Hamilton Fish III

Background, family, and early life

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

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.

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.

A cousin of Hamilton Fish III (also named Hamilton Fish) was a sergeant in Company L of Theodore Roosevelt's "Rough Riders", and the first American soldier killed in action during the Spanish–American War. Hamilton Fish II had his ten year-old 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).

Fish was married in 1921 to Grace Chapin Rogers (1885–1960), daughter of onetime Brooklyn Mayor Alfred C. Chapin (1848–1936). Their son, Hamilton Fish IV, was a thirteen-term U.S. Representative from New York, holding office from 1969 to 1995. The Fishes' daughter Lillian Veronica Fish married David Whitmire Hearst, son of William Randolph Hearst.

Education

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 U.S. 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.

Graduating from St. Mark's in 1906, Fish went on to attend Harvard University, class of 1910. There, he played on Harvard's football team as a tackle and was a member of the Porcellian Club. Standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and weighing 200 pounds (91 kg), "Ham" Fish was highly successful as a football player; he was twice an All-America and in 1954 was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was the only Harvard man on Yale graduate Walter Camp's "All time" "All America" team. After graduating from Harvard, Fish continued his involvement in football. He donated $5000 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.

In 1909, aged twenty, Fish graduated early from Harvard with a cum laude degree in history and government. He declined an offer to teach history at Harvard and instead attended Harvard Law School. He left law school before graduating, and took a job in a New York City insurance office.

Fish was a Progressive member of the New York State Assembly (Putnam Co.) in 1914, 1915 and 1916.

Military service

Prior to the United States entering the First World War, Fish was captain of Company K, 15th New York Infantry. When the 15th was mobilized for Federal service, Fish accepted an offer from Col. William Hayward to retain his position in the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment (as the 15th New York was re-designated following mobilization). The 369th was a unit of African American enlisted men with white officers (and a few black officers at the start of the war) which came to be known as the "Harlem Hellfighters."

The summer after President Wilson's declaration of war against Germany (in April 1917), Fish and about two thousand soldiers began training at Camp Whitman (in New York). In October 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 aborted 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 reached France. (Fish complained to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt about the lack of an escort.)

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 J. Pershing. 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 received the Silver Star and Croix de Guerre. In addition, Fish and 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.

Fish was promoted to major on March 13, 1919 and returned to the United States on April 25 of the same year. He was discharged from the Army on May 14, 1919. He continued as a member of the Officers' Reserve Corps until the 1940s, and attained the rank of colonel.

Service in the U.S. Congress

First elected to fill the vacancy caused by Edmund Platt's resignation, Fish was a member of the United States House of Representatives from November 2, 1920 until January 3, 1945, having been defeated for reelection in 1944. 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 an ally of the anti-Roosevelt members of Congress.

He was opposed to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies. A non-interventionist until after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fish was also responsible for a number of legislative and diplomatic moves aimed at helping Jews out of Hitler's Germany. 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." Finally, in part under the influence of New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Fish's congressional career ended when he won the Republican Party primary in his district but lost the general election in 1944.

The Unknown Soldier of World War I and the Tomb of the Unknowns

On December 21, 1920, Congressman Hamilton Fish introduced Resolution 67 of the 66th Congress, which provided for the return to the United States the remains of an unknown American soldier killed in France during World War I and for interment of his remains in a hallowed tomb to be constructed outside the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia across the Potomac River from the nation's capital. Congress approved the resolution on March 4, 1921. On October 23, 1921 at Châlons-sur-Marne, France, about 90 miles from Paris, remains of an unknown soldier were selected from among four caskets containing remains of unknown American soldiers killed in France. The selected remains were returned to the United States and interred at the tomb site in Arlington on November 11, 1921 in solemn ceremony following a state funeral procession from the U.S. Capitol building where the World War I Unknown had lain in state. The tomb, completed in 1937, came to be known as The Tomb of the Unknowns (Soldiers) which is today guarded around the clock daily by elite sentries of the U.S. Army's historic ceremonial but combat-ready 3rd Infantry Regiment—"The Old Guard." The tomb, and unknown soldiers of three U.S. wars interred there today, is thought to be the most hallowed military site in the United States and may well be Fish's greatest legacy to the nation.

Fish Committee

Hamilton Fish was a fervent anti-communist; 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" and believed that there was extensive communist influence in the United States.

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 in the United States. Among the committee's targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and Communist Party presidential candidate William Z. Foster. 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.

In 1933, Fish was on a committee that sponsored the publication in the United States of a translation of a Nazi book called Communism in Germany by Adolf Ehrt. In the prefatory note, the committee said that they did not publish it as a defense of antisemitism or the Nazi regime, but because they believed that the struggle between Nazis and communists in Germany provided a lesson about using "effective measures" to defend against communism. The book claimed that Jews were responsible for communism in Germany, and that only Adolf Hitler could stop it. Under pressure from American Jewish and liberal groups, Fish and the other committee members disavowed the book. Fish also distributed the long-debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion from his Congressional office.

Fish's alleged Nazi ties and isolationism

Fish was touted by the Germans as a friendly American ally. Time magazine once termed him "the Nation's No. 1 isolationist."

On August 14, 1939, Fish, president of the U.S. delegation to the Interparliamentary Union Congress conference in Oslo, Norway, met with Joachim Ribbentrop. Fish flew to Oslo in Ribbentrop's private plane. Fish, a staunch opponent of Roosevelt, advocated better relations with Nazi Germany and hoped to solve the "Danzig question" during the conference in Norway. "Stepping out of Joachim von Ribbentrop's plane in 1939, Fish opined that Germany's claims were 'just.'"

