Lamont, Thomas and the New Deal

By Sara

Ned Lamont is getting dissed because his grandpappy was a JP Morgan Partner, and thus got rich, and his children and grandchildren got rich too.  Something told me to do a little research on Thomas Lamont and find out what kind of banker he was during the times when it counted what kind of decisions he made. 

I have a huge New Deal Library.  And I don't like to consult parts of it without connecting to other parts.  Anyhow, I started with Kenneth S. Davis's "FDR: The New Deal Years 1933-1937" and am prepared to expand on one citation. 

The key date is April 18, 1933 -- the date the "decider" in the FDR realm acted to take the US off the Gold Standard, and collect all the gold currency and certificates, and put it in Fort Knox.  Apparently this decision on the part of FDR was made in light of a read out from Walter Lippmann who had lunched with the boys at 23 Wall Street a few days earlier, and among the boys was Thomas Lamont, Partner of JP Morgan. 

What apparently worried Lamont (Ned's Grandpappy) was the emerging revolutionary behavior of the Farmers in the Mid West -- the guys who were burning their corn for fuel, and putting their milk into the fields or down the drain.  They had nearly lynched a judge in Iowa who acted on a claim for non-payment of mortgage -- and Lamont apparently believed the ideas were contageous.  He thus signed on to FDR's removal of commodity prices (and much else) from the Gold Standard, and signed on to a program of regulated commodity prices based on parity.  (Parity is complex -- it is land rent plus invested value in a crop or product such as pork or bushels of corn or other marketable commodities.)   Anyhow, one need not understand Ag production to comprehend that Thomas Lamont became a critical enabler of the New Deal notion of regulation because he wanted to avoid a pitchfork revolution in places like Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the like.  In other words, he wanted a slightly different logic than that being applied by the ag banks in the mid-west in that period.  But he could not do it through JP Morgan, it had to be done through FDR's efforts.  Thus the support for taking the US off the Gold Standard, which has to be understood in terms of how much of US Trade was essentially agricultural in that time period. 

I am just beginning to research the relationship between Thomas Lamont and FDR and people around FDR -- but it is getting most interesting.  Support for Ag Parity and removal from the Gold Standard is totally profound in the 1933 context for a big time Wall Street Banker, enough so that one can say Lamont "Enabled" the New Deal -- and I rather assume that some of that sentiment has run through a couple of generation -- not to reappear in the same form, but in contemporary form. 

Apparently most of Thomas Lamont's interventions were through Walter Lippmann, who suggested things in the Herald Trib, and then they got moved or not moved by the people around FDR.  All of the things were "big concepts" and not little bitty stuff. 

I consider Lippmann and others like IF Stone to be the patrion saints of today's serious bloggers -- and if we understand how they moved opinion in their day, we can eventually accomplish something similar.  Opionion Leadership it is called, I believe.  Right now I think Ned Lamont needs backstopping with this New Deal heritage.  Assuming this campaign moves into the fall -- even more critical. 

Comments

[DemFromCT]

Interesting idea. More!

[rj]

Wow, great stuff -- we really can't learn too much about what was done, and how, and by whom, in that era. (And nice to know sanity runs through the Lamont line, to boot.) Thanks, Sara, for yet another terrifically enlightening post.

[kaleidescope]

Well, actually, Ned is Thomas Lamont's great grandson. According to Ron Chernow's book, The House of Morgan (and this is from memory), Lamont was an early supporter of Benito Mussolini. As Teodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer saw the parallels between the New Deal and Fascism, so, apparently, did Thomas Lamont.

Mussolini's fascism was a pioneering stab at getting the government and big business to work together to get the trains running on time and forestall communism.

J.P. Morgan & Co. was a major architect of the stage of monopoly capitalism Lenin described in "Imperialism".

