Closed Incident

The reverberating "Magruder incident" closed peacefully last week, or almost closed. Various congressmen rumbled around Washington about an investigation of the charges brought last fortnight by Rear Admiral Thomas Pickett Magruder, who wrote in the Saturday Evening Post that the Navy is over-officered, bound with expensive red tape and burdened with idle ships and shipyards [TIME, Oct. 3]. But officialdom was quiet. Admiral Magruder was not haled up for discipline.

Secretary of the Navy Curtis Dwight Wilbur refuted specific Magruder statements now and then as his subordinates furnished him with research. President Coolidge announced that he thought lots of officers and some extra equipment essential to the Navy's efficiency. Rear Admiral Magruder called on Secretary Wilbur, filed a belated copy of his published article and apologized for any embarrassment he might have caused the Navy.

Further sympathy for the Navy's embarrassment was deduced by observers when they saw onetime (1913-21) Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels going in to call on Secretary Wilbur. Mr. Daniels might well have commiserated Mr. Wilbur for there was a "Magruder" during Mr. Daniels' regime--bristly Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims.

Rear Admiral Magruder retracted no jot or tittle of his article but did say that certain "Sic 'Em Boys" (copy-starved newspaper correspondents) had ridiculously misrepresented his attitude when they reported him scowling and gesturing at news of Secretary Wilbur's alleged ire. Washington stirred in anticipation of another screed from him, soon to be published in the Saturday Evening Post.

Results. Some concrete results of Magruderism were incorporated in Secretary Wilbur's announcement last week of Navy appropriation plans. The Navy, admitted Mr. Wilbur, might perhaps economize 1) by manufacturing at some of its idle yards certain supplies which hitherto have been purchased; 2) by giving six-month furloughs to Navy yard men when there is no work for them to do.