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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Herbert H. Lehman
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Herbert H. Lehman
Herbert H. Lehman (1878-1963) entered politics in 1928. Franklin Roosevelt, aspiring to be Governor of New York, convinced Lehman to join him on the Democratic Party ticket as a candidate for the office of lieutenant Governor. Lehman spent the next 35 years of his life dedicated to public service.
While Roosevelt catapulted into the presidency during the 1932 elections, the voters of New York elected Lehman to the governorship by a wide margin over his Republican opponent.
Remarks at the Presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom Posthumously to Herbert H. Lehman
January 28, 1964
Mr. Secretary, Mrs. Lehman, members of the family, and friends of Herbert Lehman, ladies and gentlemen:
In December, one of my first and most rewarding acts was to confer the Presidential Medal of Freedom for distinguished achievements on 33 individuals. The brilliance of that occasion was marred by the absence of two men: John Kennedy, who conceived and planned these new civil honors, and Herbert Lehman, whose death in New York occurred just minutes before his departure to Washington to receive this award from a grateful Nation.
Today it is altogether fitting that in special ceremony we present Herbert Lehman's Medal of Freedom to the one person who shared his life and his hopes, his triumphs and his disappointments, who was always with him in sunshine and in sorrow. Edith Lehman was the indispensable companion. When the days were dark or the mornings seemed far away, Edith Lehman was always there. No one knows this better than the friends of Herbert Lehman who are gathered here today.
The Nation is diminished when a patriot dies. Senator Lehman was an unusual man. He believed in the worth of the human being. He rejoiced and he agonized in the cause of freedom. He was civilized and calm when all around him were confused. He did not accept the view of the grey-minded and the doom-hangers that the corrupted currents of this world would overwhelm us.
He believed, as Aristotle had said, that excellence is much labored for by the race of man. He believed in the goodness and the rightness of the individual citizen and in that arena he fought his long fight. What a happy legacy he leaves to his family and to his State and to his Nation, an estate that will always endure, for it consists of love and loyalty for his country.
Under Secretary of State George W. Ball: Mr. President, the citation.
THE PRESIDENT [reading].
"The President of the United States of America awards this Presidential Medal of Freedom to Herbert H. Lehman, citizen and statesman. He has used wisdom and compassion as the tools of government and he has made politics the highest form of public service. The White House, Washington, D.C."
[At this point Mrs. Lehman responded briefly. She thanked the President for the tribute to her husband and said that "the knowledge that the medal was coming to him added a great deal to his last hours of life." The President then resumed speaking. ]
There is nothing more I can add except this: Senator Lehman was a most unusual man and a most thoughtful person. And when I was hovering between life and death, he made it possible for me to be here today. He got up in the Senate one morning, the first time a Senator had so arisen since 1789, and offered a Senate resolution that the Senate pray for my recovery. And it was just at the time when I needed every prayer I could get. And his prayers were answered.
Thank you.
NOTE: The ceremony was held at 11 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House. The President's opening words "Mr. Secretary" referred to George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State.
Biography
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. He 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.
After serving as a partner in Lehman Brothers and rising to the post of Colonel in the U.S. Army in World War I, he entered politics in 1926, serving as Chair of the campaign that elected Alfred E. Smith Governor. Two years later he accepted the post of Chair of the Finance Committee of the Democratic National Committee in the Smith Presidential Campaign. In the same election he became Lieutenant-Governor of New York, serving under his old friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been elected Governor. Lehman stayed in Albany for the next 14 years. In 1932 he was elected Governor. In 1934, running for re-election, he amassed a plurality of 800,000, the highest ever recorded up to that time in New York State history.
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. He held this post until March, 1946, when he resigned.
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 in 1929.
When Mr. Lehman became Governor in 1933 he was confronted with a deficit of $100,000,000.
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.
When he became Director General of UNRRA in 1943, 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.
Mr. Lehman brought to his work the rare combination of qualities that made him one of the greatest governors any State ever had. He solved the vast problems of business organization, statesmanship, public administration, diplomacy and sheer personal leadership which the job called for. He traveled halfway around the world making eight Atlantic crossings, visiting devastated areas, many directly behind the active fighting fronts, to be certain his solutions were right. Above all, 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.
At the outbreak of World War I, Mr. Lehman applied for admission to the first Officers Training Camp although he was at that time about 10 years over the draft age. His assignment was held in abeyance, and he subsequently volunteers for work in the Navy Department under Franklin Roosevlt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was commissioned an Army Captain in August 1917 and rose to the rank of Colonel attached to the General Staff., where he was directly concerned with the shipping of supplies to the A.E.F.
Immediately after the Armistice, he was appointed a special assistant to the Secretary of War, a member of the Board of Contract Adjustments, and a member of the War Department Claims Board. For his services on these bodies he was later awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.
The friendship between Lehman and Franklin D. Roosevelt, which began during this period, was later to become as well known as it was warm. It was during the time when Roosevelt was Governor and Lehman his Lieutenant-Governor that the former characterized him as "my good right arm." Roosevelt was later to give many special jobs to his "right arm."
In 1932 and 1933 he called on him for active assistance in the bank holiday. Just prior to the formation of UNRRA, the President had appointed Lehman as his special advisor on relief problems, and he was accustomed to draw deeply on Lehman's knowledge both of banking and relief work.
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.
Complete list of all 31 Inaugural Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients 1963
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Medal History
