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June, 1909 TAE Marine REVIEW 147 Tribute to Rear Admiral Melville' HE honor of being invited to pay, a tribute to my dear old chief, Admiral Melville, is one which I appreciate. highly, as well as the allied one of acting as spokesman for the donors of the splen- did portrait which is to be presented to the National Gallery this evening. I admire the admiral as the fine flower of a splendid type of manhood, and his kindness to me for many years has been' so like. a father's that with a son's affection I rejoice. at this splen- did testimonial to his personality and his work.. Too often the pathway to greatness and fame is marked by the wreckage of competitors, and even friends, who have been ruthlessly thrust aside in the egoism of selfish ambition. 'Then, there may be a grudging admission of ability, but there is no love, no true admira- tion. When on the other hand, the hero has always been the helper and friend of his companions, when he has cheerfully acknowledged their his success, we have such greatness as we are celebrating tonight. Then, every member of the profession feels that the fame of the leader is reflected on the whole body, and they love the man while they rejoice in his reputation. George Wallace* Melville is such a man. He has been one of the famous men of engineering so long that we find it hard to remember a time when his name was not synonymous, as it is now, with all that represents progress and achievement in our profession. It is a matter of delight to all of us who love him that the artist, in the picture which is to be presented to the National Gallery this evening, has faithfully depicted the chief character- istics which have made him great. These are, in my ~-- judgment, , indomitable courage and unbending honesty. 'It is possible for a man to have great men- tal ability and yet fail of true great- ness if he lack these essentials. Melville's Arctic Record. You all. know Melville's Arctic rec- ord which first brought him an inter- national reputation; there he displayed a heroic courage which has never been surpassed, and for which congress. ad- vanced him a grade in the navy. This, however, was only a_ repetition of other instances of- absolute fearless- ness, beginning with his earliest days in the service, When he became engi- _ *Address by -Walter M. McFarland in pre- Senting a portrait of Rear-Admiral Melville to the National Gallery, Washington, May, 1909. aid to neer-in-chief, the same courage, but rather on the moral than the physical side, was shown. first annual report, he spoke out 'fear- lessly, setting forth the truth, as he saw. it, and striving always for ad- vancement and _ efficiency. Complaint was made to President Cleveland of the plain speech in this first report, but. that strong man read it himself and said; "Weiwant more such men." His professional courage is also re- markable, and along with this is a faculty, which I. believe is a characteristic of- all great men, that having made his decision he does not worry about the result... Able men of- minor rank are: always fearful that something may go wrong and their reputation be in- jured. The really big man does not believe' himself infallible. He knows that all men who do things will make some mistakes, and he is strong enough not to dread them. A notable instance of this kind in Melville's career was his use of triple screws for the Colum- bia and Minneapolis. I saw letters from some of his friends, for whose pro- fessional opinion he had the highest regard, urging him not to make the experiment, but he had studied the pioblem carefully, was satisfied with the correctness of the solution, ard persevered. The result was perhaps the greatest triumph of his professional career, Beginning with his His Executive Ability. His ability as an executive was of a very high order. The feature of de- ciding a case and then refraining from worry is' an evidence... He had a rare talent for choosing able assistants, and having. proved them he left in their hands all the detail work, thereby giving himself time for careful study of the larger problems. The effect of this was very marked in stimulating the entire staff to the highest efficiency and zeal. I have known them all per- sonally, and every man counted it a pleasure to work, without regard to hours, for the credit of the "Chief" and the glory of the service. With respect to his professional work, it is notable that his career as -engineer- in-chief of the navy, from 1887 to 1903, is the longest on record, It covers the building of the "new navy', and the Spanish war. During this time he was responsible for new designs of ma- chinery for. about 120 vessels, among which were 24 battleships and 41 ar- mored vessels. Best of all, there were no "lame ducks" and no failures. I. will mention briefly some details of his more important work. He was the first to use water-tube boilers in large war vessels and to determine the actual coal consumption by trials, He was also the first to use the method of determining trial-speeds, known as the "standardized screw", which is the simplest, most accurate and inexpensive, and fairest to the -contractor as well as to the government. It is to him also that we owe our first high-speed battleship. _When in' 1898 the proposals for the Maine, Mis- souri and Ohio were being prepared, he stood alone in his demand for 18- knot ships. If he had not persisted, we should have been three years long- er behind the other navies of the world in battleship speed. Proposed Dreadnought Type. It is very interesting to note also that only a little after this he pro- posed an. "all-gun one-caliber - ship"; in other words, what is now called the "Dreadnought" type. . Before I left the service, I had often heard him talk of this big ship with ten 12-in. or 12 10-inch rifles and 19 or 20 knots speed; and about 1899 he submitted a sketch plan of the battery of such a ship to the board of construction. Possibly the © same influence which almost prevented 'the 18-knot battleships prevented con- sideration of this more advanced type. At all events Melville was in advance of the. general naval mind, and our country lost the credit for the introduc- tion of this revolutionary improvement which it might have had several years before the "Dreadnought" was dis- closed. . o During the war with Spain he brought out the repair ship and the distilling ship. The idea of the former was not new, but the Vulcan was by far the most complete vessel of the kind equipped up to that time. The latter furnished fresh feed-water to the boil- ers and enabled a vessel with a stor- age bunker capacity of 3,000 tons to supply 60,000 tons of water. A clever piece of work at this time was the fitting of new boilers to some of the old civil war monitors. to enable them to be used for. harbor defense. For. years Melville had advised the navy department that new boilers must be supplied before these vessels could be used,. When the destruction of the Maine made the outbreak of hostilities seem probable, the makers of water- tube boilers submitted estimates of. time and cost for the wark.. Boilers were