Herbert H. Lehman: A Political Biography 1438463197, 9781438463193

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Herbert H. Lehman

Herbert H. Lehman A Political Biography

DUANE TANANBAUM

Cover photo of Herbert H. Lehman courtesy of Corbis Images/Getty Images. Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2016 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu Production, Diane Ganeles Marketing, Michael Campochiaro Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tananbaum, Duane, 1949– Title: Herbert H. Lehman : a political biography / Duane Tananbaum. Description: Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016007754 (print) | LCCN 2016009110 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438463179 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438463193 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Lehman, Herbert H. (Herbert Henry), 1878–1963. | Governors—New York (State)—Biography. | New York (State)—Politics and Government—1865–1950.| New York (State)—Politics and government—1951– | Legislators—United States—Biography. | United States. Congress. Senate—Biography. | Liberalism—United States. | United States—Politics and government—20th century. Classification: LCC F124.L53 T363 2016 (print) | LCC F124.L53 (ebook) | DDC 328.73/092—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016007754 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Illustrations ix Preface xiii Chapter 1 “A Dearly Beloved Friend”: Herbert Lehman and Lillian Wald

1

Chapter 2 “On a Chinese Laundry Ticket”: Herbert Lehman and Al Smith

13

Chapter 3 “That Splendid Right Hand of Mine”: Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman and Governor Franklin Roosevelt

37

Chapter 4 “The New Deal in Washington Is Being Duplicated by the ‘Little’ New Deal at Albany”: Governor Lehman and President Roosevelt, 1933–1936 61 Chapter 5 “The End of a Beautiful Friendship”? Lehman and Roosevelt, 1937–1939

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Chapter 6 “Fighting for Freedom, for Security, and for the Dignity of Man”: Lehman and Roosevelt, 1933–1942

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Chapter 7 “Governor Lehman . . . Doesn’t Know the Way Things Are Done in Washington”: Lehman, Roosevelt, and OFRRO, 1942–1943

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Chapter 8 “Freedom from Want”: Lehman, Roosevelt, and UNRRA, 1943–1945

187

Chapter 9 “UNRRA’s Problem Is That It Is Trying to Cover a 6-Foot Man with a 2-Foot Blanket”: Herbert Lehman, Harry Truman, and UNRRA, 1945

221

Chapter 10 “The Work of UNRRA . . . Will Ever Be Close to My Heart”: Lehman and Truman, 1946

249

Chapter 11 “Fighting for the Cause of Progressive and Liberal Government”: Lehman and Truman, 1946–1948

269

Chapter 12 “If You Could See the Kind of People in New York City Making Up This Bloc That Is Voting for My Opponent”: Lehman and the Election of 1949

297

Chapter 13 “I Will Not Compromise with My Conscience”: Lehman and McCarthyism, 1950–1952

321

Chapter 14 “A Poison Has Begun Spreading Throughout Our Land”: Lehman and McCarthyism, 1953–1954

359

Chapter 15 “The First Duty of Liberals Is Not to Exercise Power, but to Uphold Principle”: Herbert Lehman and Lyndon Johnson, 1950–1954

383

Chapter 16 “An Inveterate Crusader”: Lehman and Johnson, 1955–1956

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Chapter 17 “A Symbol of Courage and Conscience in Public Affairs”: Herbert Lehman and the Election of 1956

459

Chapter 18 “A Little Less Profile and a Little More Courage”: Herbert Lehman and John Kennedy, 1950–1959

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Contents

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Chapter 19 “You Weren’t Double-Crossed, I Was”: Herbert Lehman, John Kennedy, and the Bosses, 1958–1960

531

Chapter 20 “To Free This City . . . from the Shackles of the Boss System”: Herbert Lehman and the Bosses, 1961–1963

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Chapter 21 “To Inspire Men and Women of All Generations”: Herbert Lehman and President Kennedy, 1961–1963

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Chapter 22 “We Mourn That He Is Gone but Glad That He Had Lived”: Herbert Lehman and President Johnson, 1963–1964

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Conclusion “Consistently Liberal”: Herbert Lehman and Liberalism

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Notes 659 Bibliography 857 Index

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Illustrations

2.1

Herbert Lehman (far left), Democratic National Committee Chairman John Raskob (second from left), and other Al Smith backers gather in Albany, August 22, 1928. Courtesy of the Herbert H. Lehman Papers, Columbia University.

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2.2

“Too Much Smith!” by Rollin Kirby, October 1932. Original cartoon in the Library of Congress. By permission of the Estate of Rollin Kirby Post.

31

2.3

“Lieutenant Governor to Governor,” by Rollin Kirby, November 1932. Original cartoon in the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History, Columbia University. By permission of the Estate of Rollin Kirby Post.

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3.1

Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman taking the oath of office from his brother, New York State Court of Appeals Judge Irving Lehman, as Governor Roosevelt and others look on, December 31, 1930. Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

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3.2

Franklin Roosevelt and James Farley congratulate Herbert Lehman on his nomination as the Democratic candidate for Governor as Mrs. Lehman looks on, October 4, 1932. AP Images.

