“Mr. Whitney was exceedingly fortunate in the officer whom he found at the head of the most important Bureau. This was Commodore John G. Walker, then Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and unquestionably the ablest and most forceful man of his time in the navy. American naval officers, as a rule, are able men in the professional sense; but Walker, while equal to the very best and superior to most of them in that regard, possessed an additional fund of tact, equipment, and energy in purely administrative directions seldom equalled and never surpassed in the history of our navy. He had enjoyed, also, considerable experience in civic responsibility, having been for a considerable period identified with the management of an important railway corporation prior to his appointment as Chief of the Bureau in 1881. His term of four years was about to expire when Mr. Whitney assumed office, but at the instance of the latter he was immediately reappointed, and served through the entire term until 1889. Commodore Walker was exactly the man for the place, which was that of chief adviser to the Secretary. To a perfect acquaintance with the _personnel_ of the service, he joined a freedom from narrow predilections and selfish aims seldom found in any veteran regular officer of any branch, and his sense of the material needs of the navy was broad, keen, and practical. Moreover, in mental character and manly temperament he was congenial to Mr. Whitney. For these reasons, and imbued with a common purpose, Commodore Walker and the Secretary coalesced from the first day of their association, and remained in the most perfect accord throughout the four most important years in the history of the new navy. On some occasions it happened that Walker sustained the Secretary and helped him carry out most important reforms and policies of progress against powerful opposition in the navy itself and in the Department.