Was Haym Salomon, Jewish patriot and financier of the Revolutionary War period, merely “an estimable merchant” or was he a self-sacrificing leader in the financial arrangements which made it possible for a poverty-strickon Republic to cast off the rule of Britain?
Those questions were taken up in a special article in yesterday’s World.
On the basis of a report of a Massachusetts historian expressing the former opinion, the Municipal Art Commission has rejected the $75,000 memorial offered to New York City by the Federation of Polish Hebrews in America honoring a dstinguished predecessor in the land of their adoption, the paper writes.
On the basis of evidence which convinced Congressional committees during the last century, those offering the statue hold the latter opinion, and still proffer the memorial for erection in Madison Square. They suggest Madison Square because James Madison, fourth President of the United States, was enabled through the generosity of Salomon to pursue his career of Revolutionary patriotism.
The total of his benefactions to the Revolutionary cause has been estimated as high as $600,000. His negotiations for credit with foreign powers have been placed by investigators on a plane with the services of Robert Morris.
“He was the countryman and intimate assocate of Pulaski and Kosciusko,” a committee of the United States Senate unanimously reported in 1850, “and from facts submitted to the committee it has been fully demonstrated, that, in the depth and sincerity of his devotion to the cause of human liberty, he was not surpassed by either of these illustrious men.”
“I have for some time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker.” wrote James Madison in August, 1782, while a member of the Continental Congress. “The kindness of our little friend is a fund which will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification, as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but those who aim at profitable speculation. To a necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock.”
There is little in the records about Salomon, and the literati of New England, who long held custody of America’s historical traditions, paid no attenton to him, the article continues. Records were lost in the destruction of the Washington Capitol in 1814. Salomon died young, and the Federalist papers of the times were engaged in singing the praises of Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton as the financiers of young America. Only once did he ask consideration of the infant Government, in a brief memorial to Congress, which is reproduced later in this article.
From the records of Congressional committees, however, which urge financial recompense to the heirs of Salomon, emerges the story upon which Salomon’s present-day partisans base their claims.
“America failed to repay the money he advanced,” they say, “and now men seek to rob him of his posthumous fame.”
Those who guard Salomon’s fame tell the other side of the story, as follows:
Born in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, Haymn Salomon came of a family of the Sephardim, who migrated there after their expulsion from Portugal, and prospered. They passed into exile again upon the partition of Poland. Leaving Lissa, his birthplace behind him, Salomon sojourned for a time in London, where he became intimate with the families of Moses B. and Jacob Franks. They were sons of that Adam Franks of Germany who had been financial adviser and friend to the Electors of Hanover, and who is reputed to have lant to the Elector who became King George I of England, most of the Jewels he wore at his coronation in Westminster.
Coming to New York. Salomon married Rachael, daughter of Moses B. Franks. Jacob Franks was at that time the King’s agent for the Northern Colonies, and his son, David, in Philadelphia, acted in the same capacity, together the Franks brothers were so important to the financial interests of the British in North America that it was impossible for Salomon not to have become familiar with the whole of the British financial. political and military situation.
Thoroughly in sympathy with the cause of the American patriots, and hating oppression from the British no less than he had hated Russian oppression in Poland, he placed his knowledge at the service of the American authorities.
When Gen. Sir George Clinton captured New York in 1776, Haym Salomon was immediately arrested and cast into prison on the charge that he was a spy for Gen. Washington, and that having received orders from the rebel Washington to burn the British fleets and destroy the warehouses in which their munitions were stored, “he attempted to do so to their great damage and injury.”
Bribing his jailer, he escaped from prison and fied to Philadelphia, where he presented the following memorial to the Continental Congress, already referred to.
To the Honorable the Continental Congress:
The Memorial of Hyman Salomon late of the City of New York, Merchant, Humbly Sheweth.
That your Memorialist was some time before the Entry of the British Troops at the said City of New York and soon after taken up as a Spy and by Gen. Robertson committed to the Provost–That by the Interposition of Lieut. General Heister (who wanted him on account of his knowledge in the French, Polish, Russian, Italian, etc. Languages.) he was given over to the Hessian Commander who appointed him in the Commissary Way as purveyor chiefly for the Officers–That being at New York he has been of great Service to the French and American prisoners and has assisted them with Money and helped them off to make their Escape–That this and his close connections with such of the Hessian Officers as were inclined to resign and with Monsieur Samuel Demezes has rendered him at last so obnoxious to the British Headquarters that he was already pursued by the Guards and on Tuesday the 11th inst. he made his happy Escape from thence — This Monsieur Demezes is now most barbarously treated at the Provost’s and is seemingly in danger of his Life. And the Memorialist begs leave to cause him to be remembered to Congress for an Exchange.
Your Memorialist has upon this Event most irrecoverably lost all his Effects and Credits to the amount of Five or six thousand Pounds Sterling and left his distressed Wife and a Child of a Month old at New York waiting that they may soon have an Opportunity to come out from thence with empty hands.
In these Circumstances he most humbly paryeth to grant him any Employ in the way of his Business whereby he may be enabled to support himself and family — And Your Memorialist as in duty bound &c, &c.
Haym Salomon.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
