The Evening Statesman

STRUGGLING FOR ADMIRALSHIP
Several Navy Captains Covet the Title of Rear Admiral.

WASHINGTON, May 18.-The coming vacancy of the billet of chief of the bureau of yards and docks of the navy department, with the rank of rear admiral, promises to lead to an interesting test of rival candidates. The fight appears, for the present, to be confined to line officers, since the only civil engineers eligible, under the law, are officers of the corps, who are not regarded as available.

Of course, if Peary, who is a civil engineer in the navy, should be heard from later in the year as having reached the north pole, perhaps the question would be settled by his appointment, although his arctic achievements would probably place him sufficiently in demand as a lecturer to make a bureau chieftainship appear tame, uninteresting and unprofitable.

The situation has led to the mention of a number of prominent line officers for the place to succeed Rear Admiral M. T. Endicott as head of the corps of civil engineers, and who retires for age in November.

Among those mentioned in this connection are Captain E. H. C. Leutze, commandant of the navy yard and superintendent of the naval gun factory at Washington; Commander John M. Bowyer, now in command of the Columbia; Captain Richardson Clover, who is in Washington on waiting orders, and Captain Richard Wainwright, a member of the general board.