Hamilton Fish III

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.[5]

Graduating from St. Mark's in 1906,[6] Fish went on to attend Harvard College, 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.[7] He was the only Harvard man on Yale graduate Walter Camp's "All time" "All America" team.[8] 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.[9]

In 1909, at 20, 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.[10] He left law school before graduating, and took a job in a New York City insurance office.[11]

Fish was a Progressive member of the New York State Assembly (Putnam Co.) in 1914, 1915 and 1916.[12]

On December 21, 1920, 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 US 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 US Army's historic ceremonial but combat-ready 3rd Infantry Regiment—"The Old Guard." The tomb and the unknown soldiers of three US 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.

In June 1922, he introduced the Lodge-Fish Resolution to illustrate American support for the British policy in Palestine per the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

Hamilton Fish was a fervent anticommunist; 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.[27]

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.[28] The committee recommended granting the US Department of Justice more authority to investigate communists and the strengthening of immigration and deportation laws to keep communists out of the United States.[29]

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 it they did not publish it as a defense of anti-Semitism or the Nazi regime but because it 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.[30][31] Fish also distributed the long-debunked Protocols of the Elders of Zion from his congressional office.[32]

Fish was touted by the Germans as a friendly American ally.[33] Time magazine once termed him "the Nation's No. 1 isolationist."[34]

On August 14, 1939, Fish, president of the US delegation to the Interparliamentary Union Congress conference in Oslo, Norway, met with Joachim Ribbentrop. Fish flew to Oslo in Ribbentrop's private plane.[35] 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.'"[36] Fish and his faction of the Republican Party received material support from the Germans to promote isolationism and non-interventionism in the United States, particularly at the 1940 Republican National Convention[37]

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."[38]

In 1941, a judiciary panel investigating the activities of Nazi agents in the US, 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.[39]

A grand jury was convened and summoned Hill to explain why he had been so solicitous about the Islands for War Debts Committee's mail and 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 that he had not sent for the mail and did not know Viereck. The jury promptly indicted Hill for perjury.[39]

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."[39] 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.[40] After hearing that 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."[39] Twenty hours later, the jury convicted Hill.[39]

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.[41]

Fish continued to argue for civil rights of African Americans, particularly in the military. Three times (1922, 1937, and 1940), Fish joined with other Republicans and northern Democrats to pass anti-lynching bills. Each time, the bills passed the House, but Southern Democrats in the Senate blocked their passage and prevented them from becoming law.[42]

In 1940, he succeeded in adding an amendment to the Military Appropriations Bill of 1941. The 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.[43]

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."[44]

The British Security Coordination (BSC) focused a great deal of effort attempting to influence US Representatives through front groups, campaigning, and agents of influence. In 1940, BSC agents ran the Nonpartisan Committee to Defeat Hamilton Fish to "put the fear of God into every isolationist senator and congressman." The committee raised substantial sums of money for Fish's opponent, co-ordinated several media attacks, created false charges of wrongdoing just before elections, and helped to distribute books that charged Fish with disloyalty. The committee as much as possible tried to make attacks on Fish appear to originate from his district, but historical documents indicate that 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 that he had earned two years earlier.[45]

In the 1942 election, Fish, like other former isolationists, was considered vulnerable. The Orange and Putnam district, which 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.[46] However, the November 1942 election occurred when voters were impatient for the battlefield victories that would later come,[47] 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.[48] Augustus W. Bennet defeated Fish by approximately 5,000 votes.[49] 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."[50]

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."[49] In a farewell speech before the house on December 11, 1944, he stated, "It took most of the New Deal Administration, half of Moscow, $400,000, and Governor Dewey to defeat me."[51][52]

Embittered by his defeat, Fish promptly sued Robert F. Cutler, the 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.[53]