Ottoman Turkish Links in DC | Oscar S. Straus Memorial

Ottoman Turkish Links in DC | Oscar S.Straus[1] Memorial commemorates the achievements of this famous Jewish-German-American statesman. 

"...Like his admired Roger Williams, he early dedicated his life and fortunes to the principles which Williams, Jefferson, and the Prophets of old had proclaimed and guarded. It is meritorious to die for an ideal but hardly less an act of faith to live for one.—That is what Oscar S. Straus did. The ideal was Human Freedom and Religious Liberty. He did not separate them. The distinction is probably artificial in any case. If a man be measured by the sublimity and the universality of the ideal for which he stands and to which he unselfishly devotes himself, then here is a figure every cubit a man. Here is a man who needs no monument more enduring than his own acts and words. The memory of his name will long be sweet like honey in all mouths..."  OSCAR S. STRAUS: AN APPRECIATION LEWIS L. STRAUSS |  SOURCE

Mavi Boncuk |

The Oscar S. Straus Memorial in Washington, D.C., commemorates the accomplishments of the first Jew to serve in the cabinet of a U.S. president. Oscar Solomon Straus was Secretary of Commerce and Labor under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1906 to 1909. The memorial is a marble fountain located in the Federal Triangle on 14th Street between Pennsylvania Avenue and Constitution Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C.. It is located in front of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.

The fountain was designed by Adolph Alexander Weinm funded with a public subscription beginning in 1929, and dedicated on October 26, 1947. In the center of the memorial is the massive fountain with the inscription "statesman, author, diplomat" and to each side are two groups of statues, one called Justice (to symbolize the religious freedom which allowed a Jew to serve in such a position of authority) and the other Reason (to symbolize the capitalism and labor efforts put forth by Straus).

It was rededicated on October 26, 1998.

November 12, 1930

Pick Washington Site for Oscar Straus Memorial 

One of the most desirable sites in Washington has been offered the Oscar S. Straus Memorial Association by the Treasury Department as a site for the memorial to the memory of the late Oscar S. Straus, according to an announcement yesterday by William Loeb, president of the association. This site is at the entrance to the Great Plaza, facing the new Commerce Building, which has been described by President Hoover as “the noblest governmental building in the world.”

The directors of the association at their meeting yesterday formally accepted the offer of this site, which was proffered them in accordance with the Act of Congress signed by President Coolidge on March 4, 1929. The Executive Committee was directed to secure the services of John Russell Pope to draft some tentative design for the memorial.

The following were elected to the board of directors of the association: Dr. Mary Mills Patrick, former president of the Constantinople College for Women; Hon. Simon W. Rosendale of Albany, formerly Attorney General of New York; and Dr. Albert Shaw, editor of Review of Reviews. All of these were close personal friends of Mr. Straus. 

Oscar S. Straus served under four presidents. He was Minister to Turkey under Cleveland and McKinley; Ambassador to Turkey under Taft; and Secretary of Commerce and Labor in President Roosevelt’s Cabinet. President Roosevelt also appointed him as a member of The Hague Court, which appointment was renewed by President Wilson.

[1] Oscar Solomon Straus (December 23, 1850 – May 3, 1926) was an American politician and diplomat. 

Born at Ottenberg in the Bavarian Palatinate, Oscar Solomon Straus was of distinguished lineage. His great-grandfather was one of the deputies selected for the Great Sanhedrin convened by Napoleon I in 1806. This ancestor, Jacob Lazar, was a prominent member of that body, and his name appears frequently in its proceedings. Mr. Straus' father, Lazarus Straus, like many another German Jew, decided that the political events of 1848 made the German climate intolerable. Accordingly, he set out for the new world, landing in Philadelphia in 1852. Later, removing to Talbotton, Georgia, he engaged in business there, and soon was able to send for his family.

Young Oscar, his sister, and two older brothers, Nathan and Isidor, accompanied their mother to Georgia.

In 1863 the family moved to Columbus, Georgia, where educational facilities were somewhat better. Upon the conclusion of the war, there was a final move to New York and there the young man seized upon the educational advantages of a great city, entered Columbia Grammar School and, at seventeen, passed his entrance examinations for Columbia College.

