dino Grandi for an all-round suspension of naval building for one year sent him into a statistical spasm.*

President Hoover is never happy under concentrated criticism. He grew more & more irritated with the Navy League and its propagandizing president. He refused to believe that “Admiral” Gardiner had the active support of the League’s reputable membership. He suspected that many a naval officer was in secret alliance with the League’s activities, was egging it on to start a “backfire” against White House policies. Nerves worn raw by other anxieties, the President even threatened to “go to the country” on the naval issue. In the President’s eyes “Admiral” Gardiner became a reckless and irresponsible publicist who was seeking to wreck the Administration’s plans for naval economy and world peace.

Canned Goods. In preparation for Navy Day last week Mr. Gardiner’s League prepared sample speeches for real admirals to deliver about the country. The Navy Department accepted these “canned goods” for distribution. They were full of controversial matter involving ratios, tonnage, parity, building plans and the like. By chance one of the sample speeches from the Navy League reached the White House. President Hoover’s temper flared. He instantly ordered Secretary Adams to countermand the League’s propaganda and to instruct officers in their Navy Day addresses to stick to non-controversial subjects.

When the President’s turn came last week to issue a Navy Day statement, he must have had the Navy League and its spokesman in mind when he declared:

“Ours is a force of defense, not offense. To maintain forces less than that strength is to destroy national safety; to maintain greater forces is not only economic injury to our people but a threat against our neighbors. . . . Our problem is … to prevent extremists on one side from undermining the public will to support our necessary forces and to prevent extremists on the other side from waste of public funds.”

“Accurate Information.” Two days later “Admiral” Gardiner fired his salvo, a 14-page printed pamphlet entitled “The President and the Navy.” On the inside cover appeared this statement: “The Navy League for over a quarter of a century has specialized on accurate information as to naval matters. . . . [Its] principal activity is to disseminate facts. . . .”

Charges made against the President: 1) he held up naval building before the London Conference, “a gesture not commensurately copied by other prospective participants” in the parley; 2) he “admittedly” reached agreements with Prime Minister MacDonald on the Rapidan “that have never officially been divulged in their entirety”; 3) his delegates at London “yielded to the British what President Coolidge had refused to yield to them at Geneva in 1927” (i. e. big cruisers for small ones); 4) he refused to let the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in executive session see the full record of his negotiations on the London Treaty; 5) he promised the London Treaty would give the U. S. fleet “a chance to catch up” but failed to execute the catching-up construction; 6) he now favors a special one-year building holiday which would “yield the British and Japanese an average gain [in auxiliaries] of 17.5% over the U. S.”

Finding & Facing Facts. Declared Mr. Gardiner of charge No. 6: “It appeared inconceivable that any informed American official could approve of a naval holiday that would thus result. But an obvious although perhaps not the basic explanation would be that President Hoover, in spite of his partiality to fact-finding commissions, had not taken the precaution to have such an analysis made. … It is natural to avoid the finding and facing of facts that may refute one’s fancies.”

Harking back to President Hoover’s early suggestion that seaborne food supplies be immunized during war, “Admiral” Gardiner concluded thus: “The most humanitarian of pacific intentions led President Hoover into exhibiting the abysmal ignorance of why navies are maintained and of how they are used to accomplish their major mission. . . . Acceptance of his suggestion that would have made for bigger and bloodier wars. Yet such is the psychology that is not only controlling our internal naval policy but dictating its external subordination to those of foreign naval powers. It has been necessary to say what has been said to have a real appreciation of the impelling motives back of President Hoover’s efforts at every turn to restrict, to reduce and to starve the U. S. Navy.”

Wanted: An Apology. When President Hoover read this statement in his morning newspaper, he was wroth indeed. He gave his temper nine hours to cool. Then he issued to the Press an answer, a challenge and a demand to the Navy League. Excerpt:

“In order that the country may know the untruth and distortions of fact in Chairman Gardiner’s recent pronouncement, I will appoint a committee including members of the Navy League to whom agencies of the Government will demonstrate these untruths and distortions. . . . Upon its completion I shall expect Mr. Gardiner to make a public correction of his misstatement and his apology therefor. It is desirable for the public to know the character of this indirect campaign of misinformation to defeat the efforts of the Administration for reduction of the Federal expenditures not immediately essential in order that we may avoid increased taxation.”

