Show B fi inai fancies acie r 91 of freedom e e d OM att ne 4 A 1797 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON hill names of thaddeus Thadde iia kosciusko Kosc lusko and casimir pulaski kl the two polish soldiers Bold lers who fought in the revolution are familiar to most citizens of tho the united states slates but it Is doubt ful if t til the a name of another pole haym salomon S a I 1 0 m a n means anything to more than ti one out of a thousand americans i byet his bis contribution to the cause of american erlean liberty mayan may in some respects be considered infinitely greater than those beof of the other two combined the he invaluable services of this po lish jew whose financial genius was so vital to the revolutions success have e always been known to the schol airs of that struggle buethe difficulties of obtaining reliable information have kept t this inspiring story atory from the pub lie ind and the efforts which have been made je to pay appropriate tribute to bs memory have for some unknown reason son unless it can he attributed to the proverbial ingratitude of republics which ich so easily forget their debts to some ie who labored mightily in their cause se been defeated for more than a century ventury fortunately for the cause of truth there re has appeared recently a blog bihy ihy of ahls man which enables us to see him in his true stature as one of the really great figures of the vey alution ution ol it la is the book ilayan Ilay haym rn salo mon a and the revolution written by charles airles edward russell and published by the book corporation salomon was born at lassa elssa in pod land in 1740 at the ageos thirty lie he joined led in the fight to resist russian domination atlon of poland was associated with h kosciusko Kosc lusko and pulaski kl in their heroic alc but futile effort and like those two was forced to flee from theroun the coun try he first made hla his way to eng E ng land d but soon left there and came to america iurica arriving in new york in IT 1772 62 alamon had had considerable training i business before leaving poland and he quickly established himself as a broker iker and commission merchant in new w york city the opportunity lay at hand tor for him to make a great forie une but he be hindered his chances for bat it by one net act forsbe for the freedom lov ng pole pale almost immediately allied iselt in the strongly royalist olony ony of new york with a ids stable and discredited 1011 n called the sons of liberty who as arly ly had banded together to desist ast 1st oppressive acts by the Bil british tish rown awn lie he was a work worker er in their cause at e i outbreak of the revolution and to e in 1776 1770 he was azie one of a number t the sons who were imprisoned b by y a british accor accused ed of having started i 0 fire which swept new york soon f ter the defeat of 0 army ri long island led to the occupation that city by lord howe salomon as is lodged in the provost and to b be e eld id there meant certain death for iny buy a patriot during the reign of nning ham the brutal master of the british prisons in new york among tho the british troops were thou ads of hessian mercenaries who uld not speak a word of english hen ben it became known that salomon uld old speak german he was also a ver ster oi of french polish russian and liar illan 11 he waa ams put in better quai rs 11 and used as art an interpreter to the by the british eventually i was released on parole even lille e it a wua was working la in 9 patriots ca cause use for farj 1 unknown to e british BrI in his talks with the hes ins as tie he was urging them to desert id pointing out to them the bounds opportune opportunities ties which lay in the new for them when the war was sr r more than that tie he was taking vantage of the tact that j Is as a trusty by the british pass jt by their sentries freely and going tty much where he pleased to aid the escape of Amoric tin prisoners ter er his parole he was tible aga again into to age in business using this as well ills interpreter duties forthe for the brit i 6 as 69 9 a cloak for his activity in belt of the patriots for or two years salomon led a seem by 17 peaceful existence although re was never a moment when his bis was not in dan danger ger of being ended before a firing squad or at the and nd ot a rope it the british had suspected what lie he was about abouL then suddenly in august 1778 sir henry glenry clinton received word that washington waa plotting to burn the city and salomon was arrested as the chief agent in the plot and returned again to the provost details ot of tills this imprisonment are lacking ing but it Is believed that lie he was condemned to death but managed to escape front from the prison shortly before the day of hta his execution HOW gow he did it ts Is unknown but lt it Is ii liell believed eved that he bought his way butof out of the prison and then used his familiarity with british posts and british guard methods to escape from the city at any rate he next appeared in philadelphia and there the most important part of his career began although he was penniless he still had his native energy and his bis knowledge ot of commerce and finance so he im med mediately lately opened an office and began to deal in bills of exchange and other securities by this time france had had come into the war on the side of the americans and F reach french money was coming into the country philadelphia was not only the capital of the newly created united states but it became a prosperous business and shipping center in its prosper prosperity liy salomon shared but this prosperity was not liot shared by the infant government II for the financial policy 0 of f the continental congress congles 8 had been a blundering one from the start by 1779 it was having serious financial difficulties by 1780 the situation was even more critical by 1781 with a treasury deficit of 1600 mit was desperate it was desperate because the revolution seemed near to collapse on the first day of the new year the entire pennsylvania line mutinies mutinied muti nied and started from morristown tor for philadelphia to force congress to relieve their distress they had not been paid for months they