Evening star., 1941-09-29
Fish Says Papers
Seek 10 Smear Him
In Mail Incident
Tells House They Tried
To Make 1t Appear He
Ordered Socks Removed
Earlier Story on Page A-41


Representative Fish, Republican
of New York, defending himself in
the House today against published
charges that he removed evidence
from the files of Prescott bennett
executive officer of the Make Europe
Pay War Debts Committee. cur
rently under investigation by a
District grand jury, threw the cham
ber into an uproar when he accused
certain newspapers of campaigning
to smear" him.
Mr. Fish named the Washington
Post and the New York newspaper
PM as the offending publications.
He blamed the Post for allegedly
making it appear that he had per-
sonally ordered the removal of &c
sacks of mail from Mr.. Dennett's Of
flee. AT the time" Mr.. Fish ex-
planned, Il was out of the city.
have never been to Mr.. Dennett's Of
flee, do not even know where it is
and have no connection with his Or
ganization."
Sees Effort to Smear" Him.
Mr. Fish charged PM with print
ing a story to the effect that he had
mailed out to the Fight for Freedom
Committee anti-Semitic propaganda
under his congressional frank.
Mr. Fish told the House that some
one, to smear him." had stolen one
of his congressional envelopes and
y,,oi1nI
The New York Representative
pointed out that he had made prob
ably more speeches against religious
intolerance during his 81 years of
public life than any one.
During the discussion Representa-
tive Coffee, Democrat. of Washing
ton, waving a page from Sundays
Post, declared that the paper by its
own admission had committed
burglary in having one of its men
seize eight of the mail sacks found
outside storeroom in the House
Office Building, tear them open and
photograph the contents.
Coffee Charges "Burglaries."
What protection have we from
such burglarieS?" asked Mr.. Coffee.
Il would like to know where the
manager of the House Office Build
ing and the captain of police were
when this reporter violated by in
vading the members storage space
and breaking open United States
mail"
Mr.. Fish said he was sure he did
not know, but he had nothing to
do with the eight mail sacks which
had been reported missing until
they were located Saturday outside
the storeroom assigned to him on
the sixth floor of the House Office
Building. Mr.. Fish added that the
sacks had never been in his Gus
tody; that the storeroom assigned
him had always been locked and
he had never used it or even opened
the door.
Representative Fish explained
that on September 18, while he was
away from the city on a speaking
tour, Mr.. bennett telephoned his
secretary and said he had 500 copies
of a speech which Mr.. Fish had
made in the House. The secretary,
Mr.. Fish said, replied that they
could use the speeches. Mr.. Den
nett offered to send them over to
Mr.. Fish's Office, the New York Rep
resentative went on, but was told
that the speeches could not be re-
franked and the secretary would
have a postal truck call for them.
Says Aide Refused Mail.
"The next thing they knew" Mr..
Fish added, about 20 sacks of mail
were delivered to my Office. My
secretary refused to take any of the
sacks. All he wanted was the 500
speechs of mine, but we have yet to
see these. Some of the sacks were
addressed to the America First
(see FISH, Page 2rX0