In 1940, just after the presidential election, Fish sent a telegram to Roosevelt which read: "Congratulations. I pledge my support for national defense ... and to keep America out of foreign wars."

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 taken to Fish's office storeroom just prior to their arrival.

A grand jury was convened and summoned 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. (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 Viereck. The jury promptly indicted Hill for perjury.

Shortly after the indictment, Fish defended Hill claiming, "George Hill is 100% O.K., and I'll back George Hill to the limit on anything." During the trial, Hill had explained that Viereck visited Capitol Hill in 1940 and arranged for wholesale distribution of Congressional speeches attacking the Administration's foreign policy. After hearing a jury had reached its verdict and anticipating a conviction, 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." Twenty hours later, the jury did convict Hill.

Less than two weeks before the 1942 midterm congressional election, columnist Drew Pearson's nationally syndicated column (Washington Merry-Go-Round) described in detail how in 1939 Fish had received over $3,100 in cash from a source with German ties.

Civil rights

Fish continued to argue for civil rights of African Americans, particularly in the military. On three occasions Fish joined with other Republicans and northern Democrats to pass anti-lynching bills. Each time these bills passed the House—1922, 1937, and 1940—southern Democrats in the Senate succeeded in blocking their passage, preventing them from becoming law.

In 1940 he succeeded in adding an amendment to the Military Appropriations Bill of 1941. This law included funding for increased manpower, equipment and training as the United States prepared for possible entry into World War II. Fish's amendment banned racial discrimination in the selection and training of military personnel, and was later seen as an important step leading to desegregation of the military.

President Roosevelt articulated the Four Freedoms in his 1941 State of the Union speech. In 1944 Fish recalled his own World War I experiences and Roosevelt's Four Freedoms remarks in advocating for equal treatment of African Americans in the military: "Fourteen millions of loyal Americans have the right to expect that in a war for the advancement of the 'Four Freedoms' their sons be given the same right as any other American to train, to serve, and to fight in combat units in defense of the United States in this greatest war in its history."

Britain's campaign to defeat Hamilton Fish

The British Security Coordination focused a great deal of effort attempting to influence Congressmen through front groups, campaigning, and agents of influence. In 1940, BSC agents ran the Nonpartisan Committee to Defeat Hamilton Fish in order to “put the fear of God into every isolationist senator and congressman.” The committee raised substantial sums of money for Fish’s opponent, coordinated several media attacks, created false charges of wrongdoing just before elections, and helped distribute books charging Fish with disloyalty. The committee as much as possible tried to make attacks on Fish appear to originate from his district though historical documents indicate most attacks originated outside of his district. Fish survived the attack in 1940 but won his election with less than half the margin of victory he earned 2 years earlier.

Wartime elections

In the 1942 election, Fish (like other former isolationists) was considered vulnerable. The Orange and Putnam district that Fish represented had begun to turn against him. Polls predicted, incorrectly, that Fish would not even win the Republican primary. For the first time in his 22 years of political campaigning he opened campaign headquarters. Soon thereafter he was repudiated by the popular Republican gubernatorial candidate, Thomas Dewey. But the November 1942 election occurred when voters were impatient for the battlefield victories that would later come, and Fish defeated his Democratic opponent by 4,000 votes.

However, reapportionment, which took effect in 1944, fragmented what had been his 26th District. That year, he ran in the 29th District, which no longer included his home county of Putnam, but included one county (Orange) from his previous district and three new counties. Augustus W. Bennet defeated Fish by approximately 5,000 votes. As Time magazine reported, "In New York, to the nation's delight, down went rabid anti-Roosevelt isolationist Hamilton Fish, after 24 years in Congress. His successor: liberal Augustus W. Bennet, Newburgh lawyer."

About his exit from Congress, Fish said in his election-night concession speech that "my defeat should be largely credited to Communistic and Red forces from New York City backed by a large slush fund probably exceeding $250,000." As he viewed it several weeks later, "It took most of the New Deal Administration, half of Moscow, $400,000, and Governor Dewey to defeat me...."

Embittered by his defeat, 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.

After Congress

Although pledging on December 8, 1941 that he would volunteer for the Army to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor, Fish did not serve in World War II; he was already 53 years old at that time.

Fish wrote a short history of World War I and an autobiography, Hamilton Fish: 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 of American officers who served in France in both world wars and their descendants. Fish was the Order's first President, serving for a number of years.

Hamilton Fish III was one of the witnesses who appeared in the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds. The film depicts the life of journalist John Reed and his experiences during Russia's 1917 October Revolution, which led to the creation of a communist state in Russia and the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As part of producing the film, the crew interviewed in the 1970s several individuals who had witnessed the events of 1917. These interviews were used throughout the film to describe places and events and bridge transitions between scenes.

Hamilton Fish remained active in conservative circles well into his nineties. When his grandson Hamilton Fish V ran for a Westchester County congressional district as a Democrat in 1988, the elder Fish derided his grandson as a communist and contributed $100 to the Republican in the race.

Death and burial

Fish died in Cold Spring, New York on January 18, 1991. He was buried at Saint Philip's Church Cemetery in Garrison, New York.

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 liberal magazine The Nation before making his own unsuccessful run for Congress as "Hamilton Fish, Jr." in 1994. This grandson is also referred to as Hamilton Fish V. Hamilton Fish III married his fourth and last wife, Lydia Ambrogio Fish on September 9, 1988 and they remained married until his death. She died in Port Jervis on January 12, 2015.

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