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3.3

Governor-elect Lehman and President-elect Roosevelt congratulate each other on their election victories, November 8, 1932. AP Images.

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4.1

Governor Lehman with his predecessors, President-elect Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith, at Lehman’s inauguration as Governor, January 1, 1933. AP Images.

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Illustrations

4.2

Governor Lehman confers with President Roosevelt at Hyde Park, August 6, 1933. AP Images.

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4.3

Governor Lehman and President Roosevelt campaign with members of the American Legion in Syracuse, New York, September 30, 1936. Courtesy of the Herbert H. Lehman Papers, Columbia University.

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5.1

“Why Herbert!” by Rollin Kirby in the New York World-Telegram, July 20, 1937. By permission of the Estate of Rollin Kirby Post.

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5.2

Governor Lehman shakes hands with Mayor La Guardia after their joint radio appearance, November 6, 1938. AP Images.

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6.1 “Ready to Step In,” by Jerry Costello, Albany Knickerbocker News, April 1942. By permission of the Albany Times Union.

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7.1

President Roosevelt congratulates Herbert Lehman on his appointment as head of the Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, as Edith Lehman looks on, December 4, 1942. AP Images.

161

8.1

“A Big Job for the New Chef,” by Jerry Doyle, November 1943. Original cartoon courtesy of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for American History, Columbia University.

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8.2

UNRRA Director General Herbert Lehman inspects aid bound for Poland and Czechoslovakia, March 22, 1945. Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.

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12.1 President Truman extends his best wishes to Senate candidate Herbert Lehman after their meeting at Blair House, October 23, 1949. AP Images.

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17.1 Herbert Lehman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Adlai Stevenson at the “Tribute to Stevenson” dinner in New York City, April 25, 1956. AP Images.

467

17.2 Senator Lehman and Tammany Hall leader Carmine De Sapio confer at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 15, 1956. AP Images.

468

18.1 Herbert Lehman letter used in an advertisement for Senate candidate John F. Kennedy, October 23, 1952. Courtesy of The Jewish Advocate. 489 18.2 “Tell Us More about This,” November 3, 1955. A 1955 Herblock Cartoon, © The Herb Block Foundation.

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Illustrations

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18.3 “The Idea Is to Set It Up in a Quick Change, See?” January 5, 1959. A 1959 Herblock Cartoon, © The Herb Block Foundation.

528

19.1

567

Herbert Lehman discusses the campaign with Democratic vice presidential candidate Lyndon Johnson at a coffee sponsored by the Citizens Committee for Kennedy and Johnson, October 6, 1960. Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

19.2 Herbert Lehman and Mayor Robert Wagner campaign with Democratic presidential candidate John Kennedy, October 12, 1960, © Burton Berinsky.

568

22.1 President Johnson presenting Herbert Lehman’s Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mrs. Lehman, January 28, 1964. Courtesy of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

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Preface

You think you choose the subjects of your books. But sometimes, in ways you don’t know, the books choose you.1 In the 1930s and early 1940s, New Yorkers chose their leaders wisely, electing Fiorello La Guardia as Mayor of New York City, helping send Franklin Roosevelt to the White House, and voting four times for Herbert Lehman to be their Governor. All three men believed that government should help people in need, and, guided by that liberal philosophy, they led New Yorkers and the nation through the Great Depression and the world crises that dominated those years. As Lehman was concluding his fourth term as Governor in late 1942, Franklin Roosevelt called his old friend and colleague to Washington to head the State Department’s new Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations (OFRRO) that was tasked with providing aid to nations that were liberated from the Axis powers. After a trying year in the morass of the State Department and White House bureaucracies, Lehman was named the first Director General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in November 1943. Lehman remained in that position until early 1946, when he resigned in protest over the Truman administration’s failure to take stronger action to deal with the growing threat of worldwide famine. In 1949, at age seventy-one, Herbert Lehman was elected to the United States Senate after a hard-fought campaign in which he endorsed “the welfare state.” In the Senate, Lehman was one of the first to stand up against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s reign of terror, and he was the only Senator up for re-election who opposed the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which threatened the rights and liberties of the American people. Re-elected to the Senate in 1950, Lehman fought for civil rights, immigration reform, and other liberal causes, and his devotion to principle led Eleanor Roosevelt and others to describe him as “the conscience of the Senate.”2 Retiring from the Senate xiii