As a Morgan partner (and not just any partner, but, after old JP was gone THE partner), Lamont was no slave to free enterprise. The Morgan empire made its fortune by regulating trade -- by working with Andrew Carnegie to take over the steel industry, rationalize it and eliminate cut throat competition so the whole constellation of associated businesses -- suppliers, banks and investers could make a profit. Morgan did this with the railroads, with Rockefeller and the oil industry, and with banking. In Japan this resulted in the zaibatsu.

Thomas Lamont was perfectly comfortable with large scale enterprise being helped by the government. He was obviously no right wing idealogue. But he was also no friend of the working man.

Ned seems more like his uncle, Corliss -- a philosopher and free thinker and who endowed the Corliss Lamont chair for Civil Liberties at the Columbia Law School. Like George W. Bush, Corliss was the black sheep of his family.

[Sara]

Turns out that Thomas Lamont is not the first Lamont to star in the Democratic Party Firmament. The New York Democratic Party State Chair who managed all of Grover Cleveland's campaigns for President in the 1880's was Daniel S. Lamont. Daniel Lamont, Thomas Lamont's Father, was a close friend of FDR's father, James Roosevelt. In fact the first time FDR visited the White House was per arrangement with Dan Lamont during the second Cleveland Administration.

FDR would referr to the Cleveland-Lamont relationship in a letter to Jim Farley during the Xmas Season of 1930, when he invited him to come to Warm Springs to discuss with himself and Louis Howe plans for the Presidential Campaign of 1932. FDR said he wanted the same sort of relationship with Farley that Cleveland had with Dan Lamont. (Farley managed both of FDR's campaigns for Governor, and his first two Presidential Campaigns -- but broke with FDR over the third term, wanting to run himself in 1940.) Anyhow, FDR apparently thought the model relationship between candidate and manager was the Cleveland - Lamont one. Anyhow that is apparently Ned's Great Grand Pappy. FDR knew Dan Lamont quite well through his father, James Roosevelt, who was active in the New York State Democratic Party from about the Civil War Period to his death just before FDR went to Harvard.

Given this depth of connection, can you imagine what Ned could have hit Lieberman with if Joe had kept up the business of "He ain't a Democrat." How many can claim that their Great Grand Dad made arrangements for FDR to first visit the White House when he was still in Knee britches during the Cleveland Administration, as a favor to FDR's Father? (Chapter 12, Frank Freidel's "The Triumph.")

Another "line into" the Roosevelt family in CT on the part of the Lamonts apparently is friendship between Dan Lamont and the parents of the Alsop brothers, Stewart and Joseph. They were sons of TR Roosevelt's Sister, Corinne, to whom FDR was fairly close, and the Dan Lamont Family were friends. While she was a TR Republican, Corinne was apparently responsible for re-introducing Dan Lamont to FDR as an adult, when he was in the New York Legislature, making interesting weekends for him in CT during breaks in the sessions. This would have all been before FDR signed on with Wilson and moved on to DC in the period just before WW One, and when FDR and Eleanor were busy having their six kids. Eleanor was always very close to Corinne -- she was her aunt.

This relationship would remain very active and open from the pre-World War One period through FDR's Governorship of New York. TR's Sister and Eleanor's aunt, plus the Lamonts who had been Cleveland's campaign manager, and the FDR family. Progressives, all around.

[Sara]

Thomas Lamont played a behind the scenes but critical role in the orders to close the banks which FDR issued immediately on taking office.

Now if you don't know the actual state of the US Banking System in March of 1933, you need to get up to speed on that before my narrative will make much sense, but essentially the banking system was in the process of total crash. In virtually every part of the country lines went around the block near banks that remained open, depositors were trying to get their savings out of the banks before they crashed -- as many had already done.

Hoover through his AG had researched the Presidential powers to close down the banking system, and told FDR in the days before the March innaguration that he would do it, but only if FDR endorsed the action. FDR was handicapped because his initial nominee for AG, Walsh, had suddenly died, and his second choice, Homer Cummings, was not yet read into the banking problem, so FDR demurred from Hoover's request, though FDR had talked with Thomas Lamont, and knew that 23 Wall Street (JP Morgan) wanted the Bank Holiday.

