Bernard Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend
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“I don’t want . . .”: Quoted in E. J. Kahn, Jr., The World of Swope (New York, 1965), p. 308.
“Don’t kid yourself.”: Ibid., p. 315.
“UNDERSTAND CORNER . . .”: Baruch to Swope, Feb. 8, 1929.
“ACTUAL INSIDERS . . . ” and ff.: Swope to Baruch, Mar. 21–22, 1929; Swope papers.
“false and unwise”: Baruch to Mitchell, Mar. 27, 1929.
“. . . one of the most . . .”: Quoted in Lionel Robbins, The Great Depression (New York, 1936), p. 53.
“industrial renaissance”: For example, Baruch to Cordell Hull, Oct. 29, 1925. Wrote Baruch of the next spring, “. . . there may be what might be properly called an ‘industrial renaissance,’ if nothing unforeseen happens.”
“. . . virtually the full . . .”: Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton, N.J., 1963), p. 291n.
“an industrial boom . . .”: Baltimore Sun, Feb. 5, 1929.
“This isn’t . . .”: Baruch to Kent, Feb. 13, 1929.
“For the first time . . .”: Bruce Barton, “Bernard M. Baruch Discusses the Future of American Business,” American Magazine (June 1929).
“THINK GOOD SECURITIES . . .”: Swope to Baruch, Aug. 9, 1929; Swope papers.
“LEHAM NEW STOCK . . .”: Baruch to Swope, Sept. 12, 1929; Swope papers.
A biographer: Jordan A. Schwarz, The Speculator: Bernard M. Baruch in Washington, 1917–1965 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), p. 252.
“THE MEMORY . . .”: Baruch to Churchill, Aug. 29, 1930.
Virginia Epstein gift: Mrs. Epstein to author, June 24, 1980.
“the best Rolls-Royce . . .”: Brendan Bracken to Baruch, Jan. 14, 1932.
“imminent”: Mitchell to Baruch, Aug. 22, 1929.
Baruch account of Crash: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: The Public Years (New York, 1960), pp. 224–229.
Baruch’s market confidence: However, he canceled an open order to buy 12,000 shares of Bethlehem Steel on Sept. 6 and another open order to buy 17,400 shares of Alaska Juneau on Sept. 16.
Board meeting: Minutes of Directors, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Corp., Vol. “S,” Feb. 24, 1927–Nov. 21, 1934.
“FROM MY WINDOW . . .”: Baruch to Mitchell, Sept. 23, 1929.
“. . . American markets generally . . .”: New York Times, Oct. 16, 1929.
“stock prices . . .”: Quoted in Edward Angly, Oh Yeah? (New York, 1932), p. 38.
Baruch’s warning to Swope: Mentioned in Swope to Baruch, Oct. 21, 1929; Swope papers.
“There are no . . .”: Quoted in Angly, p. 14.
“. . . it is time . . .”: Baruch to Churchill, Dec. 17,1929.
“There has been . . .”: Quoted in Brooks, p. 124.
“my fellow former . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, Unit XV, Box 275, p. 70.
“THINK I AM ABLE . . .”: Swope to Hertz, Oct. 28,1929; Swope papers.
“In my long . . .”: Quoted in Angly, p. 27.
“REAL BELIEF . . .”: Quoted in Kahn, p. 324.
Baruch remark to Robert Lehman: Robert G. Merrick, Sr., to author, Aug. 18, 1981.
“WILL YOU USE . . .”: Morron to Baruch, May 31, 1931.
“I can tell you . . .”: Baruch to Robinson, Nov. 10,1930.
“The fertilizer business . . .”: Baruch to Charles MacDowell, Sept. 23, 1931.
“Personal Equipment”: Memo initialed “BMB,” Unit VI, Vol. XXIV.
“distinct signs . . .”: Johnson memo to Baruch, Aug. 3, 1931.
“. . . we have disrupted . . .”: New York Times, Nov. 12, 1931.
Time’s estimate published July 2, 1934; Krock’s, in The New Yorker, Aug. 7, 1926. Said Time: “Back of Baruch’s success was his own shrewd economic judgment, of which the ultimate triumph was foreseeing the debacle of 1929. He got out in advance—liquidated a large part of his investments.”
B&O dilemma: See especially Herbert H. Harwood, Jr., “Nothing at the End of the Rainbow: The B&O’s Adventures in Western Pennsylvania,” Railroad History (The Bulletin of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society), 129, pp. 56–70; also Moody’s Manual of Investments: American and Foreign Railroad Securities, 1932, p. lxxxix.
“It took about half . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, p. 601.
“. . . because I was . . .”: Baruch to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Dec. 30, 1937.
“Money was sick . . .”: Malcolm Muggeridge, The Thirties (London, 1940), p. 121.