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in 1956, Lehman, despite his advanced years, led a movement to reform New York politics by reducing the power of Tammany Hall leader Carmine De Sapio and the party bosses. Despite his important role in American political life from the late 1920s through the early 1960s, Herbert Lehman has been largely ignored by scholars and forgotten by the general public. Allan Nevins’s authorized biography of Lehman, entitled Herbert H. Lehman and His Era, was published in 1963, but despite the subsequent opening of numerous archives and manuscript collections, there has not been a full-length study of Lehman since Nevins’s book.3 In writing a new biography of Herbert Lehman, it seemed redundant to focus on Lehman’s personal and family life or the German-Jewish milieu from which Lehman came, all of which Nevins had covered in detail. Thus, after a chapter on Lehman and Lillian Wald that explores Lehman’s lifelong devotion to serving others, this book concentrates on Lehman’s political career and his interactions with the key figures in his political life, especially Al Smith, Franklin ­Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Joseph McCarthy, Lyndon Johnson, and John Kennedy. In approaching Lehman in this way, this study sheds new light on New York politics from the 1920s to the 1960s and improves our understanding of the relationship between FDR’s New Deal in Washington and Lehman’s “Little New Deal” in New York. Lehman’s experiences in OFRRO and UNRRA exemplify the bureaucratic conflicts that sometimes undermined Franklin Roosevelt’s policies and programs, and they demonstrate the difficulties in maintaining American support for multinational efforts. The chapters on Lehman’s Senate years make clear Lehman’s commitment to his liberal principles, especially civil rights and immigration reform, despite the obstacles in getting the Senate even to consider such measures in the 1950s. Lehman’s interactions with John Kennedy and his fight against bossism in New York show how Lehman, even in his eighties, continued to fight for liberal reforms nationally and in New York. Herbert Lehman did not always achieve his objectives. In New York, the Republicans controlled at least one house of the State Legislature for all but one year of Lehman’s governorship, enabling them to block or delay some of Lehman’s initiatives. At UNRRA, his plans to feed the hungry people of Europe and Asia were often undercut by higher military priorities, shortages of supplies and shipping, and the unwillingness of the Truman administration to require the American people to make sacrifices to help prevent starvation overseas. As a Senator, Lehman found himself frustrated by that body’s archaic rules and the dominance of Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson and Southern conservatives. In New York, De Sapio and the bosses stood in the way of Lehman’s efforts to persuade the Democratic Party to nominate statesmen rather than politicians. Lehman often succeeded in New York by appealing directly to the people, and he had some success in OFRRO and UNRRA by appealing directly to Franklin Roosevelt. As a senator, however, Lehman refused to compromise his liberal beliefs, and he frequently had to content himself with keeping issues like civil

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rights and immigration in the forefront of the nation’s political consciousness so that reforms could be enacted in the future. Ironically, it was President Lyndon Johnson, who did so much to block such measures when he and Lehman were in the Senate together, who won congressional approval of civil rights legislation and immigration reform as part of his Great Society in 1964–1965. This book relies heavily upon Herbert Lehman’s words as expressed in his public speeches and private correspondence. Words were crucially important to Herbert Lehman in his efforts to educate and arouse the public, whether it was to overcome the New York State Legislature’s reluctance to implement the Social Security Act, alert the American people and his Senate colleagues to the danger posed by Senator McCarthy, or make the case for civil rights legislation. Lehman had not spent his whole life in politics; he saw public office as an opportunity to serve others, and his wealth and his prestige meant that he did not need the job or the income or the acclaim that went with it. As a result, Lehman refused to tailor his views to what was popular. His honesty and his integrity were the keys to his political success; people knew that he meant and believed what he said, that he was not just another politician saying whatever was necessary to win an election. My reliance on Lehman’s words also reflects the scarcity of colorful stories and anecdotes about him. In 1944, Jacob Marcus of Hebrew Union College asked Carolin Flexner, Lehman’s longtime personal assistant, for copies of any of Herbert Lehman’s letters that reflected, in “a lighter vein,” Lehman’s involvement in human interest matters. Flexner regretfully replied that “everything that Governor Lehman has ever done has been of human interest, but none of it is in a lighter vein.” William Shannon, a columnist for the New York Post, attempted to write a biography of Lehman in the early 1950s but gave up the effort in 1955, explaining that Lehman’s friends and family had “volunteered warm expressions of respect and affection . . . but very little in the way of anecdotes or crisp, dramatic details.” Allan Nevins had to deal with similar difficulties in writing his book a few years later. Actually, Lehman’s career was filled with dramatic moments, including his confrontation with Tammany Hall over the gubernatorial nomination in 1932, his opposition to FDR’s courtpacking plan in 1937, his battles with Senator McCarthy, his coming to blows with Republican Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana after a radio interview, and his challenge to De Sapio and the bosses who controlled the Democratic Party in New York. But Lehman shared his sense of humor mostly with family members, believing that government was serious business. As a result, his earnest demeanor, his honesty and integrity, and his belief that it was the government’s responsibility to help those in need characterized and dominated his years of public service.4 In many ways, it seems like I spent a large part of my life preparing to write this biography of Herbert Lehman. I still remember my mother’s high

