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 merchandis-
ing 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 recon-
struction 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 com- munity.
. 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 ^i?1-. 3e!iiu6Hfr(s Qfc^ii'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 philan- thropic 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
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of New York, of which Mr. James H. Post of Brooklyn, one of our leading
philanthropists, is President. This organization coordinates the ac-
tivities 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 ^abor 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. He has also been Treasurer and Trustee of the Surprise
Lake Camps which provide healthful recreation and vacation every year, to hundreds of boys and young men. n Civic Mr. Lehman has not permitted all of his time to be taken up
by business and philanthropic work but has served his state and
city in other directions.
In 1915 he was appointed a member of a Commission 'bo revise
the banking laws of the State of New York. From 1924 to 1927 he
served as a member of the Governor's Mediation Committee for Garment
Workers which averted a general strike in this important industry —7— involving millions of dollars of loss in wages to the workers and in profits to the employers.
From 1926 to 1928 &e served as Chairman of the Finance Budget and
Revenue Committee appointed hj the ^ayor of New York. He financed a careful survey of the finances of the City which has recently been published in a 500 page volume and which will, be greatly useful as a guide in this City and elsewhere in fiscal matters and in the provid- ing of equitable taxation.
In 1917 immediately after the Declaration of War by this country,
Mr. Lehman although nearly ten years beyond the draft age, applied for admission to the First Officers Training Camp. His assignment to camp duty was held in abeyance on account of his age, but unwilling to give up the chance of serving his country, he volunteered for service in the
Navy Department at Washington. He was immediately assigned to duty under Franklin D. Roosevelt and thus came into his first close association with him and formed that admiration which has increasingly persisted since that time.
In August 1917, he was commissioned a Captain in the United States
Army and thereafter was promoted through the various stages until he reached the rank of Colone3- on the general staff and was made assistant to General George W. Goetbals. In that capacity he has a large respons- ibility in the procuring, distribution and storage of all supplies shipped to our armies abroad or used in tijis country, amounting to many billions of dollars.
After the armistice, he was appointed a special assistant to the
Secretary of War, a member of the Board of Contract Adjustment and a member of the War Department Claims Board, which negotiated the equit- able settlement or cancellation of all contracts, the carrying out of
0530-0^0-007 which vrere unnecessary by the cessation of the War. At the conclusion of his term of duty in the army, he was awarded the Distinguished Serviee
Medal.
He is a member of the following Clubs: Array & Navy Club, Washington,
Array &. Navy Club, New York, National Democratic Club, Harmony Club,
Century Country Club, Pni Gamma Delta, Broadstceet Club, Block Hall Club,
Bankers Club, etc.
On April 28, 1910, he was married to Edith Altschul and their children are Peter G., John R., and Hilda Jane Lehman.
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