Simple funeral services at the Shaaray Tefila, a Reform Temple here, will mark the funeral of Bernard M. Baruch, prominent figure in American life and advisor to seven Presidents of the United States, who died at his home here last night at the age of 94. III for several months, he suffered a heart attack. The funeral services will take place at 11a.m. Wednesday.
President Johnson today led a flood of tributes to the memory of Mr. Baruch whose career was a striking American success story. Son of a German immigrant, Simon Baruch, a distinguished Confederate Army surgeon, he was born in Camden, S.C. His father decided to move his family to New York to assure his sons a good Jewish education and the future financier attended a typical Cheder. He was graduated from City College of New York where the Bernard Baruch School of Business and Finance was later established in his honor.
After graduation, he went to work in Wall Street where he demonstrated a mastery of the stock market that made him a millionaire several times over by the age of 30. He promptly lost his fortune but soon made a new one. Bored with the market, he looked around for more interesting activities and was made chairman of the War Industries Board during World War I by President Wilson. The President took the financier with him as an economic adviser at the Versailles Peace Conference. He was consulted by every President after Wilson.
A Jew of Portuguese-Spanish and German-extraction, he told a Camden audience in 1949 that “I have had intolerance practiced against me and mine all my life but I have never permitted it to rouse in me envy, Jealousy or hatred or to weaken my faith in our form of government, its constitution and its institutions.”
He never took an active interest in Jewish affairs, but during the last world war he came to Washington to address a national UJA convention appealing for aid to Jews overseas. The gifts he made to general causes included $250,000 to New York University, $400,000 to Columbia University and $800,000 to various medical schools. Former President Herbert Hoover once said that he had seen Mr. Baruch give a check for $1,000,000 to the American National Red Cross. He also made a large contribution to the City College here.
Honored by many governments, he contributed substantial sums for the investigation of the problem of war, its causes and means of prevention. He was the author of several books and numerous pamphlets on economics and war economics.
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.