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regard for Herbert Lehman, who was Governor of New York during her teenage years. Even though she never met Lehman nor had any personal contact with him, my mother, like many Jews of her generation, was confident that if there was a problem, she could somehow appeal to Lehman, who would help in some way. While earning my PhD at Columbia University in the 1970s, I did research in the Lehman Papers for my dissertation, and I worked for three years as an archivist at the Herbert Lehman Papers and Suite at Columbia, where the Lehman Papers were then housed. My familiarity with the Lehman Papers proved to be invaluable in writing this book, although the papers themselves are now housed off campus and the Special Files of the Herbert Lehman Papers have been digitalized and are available online. In 1980–1981, I was one of the American Historical Association’s first Congressional Fellows, and working for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations gave me a better understanding of how things really work in Congress that was very helpful in understanding Herbert Lehman’s Senate years. In 1986, I was hired to teach United States History at Lehman College, City University of New York. Lehman had originally been the Bronx campus of Hunter College, but it became a separate unit within CUNY in 1968–1969 and was named in honor of Herbert Lehman in the hope that his life and career would inspire the students and faculty. In 2002–2003, then–Vice President of Institutional Advancement Anne Johnson approached me about presenting a scholarly paper on Herbert Lehman at the college’s upcoming symposium commemorating the 125th anniversary of Lehman’s birth. Feeling somewhat stymied on a project that I had been working on for many years, I agreed, and thus I renewed my “acquaintance” with Herbert Lehman. I did not think of doing a book right away, but I quickly realized that a new biography of Lehman was needed, one that would utilize all the relevant manuscript collections that had been opened since the publication of Nevins’s book, and one that would place Lehman’s career in historical perspective. At that point, I could feel this book choosing me. I found the idea of doing a biography very appealing in its simplicity and its finite nature: the subject is born, lives, and then dies. What I failed to appreciate was that Herbert Lehman’s life was not that simple. His political career had four distinct phases: New York State politics in the 1920s and 1930s, international relief at OFRRO and UNRRA, national affairs in the U.S. Senate, and New York reform politics. And in order to write this book, I had to be knowledgeable about all these areas. I was already familiar with the national issues that occurred during Lehman’s Senate term, but the other areas required substantial research before I could start writing. Over the past decade, I have incurred many debts in the research and writing of this book. Vice President Johnson retained her confidence in me even when, two weeks before the Lehman College Symposium in 2003, I ripped up the paper I had prepared and started work on a different one that was better

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suited to the occasion. Lehman College President Ricardo Fernandez has been truly committed to keeping Herbert Lehman’s memory and legacy alive for Lehman College students and has been supportive of this project from its inception. Mario Dellapina, the current Vice President of Institutional Advancement, and Frederick Gilbert, the Assistant Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Executive Director of the Lehman College Foundation, helped me secure funding to facilitate the publication of the book. I thank Wendy Lehman Lash and the Edith A. and Herbert H. Lehman Foundation for that funding. Herbert Lehman’s great-nephew William Bernhard and his wife Catherine Cahill contributed funds to help secure the rights to certain photographs, as did John L. Loeb, Jr., another of Herbert Lehman’s great-nephews. A Shuster grant from Lehman College and a series of Professional Staff Congress–City University of New York grants helped finance some of the research for this book as well as the rights to use some of the photographs. A one-semester sabbatical from Lehman College helped free up time to work on the book. Grants from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, and the John F. Kennedy Library facilitated my research for this project. The archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson Libraries were all very helpful in locating relevant materials. The Herbert Lehman Papers at Columbia have had a number of curators since William Liebmann—the “boss” to those of us who worked under him—first organized and opened the Lehman Papers and Suite at Columbia. I thank all of them, as well as the rest of the staff of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Division of the Columbia University Libraries, for all their help. Marlene Subit made available to me the many books on Zionism and Judaism in the Sinai Free Synagogue Library in Mount Vernon, New York. The Mount Vernon Public Library remains a hidden treasure trove of older books on American history, while the Westchester County Library system makes it possible to access newer works. My thanks also go to Lauren Post and the estate of Rollin Kirby Post for permission to use some of Rollin Kirby’s editorial cartoons, to The Jewish Advocate for permission to reproduce an ad from John Kennedy’s Senate run in 1952, to the Herb Block Foundation for the right to use a few Herblock cartoons, to Helene Berinsky for permission to use one of Burton Berinsky’s photographs, to Matthew Lutts of AP Images for his help in locating relevant photographs, and to the Houghton Library at Harvard University for permission to quote from the J. Pierrepont Moffat Papers. William vanden Heuvel and Norman Sherman kindly shared some of their memories of Herbert Lehman with me, as did Lehman’s great-niece, the late June Bingham Birge. Al Smith biographer Chris Finan clarified some

