Haym Salomon - America's Forgotten Patriot

[happysandyh]

I've been transcribing some of my dad's sermon and this is part of one of them that I thought I'd like to share with you all. Dad also wrote a small book about this Forgotten Patriot of America, Haym Salomon.

"1975 the State of Israel published this stamp honoring a United States President; you might say well no wonder, we've done so much for Israel. They ought to honor Harry Truman, they ought to honor America. But, there's another side to the story and now we come to what I call 'The Forgotten Page of American History'. You see while the Israelis were publishing that stamp in Israel honoring Harry Truman, the United States Postal Department was publishing a very strange stamp. This US stamp came out in 1975 and it says 'contributors to the cause Haym Salomon financial hero revolutionary war and on the back of the stamp, and this is curious folks because you don't find too many stamps that have something printed on the gum side but I've got one of them with me and you can look at it if you want to - if you want to examine the stamp I've got one here. I've got the Truman stamp and the Haym Solomon stamp right here with me. It says quote 'Haym Salomon, financial hero of the American Revolution business man and broker who was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later to save the nation from collapse.' When I read that in 1975 I shook my head, I said nobody ever told me that in school, no history book I ever read even mentioned Haym Salomon as the man who saved our nation, who created our nation financially by supporting the Revolution, and furnishing most of the money needed to finance the Revolution. Oh, I'm going to turn back the pages of history tonight and for just a moment we're going to take a glimpse of Jerusalem the ancient capital of Israel in the middle 1700's. There it is a sleepy insignificant town almost forgotten by most of the world. Now at that same time period, half way around the world on a vast continent of North America on the Eastern edge of that continent a nation is struggling to be born. A revolutionary war of the colonials against Great Britain is being fought. A Declaration of Independence has been signed. And General George Washington is desperately trying to lead his troops to victory. But, one of the biggest problems that Washington faced was the fact that there was no money to buy guns. There was no money to buy powder and bullets. There was no money to buy uniforms and his followers were a rag tag bunch of colonials who didn't have decent uniforms or guns. In fact in the Winter time they didn't even have shoes to wear and they wrapped gunny sacks and burlap around their feet. Washington appealed to the Continental Congress but they had no power to tax the thirteen new states, they had not been given that power there was no way to get the money. And so the Continental Congress was in a bind, there was absolutely no way to finance the revolution. And without finance there would be no new nation. And without finance there would be no America. And so upon the scene of history comes the forgotten Jew. And we open the history book and find that a couple of pages must have gotten stuck together somewhere along the line. Because history has forgotten the Jew, Haym Salomon who went to Robert Morris who was the secretary treasure of the Continental Congress and gave him all his money. Then he started raising money and making loans to the Continental Congress he loaned another $800,000 to the Continental Congress. And time and time again when George Washington would make an appeal to Robert Morris who would raise the money through his brokerage, who would get the funds, who would go to the Jewish people in the early colonies - even on Yom Kippur when a Jew isn't supposed to touch money. On the Day of Atonement he went barging in the synagogue and said it's an emergency General Washington needs $20,000. The whole war effort is hinged upon this. And the Rabbi was aghast and said, Haym we can't touch money on Yom Kippur. And Haym said, I'm sorry Rabbi but America is the only hope for the Jew. America is the only hope we have that there'll ever be a liberty for all people to worship God, whether they're Christians or Jews this is our last hope we've got to raise the money. And people started getting money out of their pockets and people started writing checks. And the war was won. And when the war was over and General Washington was elected to be the first President of the new nation, congress once again was in trouble, they were bankrupt, there was no money to continue. The young nation was going to flounder for lack of finance. Once again the pages of history that have been stuck together fall open before our eyes, and it is the Jew - the forgotten Jew, Haym Salomon that walks into the scene and once again raises the money. The third congress acknowledged the debt owed to Haym Salomon and his descendants. I won't fantasize, I will only talk about the $800,000 that we Know for sure (there was probably a lot more) that Haym Salomon loaned to the government - he was never repaid a penny there was never any money to pay him. He died penniless and bankrupt a poor man having given his all, at the age of 44. I calculated or rather I had my banker calculate $800,000 from 1776 at 7% interest compounded quarterly for 209 years; ladies and gentlemen the United States Government owes the descendants of Haym Salomon over 3 Trillion dollars, more than the combined national debt, and by the year 2000 it's going to be around, I think, it's 5 or 6 Trillion dollars that we will owe to the descendants of Haym Salomon. Don't you ever listen to the critics on the television when they say, oh we shouldn't be giving that aid to Israel. Brother, I believe we owe a debt and God is looking down upon this world to see how we're going to respond to the debt of a forgotten Jew. And even more than that my friends to the challenge of His Word where will you stand in these vital issues."

[happysandyh]

Thank you, Nightsky - I'm glad you liked it!

[Nightsky]

I never heard about it before. I'm considering "sharing" it on facebook!

[happysandyh]

My dad did a lot of research to learn all these details - and more that are in the book! It's amazing to me that Haym Salomon played such an important part in America's history and yet most kids never learn about him in school and he's rarely mentioned anywhere. It's kind of interesting that since my dad wrote about him years ago I now hear speakers every now and then mentioning Hyam Salomon! In fact last summer Kenneth Copeland Ministries ordered several hundred copies of the book and sold it through their ministry, and Billye Brim has bought and sold hundreds of these books too.