BERNARD M. BARUCH - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 01/20/1956 - HFSID 254646

BERNARD M. BARUCH
TLS regretting that he cannot attend the laying of the cornerstone of a new building at the New School for Social Research
Typed Letter Signed: "BM Baruch", 1p, 5 ¾ x6 ¼. New York 22, New York, 1956 January 20. To Secretary, New School of Social Research, New York 11, New York. In Full: "Owing to my absence from the city I regret I will be unable to be present at the laying of the cornerstone of the new building of the New School for Social Research. It was good of you to remember and ask me. Very truly yours," U.S. financier Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965), who made his fortune on Wall Street, became an influential adviser to U.S. Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Lyndon B. Johnson. During his later years, Baruch's "presidential advisory post" was a park bench in Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Wilson had appointed Baruch to the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense in 1916. In April 1917, after the U.S. entered WWI (1914-1918), Baruch served as Chairman of the War Industries Board. In 1919, he represented the U.S. on the Supreme Economic Council at the Versailles Peace Conference. With the onset of WWII, Baruch advised Roosevelt on wartime economic mobilization. After the War (1939-1945), he sat on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Baruch proposed the Baruch Plan for international development and control of atomic energy. Baruch had begun working on Wall Street after graduating from the College of the City of New York in 1889. Speculating in the stock market, he became a millionaire by age 30. His alma mater named its business school for Baruch in 1953. Baruch published his memoirs in two volumes, Baruch: My Own Story (1957) and Baruch: The Public Years (1960). Fold creases not affecting signature. Tape stains on left center and right center. Red ink mark top left, slight signature ink smudge.