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points for me on the 1928 gubernatorial election in New York, and Professor Michael Green of the University of Southern Nevada helped me better understand Nevada Senators Pat McCarran and Howard Cannon. Professor Green also brought to my attention Booth Mooney’s story about Lyndon Johnson wanting to be more “sincere,” like Herbert Lehman. The staff at the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College, including Janet Munch in Special Collections, Eugene Laper in Interlibrary Loan, Angelina Brea and Olga Torres in Circulation, and Edwin Wallace in Periodicals, among others, provided invaluable assistance in getting me the books and other materials I needed for this project, as well as helping me when I encountered the inevitable difficulties with the microfilm copier machine. My friends and colleagues in the History Department at Lehman constantly offered their support and encouragement, and Cindy Lobel showed me how to print out newspaper articles from ProQuest in a way that actually made the text large enough to read the articles. She also put me in touch with her sister-in-law, Judith Kafka of Baruch College, and they both pointed me toward important sources on racial problems in Northern cities in the late 1950s. Stephen Petrus contributed significantly to my knowledge about the reform Democrats in New York in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Vincent Prohaska, Kathy Brown, Lenore Schultz, Teddy Meyrowitz, Maryann Gerbacia, and the late Woody Greenhaus helped me keep my sense of humor and perspective and smile at life’s absurdities. Michael Rinella and James Peltz of State University of New York Press demonstrated great patience in waiting for this manuscript and moving forward with its publication despite its length. I appreciate the helpful suggestions offered by David Woolner of Marist College and the Roosevelt Institute and the other reviewer for State University of New York Press who had to make their way through an even longer version of this study. I also thank Dana Foote for copyediting the manuscript and Diane Ganeles for shepherding the book through the production process. As a student, I had the privilege of working under two exceptional teachers and scholars who inspired me by their examples. Walter LaFeber of Cornell University and William E. Leuchtenburg, then at Columbia University, showed me that great teaching and distinguished scholarship can go hand in hand, and I remain thankful for their guidance and tutelage over the years. My biggest debt, of course, is to my family. My parents’ love and support helped me realize I could achieve whatever goals I set for myself, and my sister Pee Gee Coyle and her husband Phil always made us feel welcome when we returned to my native Buffalo, New York. My brother and sister-in-law, Harvey and Rona Tananbaum, provided me with all the comforts of their home when I did my research at the Kennedy Library, and my brother-in-law and sisterin-law, Jim and Kathie Ehrenreich, did the same when I visited the Truman Library. My niece Kelly Ehrenreich and my sons Rob and Willie Tananbaum

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facilitated my research in various digital sources. I probably have not set a good example for Rob and Willie on the importance of brevity in writing, but I do appreciate their encouragement as I have worked on this project and used their bedroom for books and filing cabinets that had overrun their natural habitat in the living room. I also appreciate the help of my daughters-in-law Samantha Tananbaum and Beka Breitzer in resolving various computer issues that arose while I was working on this book. Finally, and most importantly, my greatest debt is to my wife Joan, for whom my love and gratitude go way beyond anything I can put into words. She has been a wonderful editor and proofreader for every page of this book, including the endnotes when they were in small print, and her love, patience, support, and encouragement at every step along the way have enabled me to bring this project to its conclusion.

chapter 1

“A Dearly Beloved Friend” Herbert Lehman and Lillian Wald

With the exception of my wife and my parents, no one has had as great an influence on my life [as Lillian Wald].1

Herbert Lehman was born in New York City in 1878, the son of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from Germany. His father, Mayer Lehman, was one of the founders of Lehman Brothers, which had become one of the nation’s leading investment banks, and the family lived very comfortably among the city’s wealthy German Jewish community. Herbert’s parents set an example of helping others with their strong support of Mount Sinai Hospital and Temple Emanu-El in New York, and they instilled in their children a sense of duty to aid those less fortunate than themselves. Herbert Lehman’s concern for the welfare of others was nurtured and strengthened by Lillian Wald, who Lehman described as “a great and wonderful woman” who “always saw more ways in which to be helpful and to render service in the community than any other person” he had known. Eleanor Roosevelt later attributed Lehman’s activities as a “humanitarian . . . to his close association with Lillian Wald when he was young.”2 Lillian Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1867, the daughter of German and Polish Jews who had come to the United States in 1848. Wald and her family moved to Rochester, New York, in 1877, where they prospered Chapter title quotation: Herbert Lehman to Leo Arnstein, November 29, 1940, Herbert Lehman Papers, Special Correspondence Files, Lillian Wald.

1

2

Herbert H. Lehman

and became part of the local Reform Jewish elite. Inspired by a nurse who had aided her pregnant sister, Wald came to New York City in 1889 to enter the nursing program at New York Hospital, from which she graduated in 1891. She spent a year working as a nurse in an orphan asylum and then a year studying at the Women’s Medical College in New York. As part of her studies, she was sent to teach immigrant mothers on the Lower East Side the rudiments of public health. Appalled by the squalid living conditions in the tenements there, Wald sought and received funding in 1893 from Jacob Schiff, a financier and leader of New York’s wealthy German Jewish establishment, to open the Nurses’ Settlement, which the New York Times later called “the first non-sectarian public health nursing system in the world.” The Nurses’ Settlement soon evolved into the Henry Street Settlement House and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Henry Street differed from most settlements in its emphasis on and utilization of trained nurses to care for residents of the community.3 When Herbert Lehman was fourteen years old, a school tour of the Lower East Side made a lasting impression on him. Sixty-five years later, he still remembered “the poverty and the filth and bleakness” that he saw and felt in the streets and the admiration and respect he had for “Lillian Wald because she lived down there.” Jacob Schiff or a member of his family introduced Lehman to Lillian Wald and the Henry Street Settlement House, and Lehman began volunteering there in the late 1890s, when he was home on breaks from Williams College.4 The Henry Street Settlement House quickly became the focus of Herbert Lehman’s efforts to help others. After graduating from Williams in 1899, Lehman went to work for J. Spencer Turner Co., a textile firm, and he joined a number of friends who were already active at Henry Street. At Lillian Wald’s request, Lehman organized a club for neighborhood boys between the ages of twelve and fourteen. For the next four years, he led the “Patriots,” a group of about fifteen boys from the Lower East Side. They usually met at the settlement house for an hour or two and then went out for ice cream sodas. Lehman later recounted how his attempt to teach the boys about democracy succeeded only too well. After Lehman “had talked a lot about democracy to these kids and the importance of the ballot,” each boy voted for himself for club president.5 Lehman’s Patriot boys later recalled that Lehman was “utterly devoid of that patronizing attitude” that they “sense[d] in some of the other Settlement workers.” They were impressed by his “absolute sincerity and honesty of purpose” and his desire “to encourage and spur young people onward and upward,” and they were grateful for having “received a grounding in ethics at an age when habits of thought and action usually influence one’s whole future.” Lehman remained in touch with many of the boys for the rest of their lives, helping a number of them get an education, a job, or a start in business, and at least one of the boys named his firstborn son after Herbert Lehman.6