Six years later he was graduated from both the College and the Law School. He then began to practice law, first as a clerk in one of the prominent firms of the period, and later with partners of his own.

He served as United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1906 to 1909, making him the first Jewish United States Cabinet Secretary. Straus also served in four presidential administrations as America's representative to the Ottoman Empire[2] and ran for Governor of New York in 1912 as the Progressive Party candidate.

In December 1906, Straus became the United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor under President Theodore Roosevelt. This position also placed him in charge of the United States Bureau of Immigration. During his tenure, Straus ordered immigration inspectors to work closely with local police and the United States Secret Service to find, arrest and deport immigrants with Anarchist political beliefs under the terms of the Anarchist Exclusion Act.

Straus left the Commerce Department in 1909 when William Howard Taft became president. Taft appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1909-1910. During the Presidency of William Howard Taft, an American strategy was to become involved in business transactions rather than military confrontations, a policy known as Dollar Diplomacy. It failed with respect to the Ottoman Empire because of opposition from ambassador Straus and to Turkish vacillation under pressure from the entrenched European powers who did not wish to see American competition. American trade remained a minor factor.

In 1912, he ran unsuccessfully for Governor of New York on the Progressive and Independence League tickets. In 1915, he became chairman of the public service commission of New York State.

He was president of the American Jewish Historical Society. He is buried at Beth El Cemetery in Ridgewood, New York.

The Straus family had several influential members including Straus's grandson Roger W. Straus, Jr., who started the publishing company of Farrar, Straus and Giroux; his brother, Isidor Straus, who perished aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912, served as a representative from New York City's 15th District, and was co-owner of the department store R. H. Macy & Co. along with another brother, Nathan; and nephew Jesse Isidor Straus, confidant of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ambassador to France from 1933 to 1936.

In 1882, Strauss married Sarah Lavanburg.[3] They had three children: Mildred Straus Schafer (born 1883), Aline Straus Hockstader (born 1889), and Roger Williams Straus (born 1891).

[2] Largely at the suggestion of well-known persons attracted by Mr. Straus' scholarship, the young man was brought to the attention of President Grover Cleveland. Among these influential figures was Henry Ward Beecher, whose letter recommending Mr. Straus to the President has been preserved. President Cleveland in 1887 appointed Mr. Straus, then only thirty-seven years old, to be United States Minister to Turkey. One of the principal concerns of the United States in Turkey at that time and for a number of years prior thereto, had been the protection of the American Mission Schools and the American College. Mr. Straus distinguished himself in this task to such an extent that he won the gratitude of the Christian Missions and the respect and admiration of the Sultan and his ministers. The Secretary of State recognized his diplomatic successes by letter — a rarely accorded accolade. An incident of this period is especially indicative of Mr. Straus' courage and resolve. While in this office, he travelled to Jerusalem and there discovered that several hundred Jews had been imprisoned and were about to be deported for no proper cause. Instead of paying the customary courtesy call on the Turkish local official, or vali (governor), on his arrival Mr. Straus dispatched a note to him through the Consul. The note demanded the immediate release of the imprisoned, stated that they had been imprisoned contrary to the treaties between Turkey and the great powers, and added that Mr. Straus would not only decline to call upon him until the prisoners were released, but further, unless his request was promptly complied with, he would appeal to the Sultan for the removal of the vali forthwith. Within twenty-four hours, all the prisoners were free. 

It was also on this first mission to Constantinople that Mr.Straus made the acquaintance of Baron Maurice de Hirsch, the great European philanthropist, who was negotiating with the Turkish Government on claims resulting from certain railroad construction which de Hirsch's interests had completed in the Ottoman Empire — claims aggregating 132 million francs. Baron de Hirsch and the Sublime Porte had reached an impasse and de Hirsch had suggested that the French or the Austrian Ambassador act as an arbitrator in the matter. The Sultan made the counter suggestion that the American Minister, Mr. Straus, act as arbitrator and that the two parties should offer him an honorarium of one million francs. The offer was made. Mr. Straus declined to serve as a paid arbitrator although the Sultan had obtained the consent of the American Secretary of State in advance. But Mr. Straus, acting privately as a mediator, without fee, brought about an understanding and made a lifelong friend of both the Sultan and the Baron.

