Samuel Untermyer
Samuel Untermyer (also Samuel Untermeyer ; born March 6, 1858 in Lynchburg , Virginia ; died March 16, 1940 in Palm Springs , California ) was an American lawyer, Democratic Party politician, and self-made millionaire. In the 1930s he was a major supporter of Zionism .
Life
Samuel Untermyer's father, Isadore Untermyer, was a Jewish merchant and a supporter of the Confederate . After his death in 1866, he moved to New York City with his mother Therese Landauer, a pension landlady . In 1873 he entered the College of the City of New York and became a messenger in the office of his half-brother Randolph Guggenheimer. In 1878, in evening classes at Columbia Law School , he earned a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.).
With his half-brother and brother, he founded the law firm Guggenheimer & Untermyer in 1882 and became a successful litigation attorney who implemented lucrative company mergers over the next fifty years. His first big case was Bethlehem Steel in 1905, where he made profits through timely stock purchases. For the merger of the Utah Copper Company with the Boston Consolidated to form the Nevada Consolidated Companies in 1909/1910, he received the astronomical fee of 775,000 dollars.
politics
In October 1912 he became an investigator of the Committee on Banking and Currency in the US House of Representatives , which had been set up on his accusation that a "money trust" would control the US economy and interviewed JP Morgan among others . The Federal Reserve System was then set up as a private central bank by Congress . Untermyer was also involved in several laws of the Wilson administration in the business sector, such as the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act .
In the First World War initially for Germany, after entering the war in 1917 he supported the USA, bought war bonds ( Liberty Bonds ), and traveled around the country promoting them. When the railways were nationalized in January 1918, he entered into long negotiations with the government as an advisor to the National Association of Owners of Railroad Securities .
In the 1920s he was involved in the regulation of New York City public rail transport, such as the New York City Subway . As a result, he was appointed financial and transport advisor to the city in 1933. He was a frequent delegate to the Democratic National Convention .
Fight against anti-Semitism
Untermyer actively fought anti-Semitism. In 1923 he represented the journalist Herman Bernstein in a defamation suit against Henry Ford and his publications of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew - A World Problem . In a settlement, he closed his newspaper Dearborn (Mich.) Independent , agreed to destroy all copies of The International Jew and apologized publicly.
As one of the first declared opponents of the German Nazi -Regierung he founded in 1933 the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights , which he later, in due criticism that this was exclusively Jewish Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights renamed and whose president he was. With regard to human rights violations by Adolf Hitler and especially the persecution of German Jews, Untermyer initiated a US boycott of German imports and declared Germany a "holy war" at a world Jewish congress in Amsterdam in 1933. He repeated this appeal on his return to New York in a speech that was broadcast by WABC on the radio and published in the New York Times on August 7, 1933 as a transcript. As President of the World Jewish Economic Federation , he made an unsuccessful attempt at an international boycott of Nazi Germany at the League of Nations in July 1933 . His campaign to boycott the Summer and Winter Olympics in 1936 was unsuccessful .
Private
Untermyer supported a number of Jewish and other charities. For several years he was president of the Palestine Foundation Fund and in 1926 he helped found the Palestine Economic Corporation , which promoted the export and distribution of goods from Palestine.
He married Minnie Carl in 1880 and had three children with her. He collected art (including in 1892 he acquired Whistler's famous Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket ) and dealt with gardening , especially orchid cultivation, and in 1899 bought the former country estate of Samuel J. Tildens in Yonkers . After his death he left it to the city, which converted it to Untermyer Park .
swell
- ↑ Detroit Institute of Art website
- ↑ University of Oklahoma, College of Liberal Arts ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Samuel Untermyer's speech - Transcript from the New York Times, Monday, August 7, 1933
- Untermyer Park
- Untermyer Gardens Photo Galleries - HISTORICAL PHOTOS
- A large collection of photographs and slides of Untermyer Gardens exists as part of the Smithsonian's Archives of American Gardens in Washington, DC
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Untermyer, Samuel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American lawyer and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 6, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lynchburg, Virginia |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 16, 1940 |
| Place of death | Palm Springs (Florida) |