“A Dearly Beloved Friend”

3

A warm friendship quickly developed between Herbert Lehman and Lillian Wald as they worked together to bring about needed social reforms. Wald was always concerned about the welfare of children, and as she later wrote in her autobiography, she was appalled that the federal government had more information and seemed more “concerned . . . with the conservation of material wealth, mines and forests, hogs and lobsters” than with “the conservation and protection of the children of the nation.” In the early 1900s, she joined with Florence Kelley, Jane Addams, and other reformers to advocate the creation of a federal children’s bureau within the Department of Labor. As Wald explained in a letter to the New York Times, “the bureau would be a clearing house, a source of information and reliable education on all matters pertaining to the welfare of children, and it would investigate and report upon the questions pertaining to them now nowhere answered in complete or unified form.” Herbert Lehman told Wald that he was “very strongly in favor of such a Bureau,” believing “that through this alone real effective child labor supervision can be had.” Lehman understood “that in order really to do effective work in this field, there must be federal action rather than State legislation,” and he was eager to do what he could “to further the movement . . . either in work or by contributing.” Wald’s and Lehman’s efforts came to fruition in 1912 when the Federal Children’s Bureau was established.7 Lillian Wald and Herbert Lehman opposed racial discrimination and advocated equality for all Americans. Wald was one of the signers of the “call” that went out in 1909 for a biracial group to meet and focus attention on the problems of African Americans, leading to the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When the new organization met in New York, Wald volunteered to host a reception for its members, both blacks and whites, at Henry Street. As she recalled in her autobiography, she dismissed warnings that the settlement house would receive unfavorable publicity because “as soon as white and colored people sit down and eat together there begin to be newspaper stories about social equality.” She assured everyone that there would not be enough room at Henry Street for anyone to sit down to eat. Wald served as a member of the NAACP’s General Committee and its board of directors, and Herbert Lehman later sat on the NAACP’s board for more than thirty years, generously contributing both his time and his money to the cause.8 The one issue on which Lehman and Wald strongly disagreed was American involvement in World War I. As chairman of the American Union Against Militarism, Wald met with President Woodrow Wilson on a number of occasions to urge that the United States not get involved in the war in Europe. Herbert Lehman, on the other hand, believed that the United States should actively oppose Germany and the Central Powers. Long before American entry into the conflict, he joined a group of men doing military drills on Governor’s Island,

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Herbert H. Lehman

using broomsticks for rifles. In February 1917, Lehman asked Francis Sayre, a friend from Williams College who was Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law, to inform the President, or “whoever is in charge of organizing the necessary additional government machinery, that if my services can be used in any capacity, either here or abroad, I should be very glad indeed to put myself at the disposal of the government.” Lehman stressed that he was “seeking no office,” but he believed that “in the emergencies which will arise in the near future, the government will need men of experience and training,” and he was “willing to make whatever personal sacrifice is necessary.” Lehman tried to impress upon various Wilson administration officials that his experience in the textile and banking industries especially qualified him for service in the Quartermaster Corps.9 Once the United States entered the war in April 1917, Lehman quickly dropped his interest in the Quartermaster Corps and sought instead to enlist for officers’ training, but the Army was reluctant to offer him a commission because of his age and lack of military experience. Wanting to get involved as soon as possible and not knowing when he would hear anything definitive from the Army, Lehman went to work for the Navy Bureau of Supplies and Accounts as a civilian in May 1917, helping to procure needed supplies. In August 1917, Lehman was commissioned as a Captain in the Army and assigned to the General Staff Corps to oversee contracts for textiles and other necessary commodities. After the Armistice, Lehman served on the Board of Contract Adjustment and the War Claims Board, both of which dealt with problems caused by the abrupt cancellation of contracts when the fighting ended. Lehman rose to the rank of Colonel, a title he proudly used until he was elected to high civilian offices, and he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work “in the settlement and adjustment of terminated obligations.”10 Although Henry Street was always near and dear to Herbert Lehman’s heart, his philanthropic activities extended far beyond the Lower East Side. During World War I, he was one of the founders of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an organization funded mostly by American Jews of German descent to unify and expand efforts to help European Jews displaced by the war. Lehman was one of the younger members of the JDC, which was led by Jacob Schiff and then Felix Warburg. The JDC raised $16.4 million during the war to relieve the suffering of European Jews, and its leaders hoped that their mission could be completed and the organization disbanded once the war ended. But they soon realized that the Jews’ distress in Eastern Europe would continue, and, after the war, they shifted the JDC’s focus from relief to rehabilitation. Herbert Lehman served as chairman of the JDC’s Reconstruction Committee, which allocated millions of dollars for various projects in Eastern Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, and he later recalled that his experience with the JDC’s Reconstruction Committee was “great training” for his “later activity in UNRRA.”11

