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Keep-Out-of-War-horse Fish, no stylistic debater, who is wont to put one of his size 12 shoes squarely on a front-row leather seat while discoursing, took the floor to reply. He had listened to the charges "more in sorrow than in anger." Things have "come to a pretty state," said he, in a nice display of his syntax, when "a member of the House can be charged as being a traitor to his own country, and particularly one who has served for a number of years in the House, because he took a ride in Mr. von Ribbentrop's airplane, the Foreign Minister of Germany."
Mr. Woodrum's resolution to investigate the committee, said Mr. Fish, getting into his stride, "is the dagger in the back to smear the members of the committee publicly." Besides: "Where was Mr. Woodrum 20 years ago? He is my age. Where was he when we went out to make the world safe for democracy?"*
There was no need of investigating him, said Mr. Fish; what really needed investigation was the sale of the 1936 campaign books autographed by the President. With a triumphant short cheer he concluded:"I served my country in time of war and I will do so again if necessary."
* In 1918 Mr. Woodrum was Commonwealth's attorney in Roanoke; Mr. Fish was a Captain in the 369th Infantry, in France, writing to his father: "I am pleased to hear that the nation has shaken off its shackles and destroyed the maggots of pacifism which fed on its carcass and lulled us into a fancied security."