Wertham had no problem in confirming that Albert Fish was suffering from a religious psychosis. There was little doubt about that. It could be corroborated by his children who had observed him hitting himself on his nude body with a nail-studded paddle until he was covered with blood. They also saw him stand alone on a hill with his hands raised, shouting at the top of his voice: “I am Christ.”
Dr. Albert Fish, Jr. is one hour and four minutes long.
“I am a man of passion. You don’t know what that means unless you are my kind. At the orphanage they put me just before Garfield was assassinated, there were some older boys that caught a horse in a sloping field. They got the horse up against a fence down at the bottom of the field and tied him up. An old horse. They put kerosene on his tail and lit it and cut the rope. Away went that old horse, bursting through fences to get away from the fire. But the fire went with him. That horse, that’s me. That’s the man of passion. The fire chases you and catches you and then it’s in your blood. And after that, it’s the fire that has control and not the man. Blame the fire of passion for what Albert H. Fish has done.”
Albert H. Fish in The Daily News 12 March 1935
“If you wanted someone to entrust your children to, he would be the one you would choose.” – Dr. Wertham on Albert Fish