“In anticipation . . .”: Quoted in Henry Morgenthau, Jr., to Baruch, Dec. 23, 1937.
Churchill’s thanks: Churchill to Baruch, Oct. 7, 1932.
“I have always . . .”: Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, with a foreword by Bernard M. Baruch (New York, 1932). The writing was probably Hugh Johnson’s. Compare, for instance, p. xiii of the foreword to p. 100 of Johnson’s own The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth (Garden City, N.Y., 1935).
Chapter Thirteen: Suffering Roosevelt
“I am a Democrat . . .”: Baruch to Albert C. Ritchie, Sept. 14, 1930.
“If Christ . . .”: Baruch to Frank Kent, Oct. 17, 1927.
“Usually I am . . .”: New York Times, Nov. 12,1931.
“I don’t understand . . .”: Baruch to Swope; postcard in Swope papers, c. 1937.
“Bernie, you’re . . .”: Margaret Coit, Mr. Baruch (Boston, 1957), p. 449.
“The horn-rimmed . . .”: Baruch to Krock, Dec. 19,1932.
Johns Hopkins speech: The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine (June 1933), pp. 370–380.
Glass’s views: Rixey Smith and Norman Beasley, Carter Glass: A Biography (New York, 1939), p. 354.
“that curious sense . . .”: Perkins interview, Columbia University Oral History Collection, pp. 103–105.
Swope telegram: Swope to Baruch, May 27, 1933. Swope had written for Baruch to say: “No favors were shown me. I make it a rule to accept none.”
“His [Peek’s] passing . . .”: Chicago Daily News, Dec. 4, 1935.
“It happened . . .”: Hugh S. Johnson, The Blue Eagle from Egg to Earth (Garden City, NY, 1935), p. 187.
Brookings speech: Baruch papers.
“It will be . . .”: Johnson, p. 208.
“his coat off . . .”: Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 1, 1934.
“. . . the whole field . . .”: Baruch to Johnson, Nov. 1,1933.
“I just want . . .”: Quoted in Smith and Beasley, pp. 361 and 364.
“the most faithful . . .”: Johnson, p. 111.
Missouri Pacific suspicion: Quoted in Jordan A. Schwarz, The Speculator: Bernard M. Baruch in Washington, 1917–1965 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), p. 275. In F.D.R.: My Exploited Father-in-Law (Tulsa, Okla., 1968), Curtis B. Dall wrote of an encounter he had had with Baruch just prior to Roosevelt’s first inauguration. Baruch, said Dall, bragged that he owned 5/16ths of the world’s visible supply of silver. The subsequent rise in the price of the metal confirmed the author in the view that Baruch was a participant in a worldwide conspiracy; clearly (or so Dall believed) Baruch had been tipped off in advance. Dall was married to Anna Roosevelt.
Warburg views: Warburg interview, Columbia University Oral History Collection, p. 819 and pp. 90–91.
“little brother . . .”: E. J. Kahn, Jr., The World of Swope (New York, 1965), p. 382.
Swope’s stocks: On Jan. 9, 1935, Swope wrote Baruch that the London trip had cost him $4,000 out of pocket and that the forgone profits on his investments amounted to another $125,000.
“France would not look . . .”: Quoted in Herbert Feis, 1933: Characters in Crisis (Boston, 1966), p. 180.
“the sound . . .”: Ibid., pp. 231–232.
“We are entering . . .”: Quoted in John Brooks, Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street, 1920–1938 (New York, 1969), pp. 159–160.
“I am going . . .”: Baruch to Daniels, July 14, 1933.
“on an inflated . . .”: Swope to Baruch, July 20, 1933; Swope papers.
“undisputed representative . . .”: Krock to Baruch, Aug. 7,
1933.
Gold-clause controversy: Basic reference source is Henry Mark Holzer, The Gold Clause: What It Is and How To Use It Profitably (New York, 1980).
Suggestion for Morgenthau: Baruch to Morgenthau, Nov. 26, 1934.
“PLEASE TELL HIM . . .”: Baruch to LeHand, Feb. 18,1935. Baruch went on: “BECAUSE OF THE REMOVAL OF THIS UNCERTAINTY, I EXPECT TO SEE BUSINESS RESUME ITS ADVANCE. I JOIN YOU IN THE HAPPINESS WHICH YOU MUST ALL FEEL.”
“managed currency . . .”: Baruch to Churchill, May 22, 1937.
“All of us . . .”: The lady asked that her name not be divulged.
“He has a . . .”: Swope to Kent, Nov. 1953 (unmailed); Swope papers.
“To sum . . .”: New Yorker (Nov. 12, 1927), p. 30.
Harry Acton: New York American, Jan. 7, 1929.
