If this fact be
remembered, it should be weighed with the full understanding that naval
officers, chosen by Mr. Whitney for this service, are just as much
dependents of the new Secretary as their predecessors were of Mr.
Chandler. The last set of officials, as experts, were not superior to
those which constituted the first; and yet Mr. Whitney bases his refusal
to accept the vessel upon the contradiction of the first report to the
second. If the first report was worthless, why not the second, in the
light of all the facts?
What is needed to-day is a board of examiners fully competent to
pronounce on the merits, of not only the "Dolphin" but of any and
every other ship that shall be built, and fully sundered from, and
independent of, political and official relations with the Navy
Department. The nearest approach to this is the report of the body of
experts--ship-builders, and ship-captains, experts in ship's materials,
and the like--whom Mr. Roach invited to examine the "Dolphin." The
report of these gentlemen flatly contradicts Mr. Whitney's board on
points which are matters of fact, and not of opinion, and therefore
throws the burden of proof upon Mr. Whitney himself. Until some equally
unpolitical and unofficial body refutes it, the treatment Mr. Roach has
received will be set down to other motives than the best.
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