Background
He was born on August 3, 1883 Oberlin, Ohio, the son of William Gay Ballantine, professor of Old Testament and later president of Oberlin College, and Emma Atwood.
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Arthur Atwood Ballantine
Edit ProfileEducation
Ballantine graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1904 and three years later took his law degree, also with honors, from the Harvard Law School.
Career
In 1914, with Joseph O. Procter and Robert E. Goodwin, he established a new firm specializing in corporate matters. He entered his first government service as a "dollar-a-year man" in 1917, as a special advisor to the United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue on legal questions related to the war revenue measures. The following year he became solicitor of internal revenue, the Treasury Department's chief legal advisor on tax and revenue issues. His work in that department, as well as his established legal reputation, brought him increasing corporate business after the war, and he found it necessary to leave Boston for New York in 1919. There he joined with other men he had known from law school days to form Root, Clark, Howland and Ballantine. Eventually he became senior partner in the successor firm, Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer and Wood. At all times the firm devoted itself primarily to tax, corporate, and securities law.
During the 1920's Ballantine led a life typical of a successful Wall Street lawyer: membership in the right clubs, a country home at Oyster Bay on Long Island, directorships of large corporations and civic groups, and consultant positions on the tax committees of bar and business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Industrial Conference Board. He did little government work other than serving in 1927 as an advisor to the Joint Congressional Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation. In 1931 President Herbert Hoover named Ballantine assistant secretary of the Treasury, and the following year he became undersecretary. It was a crucial position during the Great Depression, and few political appointees had as much knowledge of their fields as Ballantine did. Although, like Hoover, he favored reducing federal expenses, unlike the president Ballantine recognized the need for the government to take a more positive role in relief as well as to use federal influence and resources to shore up the economic system.
He helped organize the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and was one of its first directors. As undersecretary of the treasury, he oversaw the spending of $700 million in government funds on federal building projects. When the banking crisis reached its peak during the 1932-1933 interregnum, Ballantine found himself one of the key government officials. In February 1933 he led the team that tried to negotiate private loans and guarantees to keep open the Union Guardian Trust Company of Detroit. When these talks collapsed, mainly due to Henry Ford's antagonism to both private banks and the national government, Ballantine worked with Michigan Governor William Comstock to arrange the statewide banking moratorium, a precursor to the national banking holiday that ushered in Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Ballantine and Roosevelt had been classmates at Harvard; Ballantine was editor of The Crimson when Roosevelt had been a member of the staff. Ballantine assisted William Woodin, secretary of the treasury designate, and presidential counsel Raymond Moley, and agreed to stay on at the Treasury to help the new appointees during this critical period.
Both Woodin and Moley later praised Ballantine, who served as liaison between the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, for his "patriotism" and "indispensable" contributions. Ballantine had been urging a banking moratorium for some time, and Roosevelt's understanding and acceptance of the idea gratified him. It was Ballantine who drafted the president's fireside chat of Mar. 12, 1933, which explained the banking holiday to the American people and did much to restore public confidence. Ballantine stayed in office through May 1933 and devised the plan for reopening America's banks. But from the beginning he opposed New Deal programs based on deficit financing and large-scale government spending. He returned to New York and resumed his law practice, not to reenter government service until World War II.
In June 1943, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox appointed him to prepare a report on the organization, methods, and procedures of naval courts. In April 1946, Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal named him senior member of a board to update and implement naval court reform. For this work he received the Distinguished Public Service Certificate of Award from the navy in 1948. After the war, Ballantine's law practice prospered, especially after former New York governor and Republican presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey accepted his invitation in 1955 to join the firm. He died in New York City.
Achievements
Connections
On June 19, 1907, he married Helen Bailey Graves; they had five children.
