Herbert H. Lehman (1878-1963) was born on March 28, 1878, the son of Meyer Lehman, one of the original partners of Lehman Brothers and a founder of the Cotton Exchange. Herbert was educated at Dr. Sach's Collegiate Institute, New York, and at Williams College, where in 1899 he received a A.B. In that same year he began work as a cotton-goods salesman at $5.00 per week with the firm of J. Spencer Turner, of which he later became treasurer and vice-president.

In 1908 he entered Lehman Brothers as a partner and participated for the next two decades in the floating of more than five billion dollars worth of industrial securities as well as in the management of the Lehman corporation. He resigned from both firms upon becoming Lieutenant-Governor of the State of New York in 1929.

World War I War Service

When the United States entered the first World War he volunteered for service in the Navy department and was assigned to duty under Franklin D. Roosevelt, then assistant secretary for the Navy. Before entering the Navy he applied for admission to the officers training camp at Platsburg, was accepted but never called. After a few months he transferred to the United States Army and was commissioned captain, and thereafter was promoted through grades to that of colonel on the general staff, and he was made assistant to Gen. George W. Goethals, then chief of the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division. In that capacity he was in part responsible for the procuring, distribution and storage of all supplies shipped to the AEF or used in this country. After the armistice in 1918, he served as a special assistant to be United States Secretary of War and as a member of the Board of Contract Adjustment and the War Department Claims Board which negotiated the settlement or cancellation of all contracts, the execution of which had been made unnecessary by the end of hostilities. For his service in the Army he was award the distinguished service medal in 1919.

Entrance into Politics

Lehman's first political associations were with Tammany Hall, and though he belonged to this group in the Democratic Party, his personal independence in the positions he occupied freed him of serious contamination of the kind usually implied by such association.

In 1924 governor Alfred E. Smith appointed Lehman to mediate in garment industry strikes. In 1926 Mayor James J. Walker of New York City commissioned Lehman to make a report on the city finances. Smith made him director of his re-election campaign in 1926, and also director of finances for his Presidential campaign in 1928. This election witnessed Lehman's first official entry into politics as a candidate for office; he was nominated for the lieutenant governor ship of the state of New York as running mate with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both were elected. Lehman stayed in Albany for the next 14 years.

Lehman as Lieutenant Governor

Lehman confessed afterward that he had thought that a political post would require a different set of abilities from those demanded by business career or by activity in social welfare. But he discovered that the training he had received during his years in business and banking and his active interest in philanthropy equipped him for the demands of his new office. He brought seriousness and impartiality into his position as Lieutenant Governor, and animated it with an insistence on getting worked done. Both in discharging the duties of lieutenant governor and in service as acting governor while Roosevelt was absent from Albany, Lehman displayed unusual forcefulness.

As lieutenant governor he made a personal investigation of the state hospitals for the insane. Deeming immediate and widespread improvements imperative, he drew up the plans. Instead of waiting for the routine procedure of seeing the appropriations through the state Assembly and Senate at the regular time, he called the political leaders of both bodies into private conference, obtained their guarantees that the appropriation would pass, borrowed the money on behalf of the state, and started the work at once.

A riot in 1929 at the state prison at Auburn, New York, in which the warden and was held prisoner, brought from Lehman, then acting governor, the command to release the warden at any cost except that of permitting the escape of the inmates who were holding the warden hostage. All the militia and police forces at Lehman's disposal were dispatched to Auburn, and law and order were read established. This incident led Lehman to a study of the prison situation in the state and resulted in many reforms which he Lieutenant Governor initiated, including a reform in the parole system.

The failure of the City Trust Co. of New York in 1929, brought about the imprisonment of the state superintendent of banks. Lehman's concern for the depositors caused him to summon a group of bankers who formed a corporation that bought out the assets of the City Trust Co. and paid off the depositors, dollar for dollar. One million dollars of his own money went into the fund, and the financial upheavals that followed after 1929 resulted in the complete loss of his investment.

