Thanks, Jim, for another great article. Big fan of Grant's Interest Rate Observer. I just read again, for about the 20 time, the article titled "Trump for the bid" which appeared in the February 2, 1990 issue. Who knew? Very prescient of you. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for reminding us of the untold heroes who financially were more concerned in the rescue of the Republic than in their own fortunes. I knew of Morris, but not of Baker.
Thank you for a good history lesson. My immigrant parents opened their first checking account with Chemical Bank on Park Avenue (branch next to the International Rescue Committee that sponsored us). It was my father’s first check from work he found two months after coming to the US. He was so proud.
You forgot Chaim Salomon a Polish-born Jewish immigrant and a key financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War. Salomon worked as a broker and used his own money and credit to help fund the Continental Army and support leaders like George Washington and members of Congress.
A few important points:
• He helped raise large sums of money and extended loans to the government.
• He also assisted figures like Robert Morris, the primary superintendent of finance for the revolution.
• He personally died in debt, having never been fully repaid.
Yet one more and longstanding tendency to write the Sephardic Jews out of the pre-founding and founding of this country as very important contributors earning the right to live in it with equal rights and privileges
Hardly. I don’t think you would write something like that if you were familiar with Mr Grant or his work as Ia. This is not meant to be a comprehensive piece on the subject. He’s not writing a book here. Just a short article on two important people in the history of our nation. He has no angle or ulterior motive.
Seems a bit odd that there was a line for John Paul Jones, when Morris needed help, but nothing about Haym Solomon who Washington himself told Morris to turn to. Hope you are right that there was no angle or ulterior motive, but the omission is egregious.
James Grant wrote a fine piece in The Free Press this week. Genuinely fine. Robert Morris, the Financier of the Revolution. George F. Baker, the dean of American bankers. Two self-made men who bankrolled a nation and got erased from the popular memory of it. Grant made a compelling case for their rehabilitation, and he's right.
He's also missing someone. Conspicuously. Inexcusably. And given who runs The Free Press, the omission lands with a particular thud.
Let's talk about Haym Salomon.
You probably don't know that name. That's the point. Salomon was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant, a broker by trade, fluent in a remarkable number of languages, who arrived in America before the Revolution and proceeded to do more for the financial survival of that revolution than almost any man alive. He was Robert Morris's indispensable partner. Morris himself said it plainly: "Without Solomon, I could not have helped anyone."
When George Washington confronted the catastrophic finances of the Continental Army, when the men weren't being paid and the supplies weren't coming and the whole experiment in self-governance teetered on the edge of collapse, Washington's recorded instruction was unambiguous: "Bring me Haym Salomon."
They brought him. He delivered.
Salomon raised millions for the Continental cause, converting depreciated paper currency into hard money through sheer brokerage genius. He lent from his own pocket, personally, to founders who couldn't afford to remain in public service without him. James Madison wrote explicitly that he could not have continued serving the republic without Salomon's personal loans. Thomas Jefferson. James Monroe. Baron von Steuben. The list of men who owed Haym Salomon their ability to function as patriots reads like a Who's Who of the American founding.
He was arrested by the British twice. He escaped a death sentence. He gave everything he had to a country that was not yet his, to men who would become immortal, to a cause that would triumph spectacularly.
He died in 1785. He was roughly 45 years old. He was penniless. The loans were never repaid. His family petitioned Congress repeatedly across decades. Congress ignored them.
There is no statue of Haym Salomon in Washington. There is a small memorial, easy to miss, at street level in Philadelphia. That's it. That's what the republic gave back to the man who helped buy it.
Now. Let us be fair. America has been extraordinary for the Jewish people. More than extraordinary. The story of Jewish flourishing in this country is one of the genuine miracles of modern history, and I am not inclined to hold the erasure of Salomon against the nation that made that flourishing possible. Nations build their founding myths around the figures who fit the narrative, and a Polish-born Jewish broker was never going to fit comfortably into the Anglo-Protestant pageant of 1776. That's a human failing, not a uniquely American one. America gets a pass.
Bari Weiss does not.
Bari Weiss has built her entire public identity around being a proud American Jew. She left the New York Times over antisemitism and institutional cowardice. She founded The Free Press as a corrective to exactly the kind of selective, ideologically convenient storytelling that mainstream media practices. She wears her Jewishness, her Zionism, her pride in the Jewish contribution to civilization on her sleeve, loudly, unapologetically, and good for her.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that she published a piece celebrating the forgotten financiers of the American founding and somehow, in the editing process, no one in that building looked at the page and said: "Where is Haym Salomon?"
