Hamilton Fish III

See Hamilton Fish (disambiguation) for others with the same name.

Hamilton Fish III (born Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish and also known as Hamilton Fish, Jr.; December 7, 1888 – January 18, 1991) was a soldier and politician from New York. Born into a family long active in the politics of New York, he went on to serve in the United States House of Representatives from 1920 to 1945 and during that time was a prominent opponent of United States intervention in foreign affairs and was a critic of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Fish celebrated his 102nd birthday in 1990, he was the oldest living American who had served in Congress, and is still the oldest one on record.

Background, family, and early life

Fish was born Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish in Garrison, Putnam County, New York to former U.S. Representative Hamilton Fish II and the former Emily Mann. His paternal grandfather, Hamilton Fish, was United States Secretary of State under President Ulysses S. Grant. The father of the first Hamilton Fish, Nicholas Fish (born 1758), an officer in the Continental Army and later appointed adjutant general of New York State by Governor George Clinton.^[1]

Ancestry

The wife of Nicholas Fish was Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, who was the Dutch colonial governor of New York. Through his mother, Emily Mann, Hamilton Fish III was also a descendant of Thomas Hooker, who settled Hartford, Connecticut in 1636. Fish's uncle Elias Mann was a judge and three-term mayor of Troy, New York.^[1] Fish's great-grandmother, Susan Livingston, married Count Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz in 1800 after the death of her husband, John Kean (who had been a delegate to the Continental Congress from South Carolina.) A soldier and statesman, Niemcewicz was credited with writing the Polish Constitution of 1791. John Kean and Susan Livingston's great-grandson, and thus a relative of Fish, was Thomas Kean, who was elected governor of New Jersey in 1982.^[2] A cousin of Hamilton Fish III (also named Hamilton Fish) was sergeant in Company L of Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders," and the first American soldier killed in action during the Spanish-American War. At the age of ten, Hamilton Fish II had his son's name legally changed from Hamilton Stuyvesant Fish to just Hamilton Fish to honor his fallen cousin (he and Hamilton Fish III never met.)^[3]

Education

Hamilton Fish at Harvard

During his childhood, Fish attended Chateau de Lancy, a Swiss school near Geneva, which his father also attended in 1860; there, the younger Fish learned French and played soccer. He spent summers with his family in Bavaria. He began his US boarding school education at Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts, and he later attended St. Mark's School, a preparatory school also in Southborough. Fish later described himself as a "B student" but successful in several different sports.^[4] Graduating from St. Mark's in 1906,^[5] Fish went on to attend Harvard University. There, he played on Harvard's football team as a tackle and was a member of the Porcellian Club. Standing 6'4" and weighed 200 lbs., "Ham" Fish was highly successful as a football player; he was twice an All-American and in 1954 was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.^[6] After graduating from Harvard, Fish continued his involvement in football. He donated $5,000 for several awards to Harvard football players; and organized the Harvard Law School football team, which played exhibition games with other colleges around the country.^[7] In 1909, aged twenty, Fish graduated from Harvard with a cum laude degree in history and government. He declined an offer to teach history at Harvard and instead took a job in a New York City insurance office.^[8]

Family

Fish's son, Hamilton Fish IV, was a thirteen-term U.S. Representative from New York, holding office from 1969 to 1995. Fish's daughter Lillian Veronica Fish married David Whitmire Hearst, son of William Randolph Hearst.^[9]

World War I

See also: Harlem Hellfighters

General Mark L. Hersey (left) and captain Hamilton Fish III (right)

Hamilton became a captain in the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment, which came to be known as the "Harlem Hellfighters." The summer after President Wilson's declaration of war against Germany, Fish began training at Camp Whitman with about two thousand soldiers in New York. In October of 1917, the unit was ordered to Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina for further training. In November 1917, the regiment boarded the USS Pocahontas, destined for France, although shortly thereafter the ship returned to shore due to engine problems. After another abortive departure, the ship left on December 13, 1917; despite colliding with another ship and not having a destroyer escort to protect against German submarines, the regiment proceeded to France. (Fish complained to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt about the lack of an escort.)^[10] Fish and his unit landed in Brest, France on December 26; the 369th was placed under the control of the French army by U.S. General John Pershing.^[11] Altogether, the 369th spent 191 days on the front lines, which was the longest of any American regiment; it was also the first Allied regiment to reach the Rhine River. Fish, as well as his sister Janet (who had been a nurse near the front lines), were both later inducted into the French Legion of Honor for their wartime service.^[12]

Congressional Career

First elected to fill the vacancy caused by Edmund Platt, Fish was a member of the United States House of Representatives from November 2, 1920 until January 3, 1945, having been defeated for reelection the previous year.^[13] In nearly 25 years as a congressman, Fish would become known as a strong anti-communist and a bitter opponent of his erstwhile friend Franklin D. Roosevelt, which raised his profile and made him a leader of the anti-Roosevelt members of Congress. Fish was a non-interventionist until Pearl Harbor. Just after the 1940 presidential election, Fish sent a telegram to president elect Roosevelt which read: "Congratulations. I pledge my support for national defense … and to keep America out of foreign wars."^[14] Time magazine called him “the Nation's No. 1 isolationist”^[15] and he was touted by the Germans as a friendly American ally.^[16] His unapologetic opposition to the New Deal provoked Roosevelt into including him with two other Capitol Hill opponents in a rollicking taunt that became a staple of FDR's 1940 re-election campaign: "Martin, Barton and Fish."

