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N times are out of joint (as they are
ay) the cry goes up for men of action,
•rs, even Messiahs. America the dy-
lerica the crestfallen scans its gigantic
>nelv prairies for a minute-man, a medi-
o lift it out of the quagmire of depres-
tke it safe for democracy, for capitalism
ie Republican party. It speaks through
i he embodiment of this “Holy Trinity.”
i,inked on all sides by advisers, experts,
\ proceeds to salvage them by creating a
o poration, in which all these will be com-
the test of their survival power ... the
it),000 Reconstruction Corporation. It is
tl testimonial to our system of business
/ation. Our only means of setting right an
Inch failed through the big corporation is
an even larger one. But, right or wrong,
hi. and that is essentially of paramount
ice. Let no man say that we have not done
: ng, even if somewhat blunderingly.
Tin is the hour for the arch-type business ex-
tvuti\ the personifier of American success, the
mono man. It is the hour for Eugene F. Meyer,
fr., (pivernor of the Federal Reserve Board, now
chosen as Chairman of the Board of this govern
ment-created super-corporation. It is the hour for
American Jewry to feel that it can serve its coun
try in the American idiom of big business.
Hut it is the hour, too, for lamenting the neg
lect of the converse of this action program, this
program of stop-gap governing. Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, veteran of higher
Americanism, resigned h:s post recently. Im
mediately the defenders of liberalism filed a de
mand for a liberal successor. Did the American
people (politicians excluded) take much interest
in the proposals? In New York the name of Ben
iamin N. Cardozo, Chief Justice of the New York
Court of Appeals, was endorsed by the upper
stratum of legal and professional life. But who
cared? How is a Justice of the Supreme Court
to do away with the depression? Indeed, what
has he to do with it at all? The Infallible, Most
Supreme Nine must stand aside. Abstruse prin
ciples of democracy, of the Constitution cannot
help us now. This is the hour of action, of kines-
'hetus, not contemplative achievement.
Ni, the Jews placed two men, Eugene Meyer,
Ji.. and Judge Cardozo at the opposite poles of
governmental structure. The name of Car-
d"/ i. at this writing, is now internationally known,
keen if he were not named to the United States
!< me Court bench, his position as head of the
which is second in importance only to the
s t judicial body in the country, ranked him as
t the greatest jurists of the day. His im-
nce is outside the bounds of position.
r( *lv have two men so def-
v personified the phases of
life they represent. In
'<> closely do they approxi-
these types that their in-
ual personalities are in
of complete obliteration.
r - the man of action, the
' s tul banker, the stern, im-
ible man of affairs. Car-
the lawyer, the jurist, the
er of technical clauses, the
wed, bent, ascetic. Never
o antithesis so complete;
consistent.
v one factor can they be
o have in common. Nei-
vas the son of an obscure,
family. Their ladders to
'—-it is a favorite Amer-
icture—were silver-plated
•t very steep. But beyond
'tnmon trait, which, after
as no fault of theirs, the
Cardo
Two Jews Far Apart
zo and Meyer A Study in Antithesis
By Mhvkr F. Stkingi.ass
“j.^"" * l, " ,rnt °f Eugene Meyer, Jr., to the chairmanship of the hoard of the Two Billion
SulrLeC C r p0r T n (l,ui ,h ' namtn ' °f Benimmin N Cardano for the
f#rS? i * hfnch ' have thrown the spotlight on these two public figures who form a
hoi hr 7 H ,n ? trson,,ll, y- '/r. Stemglass gives us a fascinating study of the two up-
Holders of .1 mericanism. ’ r
P<
M
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P»'
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Wt
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graphs of their personalities
never meet. Eugene Meyer is
the son of a successful banker.
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo is
descendant of an aristocratic
Portuguese Jewish family which
settled here in the early eight
eenth century.
I he early life of Meyer, as of
Cardozo, was uneventful. He
studied at the University of Cali
fornia and entered Yale when his
family returned to New York. At
the conclusion of his university
course, in which he majored in
business and finance, he joined
his father’s banking house. At
about this time, the embryonic
jurist, five years his senior, was
already arguing cases before the
Appellate Court, of which he
was later to be made the Chief
Justice. Cardozo was a shy, mod
est youth, but so firmly grounded
in the minutia of the law that
other lawyers were soon to en
gage him to argue difficult points
of legal procedure on their be
half. Already he was a lawyer of
broad vision. He had received
his baccalaureate and master’s de
grees in arts at Columbia Univer
sity.
Having orienated himself in
the get-all-you-can Wall Street
environment, young Meyer cut
paternal strings guiding him, and
established a banking firm under
his own name. During the next
seventeen years he came out on
top, making a fairly big pile. In
his business dealings he was typ
ically American—blunt, imper
sonal, determined, hard. 'I bus he
arrived. Thus
Eugene Meyer, Jr.
had his business
personality ful
filled itself.
And what happened to Car
dozo in these seventeen years?
What in his middle years was
the counterpart of the elemental
chaos and turmoil of the Wall
Street which had favored Meyer?
Nothing but the negative of it.
In Cardozo’s legal talent lay his
success and no Wall Street could
make or unmake it. His was the
genius of true knowledge.
Cloistered in his study sits a
lean man, his dark eyes empha
sized by dark eyebrows, poring
over the lifeless pages of bulky
law books. But outside the legal
profession resounds with his
Spanish name. Already there is
talk of making him a judge. But
not through politics. No. When
the occasion arises, the entire
Court of Appeals requests the
(iovernor of New York in 1914
to appoint him to the Appellate
Court. The Governor hesitates,
pointing to a violation of prec
edent. The judges insist they
want Cardozo, and Cardozo is
appointed to the Court of Ap
peals. This is not success. This
is recognition of unmistakable
legal genius.
The American credo states in
Chapter Seven of the unwritten
American Constitution—a docu
ment far more potent than the
written Constitution—that a suc
cessful business man is potentially
a successful political leader, or
public man. Ergo, Eugene
Meyer, whose success must have
reached the eight digit measure,
had to have a public career. This
public career came as it did to
numerous others of his profes
sional clan, with the war. In
1917 Pres, dent Wilson asked
Mr. Meyer as a member of the
Council of National Defense to
come to Washington, and Mr.
Meyer having amassed enough
money, left New York, left the
tumultuous caverns of Wall
Street, for the pomp of Washing
ton’s official whirl. He was
made head of the War Finance
Corporation, and in that impor
tant capacity, he had a capital op
portunity to display his executive
capabilities. He liked his new
job immensely. So much, in fact,
that when the United States
Senate told him that his position
had ended with the end of the
war, he declined to give it up.
He fought and won. He con
vinced the Senators (a monu
mental feat, you will agree) that it was not fin
ished at all. They were all wrong, he said. Sev
eral years after the Senate had yielded the sta
tistics proved that Meyer had been right. Later
he attained to the position of Commissioner of the
Farm Loan Board in charge of farm relief, and
more recently the high post of Governor of the
Federal Reserve Board. His appointment as Chair
man of the Reconstruction Corporation climaxes
fourteen years of public service. No Jew, except
Bernard M. Baruch, one of the formulators of
the Reconstruction plan, has reached so pivotal an
office in the financial affairs of the country. Meyer
is to the Republican Party what Baruch is to the
Democrats.
In the rise of Justice Cardozo no such drama
or color is evident. It is a rise achieved in the
medieval pattern. The rise of a scholar, a human
ist, a learned Jew'. This is not the first time that
Cardozo has been urged (Please turn to page 17)
Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo
[7]
SOUTHERN ISRAELITE *