As Lieutenant Governor, Lehman instituted a number of financial reforms in the state's handling of public funds. It is estimated that during his term in office he saved New York State approximately $2 million a year by judicious financial control.

In 1930, the Democratic Party of New York again teamed up Lehman with Roosevelt for the pest offices of the state, and a ticket was overwhelmingly re-elected. Lehman had carried the state in the 1928 election by plurality of only 14,000 votes; in 1930, however, his plurality rose to 565,000. During his second term the innovations and reforms he had instituted were continued. During both terms he was called on to act as negotiator in important strikes, notably in the garment industry.

Lehman as Governor

The national Democratic convention of 1932 nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for the presidency; and a New York State convention nominated Herbert Henry Lehman for the governorship of New York. Lehman, on his record as Lieutenant Governor, swept the state, being elected by plurality of 849,000. Gov. Lehman was re-elected three times. He served the state as chief executive for four successive terms (three of two years and one of four years), for a total of ten years. In 1934 he was re-elected buying 808,089 votes, in 1936 by 520,000 votes and in 1938, against a particularly intense Republican campaign, Lehman still carried the state by 64,000 votes.

Among the major legislative achievements of his early terms were the establishment of permanent unemployment insurance fund; the extension of the workmen's compensation law to include all occupational diseases; provision for an eight-hour workday on all public works and in state institutions; provisions for trial by jury of persons accused of violating injunctions in labor disputes; prohibition of so-called yellow dog contracts of employment which forbade workers to join labor unions; creation of a state planning council; and provision for larger financial aid to agricultural education. Other important measures included a series of anti-crime reform laws, one of which permitted women to serve on juries, an act permitting municipalities to build and operate their own gas and electric plants, and other measures designed to regulate the operation of public utilities.

In his third term Lehman obtained legislative approval of a comprehensive program which met the Social Security needs of the time. The program was passed by the Legislature in 1937 and it provided aid for dependent children and crippled children, for the blind, maternal and childcare for public health, child welfare, and vocational rehabilitation merging with the federal government's Social Security program. In the same session, following Lehman's recommendation, the Legislature assigned to the Department of Social Welfare the release activities of the state. Prior to that time the temporary agency had directed relief.

Slum clearance, reorganization of local governments, and laws governing minimum wages for women and minors were additional successful aims of the governor's program. In 1938 upon his recommendation the Legislature set up the savings bank life insurance system. His views on various questions of public policy were placed before the New York State constitutional convention of 1938 a series of special messages to that body. During his last term he created a board to bring about the rapid liquidation of defaulted mortgages certificates, sponsored numerous measures for low-cost housing and the improvements of public utility regulation of holding companies.

When he retired from the Governorship in 1942 after having been four times elected by the people he served, he had not only wiped out that huge depression deficit, but left his successor with an $80,000,000 surplus.

This remarkable financial success was achieved without the sacrifice of any of the major aims to which Governor has always directed his efforts in public office. In fact, his tenure of office was one of the most progressive eras the State of New York has ever experienced.

The labor program that was developed during the Lehman administration was one of the pioneering efforts in the field and has been used as a model for both Federal and State legislation. It included a revitalized Workman's Compensation Law, the creation of State Labor Relations and Mediation boards, unemployment insurance and savings bank life insurance.

A great social security program was initiated and carried out during Governor Lehman's term of office that included assistance to the blind, aid to dependent children, maternal and child welfare assistance, and aid to crippled children and to public health projects.

Under Governor Lehman, New York embarked on the greatest public housing project ever attempted by a State.

Widely beneficial legislation for the regulation of public utilities was enacted in New York under his leadership.

The greatest park system in the world was built and maintained during his administration.

He also gave New York a vast and efficient network of improved highways, a modern and progressive prison system, government departments that were universally recognized as the best and most honestly administered in the land, and a system of unemployment insurance that was kept totally free of corruption and partisan politics.