Lamont was apparently not firm in his belief that Presidential Powers included the ability to close down the whole banking system -- but he knew it needed to happen immediately, but believed the legal matter would go down better if FDR did it after he assumed the Presidency, and not as an endorsement of Hoover's action. He believed emergency action would be better received given a fresh mood resulting from the turn over of administrations.

In the meantime, Hoover tried to corner FDR. They had an essentially formal meeting scheduled for the late afternoon of the day before the inagural, and as soon as the tea and crumpets had been served, Hoover brought in his Sec of the Treasury and his AG, and tried to force FDR into seconding his action. FDR made a couple of alternative suggestions, and as soon as possible, left for his suite at the Mayflower Hotel, telling Hoover he could call him if he made a decision. Thomas Lamont called again and advised against acting in concert with Hoover -- rather wait till noon the next day and FDR's ability to do the Bank Holiday on his own dime.

My sourcing for a description of this night -- March 3, 1933, is Raymond Moley's "After Seven Years" -- written after Moley (One of the Brains Trusters) broke with FDR. But Moley was in FDR's bedroom that night, and took notes of all the phone calls, and eventually on trying to leave and get some sleep, he was picked off by incomeing Sec of the Treasury Woodin, and they went to Treasury to try and help the Hoover officials save the banking system. Moley claims that he and Lamont were able to get the new Governor of New York, Herbert Lehman to close the New York banks overnight -- thus saving the New York Clearing House, and in the meantime FDR's people drafted the orders FDR would sign on taking office closing the banks for four days.

It's interesting reading the Republican opposition to Roosevelt taking this action -- too much Colonel House going on here (i.e., too much agressive staff work). To the suggestion that FDR would get the public to subscribe to closing the banks by going on the radio and asking the American People to help -- the response to that was "Too much William Jennings Bryant."

Anyhow, Thomas Lamont was in the thick of all this -- working by phone from NYC directly with FDR.

Know what -- he did close, reform and save the banking system.

[freepatriot]

WELL OKAY THEN

keep it up

I like the gory details

so Joe can balme lamont for the New Deal

no, wait, destroying the new deal??? that's a repuglican goal, ain't it

sorry joe, no points this round

[Sara]

If Lieberman wants to hold the Lamont bloodline responsible for something, I suspect it would be the Glass-Steagall act. Lamont responsibility for some features of the bill were the result of some rather nasty Senate Hearings in the spring of 1933 which looked at how the House of Morgan actually worked, and led to Congressional demands for seperation of the securities business from consumer banking, deposit insurance, and much stronger control of banks by the Fed. Getting rid of Glass-Steagall was a Republican Conservative goal for years, and was only accomplished in 2001 when they had a President who would sign it. (GWB delivers you know.) Anyhow, Thomas Lamont didn't really like the way FDR toyed with him -- taking him into the inner circle while saving the banking system, and then throwing him to to wolves before a hungry Senate Committee.

Maybe when Ned Lamont gets to DC, the Democrats will square the circle by putting the new CT Senator on Banking and Finance. Then he can help re-invent the regulatory wheel when our Banking system comes a crashing down.

I've one more Lamont piece to write up, probably in a new thread because it is pre-New Deal. I've been re-reading the Walter Lippmann stuff, and it is an interesting tale.

[wilver]

Wow! So interesting, Thanks to everyone for bringing more dimension to the situation. I turned the channel, but now I'm back. Sara, I'm looking foward to next your great post and comment session.