The valuable presents given Mr. Straus when he left Turkey for the last time at the end of his third tour of duty, were presented by him to the Smithsonian Institution for the people of the United States. 

Mr. Straus' friendship with Baron de Hirsch later brought about the formation of the Baron de Hirsch Fund, the Jewish Agricultural Society, the Clara de Hirsch Home for Girls, and other large beneficences in the Western Hemisphere which are estimated to have represented a total of $62,000,000 of gifts from the Baron. Mr. Straus repeatedly declined any credit for directing these beneficences. "Neither my wife nor I," he used to say, "wish to claim any credit for the de Hirsch benevolent institutions. 

Following President Cleveland's defeat by Harrison in 1888, Mr. Straus, in accordance with custom, presented his resignation as Minister to Turkey and returned to New York to rejoin his brothers in business. 

Following the resignation of Dr. James B. Angell as Minister to Turkey, President McKinley in 1898 tendered the post to Mr. Straus. This was the first time that an individual had received the same appointive diplomatic office under both a Democratic and a Republican administration, and this occurrence has been held to be an early step toward the establishment of a merit system in the diplomatic service. Before his second mission to Turkey, Mr. Straus has recorded that there was considerable clamor that the United States send warships into the Bosphorus "to rattle the windows of the Sultan." Of this, Mr. Straus entirely disapproved and so told the President. Mr. Straus wrote that President McKinley answered, "I shall be guided by you. I shall support you. I have confidence in your ability and foresight. No vessels will be sent to Turkey unless you demand them and then only will they be sent, and when you get to London, I wish you to see Ambassador Hay and tell him that I have not only constituted you Minister to Turkey but Secretary of State for Turkey and that both he and I will be guided entirely by your judgment and advice." The second mission to Turkey, while not so eventful as the first, did result in a diplomatic victory thousands of miles removed. An uprising of Philippine natives professing the Mohammedan religion was imminent. Mr. Straus' intervention, which quelled this insurrection, saved the lives of an estimated twenty thousand United States soldiers which was the calculated loss that would have been sustained in the suppression of this rebellion. 

Resigning the mission to Turkey in 1900, Mr. Straus returned to the United States. He was enthusiastically received, and honored by degrees conferred by Washington and Lee University in Virginia and by the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1906, he advised Mr. Straus that he intended to invite him to become a member of his Cabinet. Mr. Straus recorded that the President said, "I have a very high estimate of your judgment and your ability and I want you for personal reasons. There is still a further reason; I want to show Russia and some other countries what we think of the Jews in this country." In December of that year, Mr. Straus took the oath of office as Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor, as it was then known. 

When President Taft was inaugurated on March 4, 1909, Mr. Straus again tendered his resignation, in accordance with custom, and returned to private life. Instead of re-entering business with his brothers, however, he devoted himself to activities in the public interest. But the pleasures of retirement were not his for long. Within a few months, Secretary of State Knox, on behalf of President Taft, offered Mr. Straus a third opportunity to serve in Turkey, this time with the rank of Ambassador, Constantinople hitherto having been a legation post. Mr. Straus accepted with great reluctance and only upon the urging of those who realized the importance of our relations with Turkey at the moment. There was a new Sultan and a regime with which he was not acquainted. He allowed himself to be persuaded, however, and returned to Turkey with his family. 

Ex-President Roosevelt, who was at that time on an expedition for the Smithsonian Institution in Africa, arranged for Mr. Straus to meet him in Cairo a little later and a series of events resulted in the formation of the Progressive Party under the leadership of ex-President Roosevelt in 1912. Following the Cairo conference, in the autumn of 1910, Mr. Straus returned to the United States on leave of absence. Observing that the breach between President Taft and ex-President Roosevelt had become irreparable, and being committed to Mr. Roosevelt's policies, Mr. Straus requested that he might be relieved of his mission.

[3] He had married Sarah Lavanburg, the only daughter of Louis and Hannah Lavanburg, in 1882. She was an extraordinarily beautiful young woman whose photographs and portraits reveal her as tall, graceful and dignified. She was fond of riding and all outdoor sports, was well read, liked people of all ranks and stations, and elicited affection from all.