Hamilton Fish III

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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.

Contents

[edit] Background, family, and early life

Main article: Fish family

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]

The wife of Nicholas Fish was Elizabeth Stuyvesant, a decendant of Peter Stuyvesant, who was the Dutch colonial governor of New York. Through his mother, Emily Mann, Hamilton Fish III was also a decendant 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. [2]

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. [3]

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.) [4]

Fish's son, Hamilton Fish IV, was a thirteen-term U.S. Representative from New York, holding office from 1969 to 1995. [5]

[edit] Education

Hamilton Fish at Harvard
Enlarge
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 later attended St. Mark's School, a preparatory school in Southborough, Massachusetts; Fish later described himself as a "B student" but successful in several different sports. [6]

Graduating from St. Mark's in 1906, [7] Fish went on to attend Harvard University. There, he played on Harvard's football team as a tackle. 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. [8] After graduating from Harvard, Fish continued his involvement in football. He coached the United States Military Academy's team (located in West Point, across the Hudson River from his hometown of Garrison); 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. [9]

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. [10]

[edit] Entry into politics

Fish attended the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago, where he favored the nomination of former President Theodore Roosevelt (Fish was a political follower of Roosevelt and befriended his son and Harvard classmate Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.. [11] Roosevelt left the Republican Party to run as a candidate of the Progressive (or "Bull Moose") Party; the same year, Fish was appointed chairman of the Putnam County Progressive Party. [12]

In 1914, Fish was elected to the New York State Assembly, succeeding incumbent assemblyman John Yale. Fish was the fusion candidate of the Democratic and Progressive parties. During his time in the Assembly, Fish became a friend of fellow Democrat and progressive Franklin D. Roosevelt, who at the time was a member of the New York State Senate. Roosevelt asked Fish to succeed him when the former resigned from the state senate to take up the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Fish, however, declined the offer, both on account of having received the endorsement of the Democratic, Republican and Progressive parties for re-election, as well as not having the funds necessary to campaign in all of Dutchess County. [13]

As the last remaining Progressive in the New York Assembly, Fish maintained a friendship with Theodore Roosevelt, who was still active in state and national politics. In 1916, Roosevelt supported Republican candidate and former New York governor Charles Evans Hughes, who was running against incumbent President Woodrow Wilson (Wilson vetoed a bill that would have commissioned Roosevelt a major general in command of an Army division.) Roosevelt used Fish as an intermediary to pass on advice to Hughes via the latter's son, of whom Fish was a friend. [14]

In 1917, Fish was appointed chairman of a committee to welcome foreign dignitaries to New York City. In that capacity, he invited Theodore Roosevelt and labor leader Samuel Gompers to meet representatives of the Kerensky government of Russia. Roosevelt publicly denounced Gompers (of whom Fish was an admirer) at the event for Gompers' defense of union members' actions during the East St. Louis Riot. [15]

For two years while he was a member of the state assembly, Fish was a member of the New York National Guard and trained at Plattsburg. He was initially denied promotion to the rank of captain; however, he later met with Colonel William Hayward, who was organizing an all-black regiment and offered Fish the rank of captain in the regiment. [16]

[edit] Military service

See also: Harlem Hellfighters

Hamilton, having accepted Hayward's offer, 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 (in April 1917), Fish and about two thousand soldiers began training at Camp Whitman (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.) [17]

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. [18] 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. [19]

[edit] Service in the U.S. Congress

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. [20] In nearly 15 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.

He was elected to Congress in 1920 and served until 1945. He was opposed to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies before and after Pearl Harbor. An isolationist until Pearl Harbor, Fish was responsible for a number of legislative and diplomatic moves aimed at helping Jews out of Hitler's Germany and turned aside as refugees. 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.

[edit] 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. [21]

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 presidential candidate William Z. Foster. [22] 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. [23]

[edit] Fish investigated

In 1940 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.

[edit] After congress

After his tenure in Congress, 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 indefatiguable 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.

[edit] 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 run for Congress as "Hamilton Fish Jr." in 1994. He is also referred to as Hamilton Fish V.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Fish, Hamilton, III; "Hamilton Fish: Memoir of an American Patriot," pages 7-9
  2. ^ ibid
  3. ^ ibid, p. 107
  4. ^ ibid p. 9-10
  5. ^ Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: Fish, Hamilton Jr.. United States Congress.
  6. ^ ibid p. 13
  7. ^ ibid p. 14
  8. ^ Hall of Famers: Hamilton "Ham" Fish. College Football Hall of Fame.
  9. ^ ibid p. 16-18
  10. ^ ibid p. 18
  11. ^ ibid p. 19
  12. ^ ibid p. 20
  13. ^ ibid p. 19-21
  14. ^ ibid p. 22-23
  15. ^ ibid p. 23-24
  16. ^ ibid p. 25-26
  17. ^ ibid, p. 25-28
  18. ^ ibid p. 28
  19. ^ ibid p. 31
  20. ^ Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: Fish, Hamilton. United States Congress.
  21. ^ Fish, Hamilton. The Menace of Communism Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1931 pp. 54-61
  22. ^ Memoirs, p. 41-42
  23. ^ To Seek Added Law for Curb on Reds The New York Times, November 18, 1930 p. 21

[edit] Bibliography

  • Tragic Deception: FDR and America's Involvement in World War II (Devin-Adair Pub, 1983) ISBN 0-8159-6917-1
  • Hamilton Fish: Memoir of an American Patriot (Regnery Publishing, December 1991) ISBN 0-8952-6531-1

[edit] External links

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