[Dougie MacDougal]

If anyone wants to know alittle more about our good friend Thomas Lamont (grand-pappy of Ned Lamont), one should read 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution' (1974) by Antony C. Sutton.
According to Sutton, Thomas Lamont was an envoy sent by J.P Morgan and the Skull and Bones gang to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. Apparently Lamont met the Bolsheviks bearing political, economic and military aid donated by these banking cliques to ensure the Bolsheviks succeeded in their revolution. The motive for this, Sutton alleges, was the control of closed markets. While these banking cliques were indeed capitalists, they were no defenders of free enterprise. In Russia, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging market protected by a totalitarian government. As a result they allied with the totalitarian Bolsheviks and literally left the Russian 'green' constitutionalists out in the cold. It is to the forgotten Russian greens that Sutton dedicates his book to. Shortly after the Bolsheviks had miraculously consolidated their control over the Russian landmass, we find the large American banks and industries literally setting up shop in Soviet Russia. Construction and mining loans were granted to the Bolsheviks by these large western banking outfits, one of them being J.P Morgan & Co. and Chase Bank among others. General Electic, American International Corporation and Standard Oil (Exxon) were also mentioned by Sutton as doing business with the infant Soviet government. It is interesting to surmise that much of the aid given to the Soviets by the West during the Bolshevik Revolution and during the various lend-lease agreements that followed constituted much of the foundation for what later became the 'Soviet Threat' after the Second World War. Sutton speculates that had the Bolsheviks not received this much needed aid from the West, there never would have been the cold war and the arms race. Incidentally, the cold war and the arms race went on to enrich the coffers of the very same Western industry and banking outfits that were originally responsible (in large part) for the success of the Soviet regime early in the 20th century.

How does all this this connect to his grandson Ned Lamont? Chances are, it doesn't. Is Ned even aware of his father's business/political dealings? Who knows.
Just remember: Birds of feather flock together.
Lest we forget that Bush's grandfather with their banking outfits helped finance the Nazi war machine in much the same way Lamont and Morgan helped finance the Bolsheviks a decade earlier.
Controlled conflict is the name of the game when it comes to the secret cliques and cartels. Please refer to Hegel in conjunction with Sutton's book; An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones.

Other names of interest mentioned by Sutton include Rockefeller, Harriman, Carnegie and Morgan.
For additional reading, please refer to Sutton's other works: 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler', 'America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones' and 'Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development'.
If one is successfully able to digest all this information and is interested in secondary sources, please refer to Carol Quigley's 'Tragedy and Hope: A Hisorty of the World in our Time'. Pages 127, 143, 167 and 171.

[Dougie MacDougal]

If anyone wants to know alittle more about our good friend Thomas Lamont (grand-pappy of Ned Lamont), one should read 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution' (1974) by Antony C. Sutton.
According to Sutton, Thomas Lamont was an envoy sent by J.P Morgan and the Skull and Bones gang to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. Apparently Lamont met the Bolsheviks bearing political, economic and military aid donated by these banking cliques to ensure the Bolsheviks succeeded in their revolution. The motive for this, Sutton alleges, was the control of closed markets. While these banking cliques were indeed capitalists, they were no defenders of free enterprise. In Russia, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging market protected by a totalitarian government. As a result they allied with the totalitarian Bolsheviks and literally left the Russian 'green' constitutionalists out in the cold. It is to the forgotten Russian greens that Sutton dedicates his book to. Shortly after the Bolsheviks had miraculously consolidated their control over the Russian landmass, we find the large American banks and industries literally setting up shop in Soviet Russia. Construction and mining loans were granted to the Bolsheviks by these large western banking outfits, one of them being J.P Morgan & Co. and Chase Bank among others. General Electic, American International Corporation and Standard Oil (Exxon) were also mentioned by Sutton as doing business with the infant Soviet government. It is interesting to surmise that much of the aid given to the Soviets by the West during the Bolshevik Revolution and during the various lend-lease agreements that followed constituted much of the foundation for what later became the 'Soviet Threat' after the Second World War. Sutton speculates that had the Bolsheviks not received this much needed aid from the West, there never would have been the cold war and the arms race. Incidentally, the cold war and the arms race went on to enrich the coffers of the very same Western industry and banking outfits that were originally responsible (in large part) for the success of the Soviet regime early in the 20th century.