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Lillian Wald “appreciate[d] the great work” Lehman was “doing for the Jewish War Relief,” but she hoped he would also have the time to serve on the board of Henry Street, joining Jacob Schiff and all his other friends “who are on the Directorate of the Henry Street Settlement.” In November 1916, Herbert Lehman and his wife Edith contributed $5,000 to a $1,000,000 fundraising drive to help Henry Street “increase its facilities and to care for children who were crippled in the epidemic of infantile paralysis.” A few months later, Lehman formally joined the Henry Street Board, emphasizing to Wald, “There is no activity in the city which has interested me more than yours, and there is none with which I have been affiliated, both in work and in sympathetic interest, for a longer period.”12 Lehman took his responsibilities as a member of the board at Henry Street very seriously. He offered to resign from the board when he went to work for the military in Washington during the war, but Wald and the other directors refused to accept his resignation, granting him instead a leave of absence until “the happy days of peace” would allow Lehman to resume his “active participation.” In 1919, Lehman was appointed to Henry Street’s Finance Committee, and he looked forward to sharing in the work when he returned to New York that autumn. Lehman used his business and banking expertise to review financial statements and recommend new accounting systems and budget procedures for Henry Street. In 1924, he expressed concern over a potential decrease in contributions, and in 1926, he suggested that Wald “personally strongly urge every Director to be present at what will undoubtedly prove to be a very important meeting” at which “the whole subject of finances should be exhaustively discussed.” Lehman also helped support a summer camp near Lake Mahopac that Henry Street established “to give as many as possible of these children a breath of fresh air, a chance to see the sun on flowers and fields, . . . to take them away from the cruelty of the Summer’s heat in the city.” Lehman remained on the Board of Directors of Henry Street and the Visiting Nurse Service, albeit in a much less active role, during his tenure as Governor of New York and later when he was a U.S. Senator.13 Lillian Wald realized early in her career the importance of politics and elections for achieving social reforms and improving working and living conditions for the inhabitants of the Lower East Side. She cheered in 1928 when Democrats nominated Al Smith for President and Franklin Roosevelt for Governor of New York, but she took special pleasure in the nomination of Herbert Lehman for Lieutenant Governor. In a letter to the New York Times, she detailed Lehman’s long involvement with Henry Street, tracing his progress from “the young man who accepted duty as a club leader . . . to the directorate of our settlement.” She recalled that Lehman had “exercised a remarkable influence over the younger men with whom he was associated.” He had “recognized their ambitions, their need of sincere fellowship; and when a friend was needed, he never failed.”

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She emphasized that Lehman “has never lost his sensitiveness to social conditions and has participated in the efforts to meet their problems.” In mediating labor disputes or confronting other societal problems, she noted, Lehman always showed “the same qualities of disinterested and intelligent comprehension.” In Wald’s opinion, Lehman’s example of service to his fellow man in peace and in war “should stimulate our youth and encourage the older folk.”14 The lack of adequate housing for working people in New York had long concerned Lilian Wald. As she explained in a letter to Lieutenant Governor Herbert Lehman in February 1929, social workers such as herself sought, as a bare minimum, “removal of all outside toilets (there are many in the yards here); a separate toilet for every family, if not now, at some time prior to 1935; better fire protection; prohibition of cellar dwellers; and by 1935, or possibly 1940, prohibition against occupying a room that does not have a window opening directly to outer air.” She emphasized that these were reasonable, “not revolutionary demands.”15 Wald’s efforts to improve New York’s housing culminated in 1929 when she persuaded Lieutenant Governor Lehman to join with Aaron Rabinowitz, a Henry Street “boy” who had succeeded in the real estate business and was now a member of the State Board of Housing, to purchase land on the Lower East Side to construct model housing. When Rabinowitz failed to secure financing elsewhere, Lehman contributed $325,000 of his own money toward the project, with Rabinowitz putting up a similar amount, and the Bowery Savings Bank issuing a mortgage for $900,000 to cover the rest of the costs. Under the leadership of Sidney Hillman, a longtime resident of Henry Street, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union organized the sale of the apartments on a cooperative basis. Rabinowitz noted that “it has been a life ambition of Miss Wald that model housing should be developed in the heart of the Lower East Side” and that he and Lehman were “glad to gratify this desire without profit” to themselves. Wald called it “one of the happiest experiences in all my happy life,” and Lehman hoped the project would “serve as an incentive to similar developments on the East Side and elsewhere in the city.” When the Grand Street development opened in the fall of 1930, it received architectural awards, the New York Times hailed it as “a landmark in the history of housing development in New York City,” and Arthur H. Sulzberger of the Times exclaimed after seeing the buildings: “to say that they are thrilling is but to mildly express the effect that they had on us.”16 Lillian Wald paid very close attention to Herbert Lehman’s political career. After Lehman was renominated by the Democrats in 1930 for a second term as Lieutenant Governor (until 1938, Governors and Lieutenant Governors in New York served two-year terms, and until 1954, they were elected individually, not as a team), Wald told Lehman how glad she was that he was “willing to serve again.” She told Lehman, she understood “what tremendous responsibilities you have, but I think that it is most generous and consistent for you to

