Patriotic Lawbreaker

A state Chamber of Commerce--the New Jersey one--had consumed the annual collation. Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske (retired) rose, began: "In order to demonstrate to you how fragile the basis of our National security is, I am going to show you that if one man (myself) had not committed certain unlawful acts, by committing which he exposed himself to court martial and dismissal and was actually forced to resign his position, we would surely have lost the war with Germany. I realize that I am laying myself open to the charge of being conceited and egotistical." The Commerce men peered eagerly through the after-dinner smoke. The game old Admiral was evidently about to utter things even more provocative than his recent diagnosis of women as the cause of all war. The second cigars had nearly expired when the Admiral's reedy voice attacked his concluding crescendo : "We won the War. though by the narrowest possible margin. But already we are confronted with another danger at least as great, the pacifist movement. If the men and women of this Nation do not get together and stop that movement, our National security will soon become National peril, such as prevailed in 1914 and 1915, when I had the honor of preventing it from ending in National disaster." How had the Admiral nearly given his life and honor for his country? When had he stood at the thin red line dividing victory from defeat? Careful listeners to his speech could tell that, in 1915, he had suggested to a Congressman a bill to create the office of Chief of Naval Operations-- a measure opposed by Secretary Josephus Daniels, although he later took credit for it. And in 1914, the Admiral clandestinely caused himself to be called before a Congressional Committee, where he was able to counteract to some extent the testimony of Mr. Daniels that the Navy was all it should have been:

"My testimony aroused attention and even alarm throughout the country. The result was that the appropriations made at that session were very, much greater than Mr. Daniels had asked for."

These events were the two specific achievements described in the speech.