“Wall Street . . .”: Time, July 2, 1934, p. 45.
“I nearly laughed . . .”: Baruch to Kent, June 3, 1938.
“I suppose . . .”: Kent to Baruch, July 16, 1936.
“If you can . . .”: Baruch to Smith, May 31, 1935.
“Franklin feels . . .”: Mrs. Roosevelt to Baruch, July 12, 1936.
“We thought . . .”: New York Times, Mar. 6, 1935.
“Acting President . . .”: Ibid., Mar. 13, 1935.
“seek a lonely . . .”: Anonymous note; General Correspondence, 1935.
“It looks good . . .”: Swope to Baruch, July 15, 1936. On Jan. 24, 1947, in the wake of the atomic-bomb negotiations, Swope wrote as emphatically about the same company: “The processes deal with the mysteries of Nature which are illimitable. A group of scientists under the headship of Land (President of the Company) are making such great strides as to justify almost a comparison with nuclear fission.” Swope papers.
“great social values.”: Baruch to Mrs. Roosevelt, Feb. 7, 1937.
“to further . . .”: Baruch to Nye, Mar. 22, 1935.
Nye strategy: Adele Busch to author, Jan. 7, 1983.
“Never heard . . .”: Bernard M. Baruch, The Public Years (New York, 1960), p. 269.
“Have you got . . .”: Kahn, p. 398. Swope declined a $25,000 check for his week’s work but later accepted a $37,500 credit against his debt.
Chapter Fourteen: “His Métier Was Peril”
“I don’t know . . .”: Dorothy Rosenman to author, Nov. 15, 1979.
“YOU HAVE A . . .”: Annie Baruch to Swope, Sept. 23, 1936.
“Through many . . .”: Baruch reminiscences, Unit XV, Box 272.
“If a doctor . . .”: A physician of Baruch’s who asked not to be identified.
“Yeah! Pick . . .”: Robert Ruark, “Prophet without Portfolio,” Esquire (Oct. 1952).
“low-grade infection”: Baruch to Swope, Aug. 30, 1939.
“his métier . . .”: Harold Epstein to author, Apr. 15, 1980.
“greatest menace . . .”: Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: The Public Years (New York, 1960), p. 263.
Abraham Lincoln Battalion contribution: Jordan A. Schwarz, The Speculator: Bernard M. Baruch in Washington, 1917–1965 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1981), p. 348.
“I feel . . .”: Baruch to Marriner Eccles, Jan. 21, 1937.
“Well, the big . . .”: Baruch, The Public Years, p. 273.
“THINK AMERICA ON . . .”: Baruch to Churchill, Oct. 19, 1937. On that date the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 127; six months later it was 116. However, one year after the bullish cable it was up to 150.
“was nuts on Army . . .”: Quoted in Schwarz, p. 363.
“Has any warship . . .”: Baruch to Swope, Apr. 21, 1940.
“never allow even . . .”: Schwarz, p. 360.
“Chairman of the . . .”: Eliot Janeway, The Struggle for Survival: A Chronicle of Economic Mobilization in World War II (NewHaven, 1951), p. 63.
Baruch’s mobilization views: See, for instance, “Priorities: The Synchronizing Force.” In the Harvard Business Review (Spring 1941), pp. 261–270.
“Socrates of defense”: Krock in Town and Country (Sept. 1941), p. 61.
“things are in . . .”: Baltimore Sun, Mar. 15, 1941.
“When any problem . . .”: Carter Field to Baruch, Apr. 3, 1941.
Kent thanks: Kent to Baruch, Mar. 8, 1941. On Oct. 29, 1941, Baruch asked the columnist to mention him less frequently.
“I am familiar . . .”: Early to Baruch, Dec. 5, 1940.
“How well I . . .”: New York Journal American, Oct. 5, 1941.
“THE PRESIDENT . . .”: William D. Hassett to Early, Oct. 5, 1941; Roosevelt papers. Hassett, who was Roosevelt’s, and subsequently Truman’s, correspondence secretary, loathed Baruch, as he vituperated in the privacy of his diary following the President’s return from vacation at Hobcaw in the spring of 1944. “The Boss,” wrote Hassett, “paid a heavy penalty in accepting Bernie Baruch’s hospitality. Bernie added himself to the household and so was there for most of the month F.D.R. spent in South Carolina. That will make Bernie an important personage when the newspaper stories are released. He planned it that way—the punishment the President takes. In another country, after the circumcision, they throw the Jew away.” (Vol. Ill, p. 47, May 7, 1944.)
Hopkins-Hale story: Corcoran to author, Aug. 20, 1981; Adele Busch to author, Mar. 9, 1980; and an interview with a lady who asked for anonymity. According to Ickes, who said that he got the information from Baruch, Baruch “was one of a group that kept Harry [Hopkins] going financially for a time.” (Ickes diary, Aug. 1, 1943, p. 8043.)