Republicans v. Republican, Promptly the White House sent to the Navy League for its membership roll from which the President could pick his committee of inquiry. The League’s executive secretary refused to deliver the roll until the request was approved by its officials. Simultaneously “Admiral” Gardiner sent out telegraphic summons for the League’s Executive Committee to meet in Washington and plan a White House War. Among those thus called to League headquarters were Henry Breckinridge, onetime (1913-16) Assistant Secretary of War; James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr., onetime Senator from New York; Theodore Douglas Robinson, onetime Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Ogden Mills Reid, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune; Arthur Curtiss James, rail tycoon; Henry Cabot Lodge, grandson of the late great Senator from Massachusetts. Strife with a Republican President would come hard for this predominantly Republican Navy League Committee. Mr. Breckinridge, outstanding Democrat of the lot, was first to dissociate himself from that part of “Admiral” Gardiner’s outburst which insulted the President.

Secretary of State Stimson read the first page of the Gardiner attack and then tossed it aside. It contained, he said, -‘flagrant misstatements, evidently deliberate,” and was beneath his notice. He pointed out that the full record of the London negotiations had been offered the Foreign Relations Committee, providing no publicity ensued. He scoffed at its notion of “secret agreements” on the Rapidan.

Adams v. W. P. F. Secretary of the Navy Adams at first observed a strict and silent neutrality toward the Hoover-Gardiner war. Then, suddenly, he thrust himself into a similar controversy, not with the Navy League, but with its antithesis, the World Peace Foundation of Boston. The confusing spectacle was presented of President Hoover battling the Big Navy lobby while his Secretary of the Navy fought the Little Navy group. In both cases the issue was the same “misleading information.”

The W. P. F. culled from the official journal of the League of Nations naval budget figures which indicated that while Great Britain was spending $242,850,711 on her navy, the U. S. was spending $553,378.505. Flaying the W. P. F.’s “confusing statistics haphazardly interpreted,” Secretary Adams issued a long statement with tables and diagrams to show relative naval expenditures. The U. S. spent $375,291,828 on its Navy last year, he said, whereas “the British Empire” put out $349.927,670 which did not include naval aviation. He harped on the higher costs of naval construction in the U. S., stressed bigger pay, better food for U. S. sailors, declared that the U. S. spent less on its Navy in relation to national income than any other big power. Said he: “It is a matter of serious concern to the Navy that organizations [like W. P. F.] . . . interpret national defense statistics in a manner insidiously inimical to the United States and in a manner favorable to the national defense interests of foreign powers. . . . For the American standard of living, we have a comparatively inexpensive naval establishment.”

To trim ship Secretary Adams next day flayed the Navy League’s “methods,” “deeply resented” Mr. Gardiner’s “personal attack” on the President.

Committee. Later President Hoover appointed his committee of inquiry: Admiral Hugh Rodman, retired; John Hays Hammond; Eliot Wadsworth, onetime Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Undersecretary of State William Richards Castle; Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ernest Lee Jahncke. Although Messrs. Hammond, Wadsworth & Jahncke are Navy Leaguers, they are Administration men. The committee’s make-up therefore pointed to a complete victory for President Hoover.

Undaunted by the fact that he had an angry President on his hands was “Admiral” Gardiner. Well did he know that any such inquiry as the President proposed would help to advertise his Big Navy idea, would stir the public mind on the naval deficiencies he honestly believed to exist. His only comment:

“I stand by my statement. I’m surprised at the suggestion of the President that he himself will appoint a committee to investigate a matter touching administrative policy, in view of the fact that Congress is the investigating branch of the Government. Naturally I would welcome a thoroughly impartial investigation.”

Of apologies to his President he had, as yet, none.

*Last week 36 nations, including the U. S., Japan and France, had informally signified their willingness to join a naval building truce for one year. Great Britain continued silent.