James Joseph Speyer was an American financier and philanthropist. He is remembered for being a well-known figure on Wall Street and for the firm of Speyer & Co. which was well respected.
Background
James was born on July 22, 1861 in New York City, New York, United States, to German Jewish parents, one of three children and the older of two sons. His father, Gustavus Speyer, a member of one of Germany's most powerful banking houses, had come in 1845 from Frankfurt am Main to New York City to join the American branch of the firm, Philip Speyer & Company, which a brother had established in 1837. Gustavus married Sophie Rubino in 1860 and four years later returned with her to Frankfurt.
Education
James Speyer grew up in Frankfurt and attended public schools there.
Career
He entered the family bank at the age of twenty-one, spent two years of training at the London and Paris branches, and in 1885 joined the New York branch. By this time the American firm, now known as Speyer & Company, had shifted its business from dealing in foreign exchange and imports to underwriting and distributing railroad securities and foreign government bonds. Speyer became senior partner in 1899.
Through his family, however, Speyer was one of a small group of American bankers able to mobilize large amounts of foreign capital. Speyer & Company was widely regarded in the early 1900's as one of the great international banking houses of the time, along with Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb in New York and Kidder, Peabody and Lee, Higginson in Boston. The Speyer firm acted as financial agent for the railroad interests of Collis P. Huntington, floated millions of dollars of securities for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and handled the reorganization of the Lake Shore & Rock Island and the Baltimore & Ohio railroads (1896). Other concerns for which he acted as financial adviser included Corn Products Refining, Pittsburgh Steel, Victor Talking Machine, and the Radio Corporation of America.
With the outbreak of World War I, the prestige and power of Speyer & Company began to decline rapidly. Speyer himself was decidedly pro-German; indeed, he spent every summer in Germany and was a frequent guest of Kaiser Wilhelm.
Early in the war, he and Count Johann von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States, made a futile attempt to enlist support for a peace drive. Speyer & Company was placed on the British blacklist in 1916, and shortly afterward Sir Edgar Speyer, James's brother, was forced to close the family's London branch. A postwar decline in railroad stocks further weakened the company. So, too, did the rapid postwar expansion of American investment capital, as the United States shifted from a debtor to a creditor nation, thus reducing the importance of foreign capital.
By 1930, having grossed less than $400, 000, 000 in the previous four years, Speyer & Company was no longer among the first fifty private banking houses. The final blow came with the rise of Nazi anti-Semitism, which forced the closing in 1934 of the Speyer banks in Berlin and Frankfurt. James Speyer formally retired in 1938, and the American firm was liquidated in 1939. But the eclipse of the House of Speyer was not the result of external factors alone; Speyer's temperament and business methods were also to blame. He ran essentially a one-man company and made no real attempt to train a successor. At the same time, his interests were too varied to permit him to devote to the banking business the effort required to perpetuate the Speyer firm. He had long participated actively in New York social, philanthropic, and civic affairs.
Speyer died at the age of eighty at his home in New York City.
Achievements
Politics
In political affairs, Speyer was a supporter of Grover Cleveland in 1892. He was also a vice-president and treasurer of the progressive German-American Reform Union, and a member of the executive committee of the Committee of Seventy, which spearheaded the election of reform mayor William L. Strong in 1894. During the 1920's he was an active opponent of prohibition.
Membership
Speyer belonged to numerous social clubs and was the only Jewish member of the exclusive Racquet Club. He was a member of the University Settlement Society (1891), of the Provident Loan Society, of the American Society for the Control of Cancer. He also was a member of the Economic Club of New York, 1907. He was a member of the Association Against Prohibition.
Personality
He always dressed in the height of fashion. Though genial and gregarious, he was also domineering. His proud individuality won him the hostility of several powerful men; J. P. Morgan, for example, refused to sit on any corporate board with him, and Edward H. Harriman, after purchasing the Southern Pacific in 1901, immediately ousted the Speyer interests.
Connections
His marriage, on November 11, 1897, to Ellin Leslie (Prince) Lowery, a widow of colonial ancestry and eminent social standing, accorded him a place in New York society. The couple, who were childless, entertained lavishly, with all the appurtenances of Old World elegance, both at their Fifth Avenue town house and at their one-hundred-acre estate, Waldheim, at Scarborough-on-Hudson.
Awarded gold insignia 1940). Awarded gold medal 1938). Awarded gold insignia, 1939).tempSpaceAwarded German Red Eagle, II Class, Hungarian Order of Merit, II Class.
Awarded gold insignia 1940). Awarded gold medal 1938). Awarded gold insignia, 1939).tempSpaceAwarded German Red Eagle, II Class, Hungarian Order of Merit, II Class.