Fish's People

In the latest Who's Who, searchers may read that the Congressman from the 26th district of New York State is Hamilton Fish, born 1849, son of President Grant's famed Secretary of State. It is a mistake. It is also a joke, for the mistake has persisted in Who's Who for two editions.

Washington reporters laugh at it. They say it has point, that the thing about the Fish family is that its generations are close to one another.

Last week the man who is Congressman--Hamilton Fish Jr., born 1888--talked in terms of generations: "When this country reaches a population of two hundred or two hundred and fifty million people . . . some overt act of Mexico will force us to go down there. If it does, I hope we will go to stay and bring two or three million Americans down there to bring law and order to that Godforsaken country."

Congressman Fish, linked and acquainted with the past, speaks easily of the future.

When the population of British America was about 2,000,000, Nicholas Fish, 18, rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in Washington's Army.

His son Hamilton became Secretary of State, U. S. population being 50,000,000.

Hamilton's son, Hamilton, worked for his father as private secretary and was Speaker of the House of the New York Assembly, when the U. S. population was 70,000,000 (1895-96). He later went to Congress.

Hamilton's -- son -- Hamilton's son, Hamilton, became captain of the Harvard football eleven which lost to Yale 8-0. But it took this Fish only three years to graduate cum laude. He has been in Congress for three terms and is not yet 40, His family is like a switchboard through which his mind can plug in quickly to any period in U. S. history. His family has dealt with Latin-American countries before. His grandfather once brought peace to four of them. If Hamilton Fish Jr. predicts conquest of Mexico, it is not the boasting of an upstart though it may be the patriotic arrogance of a man in whose sight 100 years are but as a session of Congress.