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What’s in a Name?

DOUGLAS CUNNINGHAM

DOUGLAS CUNNINGHAM

Historian Nancy Beck Young: “When I say that Fish was friends with Nazis, I mean that Fish was friends with Nazis. You know, palling around with them.” From Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra.

This tendency to name things and rename things, I have thought for some time now, can be a bit dangerous. Why did we need to do away with the Tappan Zee Bridge name, a perfectly fine name that also had an indigenous tie? In the News 88 traffic reports, it was simply the Tap, and everyone knew what it was. Even I came to know, and I came from the Midwest.

Then, we replaced it with the “Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge”, a name so long that on those electric travel signs, it’s abbreviated as GMC Bridge, and no one, probably not even the DOT workers, knows what that means or where in blazes you’re supposed to go to get there. Cuomo’s son Andrew, governor when the new replacement for the Tap was completed, could tell us the full meaning, but no one else.

(Original Caption) Speaking from the House floor on a question of personal privilege, Representative Hamilton Fish, of New York, denounced as “contemptible, lying charges,” assertions in a New York newspaper that he had “snatched” evidence wanted by a Federal Grand Jury. Fish, holding a copy of the paper which made the charges against him, maintained that he knew nothing of a non-interventionist organization headed by Prescott Dennett, from which he allegedly took papers wanted by the grand jury investigating it for foreign connections. Photo, Bettmann/Getty Images

(Original Caption) Speaking from the House floor on a question of personal privilege, Representative Hamilton Fish, of New York, denounced as “contemptible, lying charges,” assertions in a New York newspaper that he had “snatched” evidence wanted by a Federal Grand Jury. Fish, holding a copy of the paper which made the charges against him, maintained that he knew nothing of a non-interventionist organization headed by Prescott Dennett, from which he allegedly took papers wanted by the grand jury investigating it for foreign connections. Photo, Bettmann/Getty Images

That was not progress. We still have state lawmakers and other politicians who want the name changed back, although that horse has probably left the barn.

And then, my friends, then we come to the case of the Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library, in Garrison. She was a writer, and quite accomplished. Had a lovely home – a mansion, for the time, but not so much today – in Balmville, the tony enclave north of Newburgh. I’ve been there; it’s idyllic. She donated the property to Mount Saint Mary College at her death in 1990.

But the private college, facing difficult times during the pandemic, was set to close and sell the property. Enter Newburgh philanthropist William Kaplan, who provided sufficient funding to turn this 50-acre estate into a municipal park and recreation Center. As Town Supervisor Gil Piaquadio told the Hudson Valley Times, nearly gushing, the Desmond Campus would become the focal point of the town “by making it a municipal park and a center devoted to adult education, arts, creativity, physical activities, social engagement and healthy lifestyles as well as public open space in which conservation and educational enrichment is provided to all residents.”

Much like Philipstown’s Rec Center grew out of a donation, so too will this jewel on the Hudson, albeit looking east to the river.

Back to Putnam County: Our Alice Curtis Desmond was married, for a time, to Hamilton Fish III. It is their names on the library in Garrison just off Route 9D. I rather suspect she’d take that marriage back if she could have.

And why, you might ask, are we pondering the name of a library today, in 2023? Therein, you see, lies a tale. It is one that has been expertly told by Rachel Maddow and an able crew, in an 8-episode podcast, “Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra.” It is the story of a seditious conspiracy to recruit and organize violent militias ahead of World War II, to actually take over our democratic government and replace it with a fascist one. Like in Germany. It is the story of our federal senators and representatives, several dozen of them, who joined the America First Committee and used it to justify their isolationism, even as some of them were on the Nazi payroll. It is the story of a PR guy named George Sylvester Viereck, who was actually one of the top Nazi secret agents in America, who used these America Firsters to further Germany’s cause, not ours.

And it is the story of people like Representative Ham Fish III, of our Putnam County, who happily signed up with Viereck, who assigned his chief of staff George Hill to work with Viereck, and who then used his Congressional mail franking privilege to send thousands upon thousands of German-written and German-inspired propaganda pieces into the homes of unsuspecting voters. Collectively, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pieces of progaganda – favorable articles about the Nazis and Hitler, speeches by our lawmakers that were sympathetic to the Nazi cause, and so on – were sent into homes across the United States. When federal agents were onto the scheme, tracking the propaganda inside franked envelopes and executing search warrants, Fish’s office and his aide Hill helped move and destroy evidence.

Understandably, when patrons of the Des- Fish Library heard about this via a new podcast (it dropped in the fall, Oct. 10), they were alarmed. Was this our Ham Fish? The one with his name on the library? Could this really have been Ham Fish III, known as an isolationist ahead of World War II, but otherwise very highly regarded across Putnam County, and perhaps especially highly regarded in Garrison?

Yep, it’s our Ham Fish. I have listened to all episodes of Maddow’s podcast twice now. It’s powerful. I have analyzed its sourcing, and it’s impeccable. One of two things is true: A, Ham Fish III was an unwitting dupe of the Nazis and greatly aided their cause in the heart of our democracy. Or, B, Ham Fish III was a willing and active accomplice of the Nazis and greatly aided their work against our own government. Neither alternative is a good thing.

So what do you do, now, in 2023? That is exactly what the Desmond-Fish Library board and its Racial Equity and Social Justice Committee are now studying.

I realize that Ham Fish III served honorably in World War I, leading, with other mostly white officers, the African-American men of the Harlem Hellfighters. He served for just shy of 25 years in the House, and before that was in the state Assembly, representing

Putnam County. As some have described it, we need to consider “the long arc of his life”.

Hmm. OK. Where in that long arc do we put the Nazi stuff?

Until next week.

I’m Doug Cunningham, and I’m editor of the Putnam County Courier and the Putnam County News and Recorder, in Cold Spring. Reach me at editor@pcnr.com, or at 845-265-2468. I’m in the office most Wednesdays and Thursdays, but reachable at any time via the office phone. This column, any letters and the editorial cartoons are all opinions. They are not intended to be objective, and we don’t present them as such. Our no-contact newsstand is out virtually every Wednesday in Cold Spring on Stone Street, barring inclement weather. If you are a subscriber and want an early copy of either paper that day, feel free to grab one.


Fish’s Relationship with the Nazis Lasted Years

From the podcast, Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra. Here’s Maddow:

In 1933, just after Hitler became chancellor in Germany, Congressman Hamilton Fish had contributed to a book about how Hitler and the Nazis had saved Germany from Communism. How Hitler and the Nazis had done the world a big favor.

Congressman Fish rented one of his apartments in New York City to a Nazi government official, a nice place on East 77th Street.

In 1938, Congressman Fish headlined a big pro-Germany rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. They played the Nazi anthem, there were swastika flags, the crowd did the Hitler salute, and Republican Congressman Ham Fish was the honored guest and main speaker.

The year after that, in 1939, Congressman Fish flew to Germany. He met with senior officials from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop, loaned Congressman Fish his official government plane, in which the congressman then flew around to different countries in Europe, basically urging them to accommodate Hitler and Germany, and not fight them. When Congressman Fish was on that trip in 1939, he spoke with reporters from Berlin. He told them, quote, “Germany’s cause is just.”

Nazi leaders on trial for war crimes after the war would later explain that Congressman Fish had given them great advice on that trip he took to Germany. Great advice for what sort of strategy the Nazis should take toward the United States. They said he was a lot of help – to them.

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