That used to be the editor's job. Not just approving prose and checking facts. Seeing what isn't there. Asking the question the writer didn't ask. Bari Weiss has built a publication that prides itself on saying what others won't say and seeing what others deliberately unsee.
She missed it. On the one story where a Jewish editor had not just the opportunity but the obligation to correct 240 years of historical negligence, she missed it.
James Grant wrote about the men history forgot. The Free Press published it without noticing that history forgot one more.
Shame on you, Ms. Weiss. Haym Salomon deserved better from this country. He deserved better from history. And he deserved far better from the one prominent Jewish media figure in America who had both the platform and the moral standing to give him his due.
Jeez, you're being pretty defensive Alex. Relax. Bari is currently otherwise occupied. If it'll make you feel better then cancel your subscription. A lot of Catholics who kicked in some money to support the Continental Army were not named in Jim's article. So what, I don't care, it's still a great read.
Okay, you win. Give the Solomon guy 2 attaboys and you have a nice day. Maybe write an article on Solomon and submit it to Bari. She's sure to publish it and it will improve my education.
In these times, with rising Jew hatred, it's so important to remember the tremendous contributions of American Jews, like Haym Solomon. I'd like to hear from the author why Mr. Solomon was not mentioned in the article.
Robert Morris bought millions of acres of American land. From whom did he buy. American government or the indigenous American Indian who lived on the lands for countless centuries. I ask because America was a colonial settlement movement from Atlantic to Pacific. Yet indigenous Israeli Jews as far back as biblical times are lambasted for living there by Americans who don’t want to acknowledge their own settler history.
I was going to chastise the author for leaving out Haym Salomon but many people already have. Simple omission or deliberatly antijewish? If it wasn't for his help and donations we could still be a British colony.
Great inspiring article!
Jim Grant, sage.
Thanks, Jim, for another great article. Big fan of Grant's Interest Rate Observer. I just read again, for about the 20 time, the article titled "Trump for the bid" which appeared in the February 2, 1990 issue. Who knew? Very prescient of you. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for reminding us of the untold heroes who financially were more concerned in the rescue of the Republic than in their own fortunes. I knew of Morris, but not of Baker.
Been reading Jim for 40 years. Glad to see him on TFP.
Thank you for this great article!
Thank you for a good history lesson. My immigrant parents opened their first checking account with Chemical Bank on Park Avenue (branch next to the International Rescue Committee that sponsored us). It was my father’s first check from work he found two months after coming to the US. He was so proud.
You forgot Chaim Salomon a Polish-born Jewish immigrant and a key financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War. Salomon worked as a broker and used his own money and credit to help fund the Continental Army and support leaders like George Washington and members of Congress.
A few important points:
• He helped raise large sums of money and extended loans to the government.
• He also assisted figures like Robert Morris, the primary superintendent of finance for the revolution.
• He personally died in debt, having never been fully repaid.
Interestingly enough, The Robert Morris Inn in Oxford MD has been condemned. Hopefully someone will purchase it and bring it back.
Yet one more and longstanding tendency to write the Sephardic Jews out of the pre-founding and founding of this country as very important contributors earning the right to live in it with equal rights and privileges
Hardly. I don’t think you would write something like that if you were familiar with Mr Grant or his work as Ia. This is not meant to be a comprehensive piece on the subject. He’s not writing a book here. Just a short article on two important people in the history of our nation. He has no angle or ulterior motive.
Seems a bit odd that there was a line for John Paul Jones, when Morris needed help, but nothing about Haym Solomon who Washington himself told Morris to turn to. Hope you are right that there was no angle or ulterior motive, but the omission is egregious.
THANKS. Nice article.
The Man Bari Weiss Forgot
James Grant wrote a fine piece in The Free Press this week. Genuinely fine. Robert Morris, the Financier of the Revolution. George F. Baker, the dean of American bankers. Two self-made men who bankrolled a nation and got erased from the popular memory of it. Grant made a compelling case for their rehabilitation, and he's right.
He's also missing someone. Conspicuously. Inexcusably. And given who runs The Free Press, the omission lands with a particular thud.
Let's talk about Haym Salomon.
