A Word In Edgewise: If You’ve Come With Nothing, How Much is Enough?

William Sturdivant (Emanuel Lehman), Mark Nelson (Mayer Lehman), Edward Gero (Henry Lehman).
William Sturdivant (Emanuel Lehman), Mark Nelson (Mayer Lehman), Edward Gero (Henry Lehman). Photo by Dan Norman

1844: A Bavarian man stands alone on a New York pier. Newly arrived in America, he has only a suitcase, not even an identity until an impatient immigration official haggles his alien “Heyum” into American “Henry” and pares a final “n” off Lehmann. The man, Henry Lehman, now has a name, a suitcase — and dreams.

It can’t have been easy, being just one among a myriad of other Jewish immigrants jostling on the crowded docks on the fringe of a teeming city. Of course, on this stage, nothing actually teems — only Henry, joined later by brothers Emanuel, and Meyer, the first American Lehmans, will appear. The three become all: wives, offspring, Alabama plantation owner, investor, the cacophony of voices flowing through the next 164 years. But now, New York is cold, crowded, indifferent. Henry moves to Montgomery, Ala., closer to cotton.

In their little shop, selling a broad array of fabrics — “by the yard or inch, even dineem!”— profit is scant. Manuel and Meyer arrive. What if … what if we just bought raw cotton, and sold in bulk to the northern mills? And they did, brokering entire crops from scores of plantations, until…

War. Dark and bloody ground replaced the white gold of cotton; blockades restricted moving any that remained. Emanuel moved up to New York, the center of the action and the money. Meyer joins him; they found the New York Cotton Exchange, then realize, “Railroads are the coming thing!” The Lehmans transition to investment banking, suavely offering, “If you, Mr. Railway Man, guarantee us nine million dollars, we will see you get the funding you need. All kinds of product will roll and we both will profit. And Railway Man agreed, no, he believed— and it was done, and the money rolled.

Nearing the end of the century, Lehman Brothers joins the New York Stock Exchange. Family evolves, Henry dies (of yellow fever) at 33, Meyer at 67, and Emanuel at 79. All three missed the horror of 1929’s Black Thursday. But Lehman Brothers — the entity — scraped along.

One of Meyer’s three sons, Herbert Henry, left the business at 50 for “politics” (mentioned sarcastically by kin). He served in his own fashion, as a New York senator and four-times governor (D) of that state from 1933 to 1942, receiving in 1961 a Freedom Award from President Lyndon B. Johnson, while Lehman Brothers, always looking to mine the future, were investing in the Digital Equipment Corporation.

How was it then, after pulling through the Crash of ’29, that on September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, and America tipped into the Great Recession? What’s the lesson here? Henry came with nothing, then he, Emanuel and Meyer created something. Something big, wealth, yes. But they invented the middleman, the broker, and turned skepticism into belief, belief into money.

Nature proliferates beyond “enough,” but is there any limit to just “how much” can pair sustainably with “sufficiency”? Perhaps one limit on humans is their brief hold on mortality. And their insistence on individuality.

The world’s largest tree is a quaking aspen clone named “Pando” (Latin for “I spread”) whose some 40,000 stems now blanket 106 acres in Fishlake National Forest in central Utah, calculated to have sprung from a seed germinated at the end of the last Ice Age. Termites too, are no slouches at acquisition and proliferation: One African mound’s sixty-foot dome provided air-conditioning for 200 miles of tunnels, while a recent termite megalopolis discovered in Brazil revealed some million mounds dating back 4,000 years.

Is continued acquisition natural? Or a human failing? Aspen and termite alike were created for their single task, the individuals living, dying throughout time. There’s no maverick, lemon-bearing aspen, no termite Falling Water terraced cone. For the brothers Lehman, only three, aiming for the same goal, perceived the prize through different lenses. And a lesson learned in human time may not suit the next crisis in a human society. Are we witnessing good guys and villains here or individuals doing their best with a world in flux?

Don’t miss this one. Edward Gero (Henry), William Sturdivant (Emanuel) and Mark Nelson (Meyer) offer a stunning array of characters along the Lehmans’ measuring cloth in feet and inches to 2008’s dancing on the brink — and on the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage through October 13.

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