Brehon B. Somervell - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

Successful management depends on five factors. The first factor is a precise understanding of the job to be done. The second is qualified and capable men in key positions. The third is a workable organization properly adapted to the job to be done. The fourth is a simple, direct system for carrying on the activities involved in the job. The fifth is a positive method for checking on the results. Given any three of these five, a business or agency can probably function with fair success. four of them operating together will result in much better than average efficiency. however, it requires all five to create the best management obtainable.

The 89th Division returned to the United States in May 1919 but Somervell remained behind as Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, in charge of supply, of the U.S. Third Army, and the American Forces in Germany, as it was re-designated on 2 July 1919. There, he met Anna Purnell, the daughter of a Chicago businessman, who was there as a YMCA volunteer. The two were married in August 1919. They had three children together, all daughters. While in Germany, Somervell also met Walker D. Hines, a prominent New York corporate lawyer, whom he assisted with a survey of shipping and navigation on the Rhine River. Somervell reverted to the permanent rank of major on 1 July 1920.

Returning to the United States in July 1920, Somervell was posted to the Office of the Chief of Engineers in Washington, D.C. His war record earned him a place at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, reserved for the Army's best and most promising officers. He once again ranked near the top of his class. After graduation he was posted to the 1st New York Engineer District but soon obtained leave to assist Hines with a special study of navigation on the Rhine and Danube Rivers on behalf of the League of Nations, essentially a continuation of the work that the two men had done in 1920. He then attended the Army War College from 1925 to 1926.

From 1926 to 1930 he was District Engineer, Washington, D.C. Engineer District. As such he became involved in a conflict between proponents of the development of hydroelectric power through damming the Great Falls of the Potomac River and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Despite his advocacy, the falls remain undammed to this day. On 1 September 1930, Somervell was transferred to the Lower Mississippi Valley Division as Assistant Chief Engineer. The next year he became assistant to, and then the District Engineer of the Memphis District. In 1933, he teamed up with Hines again, for an economic survey of Turkey, which culminated in a seven-volume report. Named as District Engineer for Ocala, Florida, Somervell got behind a project to build the Cross Florida Barge Canal. Somervell was chosen to head the project but although President Franklin D. Roosevelt allocated emergency funds for the canal in 1935, opponents of the canal protested that it would cause seawater to seep into the groundwater, and work was stopped a year later. In the meantime, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 1 August 1935.

In 1935, Somervell was appointed as head of the Works Project Administration in New York City. Over the next three and a half years he spent $10,000,000 a month on Great Depression relief works. He worked with the local politicians and labor leaders. He upheld the right of workers to form unions and improved relations with left-wing groups, once declaring that "I wouldn't know a Red if I saw one, and wouldn't do anything about it if I did". The biggest project was the construction of LaGuardia Airport. Somervell established a reputation as a man who could handle projects involving hundreds of thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars.