Herbert H. Lehman, Born March 28, 1878, in New York City, the Of

Herbert H. Lehman, born March 28, 1878, in New York City, the of Mayer Lehman who came to this country a poor boy in 1848. His father was a member of that Liberal grou. protested against the reactionary tendencies in Germany and was a close associate of Carl Schurz and other Liberal members of that group who were known as the Forty-Kighters. His parents settled in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father almost immediate]y took an active part in the community life and was associated with the Confederate Army during the Civil War, having the full confidence of Jefferson Davis and the wartime Governor of Alabama, who was an intimate friend and associate of his. He, together with his brothers, engaged in the general merchandising and cotton business in Montgomery, Alabama. Immediately after the Civil War, Ms parents moved to New York where four of their seven surviving children were born. His father immediately took an active part in the life of the city. He was one of the founders of the New York Cotton Exchange and, until his death in 1897, was extremely active in all communal and philanthropic activities of the city. Herbert H. Lehman, our candidate, was educated at Dr. Sach's Collegiate Institute from which he graduated in 1895, and at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, from which he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1899. In 1924 Williams College conferred upon him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. After leaving college, he engaged in the textile manufacturing business and after an appren- ticeship of several years became Vice-President and Treasurer of the J. Spencer Turner Co., a firm which had been organized in 1810. O3T70_0 O| —2— Business In 1908, at the solicitation of his brothers, he became a partner in the firm of Lehman Bros., founded by his father and uncles. This firm, which today ranks as one of the important investment banking houses of the country, still maintains its activity in the merchandising of cotton and is the oldest firm of cotton merchants in the country, having celebrated its seventy fifth birthday in 1925. At a dinner givsi by the firm in celebration of this event, there were present a number of men who had been clients of the house more than fifty years. Mr. Lehman is a Director of many corporations, among others, the S Studebaker Corp., Kelsey Hayes Wheel Co., Franklin Simon & Co., Abraham & Straus, Robert Eeis & Co., Van Raalte Co., Knott Corp., Fidelity Trust Co., County Trust Co., Interstate Department Stores Corp., Murray Body Co., etc. phiIanthropic He has led an extremely active life, dividing his time between the upbuilding of his own firm, of which he is intensely proud OY/ing to its long and splendid record covering seventy-eight years,and his philanthropic and communal activities. His particular philanthropic interest, however, has been in child care and in bringing relief to the millions of sufferers from the devastation of the war abroad. Unlike most young men, he engaged-in communal work immediately on his graduation from college in 1899. At the age of twenty-one he conducted a Club for young boys at the Henry Street Settlement, Throughout all these years, he has maintained the closest association with the organization which, in addition to its settlement work, conducts most of the district nursing for greater New York, and he is now one of its most active trustees and a close associate of its head, Miss Lilliam D. Wald. Thin organization has helped to bring back to health or ease the pain of millions of sufferers. In 1905, he became a director of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum which, at Pleasantville, New York,, conducts a cottage plan orphanage which, by general consent, is acknowledged to be the model of its kind in the country. In his twenty-five years of service in this institution, he has worked in the closest association with Adoloh Lewisohn, Judge Samuel D. Levy, Joseph L. Buttenwieser, Herman Block, end others. War At the outbreak of the YJar in 1914, he became associated with a group of public-spirited men and women in all walks of life in the organisation of the Joint Distribution Committee and has served during the past fourteen years first as its Treasurer and then its Vice-Chairman. As Chairman of its Reconstruction Committee, he was responsible for the organization and administration of the reconstruction wo,rk carried on by the Joint Distribution Committee. This organization has expended in the relief of suffering abroad the sum of 375,000,000 which was provided by millions of people in this country, Jews and Gentiles alike. During the War and for a period, thereafter, it was the only means of sustaining life among millions of war sufferers. The work of the Reconstruction Committee, of which Mr. Lehman has been and is still the Chairman, has been to build UD the economic life of the War sufferers whose communities had been devastated and ruined by the war and whos opportunity for making a livelihood destroyed, it set up hundred£of cooperative loan banks for the granting of small loans. It did not give charity but 05; through its cooperative loan and mortgage banks, it granted millions of small loans and provided tools and equipment for the laborer on the installment plan. In the help it gave in the reconstruction period, it helped t "ere to help themselves. It is estimated t in the countries in which these operations Jfere carried on from three to five million people, who otherwise : mdoubtedly have suffered econonic death, have again "oeen put on their feet and have become providers of their families and valuable members of the community. Lehman has been instrumental in fostering and establishing the organization of hundreds of trade schools for thous ands of poor children, equipping them to become useful members of the community and enabling "them to make a living. He not only devoted himself to the economic and industrial sid of the question but he etive in the restoration of the cultural and spiritual life of the Jewish people of cpe. Hot only has Mr. Lehman devoted himself in Eastern Europe to is co-religionists but lie was also one of the active organizers of the work done through the American Relief Administration which brought relief to millions of War sufferers in Eastern , i j rd to race or creed. The irovided by î?1-. 3e!iiu6Hfr(s Qfcîi'fiiirlion to the A- American Relief Administration was between five and ten million dollars. an was the moving spirit in creating the American Joint Foundation in Europe r; as for the last three years carried on the reconstruction work formerly administered by the Join Distribution Committee. Fince the inception of that organization he has been its 2 \ Vice-Chairman and has made several 'trips to Europe in its interest. —5— In the work of the Joint Distribution Committee, he has at all times been in the closest association with men like Louis Marshall, Felix : . arburg, Julius Rosenwal , . Bladek, Alexander Kahn, B. Zuckerman, Rabbi DeSolo Poole, Rabbi Teitelhaum, Rabbi Berlin, Peter Wiernik, Harry Fishel, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and others. He also is a director and trustee of the Russian Agricultural Fund, whose hope it is to return to the land many thousands of Jews eager again to undertake agricultural pursuits so successfully carried on by their ancestors centuries ago. Mr. Lehman also organized the Palestine Loan Bank and the Palestine Economic Corporation, of which latter organization he is Vice-Chairman. He has at all times been eager and effective in making it possible for those who live in Palestine or who desire to go to the homeland to create their homes and sustain their families on a sound, economic basis, In this T/ork he has cooperated in the closest way with Dr. Ffeizman, Judge Julian Mack, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Bernard Fiexner, Nathan Straus and others. In all the work he has done abroad, whether in Europe or in Palestine, he has cooperated with assisting organizations such as the Ort, Oze and the Zionist organization. Mr. Lehman, however, while giving himself without stint to work with and among his co-religionists, has in his communal and philanthropic effort covered a wide field of activities. He is Vice-chairman of -the Child Welfare Committee of America, of ^hich Sophie Irene Loeb is President, an organization national in its scope whose aim it is to afford every child a home and an opportunity. He is a member of the E&Seutive Committee of the Welfare Council ~r -6- of New York, of which Mr. James H. Post of Brooklyn, one of our leading philanthropists, is President. This organization coordinates the activities of all the philanthropic and communal organizations of the greater city. For many years he was a member and treasurer of the New York Child âbor Committee, of which Mr. George W. Alcer is Chairman and which has continuously fought for the safeguarding of the children of this state. He is a director of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation which provided for the purchase and maintenance of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. He has kept in very active touch with Williams Collage, is a trustee of his fraternity there and has presented to his college among oiher things a dormitory and. an athletic field. He has been very much interested in camp work and in conjunction with his brother, Judge Lehman, Justice of the Court of Appeals of this State, has maintained a camp for babies through the District Nursing Service.

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