the foregoing chapters have dealt wholly with mr. cramp in what may be termed his public capacity,—in his attitude of a public servant of most important rank and most unfailing usefulness. the fact that he has been such a public servant, without official position or emolument, stands doubly to his credit. viewing him in that relation alone, it may be said that he has designed and built, or has been responsible for the designing and building, more than three hundred ships of all kinds, classes, and destinations during more than half a century. it requires more than a second thought to adequately measure the impress a man makes upon the fortunes and the destinies of his era when he creates over three hundred ships either for commerce or for war.
battleships indiana and massachusetts
dismissing for the moment all thought of the perishability of things made by human hands, the imagination does not need a free rein to fancy an imperishable monument in legend, in tradition, and in history. the ships themselves run their course, meet their fate, and pass away. but the descendants of the men who sailed in them to the uttermost parts of 267the earth, if merchant vessels, or the progeny of the men who fought in them to save the country or to set a weaker people free, if men-of-war, will forever cherish their memories. in such a way charles h. cramp has linked his name with the era of his lifetime; and nothing has been attempted in the foregoing memoir but to make, in assembled form, permanent record of the most important relations he has sustained to the destiny-shapers of mankind, the most arduous of the tasks he has undertaken, the most signal of the triumphs he has achieved, and the most perplexing of the difficulties and obstacles he has encountered.
no attempt has been made to portray the gentler and more genial side of his nature; that could be found in a survey of his social personality for its own sake and dissociated from professional striving or public service. from this point of view purely, another volume equal in extent to the foregoing could be written. but here the opportunity is denied. the boundless hospitality, the unflagging generosity, the inevitable good cheer and helpfulness to all who had in any way earned his confidence or invoked his gratitude, must be passed over with simple mention.
immersed though he always was in affairs of the most practical and matter-of-fact nature, 268mr. cramp could always find time for the society of the clever bohemians of literature, art, and the drama. no other association was so congenial to him. no other business man of his time numbered so many friends and close acquaintances in that fraternity as he. in him they always found quick appreciation of their abilities and, when occasion might require, ready and cordial responsiveness to their incidents of vicissitude. during the scores of years through which he figured in a capacity as public and in affairs as momentous as ever fell to the lot of the highest official, constantly engaged in operations closely affecting the vitality and integrity of the nation, incessantly subject to a scrutiny hardly less searching than “the fierce light which beats upon a throne,” the files of american print for a lifetime may be searched in vain for an ill-natured personal criticism upon his acts or achievements or an aspersion upon his character. even partisans of his rivals, no matter what might be the bitterness of contention or the rancor of faction, always halted at personal animadversion upon him. this was not because he himself was reticent in criticism or always cautious in comment. having always ready and welcome access to the columns of the most noted periodicals and the greatest 269newspapers, and being by no means stingy of rhetoric, his innumerable newspaper interviews and frequent magazine papers invariably “spoke his mind” with neither extenuation nor malice, and always hewed to the line.
on one occasion he submitted a professional paper in manuscript to a friend of literary pursuits whose judgment he held in high esteem. “in that paper,” he said, “i have done my best to avoid all controversial tendency. please look it over and give me your view as to whether or not i have succeeded.”
it was a paper on the subject of water-tube boilers involving discussion of the various types, and referring to the policies of different naval administrations at home and abroad in dealing with them.
“well,” he inquired, when his friend returned the paper, “what do you think of it?”
“i understood you to say, mr. cramp, that you desire to avoid controversial matter in this paper?”
“yes.”
“and you would strike out anything that might partake of that nature?”
“yes.”
“well, in that case, there would be little left but the title of the paper!”
270the fact is, that whenever mr. cramp undertook to write or dictate for publication upon professional topics, he was almost instinctively controversial, almost intuitively combative. his long experience and his drastic training enabled him to see through any device within his professional sphere as through a pane of glass, and he could read its shortcomings or its defects as an open book. in such premises, it was never his wont to be sparing. but his criticisms were so uniformly sound, his comments so logical and practical, and his motives so palpably beyond question, that he was seldom combated at all, and never successfully.
in the foregoing chapters we have reproduced extracts from his published papers and correspondence upon purely professional subjects. as the reader has perceived, they involve not only knowledge of everything within the immediate sphere of his own vocation, but also a broad and generous group of the problems of international politics and diplomacy. mr. cramp was not merely an adept in the design and construction of ships, he was equally versed in that more subtle array of physical and moral forces which in our day have come to be grouped under the general head of “sea power;” and his conception of the ultimate international objects to be subserved 271and wrought out by the ships he built was as clear as his knowledge of the details of their building.
in the domain of general thought, of history, and of ethics, mr. cramp was only a little less prolific than in the literature of his own profession. his address to the netherlands society on the anglo-dutch wars of the seventeenth century, delivered at the union league, january 24, 1898; his “forecast of the steel situation,” published january 18, 1900, which events two years later converted into prophecy, and a recent article written for the journal of the central high school (the mirror) on the subject of fakes and pretenders, introducing as his text the notorious keely and his “motor,” with many others like them, must be passed over with simple mention. reproduction of them even by extract or in synopsis could only reinforce the impression, already clear, of the wide diversity of his thought, the vast scope of his observation, the keen thoroughness of his research, and the wonderful assimilative capacity of his mind.