The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-10-19
'JACKY' FISHER,
FLEET ADMIRAL,
SHOCKS BRITAIN
Skaters Mask of Tradition
by Firing BOmbshell at
OfficialdOm.
NO FRILLS TO HIS TALK
Uses Columns of the "Times"
to Accomplish Shakeup and
Stirs Empire.
NO FRILLS TO HIS TALK
BY SHAW DESMOND.


Lord Fisher, admiral of the fleet, ir-
reverently known in the tween decks
as "Jacky," has been a naughty boy.
lie has thrown bomb into the mid
die of John Bulls waistcoat, the place
where tradition lies-though, as his
iordship might put it. tradition always
lies. He has at one bounce. so to
speak, and to borrow from his most
unofficial phraseology. sploshed to eter-
nal smithereens the mask of tradi-
ton, magnificent immobility and re-
spectacle inefficiency which has taken
centuries to build up. And, worst of
all, in his own picturesque language,
he doesn't care a damn!" Naughty,
naughty Jacky Fisher.
But the unkindest cut of all lies in
the fact that to fire this bombshell
at British officialdom he has used the
artillery of the Times columns, hither-
TO the bulwark of British tradition, but
now, alas. owned by that other en-
fdnt terrible, who also has done some
bombing in his time, a gentleman Of
the name Of Northcliffe.
All the nice old gentlemen who have
been Rip Van Winkling for. centuries
in the dim religious light of the Carl
ton or Constitutional have become apo
plectic. Their wives, dear old ladies',
have thrown up their mittened hands
at Jacky's damns, which freely be-
spatter his sulphurous broadsides at
the Fathers of the British Navy and,
whether he knows 1t or not, at the
British official psychology generally.
They have no doubt about Jacky's
eternal destination &. nor has Jacky,
who, instead of modest and BETTING
Interrogation. has no doubt about any
thing.
Venerable Admiral Protests.
All the picturesque splice the MAIN
brace yo-heave-ho" old seadogs who
still conceal inclinations for sails and
are apt to regard steam. and especially
Oil, as immoral, are having fits all over
England. Jacky's been and gone and
Done it. Naughty. naughty Jacliy.
One of them, venerable rear ad-
miral, writes, painting, to the Times,
that he thinks Lord Fisher would
carry more weight "if there were not
so many damns about him. Dear old
boy.
AS some indication of the repre-
hensible contempt for everything
nice" of this wicked boy Fisher,
quote few of his less offensive ex-
plosions: Compromise the beastliest
word in the English language" Never
fight public department-you can't
win" Millions of tortolses can't catch
one hare" "Reiteration is the secret
OF conviction" And then, speaking
OF his belief in the internal combus-
ton engine and oil as the propulsive
methods of the future warship:
Some beliefs have to be like Resur-
rection-they require Faith" whereas
every ordered brain knows that Faith
Is the substance Of things hoped for,
the evidence Of things not SEEN" and
therefore dangerous fantasy.
Jacky IL SO lost to all sense of de-
cency as to accuse the British naval
expert Of being somewhat difficult to
move and having a certain pleasing
tendency to creeping paralysis His
general view appears to be that 1t
would be a trifle easier to introduce
the idea Of God into the head of a
rhinoceros than anything whatever
into the head Of the British Mandarin.
Not that he would make invidious
comparisons. He recognizes the real
superiority of the Mandarin. But he
rubs II in by stating that the CON
genital idiots" who to-day call him
an "oil maniac and want to stick to
coal because IT'S nice and dirty and
wasteful and easy to understand, have
been fighting him for trifie of thirty
four years. 1t seems that Jacky first
advocated oil fuel in 1885.
Shocks an Old Tradition.
reverent young thing of seventy-eight
summers who says: Life will lose its
charm for me the day can't waltz to
the best waltz tune in the world-one
OF Moody and Sankey's hymns" This
Is against the best British traditions;
that is. the nonconformist con-
science, as is his constant reference to
damnatlon.
Thus, boasting-he is q dreadful
boaster is Jacky and commits tho I'M
forgivable sin OF always having facts
behind his boasts, thus justifying them
of the fact that, despite his entering
the navy friendless and penniless, he
reached the highest position therein,
the position Of "being able to say to
any one who INSTRUCTED me, You be
damned and he was damned" He
uses the forbidden word. Only two
paragraphs later he forgets himself
again, in referring to his introduction
OF the dreadnought, which he says
'paralyzed shipbullding among all the
nations OF the world for eighteen
months" and puts in wicked italics,
The damned thing mds so different"
In the next broadside he breaks out
again when referring to the cautious
conservatism which he calls the "con-
genital idiocy" OF admirals who re-
FUSED to recognize the submarine as
anything more than "plaything." and
packed their opinion by refusing to
acknowledge its existence until the
advent Of Lord Fisher, a dignifled and
xentlemanly man. II seems that a
Mandarin-Admiral had his ship tor
peooed three times by young sub