“first-rate scandal.”: Henry H. Adams, Harry Hopkins: A Biography (New York, 1977), p. 303; and Baruch to Patterson, Jan. 7, 1943.
Christmas gift to war relief: Asked why he had chosen that moment to give, Baruch replied (New York Times, Dec. 24, 1942), “Because I wanted to.” The British embassy, and no doubt other observers too, suspected that the announcement was timed to get him back into the public’s good graces following the Hopkins contretemps. (See H. G. Nicholas, ed., Washington Despatches, 1941–1945: Weekly Political Reports from the British Embassy [Chicago, 1981], pp. 128–129). The suspicion is reasonable. Before the Hopkins dinner Baruch had intended that the gifts should be kept secret. Afterward, he changed his mind.
“Baruch also told . . .”: Ickes diary, Feb. 1, 1942, p. 6285.
Nazi wanted list: William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (New York, 1960), p. 784.
“Who profits . . .”: Two-page document, published in English, in Hamburg; Swope papers. “Baruch himself,” the sheet said, reviewing his career in the First World War, “who is today one of the richest Jews in the world, saw to it that his co-racialists took a prominent part in the war-supplies trade. Statistics prove that 70% of the new war millionaires in the City of New York were Jews. . . . Subsequently Baruch became President Roosevelt’s confidential adviseror [sic].”
Baruch’s stereotypes: Harold Epstein to author, Apr. 15, 1980. Another stereotype of Baruch’s was that Jews are smarter than other people. He would tap his temple, Epstein recalled, and say, “We’ve got it up here.” Sephardic Jews, however, he called “dumb.”
Baruch relative’s letter: “Baruch” to Morgenthau, June 27, 1938. In making his case for emigration, the German Baruch added, “I would like to mention that both of us [his wife and he] present a good appearance; we do not look Jewish.” Morgenthau papers.
“I am very . . .”: David Lavender, The Story of Cyprus Mines Corporation (San Marino, Cal., 1962), p. 266.
“. . . I am quite . . .”: Roosevelt to Baruch, Nov. 1, 1939; Fish to author, May 9, 1983.
German press directives: Quoted in John Lukacs, The Last European War, September 1939/December 1941 (Garden City, NY, 1976), p. 508.
“I told them!”: Blanche Higgins Van Ess to author, June 5, 1982.
“I found considerable . . .”: Baruch to Roosevelt, Jan. 16, 1942.
“Of course they . . .”: Baruch to Krock, Mar. 9, 1942.
“I am here . . .”: Baruch to Watson; Samuel Rosenman papers (President’s personal file),
April 8, 1940.
“My boy . . .”: The New Yorker (Oct. 3, 1942).
“You have quoted . . .”: Geoffrey T. Hellman, Mrs. de Peysterh Parties, and Other Lively Studies from the New Yorker (New York, 1963), p. xi.
“Dear Bernie”: Baruch, The Public Years, p. 304.
“I’m like a lizard . . .”: The New Yorker (Oct. 3, 1942).
“Though in rather . . .”: Alfred Redgis to Baruch, Sept. 25, 1942.
“I know you . . .”: Frank A. Howard, Buna Rubber: The Birth of an Industry (New York, 1947), p. 222.
“It is curious . . .”: Washington Post, Aug. 20, 1942.
“Hello.”: Morgenthau Diaries, 20, Dec. 15, 1942, pp. 179–180. Baruch was evidently discussing his $1 million Christmas present.
“You would be . . .”: Quoted in Schwarz, p. 437.
Catledge story: Turner Catledge, My Life and Times (New York, 1971), p. 148.
“Dear Bernie”: Baruch, The Public Years, p. 314.
“Baruch would like . . .”: Quoted in Schwarz, p. 437.
“The war production . . .”: Ibid., p. 440.
“I don’t like . . .”: Morgenthau Diaries, 28, Oct. 18, 1944, p. 12.
“There was a . . .”: Baruch, The Public Years, p. 317.
“Mr. President . . .”: Ibid.
“He wryly admitted . . .”: Helen Lawrenson, Stranger at the Party: A Memoir (New York, 1975), p. 135.
“just as keen . . .”: Martin Blumenson, ed., The Patton Papers, Vol. II, 1940–1945 (Boston, 1974), p. 682. The high quality of Baruch’s publicity-staff work is indicated by a note that Lubell wrote him on Apr. 25, 1945, following the return of the Baruch party to the United States: “Here are the addresses and the information on the two soldiers who were wounded and whom you saw in the hospital. I have drafted a possible letter that you may want to send. I’m checking on the photographs as to when they will be ready.”