Fish Committee

Hamilton Fish III

On May 5, 1930, he introduced House Resolution 180, which proposed to establish a committee to investigate communist activities in the United States; the resulting committee, commonly known as the Fish Committee, undertook extensive investigations of people and organizations suspected of being involved with or supporting communist activities. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster.^[17] The committee recommended granting the United States Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists, and strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of the United States.^[18] In a 1931 article, he described communism as "the most important, the most vital, the most far-reaching, and the most dangerous issue in the world." Fish believed there was extensive communist influence in the United States.^[19]

Delegate

On August 14, 1939, Fish, president of the U.S. delegation to the Interparliamentary Union Congress conference in Oslo, Norway, met with Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany Joachim von Ribbentrop (who was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg trials). Fish hoped to solve the “Danzig question” and advocated better relations. Fish flew to Oslo in Ribbentrop's private plane.^[20] Fish opined that Germany's claims were ‘just.’”^[21]

Nazi Ties

Fish used his congressional office to distribute copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. When accused of anti-Semitism, he responded, "It doesn't bother me any. There's been too much Jewism going around anyway."^[22]. However, Fish was responsible for a number of legislative and diplomatic moves aimed at helping Jewish refugees out of Germany. In 1941, a judiciary panel investigating the activities of Nazi agents in the U.S., sent officers to the Washington headquarters of an anti-British organization, the Islands for War Debts Committee, to seize eight bags of franked Congressional mail containing speeches by isolationist members of Congress. George Hill, Fish’s chief of staff, had the mail whisked away to Ham Fish's office storeroom just prior to their arrival. A grand jury was convened and summoned George Hill to explain: 1) why he had been so solicitous about the Islands for War Debts Committee's mail; and 2) his close association with George Sylvester Viereck, a Nazi propaganda agent and publisher of the periodical, The Fatherland. (Viereck would later be convicted of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and for having subsidized the Islands for War Debts Committee.) Hill said he had not sent for the mail and did not know George Sylvester Viereck. The jury promptly indicted George Hill on a charge of perjury. Shortly after the indictment, Congressman Fish defended Hill claiming, "George Hill is 100% O.K., and I'll back George Hill to the limit on anything." After Hill’s verdict, Fish issued a statement: "I am very sorry to learn that George Hill, a disabled, decorated veteran of the World War and a clerk in my office, has been convicted of perjury. . . . Mr. Hill is of English ancestry. . . . He had an obsession against our involvement in war. ...".^[23] An investigation by the Department of Justice produced evidence that several congressmen received funds from Nazi sources. The special assistant to the Attorney General, William Maloney convened the first grand jury investigation, which indicted 28 individuals. Among those indicted was Hamilton Fish, Republican congressman from New York.^[24]During trial, Hill explained that Viereck visited Capitol Hill in 1940 and arranged for wholesale distribution of Congressional speeches attacking the Administration's foreign policy.^[25] Fish was also accused of receiving over $3,100 (approximately $41,000 in 2007 dollars) in cash from pro-Nazi sources.^[26] The Orange and Putnam district Fish represented had begun to turn against him. Polls showed Fish would not even win the Republican primary. For the first time in his 22 years of political campaigning he opened campaign headquarters. However, soon thereafter he was publicly humiliated and repudiated by the popular Republican gubernatorial candidate, Thomas Dewey.^[27]

Defeat

In 1944 Fish won his district's republican primary but lost to liberal Newburgh lawyer Augustus W. Bennet.^[28] Time magazine reported, “In New York, to the nation's delight, down went rabid anti-Roosevelt isolationist Hamilton Fish, after 24 years in Congress." About his exit from Congress, Fish said, “It took most of the New Deal Administration, half of Moscow, $400,000, and Governor Dewey to defeat me. . . ."^[29] Fish promptly sued Robert F. Cutler (executive secretary of the group, Good Government Committee) for libel, seeking $250,000 in damages for advertisements depicting Fish as a Nazi sympathizer. The ads also depicted Fish associating with the "American Führer," Fritz Kuhn. He would later discontinue the lawsuit without a settlement.^[30]

After Congress

Although pledging on December 8, 1941 that he would volunteer for the Army to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor^[31], Fish did not serve in World War II. Instead, Fish wrote a short history of World War I and an autobiography, Memoir of an American Patriot, published shortly after his death. For many years he was a familiar speaker at various political and veterans' functions; an indefatigable traveler, he was known to do it by car as often as not. Almost invariably, he ended such speeches with, "If there is any country worth living in, if there is any country worth fighting for, and if there is any country worth dying for, it is the United States of America." In 1958 Fish founded the Order of Lafayette, a hereditary and patriotic organization to honor those men who fought in France in World War I and World War II. Fish was the Order's first President, serving for a number of years.

Ancestors and descendants

Although he was the third Hamilton Fish in direct line in his family, like his father and his son, he was known as Hamilton Fish Jr. during his time in Congress. His grandson has also been known as Hamilton Fish III, and was publisher of the left-wing magazine The Nation before making his own unsuccessful run for Congress as "Hamilton Fish Jr." in 1994. He is also referred to as Hamilton Fish V.

References

Bibliography

• Hamilton Fish, FDR The Other Side of the Coin (Institute for Historical Review, 1976) ISBN 0-911038-64-7
• Hamilton Fish, Tragic Deception: FDR and America's Involvement in World War II (Devin-Adair Pub, 1983) ISBN 0-8159-6917-1
• Hamilton Fish, Hamilton Fish: Memoir of an American Patriot (Regnery Publishing, December 1991) ISBN 0-89526-531-1

External links

• Hamilton Fish III at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biography from the College Football Hall of Fame website
• [1] from the Order of Lafayette website