PROMOTION IN THE ARMY.

PROMOTION in the army is that system of succession by which an officer rises in rank from grade to grade, with corresponding increase in power, authority, and pay. In our forces all promotion, in theory, depends upon length of service and upon the satisfactory performance of the minimum, both in amount and quality, of such duties as may be prescribed by superior authority. This system is called "lineal promotion," and applies separately to each arm of the service. It requires that in case of a vacancy in any grade the officer of longest service in the next lower grade of that arm, as determined by a register kept for that purpose, shall be promoted, provided he can pass the minimum requirements of an examination as to his fitness. This system has been in operation about eleven years. It succeeded the system of "regimental promotion," which required the promotion of the junior of longest service in the regiment. Owing to the many inequalities of that system the present one was adopted with a view to equalizing promotions in each arm of the service. In this it is successful.

In the appointment of general officers this law is not operative. It is not necessary that the senior colonel be nominated, or, in fact, that the nominee be an officer at all. The selection is with the President, who may select a field-officer of the army or any other citizen of the United States. The question of the confirmation of the appointment rests, of course, with the Senate.

The whole theory of lineal promotion in these lower grades rests on two assumptions. The first is that by becoming an officer a man acquires some sort of right to promotion, and, further, that he acquires a sort of vested right to promotion at some fixed date or in some particular order relative to other officers. This will be discussed later. The second is that the man whose service is longest is a fitter man for promotion than the one of shorter term, or, in other words, that in the military service the man of longest experience is the most valuable to the Government. These two assumptions underlie the whole theory, and there is an element of truth as well as of error in each of them.

The provision that the man at the top of the list, and no other, must be taken is designed to shut out the possibility of political influence or favoritism. It absolutely eradicates the spoils system from the army. Without some such provision there would be no security for the man who has given up all civil pursuits, who has served his country in all sorts of dangers and hardships, who has thereby cut himself off from the retention or acquisition of political influence, and who, in a great measure, has disqualified himself by such service from entering again into the keen competition of business life. There would be no security that such a man would not see civilians without experience placed, by political influence, over his head in the most desirable places, while being himself shut out from the final enjoyment of justly deserved rank and honors. To withdraw this security would be to make the service so undesirable that capable men would not care to enter it. It was to guard against just this possibility that there were devised first the system of regimental, and afterward that of lineal, promotion. These were the fore-runners of the Civil Service tenure now being rapidly extended to all sorts of government positions where experience is desirable. This safeguard is still a necessity to the service, and will be so long as there is a remnant of the spoils system in American politics.

Yet, although theoretically all officers are on an absolute equality in regard to promotion, such is not the fact in reality. The register does exist, and all officers move up as required by law; but there are departures and variations which, to some extent, break up the effects of purely lineal promotion. Increase of rank does come by length of service; but it can also be had in other ways. Actual promotion may be conferred by the operation of some other law. Promotions from first lieutenant or captain to lieutenant-colonel have come about merely by the selection of an officer for duty as aide-de-camp. Officers may be temporarily promoted one grade, as from captain to major, or from major to lieutenant-colonel, merely by being selected for staff duty-duty which, by its agreeable nature, the desirability of its stations, and the social opportunities brought by such detail, is for all practical purposes a promotion in itself. In some cases line officers, by being selected for permanent staff corps, have passed far beyond men entering at the same date. There are cases yet more marked, where staff officers of comparatively low rank have been advanced over the heads of all or most of the field officers of the line to the grade of brigadier-general; at least one case in which a line captain has been similarly advanced; and cases in which men not on the rolls of the regular army at all have been given

the same rank above all the officers in the service. Selection for this grade is authorized by law; and the privilege, or right, has been freely exercised. Seniority appointments to this grade may almost be said to be exceptional.

These illustrations are given simply to show that inequalities in promotion do exist; that the seniority system is not absolutely uniform in its application. It is now actually subject to numerous variations, and there is no law that governs them. It is not contended, as yet, that the result is bad or that it is good, but merely that it exists; and, under the present system, it will probably continue to exist in some form.

But promotion in rank is valuable only as it brings more power, greater authority, greater opportunities, better station, and higher pay. Most of these objects can be attained to a greater or less degree by other means than actual promotion in rank. There are many details which carry more important or more congenial duties, more agreeable stations, increased pay, or other desirable things, and which are substantially promotions to those who receive them. These details are not in any way dependent on the law of lineal promotion, and until recently there was not even an executive regulation prescribing how they were to be filled.

