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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Herbert H. Lehman |
| Address |
New York, New York , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
March 28, 1878
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| Died | December 05, 1963
(85 years)
|
| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Craverguy
Oct 03, 2008 01:37am |
| Tags |
Jewish - Married - Army - Judaism - Straight -
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| Info | Herbert Henry Lehman (March 28, 1878-December 5, 1963) was a Democratic Party politician from the U.S. state of New York. He served as the Governor of New York from 1933 until 1942, and represented New York in the United States Senate from 1949 until 1957.
Lehman, born in New York City in 1878, was the son of Ashkenazi immigrant Mayer Lehman, one of the three founders of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm. Herbert Lehman attended what is now The Dwight School. A graduate of Williams College (Class of 1899), he became a partner of Lehman Brothers with his brother Arthur and cousin Philip in 1908. During World War I, he served as a Colonel in the U.S. Army.
Lehman became active in politics in 1920, and became chairman of the finance committee of the Democratic Party in 1928, as a reward for being a strong supporter of Alfred E. Smith. He resigned from Lehman Brothers upon becoming the lieutenant governor of New York in 1929. He then served four terms as the Governor of New York between 1933 and 1942. Unlike Smith, Lehman was a supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies and implemented a program in the same spirit in New York. He resigned in the final year of his last term and took up posts connected with refugee aid and relief in the United States Department of State and later the United Nations, among them as the director general of the UNRRA.
On December 3, 1942, he resigned the governorship when he was appointed Director of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations for the State Department. He served as Director-General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration from 1943 to 1946.
Lehman was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1946 and also ran on the Liberal Party and American Labor Party tickets, but he was defeated by the Republican incumbent Irving Ives in what was a very good year for GOP candidates. Afterwards, he was a Senator from New York from 1949 to 1957. In a special election, Lehman beat John Foster Dulles, who had been appointed to temporarily fill Robert F. Wagner's Senate seat. In that campaign he ran on the Democratic and Liberal Party lines, with the American Labor Party making no endorsement. Lehman then served most of the remainder of Wagner's term, before winning a full term in the Senate in 1950. (In 1950, he ran on the Democratic and Liberal lines and was opposed by the American Labor Party.)
Lehman was one of two senators who was opposed to nominating Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland to be Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. (The other was Wayne L. Morse of Oregon.) He was also an early and vocal opponent of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.). Lehman was one of the most liberal Senators and not considered part of the Senate "club" of insiders. He retired from the Senate after his full term, and was not a candidate for renomination or reelection in 1956.
After his retirement from the Senate, Lehman remained politically active, working with Eleanor Roosevelt and Thomas K. Finletter in the late 1950s and early 1960s to support the reform Democratic movement in Manhattan that eventually defeated longtime Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio.
Among other activities after his retirement from the Senate, he founded the Lehman Children's Zoo (now the Tisch Zoo) in Central Park, which declared that "No Adult Will Be Admitted unless Accompanied by a Child."
Lehman was the first, and until the 2007 inauguration of Eliot Spitzer, the only Jewish Governor of New York. During much of his Senate career, he was the only Jew in the Senate as well. Unlike most of his Jewish constituents, who came from Eastern Europe, Lehman's family was from Germany.
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