Among the most important services of Mr. Cramp to the new navy was his instrumentality in bringing about the system of classifying bids. Prior to 1885, whenever contract construction was to be done, the plans of the Department, pure and simple, were the standard. If any bidder proposed to deviate from them in any way,—no matter how palpable the improvement,—his bid would be held irregular and thrown out. The issue came on the machinery of the ships authorized by the Act of March 3, 1885. Of these four ships, the “Baltimore’s” plans had been purchased abroad, hull and machinery, and were accepted practically without change. But the Department’s design involved the then nearly, if not quite, obsolete compound engine for the other three, “Newark,” “Yorktown,” and “Petrel.” Mr. Cramp, desiring to bid on the “Newark” and “Yorktown,” was doubtful whether he could develop the indicated horse-power, which the form of contract required him to guarantee, with the Department’s compound engines. He was, however, confident that he could do it with triple-expansion engines of his own design. To overcome the difficulty, he suggested to Secretary Whitney that, in issuing the circular asking for proposals, a classification of bids be provided for. This suggestion was at once adopted, and bids were authorized to be offered in three classes: Class I, the Department’s plans pure and simple; Class II, the Department’s plans modified by the bidder as to hull or machinery or both; and Class III, the bidder’s plans wholly. This arrangement broke up the embargo of the Bureaus, and admitted the results of the study, experience, and skill of practical ship-builders. Some of the Bureaus fought the plan with all their energy, but the contest they made had no other result than to convince them that Mr. Whitney was the _de facto_ as well as the _de jure_ head of the Department,—a quite novel experience for them! Some time afterward Classes II and III were merged, so that all departures from the Department’s plans, whether modifications of them or complete substitution of bidder’s plans for them, were grouped under Class II, which has become the established practice in inviting proposals. Mr. Cramp’s bids have usually been in Class II; involving in most cases more or less extensive modifications of the Department’s plans, and in two cases, the “Philadelphia” and the “Maine,” his own plans complete. The value of this new departure lay in the fact that it gave the Navy Department the benefit of all the progress of the country in the ship-building art as actually practised by men who were building ships for a living, and emancipated it from the dominion of the cloister. It has become a part of the permanent policy of the government. [Illustration: CRUISER VARIAG—RUSSIAN]