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Show DANIELS RAPS 'RUBBER STIP' PLAN HjR NAVY Secretary Lets Go Verbal Broadside Against General vStaff Advocates SAYS SIMS WOULD BAN CIVIL CONTROL Admiral Declared to Have Shown Hostility Toward Ranking Officers WASHINGTON, May 17. Secretary Daniels today let go a verbal broad-Side broad-Side against the advocates of a general gen-eral staff for the navy, declaring that they sought to "Prussianize" the navy department and make the civilian sec retary a "rubber stamp." He told the senate committee investigating the navy's conduct of the war that "one of Rear Admiral Sims' chief objects in writing his letter of January 7 and bringing about this investigation was to remove tho navy, so far as possible, fr3m civilian control" Hostility Shoyn. .. . . Rear dmimfTins'"original charges against the navy department showed, hostility toward certain officers and a desire to damage the ranking officers offi-cers who directed naval operations during the war, the naval secretary declared, adding that "the evidence has shown a desire to discredit the secretary of the navy because he was not a 'rubber stamp' secretary." Opposes Rubber Stamp. If congress wished to depart from the "traditional American policy of civilian control of the navy it should do so directly and clearly and without with-out pretense," said Mr. Daniels, by making an admiral secretary of the navy and a member of the president's cabinet. Tho most ardent advocates of the general staff system had not advocated going so far, however, because be-cause they wished to keep a "rubber stamp" civilian as a figurehead in the secretary's office, he declared. The witness quoted from reports and writing of other naval secreta- rles to show, he said, that they too, struggled against substitution of the general staff system. |