"The Highest Form"

Herbert H. Lehman, who died last week at 85, was a most unlikely sort of politician. He could not remember a name or a face. A small, somewhat heavy man, he had little humor, and almost no time for the pleasantries ordinarily associated with politics. He was a tireless do-gooder, given to rambling speeches about the virtues of liberalism. He had none of the classic grace of Franklin Roosevelt, none of the earthy charm of Al Smith. Yet in his time he was as popular with New York voters as either F.D.R. or the Happy Warrior --and he outlasted them both by years.

Born to a German-Jewish mercantile family that made a fortune in Alabama cotton and had ardently supported the Confederacy, Lehman was a senior partner in the family's New York banking firm (Lehman Bros.) and was worth some $25 million before he belatedly got into elective politics at the age of 50. His guiding light was Franklin Roosevelt, for whom he worked as an aide in the Navy Department during World War I. In 1928, when Smith ran for President and Roosevelt for Governor of New York, F.D.R. persuaded Lehman to try for Lieutenant Governor, mostly on the grounds that a Jewish liberal could hardly help but strengthen the Democratic ticket in the state.

"Little New Deal." While Smith was defeated, Roosevelt and Lehman won. After that, no New York politician ever won as many statewide elections as Lehman. He won twice for Lieutenant Governor, four times for Governor, and twice for U.S. Senator. Succeeding Roosevelt as Governor in 1933, Lehman pushed through such social welfare legislation as old-age benefits, unemployment insurance, public housing, earned his administration a nickname as the "little New Deal." He inherited a budget deficit of $106 million, converted it to a surplus of $80 million in ten years.

As a Senator, Lehman became best known for his passionate but somehow hapless tirades against the evils of Joe McCarthy. Never did he back away from an issue for purely political purposes. In 1949, on the eve of his first election to the Senate, he risked thousands of votes by denouncing Francis Cardinal Spellman for having criticized Eleanor Roosevelt. Spellman, angered at Mrs. Roosevelt's opposition to public aid to parochial schools, had said her "record of anti-Catholicism" was "unworthy of an American mother."

Throughout his lifetime, Lehman was lavish with money. His charitable contributions to such groups as United Jewish Appeal, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, and a host of child welfare organizations were classic. In 1960 he gave $500,000 toward a children's zoo in Manhattan's Central Park.

Retiring from the Senate in 1956, Lehman spent most of his remaining years trying to reform New York City's boss-ruled Democratic Party. With Eleanor Roosevelt's help, he succeeded in ousting Carmine De Sapio from the leadership of Tammany Hall.

He Didn't Hear. Lehman long ago achieved the stature of a vastly admired Democratic elder statesman and humanitarian. For his lifelong efforts,

President Kennedy last summer named him as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Last week President Johnson was scheduled to give Lehman that medal. In his Park Avenue apartment, Lehman had just finished packing for the trip to Washington when he fell dead of a heart attack. He never got to hear the award citation:

Citizen and statesman, he has used wisdom and compassion as the tools of government and has made politics the highest form of public service.

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