Lehman's service as governor was marked by the same independent, progressive point of view that characterized his activities as Lieutenant Governor. Only occasionally did his original party alignment handicap him, as it did in 1941, when he endorsed William O. Dwyer, the Tammany candidate, against Fiorello La Guardia, who was supported by Roosevelt. Prior to 1941, he had invariably support of the La Guardia reforms in New York City management, though Tammany fought them.

Director of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration

Three months before the expiration of his forth term as Governor, Mr. Lehman was called to Washington by President Roosevelt to become Director of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations, the organization which in 1943 was supplanted by UNRRA, of which he was named the first Director General.

When he became Director General, Mr. Lehman had to build an organization from scratch. From the start he was faced with the task of establishing, and then of operating, the longest supply line in the world. The lives, health, hopes and futures of some 500,000,000 human beings depended on UNRRA.

Not until after the peak of re-deployment had been passed was he able to do anything more than beg for shipping space, and at the same time he was forced to contend with world wide shortages in food and other supplies. In spite of these handicaps, in 16 months (December, 1944, to April, 1946) UNRRA had shipped 18,000,000 tons of food, clothing, medical supplies, farm equipment and essential lumber to virtually every country in Europe and Asia ravaged by war.

With the help of public spirited citizenry he organized the spectacular United National Clothing Collection which sent 150,000,000 pounds of clothing, shoes and bedding to war stricken countries. He recognized in UNRRA his country's first opportunity to lead other nations to the understanding that peoples and nations could work together in peace as well as in war.

When Mr. Lehman resigned in March of 1946 the major problems had been solved and UNRRA was performing for the war torn world a job without precedent.

Senator from New York

When his UNRRA years ended Herbert Lehman returned to New York and devoted his energies to public and philanthropic causes until 1949, when it the age of 71 he was elected United States Senator to fill the on expire term of Robert F. Wagner, Sr. Reelected for a full term in 1950, Senator Lehman gave six more years of distinguished service to the people of his state and nation.

His courage, moral integrity and on faltering dedication to duty soon made Senator Lehman while Washington's most beloved and respected senators; just as they had won him affection and honor in New York and on the world scene. He became known as "the conscience of the Senate" as he led those who stood for liberal principles and for the rights of accused individuals in the early 1950s when Senator McCarthy's influence was at its peak. Utterly fearless and disdainfull for his own political fortunes he fought, at times almost alone, against tremendous and powerful opponents.

He was among the first vigorous fighters for bills protecting the civil rights of members of minority groups. He also led the battle against discriminatory national quotas in the immigration laws.

Just as Governor Lehman in the 1930s in the state of New York, had been in the forefront of every struggle to expand Social Security, to develop public housing and public power, and to protect the natural resources in the rights of the working people, so as Senator in the 1950s he fought for similar legislation on the national scene. In international affairs the Senator and former director general of UNRRA spoke and voted in favor of every effort to protect world peace through United Nations.

Even after Senator Lehman retired from the Senate at the age of 78, his public career was not ended. His role continue to be an active and constructive one. He led the Reform Movement of the Democratic Party in its campaign to strike down entrenched political bossism in New York City.

Herbert Lehman was revered as New York's elder statesman by people of all political parties and religious faiths. His abiding interest in public and philanthropic affairs continued until December 5, 1963 -- the very day he was preparing to leave New York for Washington to receive the presidential metal of freedom -- when his great heart came to rest.

Lehman's Family Life

Mr. Lehman married Edith Altschul of California on April 28, 1910. They had three children, Hilda, Peter, and John. Peter was killed while on active duty in the American Air Force during World War II. John became a lieutenant colonel in the Army and served in the European Theatre during the war. Hilda was a corporal in the WAACs.

Both he and Mrs. Lehman were well known for their intensive interest in charities. On his graduation from Williams College, Mr. Lehman immediately volunteered as an instructor in the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and it was there that he first met his good friend Alfred E. Smith. Later he became one of the founders of the Joint Distribution Committee, the foremost agency for the relief of Jewish war victims and refugees in Europe.