How does all this this connect to his grandson Ned Lamont? Chances are, it doesn't. Is Ned even aware of his father's business/political dealings? Who knows.
Just remember: Birds of feather flock together.
Lest we forget that Bush's grandfather with their banking outfits helped finance the Nazi war machine in much the same way Lamont and Morgan helped finance the Bolsheviks a decade earlier.
Controlled conflict is the name of the game when it comes to the secret cliques and cartels. Please refer to Hegel in conjunction with Sutton's book; An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones.

Other names of interest mentioned by Sutton include Rockefeller, Harriman, Carnegie and Morgan.
For additional reading, please refer to Sutton's other works: 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler', 'America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones' and 'Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development'.
If one is successfully able to digest all this information and is interested in secondary sources, please refer to Carol Quigley's 'Tragedy and Hope: A Hisorty of the World in our Time'. Pages 127, 143, 167 and 171.

[Dougie MacDougal]

If anyone wants to know alittle more about our good friend Thomas Lamont (grand-pappy of Ned Lamont), one should read 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution' (1974) by Antony C. Sutton.
According to Sutton, Thomas Lamont was an envoy sent by J.P Morgan and the Skull and Bones gang to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. Apparently Lamont met the Bolsheviks bearing political, economic and military aid donated by these banking cliques to ensure the Bolsheviks succeeded in their revolution. The motive for this, Sutton alleges, was the control of closed markets. While these banking cliques were indeed capitalists, they were no defenders of free enterprise. In Russia, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging market protected by a totalitarian government. As a result they allied with the totalitarian Bolsheviks and literally left the Russian 'green' constitutionalists out in the cold. It is to the forgotten Russian greens that Sutton dedicates his book to. Shortly after the Bolsheviks had miraculously consolidated their control over the Russian landmass, we find the large American banks and industries literally setting up shop in Soviet Russia. Construction and mining loans were granted to the Bolsheviks by these large western banking outfits, one of them being J.P Morgan & Co. and Chase Bank among others. General Electic, American International Corporation and Standard Oil (Exxon) were also mentioned by Sutton as doing business with the infant Soviet government. It is interesting to surmise that much of the aid given to the Soviets by the West during the Bolshevik Revolution and during the various lend-lease agreements that followed constituted much of the foundation for what later became the 'Soviet Threat' after the Second World War. Sutton speculates that had the Bolsheviks not received this much needed aid from the West, there never would have been the cold war and the arms race. Incidentally, the cold war and the arms race went on to enrich the coffers of the very same Western industry and banking outfits that were originally responsible (in large part) for the success of the Soviet regime early in the 20th century.

How does all this this connect to his grandson Ned Lamont? Chances are, it doesn't. Is Ned even aware of his father's business/political dealings? Who knows.
Just remember: Birds of feather flock together.
Lest we forget that Bush's grandfather with their banking outfits helped finance the Nazi war machine in much the same way Lamont and Morgan helped finance the Bolsheviks a decade earlier.
Controlled conflict is the name of the game when it comes to the secret cliques and cartels. Please refer to Hegel in conjunction with Sutton's book; An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones.

Other names of interest mentioned by Sutton include Rockefeller, Harriman, Carnegie and Morgan.
For additional reading, please refer to Sutton's other works: 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler', 'America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones' and 'Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development'.
If one is successfully able to digest all this information and is interested in secondary sources, please refer to Carol Quigley's 'Tragedy and Hope: A Hisorty of the World in our Time'. Pages 127, 143, 167 and 171.

[Dougie MacDougal]