You probably don't know that name. That's the point. Salomon was a Polish-born Jewish immigrant, a broker by trade, fluent in a remarkable number of languages, who arrived in America before the Revolution and proceeded to do more for the financial survival of that revolution than almost any man alive. He was Robert Morris's indispensable partner. Morris himself said it plainly: "Without Solomon, I could not have helped anyone."
When George Washington confronted the catastrophic finances of the Continental Army, when the men weren't being paid and the supplies weren't coming and the whole experiment in self-governance teetered on the edge of collapse, Washington's recorded instruction was unambiguous: "Bring me Haym Salomon."
They brought him. He delivered.
Salomon raised millions for the Continental cause, converting depreciated paper currency into hard money through sheer brokerage genius. He lent from his own pocket, personally, to founders who couldn't afford to remain in public service without him. James Madison wrote explicitly that he could not have continued serving the republic without Salomon's personal loans. Thomas Jefferson. James Monroe. Baron von Steuben. The list of men who owed Haym Salomon their ability to function as patriots reads like a Who's Who of the American founding.
He was arrested by the British twice. He escaped a death sentence. He gave everything he had to a country that was not yet his, to men who would become immortal, to a cause that would triumph spectacularly.
He died in 1785. He was roughly 45 years old. He was penniless. The loans were never repaid. His family petitioned Congress repeatedly across decades. Congress ignored them.
There is no statue of Haym Salomon in Washington. There is a small memorial, easy to miss, at street level in Philadelphia. That's it. That's what the republic gave back to the man who helped buy it.
Now. Let us be fair. America has been extraordinary for the Jewish people. More than extraordinary. The story of Jewish flourishing in this country is one of the genuine miracles of modern history, and I am not inclined to hold the erasure of Salomon against the nation that made that flourishing possible. Nations build their founding myths around the figures who fit the narrative, and a Polish-born Jewish broker was never going to fit comfortably into the Anglo-Protestant pageant of 1776. That's a human failing, not a uniquely American one. America gets a pass.
Bari Weiss does not.
Bari Weiss has built her entire public identity around being a proud American Jew. She left the New York Times over antisemitism and institutional cowardice. She founded The Free Press as a corrective to exactly the kind of selective, ideologically convenient storytelling that mainstream media practices. She wears her Jewishness, her Zionism, her pride in the Jewish contribution to civilization on her sleeve, loudly, unapologetically, and good for her.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that she published a piece celebrating the forgotten financiers of the American founding and somehow, in the editing process, no one in that building looked at the page and said: "Where is Haym Salomon?"
That used to be the editor's job. Not just approving prose and checking facts. Seeing what isn't there. Asking the question the writer didn't ask. Bari Weiss has built a publication that prides itself on saying what others won't say and seeing what others deliberately unsee.
She missed it. On the one story where a Jewish editor had not just the opportunity but the obligation to correct 240 years of historical negligence, she missed it.
James Grant wrote about the men history forgot. The Free Press published it without noticing that history forgot one more.
Shame on you, Ms. Weiss. Haym Salomon deserved better from this country. He deserved better from history. And he deserved far better from the one prominent Jewish media figure in America who had both the platform and the moral standing to give him his due.
He still does.
Jeez, you're being pretty defensive Alex. Relax. Bari is currently otherwise occupied. If it'll make you feel better then cancel your subscription. A lot of Catholics who kicked in some money to support the Continental Army were not named in Jim's article. So what, I don't care, it's still a great read.
Did Washington call for them? Did they lend money to the founders? And why shouldn't they be recognized?
As for being defensive, I'd say on the contrary, I've been on the offensive.
Okay, you win. Give the Solomon guy 2 attaboys and you have a nice day. Maybe write an article on Solomon and submit it to Bari. She's sure to publish it and it will improve my education.
In these times, with rising Jew hatred, it's so important to remember the tremendous contributions of American Jews, like Haym Solomon. I'd like to hear from the author why Mr. Solomon was not mentioned in the article.
Me too!
I was looking for Haym Solomon to be mentioned too. Looks like I wasn't the only one. Was this an oversight by the author or...??
Robert Morris bought millions of acres of American land. From whom did he buy. American government or the indigenous American Indian who lived on the lands for countless centuries. I ask because America was a colonial settlement movement from Atlantic to Pacific. Yet indigenous Israeli Jews as far back as biblical times are lambasted for living there by Americans who don’t want to acknowledge their own settler history.
I was going to chastise the author for leaving out Haym Salomon but many people already have. Simple omission or deliberatly antijewish? If it wasn't for his help and donations we could still be a British colony.