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serve the state as an official as you have served the city as an individual for so many years.” Wald fondly recalled the “many, many wise and unselfish and truly distinguished contributions” Lehman had made in areas such as “protection for children” and “justice for the laborer.” She also led a large group of social workers who strongly endorsed Franklin Roosevelt and Lehman for re-election so that they could continue to implement “forward-looking social legislation.” Wald and her colleagues particularly noted Lehman’s role as FDR’s “helpmate,” describing Lehman as “a man of rare worth and experience in the realm of social work.” They emphasized Lehman’s “personal service to the educational, philanthropic and social service organizations of the state,” including “his recent undertaking to improve housing conditions in the congested New York area.”17 In 1932, Wald employed all of her resources to ensure that Herbert Leh­ man received the Democratic nomination for Governor. Knowing that ­Tammany Hall leader John Curry preferred someone who would be more cooperative with Tammany on patronage and other matters than the scrupulously honest and independent Lehman, Wald met with Curry and other leaders, urging them to support Lehman. She even withheld her support from Franklin Roosevelt and the national ticket temporarily, confiding to a friend in mid-September, “I am all for Roosevelt, for he has done well, but I am not allowing my name to be used, despite pressure, until I see Herbert Lehman nominated.” In a letter published in the New York Times on the eve of the Democratic State Convention, Wald and fellow social workers John Elliott and Mary Simkhovitch welcomed Lehman’s willingness to place his “outstanding business ability and financial ­acumen  .  .  .  at the service of all the citizens of the State.” They emphasized, “Colonel Lehman’s single-mindedness, his generosity, his intelligence, his experience in serving the people, together with his great ability, make him in our opinion the outstanding candidate for the Governorship in these exacting times.” With strong support from Wald, Franklin Roosevelt and Al Smith, Lehman won the nomination, and Wald worked for his election through the Democratic Party’s Women’s Campaign Committee.18 Wald took great pride that so many people connected with Henry Street were “helping shape social legislation” in Washington, Albany, and New York City in the 1930s. In December 1934, after Wald reported to Herbert Leh­ man her great pleasure at being a guest at the White House, Lehman noted, “It certainly must have been a great satisfaction to you to see so many of the Henry Streeters in the Administration.” When Lehman appointed Susan Brandeis, the daughter of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, to the New York State Board of Regents, Wald agreed that Brandeis’s “intelligence and courage and background, not excluding her residence at Henry Street,” made her an excellent choice. Wald was “very certain that our various forms of government are extensions of Henry Street influence!” She asserted, however, that “the proudest banner that waves, floats over the Executive Mansion in

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Albany.” Wald emphasized in her 1934 autobiography that, “since his college days,” Herbert Lehman had “devoted himself with unstinting generosity to causes, and in his elective office has demonstrated the importance of trained intelligence and social vision in the great affairs of the state.” In the midst of the Depression, he had provided the people of New York with “a markedly effective administration.”19 Lillian Wald never fully recovered her health after a series of illnesses in the early 1930s, spending most of her last decade at the “House on the Pond” in Westport, Connecticut, and yielding the role of Head Worker at Henry Street to Helen Hall. Nevertheless, she maintained her active interest and involvement in Herbert Lehman’s political career. In 1934, she endorsed his re-election as Governor, declaring that “he had not disappointed the social service workers who supported him two years ago.” Two years later, when Lehman announced that he would not run for a third term as Governor, Wald, “with the rest of New York, and perhaps of the United States,” deplored Lehman’s decision, but she “recognize[d] the limit of one’s right to impose upon a man who has done so well.” She knew Lehman would not be leaving public life unless he had no choice, and she emphasized that his “unique example of an able man in an important office, who is not a politician and does not use a politician’s technique, is priceless.” Despite her seeming willingness to accept Lehman’s decision, Wald served as one of the honorary chairmen of the “State-wide Citizens Committee for Lehman” that was formed in June 1936 to try to persuade “Governor Lehman to reconsider his decision not to run for re-election.” Like the rest of Lehman’s friends and supporters, Wald cheered when Lehman changed his mind and agreed to run for re-election, joining other prominent soci