If anyone wants to know alittle more about our good friend Thomas Lamont (grand-pappy of Ned Lamont), one should read 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution' (1974) by Antony C. Sutton.
According to Sutton, Thomas Lamont was an envoy sent by J.P Morgan and the Skull and Bones gang to Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. Apparently Lamont met the Bolsheviks bearing political, economic and military aid donated by these banking cliques to ensure the Bolsheviks succeeded in their revolution. The motive for this, Sutton alleges, was the control of closed markets. While these banking cliques were indeed capitalists, they were no defenders of free enterprise. In Russia, they saw an opportunity to capitalize on an emerging market protected by a totalitarian government. As a result they allied with the totalitarian Bolsheviks and literally left the Russian 'green' constitutionalists out in the cold. It is to the forgotten Russian greens that Sutton dedicates his book to. Shortly after the Bolsheviks had miraculously consolidated their control over the Russian landmass, we find the large American banks and industries literally setting up shop in Soviet Russia. Construction and mining loans were granted to the Bolsheviks by these large western banking outfits, one of them being J.P Morgan & Co. and Chase Bank among others. General Electic, American International Corporation and Standard Oil (Exxon) were also mentioned by Sutton as doing business with the infant Soviet government. It is interesting to surmise that much of the aid given to the Soviets by the West during the Bolshevik Revolution and during the various lend-lease agreements that followed constituted much of the foundation for what later became the 'Soviet Threat' after the Second World War. Sutton speculates that had the Bolsheviks not received this much needed aid from the West, there never would have been the cold war and the arms race. Incidentally, the cold war and the arms race went on to enrich the coffers of the very same Western industry and banking outfits that were originally responsible (in large part) for the success of the Soviet regime early in the 20th century.

How does all this this connect to his grandson Ned Lamont? Chances are, it doesn't. Is Ned even aware of his father's business/political dealings? Who knows.
Just remember: Birds of feather flock together.
Lest we forget that Bush's grandfather with their banking outfits helped finance the Nazi war machine in much the same way Lamont and Morgan helped finance the Bolsheviks a decade earlier.
Controlled conflict is the name of the game when it comes to the secret cliques and cartels. Please refer to Hegel in conjunction with Sutton's book; An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones.

Other names of interest mentioned by Sutton include Rockefeller, Harriman, Carnegie and Morgan.
For additional reading, please refer to Sutton's other works: 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler', 'America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones' and 'Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development'.
If one is successfully able to digest all this information and is interested in secondary sources, please refer to Carol Quigley's 'Tragedy and Hope: A Hisorty of the World in our Time'. Pages 127, 143, 167 and 171.

[G Holzer]

I don't really think Lamont is self-made at all. Like all the other tons of trust and foundation babies whose fortunes go untaxed while we the people pick up their slack, they also get to propagandize for the bigger govt Progressive copiers of euro-dictator policies foisted upon us and debased the 1932 dollar down to $0.03 today. Instead the dollar otherwise would have appreciated.

I'd like to share my best of list of essay and video links with those intellectually honest enough to see just how misinformed (indoctrinated) generations have become from the blather of self interested educrats extolling the virtues of big govt that have only cost us lives and freedom.

"Merchants of Death" revisited: Armaments, Bankers and the First World War
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/19_1/19_1_4.pdf

The State as an Organization (video)
http://www.mises.org/multimedia/video/asc2006/asc06-Rozeff.wmv

Taking money back (completely logical and constitutional)
http://www.mises.org/rothbard/moneyback.asp

How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram

The Issue of Tariffs: How U.S. Revenue Collection Was Turned Inside-Out (video)
http://mises.org:88/Sophocleus

Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom And Limits the Pursuit of Happiness (video)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-02-06.ram

Big Business and the Rise of American Statism (exc. essay)
http://praxeology.net/RC-BRS.htm

The Founding of The Federal Reserve (video)
http://mises.org:88/Rothbard-Fed

The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I (video)
http://www.mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods5.wmv

Secrets of the Federal Reserve (the web of power is phenomenal)
http://www.barefootsworld.net/fs_m_ch_01.html

Jackson's 2nd Bank US VETO (very important - what he correctly and constitutionally opposed is just what we ended up with in 1913)
http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/ajveto.htm

"The Separation of Commercial and Investment Banking: The Morgans vs. the Rockefellers" (the true thieves of the taxpayers and absconders of the const)
http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae1_1_1.pdf

Bureaucracy and the Civil Service in the United States
http://www.mises.org/story/2181

The Case of Government Retirement Programs
http://www.mises.org/story/2196

[Elizabeth]

what is Saint elizebeth the patron saint of?