Background
Henry Pomeroy Davison was born on June 13, 1867 at Troy, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of George and Henrietta (Pomeroy) Davison.
(Excerpt from The American Red Cross, in the Great War IT...)
Excerpt from The American Red Cross, in the Great War IT is the effort of this book to set forth the scope, char acter and effect of the work of the American Red Cross during the Great War. When the war closed more than thirty million Americans were enrolled in the organiza tion. Some of these were in foreign fields; most of them were at home. But, in one way or another, they were all helping. All of them working together made up the American Red Cross. Stories of special sacrifice or devotion cannot be given here and yet few organizations have so closely touched the great currents of human life. Detailed narratives will accordingly follow this book. I have sought here to sum marize the work of the thirty millions as a whole. To characterize the Red Cross work of any man or woman. Or to attempt to describe it with any regard to proper perspective, would be invidious if not impossible. I have therefore omitted the mention of names. The highest satisfaction any worker in the Red Cross can derive from his work is from the fact that the work itself was well done. The files of the War Council have been freely drawn upon in the preparation of this book. And I want to make special acknowledgment to every member of the force at headquarters. And to the special correspondents and staffs of our foreign commissions, who seemingly have vied with one another in supplying me, either orally or in writing, with material without which the scope of this book could not be what it is. Indeed it may accurately be said that the book itself is a product of the American Red Cross. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Henry Pomeroy Davison was born on June 13, 1867 at Troy, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of George and Henrietta (Pomeroy) Davison.
Davison received his schooling up to his fifteenth year at the birthplace. During the ensuing five years he attended Greylock Institute at South Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Davison began teaching in the Troy school in which he had been a pupil, as early as his seventeenth year, and returned to it at intervals for three years.
His first work after leaving the academy was in the bank at Troy owned by brothers of his mother. There he began at the bottom and as he worked up became restless and eager to find a wider horizon than the Pennsylvania town afforded.
At twenty-one he applied for a job in a New York City bank, but failed to get it. For the next three years he was employed by a bank at Bridgeport, Connecticut, rising step by step to a receiving tellership. In 1891 a new bank, the Astor Place (later absorbed by the Corn Exchange), opened its doors in New York. Davison obtained personal interviews with the cashier, was twice told that his application would have to be declined because of his limited city acquaintance, but at the third interview was given the position.
He quickly made friends and easily held them. Near the end of the third year of his service there as paying teller a mentally deranged man approached the teller’s window, pointed a revolver at Davison, and presented a check calling for the payment of $1, 000 “to the Almighty. ” Davison was alone in the teller’s cage. As calmly as if the demand were an every-day business detail he remarked, in a slightly raised voice so as to attract the attention of his associates, “A million dollars for the Almighty—how will you have it?” and proceeded to count out bills of small denomination. The bank detective heard the words, sensed the situation, and quickly seized and disarmed the would-be payee. The afternoon papers of that day, carrying the story, reached the board-room of a downtown New York bank at the moment when the directors were planning to fill the post of assistant cashier. Davison was already known to one of them, who soon convinced his colleagues that the courage, resourcefulness, and steadiness of nerve displayed in the Astor Place incident would be useful in the position under consideration.
Davison thus became assistant cashier of the Liberty National Bank in 1894, and within five years he was president of the institution. It was then that he conceived the plan which resulted in the formation of the Bankers’ Trust Company, intended to serve as a depository for the funds of national banks and insurance companies.
In 1902 George F. Baker and Francis L. Hine of the First National Bank invited him to become vice-president and director. There he soon won recognition from J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr. , who frequently consulted him, especially in the monetary crisis of 1907, when Davison had an important part in determining the action of New York banks. During the next year he joined the Monetary Commission headed by Senator Aldrich and in the capacity of banking expert with that commission he visited France, Germany, and England. He then acquainted himself with the prevailing European idea of a flexible national currency. In association with Senator Aldrich, Paul M. Warburg, Frank A. Vanderlip, and A. Piatt Andrew, he took part in drawing up the “Jekyl Island” report that led to the crystallization of sentiment resulting in the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Having become a partner in J. P. Morgan & Company, he served with distinction in 1910 as chairman of the Six-Power Chinese Loan Conference at Paris. He was now one of the small group of Americans whose names were recognized at the counsel board of international finance. When the United States entered the World War it was clearly foreseen that great responsibilities would devolve upon the head of the Red Cross War Council. The appointment of Davison by President Wilson as Chairman of the Council was hailed as one of the most important steps taken by the government at Washington in the first stages of the war. He accepted the appointment on the condition that the proposed solicitation of a $15, 000, 000 fund for the American Red Cross be abandoned and that plans be made at once for a national drive to raise $100, 000, 000. In the outcome $115, 000, 000 was secured at a time when the war demands in every city and village of the country were exceeding anything ever before dreamed of; but the second drive, in 1918, had even greater results, reaching the unparalleled total of $170, 000, 000 for the Red Cross war chest. The handling of these great sums in time of war called for administrative talent of the highest order. Having the vision and the knowledge of war-time conditions that enabled him to understand more clearly than most of his contemporaries in America the true magnitude of the war effort required of the United States, he saw that only the most generous support of the Red Cross could make that effort successful. He refused to think of the organization as merely incidental to military and naval operations, insisting that it was a vital and essential part of the government’s war machinery. He impressed this conception upon his aides, chosen with fine discrimination, many of whom, like himself, were men of wealth giving their services without pay and in not a few instances meeting their own expenses. After the Armistice in 1918, Davison, in cooperation with the Red Cross officers of the Allied nations, planned an International League of Red Cross Societies intended to function somewhat as the League of Nations.
(Excerpt from The American Red Cross, in the Great War IT...)
Davison married Kate Trubee, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, on April 13, 1893. She, with two sons and two daughters, survived him.