It may, indeed, be questioned whether the best interests of the service would be served by absolute equality in the matter of promotion. The relative values of officers to the public service are not fixed and cannot be fixed by the dates of their commissions. The development of their respective abilities, attainments, industry, and devotion to duty — in short, of their military careers-only begins with the date of their commissions. That development is dependent on their respective aptitude, application, and opportunities during the subsequent years of their service.

The most careful attempt to place men in the order of relative merit is made in the case of West Point graduates. But even if this purpose is accomplished at the date of graduation, the list will not necessarily be correct in after years. During the whole of the four or five years spent at West Point the relative positions of cadets on the list are continually changing, according to the ability, application, and deportment of each man. On the date of graduation the law fixes the list for all time to come as it stands at that particular moment. But development does not cease. Even West Pointers do not all mature at the exact moment of graduation, if they ever do fully; nor do they all show the same aptitude for, or attain equal distinction in, the service afterward.

One man enters the academy at twenty-one, another at seventeen years of age. One has had a college education before he enters, another only that of the common school. The college man should, and usually does, outstrip his less fortunate companion in purely academic work; but it does not necessarily follow that he will make a more valuable officer in after years. The development of a West Pointer begins, it does not end, at graduation; the practical school of life and service being more valuable than the academy. One man may have done at West Point the best that was in him; the other may do his best work after he leaves the schoolroom for real service. It may be questioned, therefore, whether it is just to the officers themselves to fasten them, at graduation from school, in a certain relative order to be maintained for the rest of their lives without a possibility of change. If this is true of the West Pointer, how much more is it true of appointments from the ranks, from the volunteers, or from civil life!

From this discussion may be laid down the first proposition: Where inequalities exist they ought to favor the most meritorious officer; and the law ought to be so framed as to make this principle independent of any change of party or of administration.

Promotion is not a thing to which anybody has or can acquire a vested right. Still less can anybody have a vested right to promotion at a fixed time or in a certain relative order. The right to promotion is always conditional, depending upon the proper performance of duties, on demonstrated fitness, and on legal eligibility.

But there is a still deeper principle involved. The fundamental principle always to be regarded is the best interest of the public service. Only in so far as the promotion of a given individual conserves these interests can he have any right whatever to promotion. These interests require the best man for the place, regardless of who he is or whence he comes. This principle is a fundamental one, which governs analogous promotions in every field of successful industrial organization. In so far as the existing laws apply this principle they are fundamentally In so far as they conflict with it they are fundamentally Look where you will in business or industrial life you see this principle in operation. The man of brains, energy, and industry, who has the insight to recognize opportunity and the nerve to seize it, with capacity for routine work, invariably gets to the front in any walk of life.

correct. wrong.

This is a fundamental law of social organization, which cannot be disregarded without impairing the efficiency of the machine. Only in the

army, as the law now stands, is there any attempt to prevent the operation of this fundamental law, by means of statutory enactments which preclude any opportunity for the recognition of genius, special industry, or talent, by placing all officers on one dead level, without the possibility of any man rising in the line either by brilliant service or by special talent. Such an attempt is not only undemocratic; it is opposed to the fundamental laws of social organization, to right, to justice, and to good business principles. Although the army is a machine which works under special conditions, it can no more disregard these principles than can any other machine. To give due credit to age, length of service, and experience is a good thing and an indispensable safeguard to the interests of all officers. But if the result operates to throttle ambition, to strangle merit, to prevent the just reward that ought to follow distinguished or meritorious service, to eliminate the possible results of original study and research in determining promotion, to discourage zeal and extraordinary application, in short, to foster the standard of the minimum — this would be something that not even the military machine could endure without ultimate damage to its efficiency.

Yet this is the logical result which ought to be expected from a strict application of the unqualified principle of lineal promotion. Such a system would set a premium upon mediocrity, and a handicap on zeal, energy, and ambition. It is all well enough to say that the consciousness of duty done is a sufficient reward. But it is simple human nature, exemplified on every page of history, that the hope of promotion is the most powerful incentive to gallantry in a soldier. The navy has at least its prize-money; but for the exceptionally meritorious army officer there is no special reward and under a purely lineal system there can be none. With the abolition of the different staff corps, and the substitution therefor of a detailed staff, the lineal system now applies to the whole service, and closes every avenue of special promotion except temporary details to the staff and congressional action.

These principles are beginning to be recognized. This year the President's message contained a warning to the effect that it is an unsatisfactory system for the selection of officers for high rank and command to depend upon length of service alone. Last year Congress enacted a law designed to result in the selection of the brightest, ablest, most distinguished, and most capable officers, solely on merit, for the various staff positions. Two years ago the Secretary of War, with the approval of the President, recommended that one-third of all the promotions in the line be made solely on a basis of merit, regardless of