were in rags and they were halt half starved two weeks later the new jersey line also revolted congress managed to head off the revolt and soon afterwards took steps to salvage what seemed to be a lost cause robert morris whose financial genius washington had discovered early and upon whom that leader had bad leaned heavily in more mor ethan than one crisis was called to plead lead congress out of the financial morass it ii was a formidable task which faced in his newly created post of superintendent of finance and a part of our admiration for the men who faced the bullets and bayonets of the british on the battlefield in the struggle for liberty should be reserved for this man who fought tits his fight far from the firing line and fought it with what must have seemed overwhelming odds against him he was beset with a thousand dlf dif and perils 1 writes Il he used up all ills his own credit always he was at the end of his resources of often ten lie he was at the end of hla his wits help from abroad came in fragments and slowly when it arrived it was in the form of bills on paris chiefly on the great french banking house of la and company these reached morris sometimes from various sources and he must needs turn them into current money before they tzeyi could be of use to hina him in other words he must sell these bills for foe what he could get for them gather up depreciated state currency and try iry to keep going ills hla position was virtually at tho mercy of brok brokers rs and yet set against them tie the government and the governments officers could never go huckstering the governments government bills up and down the coffee house brokers were indispensable butchey but they were reputed probably not without reason to be cormorants all except one P thavone Th atone morris unpublished diary upon which biographer draws heavily fo for hlad information Is filled with ref erencen to his dealings with salomon oni and all of them reflect the highest credit I 1 t upon him as a patriot and a man one thing Is made by the diary as aa plain as daylight writes russellr russell haym salomon is the pivot of the whole laus business iness ile he stands in the breach he keeps back the massed attacks that make for bankruptcy everything ery thing depends upon him it la Is haym salomon this chii and haym salomon that on some days he makes six alx or seven visits to consult with the ru ISM A 0 o I 1 proposed status statue of salomon in now new york perIn forty times according to the testimony oatlie 0 the cashier of the bank of north america which morris established between august 1 1781 and theotime the time morris goes out of office haym salomon cornea comes to bat with Ns his timely check no matter where he gets the money lie he seta gets it and it to la avils this money that saves the day he sells bills when noone no i one else can sell them more than that he sells without gouging without profit eyen even other brokers continue to harass the superintendent by underselling the market and hampering the sale of hilt bills he has no trouble from salomon one other great service lie he performs though to this day no one ha had noticed it nor given the slightest credit for it with a magnificent disregard 0 of his bla own interests he endorses the paper of the broken backed government no one else will adothis do this th a governments credit has ebbed and ebbed until it has sunk from sight everybody knows know sIt it Is gone sagacious men believe it will never return salomon endorses endorse sits its paper and its officer paper and its allies paper and aad makes himself personally liable for all we have the evidence no need for speculation or surmise all of this was of course after Cornwa llla surrender contrary to popular belief the affair at yorktown did not end the revolution great as was that victory the patriot cause was still in danger and none realized that more haQ washington who wha immediately after receiving the surrender began making plans for the next seasons season si campaign ile he could not realize that thata his victory had dealt aeilt the british min mini i i astry a blow from which it could not recover and that ahat it was paving the way to peace that was still two years jears away and ad before it could be realized there was still much yet to bo be done and of courie course the doing of that had to be financed so the jhb burden of making good the victory of yorktown fell upon robert morris and his friend and helper haym salomon oa it Is impossible to estimate the full text of Salo monti contribution to the cause causa of liberty in terms of such intangibles tangi bles as moral support and fostering the will to win but there Is a definite record of his tangible contribution great in itself but bui smaller in importance port arice than the intangible for the records show that salomon advanced in specie to morris at various times and ir in various sums a total of and although althof ai it can n not ot be proved definitely that all of this was his own money it Is probable that most of it was but the main fact Is that he ha placed that money in morris hands handa when it was most needed and when few others had bad sufficient faith in tho tha cause to risk even a fraction of that sum and his reward he died january 6 1785 when he was only forty five years old there Is no doubt that the hardships he suffered in in the british prisons and in his labors for the continental tin government shortened his life helas he was supposed to be rich but after his death it ans ryas found that he was virtually irida ily a bankrupt lie he left a widow and four children raping poverty lie HB had alv given cn his all to the cause of gilb erty ile he died without formulating any claims for reimbursement for the tha sums he had advanced 11 writes russell in the opinion ofleter of later investigators lie he had entire confidence that when the government should be established it would pay its obligations to him As for his entire con confidence 11 that the government would pay its obligations to him they were never realized for mor ethan 80 years his heirs tried boget to get some recompense from cp cirei rei but they never succeeded A rep ab lie soon to tose gets I 1 |