American Rifle - Alexander Rose [139]
In the run-up to Buffington’s expected departure in November 1901, the jockeying began for his replacement as chief of Ordnance. Acquiring it for Crozier—who was still merely a captain—would take some doing. That was because “all the mutton heads in the army,” as Roosevelt commented to another military friend, Leonard Wood, “naturally object to anything resembling promotion by merit.”19
The opposition’s first assault against Crozier’s candidacy was sounded in late September. At the War Department, reported the Times, officers had “been looking over the law” regarding promotions and had discovered that Crozier was “ineligible” to be made Ordnance chief since the rules stipulated that “the person selected shall not be below a Lieutenant Colonel in rank.”20
These unnamed officers seemed to have no inkling that they were dealing with a formidable secretary of war: an admiring corporate client had once said that while he “had many lawyers who have told me what I cannot do; Mr. Root is the only lawyer who tells me how to do what I want to do.”21 Less than a fortnight after the officers’ complaints, Root addressed them by promoting Crozier to . . . brigadier general—despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that twenty-nine officers had stood ahead of him in seniority at the department. The move, remarked the Times (clearly briefed by Root or an aide), “will mark another step . . . toward the vitalizing of the important army bureaus by placing young men at the head.”22
The newly minted General Crozier was declared chief of Ordnance on November 22, 1901.23 Officers who had previously been senior to Crozier but were now junior backed him, a sign that former enemies were coming to terms with the Root reforms.24 On June 20, 1902, the Senate confirmed him 44 to 12, and on November 18, 1905, it reconfirmed him as chief for another four-year term.25 By that time Crozier was unremovable—ironically, a system developed to replace ossified officers, who believed their tenured positions flowed from divine right, with innovative “young men” resulted in a young man who would stay in power at the president’s pleasure until July 1918.
When he was first appointed, Crozier felt bound to justify Roosevelt and Root’s confidence. Replacing the Krag—which had been in service for less than a decade—was his number-one priority. Crozier’s need to prove, not only to his political masters but to the military men over whom he had leapfrogged to the top, that he was up to the task of over-seeing the Ordnance Department was just one.
Another was that making a fresh start with a fresh rifle would demonstrate to all that it was no longer business as usual at Ordnance, which private arms-makers were still attacking as a closed shop that assigned lucrative government contracts to favored suppliers. A key plank in Roosevelt’s political platform was to eradicate the good-old-boy “interests” and self-dealing endemic to the Gilded Age and replace them with honest, transparent government. Cleaning out Ordnance’s Augean stable would make an excellent start. Crozier, for his part, set an early example for his colleagues by announcing that, while in office, he would no longer accept royalties deriving from any of his inventions.26
Another factor against the Krag was that although it had performed adequately during the Spanish war, the Mausers used by the enemy enjoyed more of a positive “buzz” among soldiers and the public alike. The simplest solution would have been to purchase Mausers directly from their maker or, alternatively, acquire the rights to manufacture them in this country. But Roosevelt’s patriotic senses rebelled at the thought that scientifically managed America couldn’t produce its own home-grown guns.
Mausers, moreover,