Doctr. Kearney, his mate, worthless and indolent

From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 135.

But Smith had proved a quietly steady force for improving the standards of the officer corps throughout his tenure. His office files were filled with copies of letter after letter to parents, congressmen, senators, even the president himself, steadfastly declining their entreaties to promote officers who Smith felt were not yet qualified. “A lieutenant having the charge of a watch is often entrusted with the entire command of the vessel—hence that absolute necessity of his being an experienced seaman,” Smith wrote one would-be benefactor of a midshipman seeking promotion. “The meritorious midshipmen must rise agreeably to their rank. This is a principle which I shall invariably adhere to,” he told another. When President Jefferson sought the promotion of a midshipman who had served only two years, Smith answered, “He cannot possibly have acquired in this short time that knowledge of seamanship which would justify the placing him in a situation where a public vessel, with the lives of all on board, might depend upon his skill as a seaman.”

Smith thought it took a minimum of four or five years of actual service at sea for a midshipman to gain the required experience, but he also made clear that he would weigh promotions to lieutenant, and all higher ranks as well, on the basis of merit as well as seniority. He routinely asked captains to submit brief evaluations of their officers at the end of a cruise, and received apparently frank responses:

Lieut. Gordon, an excellent officer
Lieut. Jacobs, a good officer but unaccommodating
Doctr. Taylor, an excellent surgeon
Doctr. Kearney, his mate, worthless and indolent
Mr. Garretson, purser of the first rate
[Midshipmen]
Edward Nicholson, well disposed but dull and inactive
Hazard, a smart young officer
Travis, middling
Rice, unfit for naval service

Most naval officers would have been content with a system of promotion strictly by seniority and frequently complained about being passed over, but Smith and his successors were stonily unmoved by these appeals and regularly passed over dozens of officers in the same rank with greater seniority when selecting officers for promotion. Experience, Smith explained to one aggrieved midshipman, was not just a matter of serving time but of embracing the opportunities that had been provided him; his failure to acquire professional knowledge during that time was “unfortunate” but “attributable entirely to himself.”

If seniority of date was the absolute rule, the task would be very simple and less irksome to the secretary,” acknowledged one of Smith’s successors a few years later. “But it never has been—it never ought to be—except where merit and knowledge are equal in the candidates.” Promotion on the basis of seniority alone, he said, “I pray may never become the absolute rule; for I should, from thence, date the decline of our infant naval Hercules”:

 … genius, valor, talent, and skill would be leveled to the dull equality of the humblest pretensions; and, instead of those brilliant feats which adorn our annals, every commonplace automaton who performed the ordinary acts of duty with sufficient prudence to avoid court martials would rise, by the mere lapse of time and the casualties of mortality, to the highest honors of his profession.

The pressure to oblige time servers versus promoting achievement. Today it is in the form of credentialism and inclusion but it is still the dull path to failure.