Hamilton
Fish, the grandson of Hamilton Fish, was
born in Garrison, Putnam County, on 7th December, 1888. Educated at
Harvard University he joined the Progressive
Party and was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1914.
When
the United States entered the First
World War Fish joined the US
Army and
served on the Western Front where he
was decorated with the Croix
de Guerre.
He was discharged as a major on 14th May 1919.
Fish
now joined the Republican Party and
in 1920 was elected to the 66th Congress. Fish was a staunch isolationist
and strongly opposed America's involvement in the Second
World War.
Fish
served in Congress from 2nd November 1920 to 3rd January, 1945. After
failing to be elected to the 79th Congress he retired to Cold Spring
where he died on 18th January, 1991.
(1)
Studs
Terkel interviewed
Hamilton Fish
about his views on Franklin
D. Roosevelt for his book, The
Good War (1985)
Franklin Roosevelt took
us into a war without telling the people anything about it. He served
an ultimatum which we knew nothing about. We were forced into the
war. It was the biggest cover-up ever perpetrated in the United States
of America. But in 1941, December 8, the day after the Japanese. I
made the first speech ever made in the halls of Congress over the
radio. I'd been speaking every week to keep us out of war. The day
after the attack, as ranking member of the rules committee, it was
my duty to speak first. I damned the Japs and upheld Roosevelt's day
of infamy. I called on all noninterventionists to go into the army
until we defeated the Japs. For fifteen minutes I talked to twenty-five
million people. People told me they
cried after. I made the only speech because I took up the whole time
allotted.
I'd led the fight for
three years against Roosevelt getting us into war. I was on the radio
every ten days. I stopped him until he issued this ultimatum. That
is the greatest thing I did do in my life. He would have gotten us
into the war six months or a year before Pearl Harbor. We would have
been fighting those Germans, plus probably the Russians, because they
made a deal with them. Every American family owes an obligation to
me because we would have lost a
million or two million killed. That's the biggest thing I ever did,
and nobody can take it away from me.
Russia is our enemy and
always will be because of jealousy of power. They wouldn't think one
minute about pressing the button to kill one hundred million Americans.
Last
updated: 27th May, 2002
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