Newton D. Baker to Ralph Hayes
Title
Newton D. Baker to Ralph Hayes
Creator
Baker, Newton Diehl, 1871-1937
Identifier
WWP16609
Date
1926 May 18
Description
Newton D. Baker refutes rumors that he is of Jewish descent in a letter to Ralph Hayes.
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
COPY
My dear Ralph:
You have several times asked me to write what, if anything, I know about the rumor which has from time to time been circulated to the effect that I am either in whole or part of Jewish descent. The rumor is unimportant, of course, but interesting as showing how that sort of thing gets started upon no real basis or fact and persists in the whispering galleries apparently because it is there echoed by other peiople’s prejudices.
The facts so far as I know them are simple. On my father’s side the Baker connection is English. My father’s mother was of German descent, the names Billmeyer, and both the Bakers and the Billmeyers have been in this country since at least as early as 1790, the Bakers living in Maryland and the Billmeyers in West Virginia, about across the Potomac River from one another near Shepardstown. Both families were large and in my boyhood I knew people in both families covering about three generations. On my mother’s side the combination is Irish and German. My mother’s father was a German named Dukehart from Wurttemberg and her mother was a Miss Murphy, who was brought from Ireland early in the 19th century by her widowed mother, her father having been an Irish sea captain who was lost at sea. In my boyhood I knew both the Murphy and the Dukehart connections for three generations but there were not so many of them as there were of either the Bakers or the Billmeyers.
I never knew a member of any of these four families who had the slightest physical appearance of being Jewish and I never heard the suggestion that any of them or their descendants, with the exception of myself, was a Jew.
I was born in Martinsburg, W. Va., in 1871, the third of five children. My father was a physician, and I regret to say that both he and my mother had a slight anti-Semitic prejudice, although neither of them were strong about it, and it appeared to be rather due to the fact that they had never known any Jewish people and their sentiment may rather have been a feeling against strangers whom they did not know than any racial or religious feeling.
The religious persuasions of the several families were as follows: the Bakers and Billmeyers were all Lutherans, some of them distinguished clergymen in the Lutheran Church. The Murphys were originally Presbyterians. The native religion of the Dukeharts I do not know, but my grandfather and grandmother, after their marriage, became Episcopalians through some controversy about infant baptism, and I have always regarded the compromise as an admirable adjustment of a controversial question.
Since my college days I have known many delightful Jewish people and have always numbered a lot of them among my cherished friends. With them I have often discussed the question of anti-Semitic prejudice and have as often told them that I thought the Jew, in his zeal for the preservation of the Jews as a distinct and separate people, was as much responsible for the prejudice as the Gentile. I have made addresses in Jewish Temples and in Synagogues, have worked on committees with Jews about Palestinian and other Jewish problems, have worked on questions of important public bearing with Jewish lawyers like Justice Brandeis and Judge Mack and with great Jewish leaders like Stephen Wise, whose enthusiasm and genius has been a blessing to every cause to which they have adhered.
That is the whole story. Its consequences have been highly diverting. A certain newspaper in this country was conducting a sort of anti-Jewish propaganda and seeking to prove that the Jews were running the government of the United States, set me down as one of the examples of a disguised Jew holding an important public position. Young men were employed and sent to interview all of my relatives to discover just how much Jewish blood I had, and when they denied I had any the young gentellemen always expressed great regret that my family knew so little about me. They read the baptismal records in all the churches to which any Baker or any Murphy ever went, and they photographed the moulding gravestones in two family cemeteries where my quiet ancestors had their first contact with moderyn photography. Meanwhile I have enjoyed the story and Ravbbi Margolies, who must have heard it, offered to trade jobs with me and become Mayer of Cleveland if I would take over his synagogue as Rabbi. We were about equally qualified for each other’s jobs.
Incidentally, it may be worth while to say that my wife’s maiden name was Elizabeth Leopold. Maybe that is where the cat got in the bag. The Leopold family is, I believe, Dutch. At any rate, it is Quaker and ancient Pennsylvanian. The rest of her family is Price and Streeper, both old English. They were all good Presbyterians until I captured Mrs. Baker to the extent of her permitting our children to be baptized in the Episcopal Church, beyond which neither she nor I have ever discussed a sectarian difference. So far as I have been able to learn, there is no suggestion of Jewish inheritance on either side of the family.
I will add one other observation. So nearly as I can balance such matters, I am about as often called a Roman Catholic as I am a Jew. I wish I could find among my ancestors some one who had been a Roman Catholic. Unhappily, however, that great Church does not appear to have been adhered to by any of my forbears from the time of Martin Luther down.
Affectionately yours,
(Signed) Newton D. Baker.
My dear Ralph:
You have several times asked me to write what, if anything, I know about the rumor which has from time to time been circulated to the effect that I am either in whole or part of Jewish descent. The rumor is unimportant, of course, but interesting as showing how that sort of thing gets started upon no real basis or fact and persists in the whispering galleries apparently because it is there echoed by other peiople’s prejudices.
The facts so far as I know them are simple. On my father’s side the Baker connection is English. My father’s mother was of German descent, the names Billmeyer, and both the Bakers and the Billmeyers have been in this country since at least as early as 1790, the Bakers living in Maryland and the Billmeyers in West Virginia, about across the Potomac River from one another near Shepardstown. Both families were large and in my boyhood I knew people in both families covering about three generations. On my mother’s side the combination is Irish and German. My mother’s father was a German named Dukehart from Wurttemberg and her mother was a Miss Murphy, who was brought from Ireland early in the 19th century by her widowed mother, her father having been an Irish sea captain who was lost at sea. In my boyhood I knew both the Murphy and the Dukehart connections for three generations but there were not so many of them as there were of either the Bakers or the Billmeyers.
I never knew a member of any of these four families who had the slightest physical appearance of being Jewish and I never heard the suggestion that any of them or their descendants, with the exception of myself, was a Jew.
I was born in Martinsburg, W. Va., in 1871, the third of five children. My father was a physician, and I regret to say that both he and my mother had a slight anti-Semitic prejudice, although neither of them were strong about it, and it appeared to be rather due to the fact that they had never known any Jewish people and their sentiment may rather have been a feeling against strangers whom they did not know than any racial or religious feeling.
The religious persuasions of the several families were as follows: the Bakers and Billmeyers were all Lutherans, some of them distinguished clergymen in the Lutheran Church. The Murphys were originally Presbyterians. The native religion of the Dukeharts I do not know, but my grandfather and grandmother, after their marriage, became Episcopalians through some controversy about infant baptism, and I have always regarded the compromise as an admirable adjustment of a controversial question.
Since my college days I have known many delightful Jewish people and have always numbered a lot of them among my cherished friends. With them I have often discussed the question of anti-Semitic prejudice and have as often told them that I thought the Jew, in his zeal for the preservation of the Jews as a distinct and separate people, was as much responsible for the prejudice as the Gentile. I have made addresses in Jewish Temples and in Synagogues, have worked on committees with Jews about Palestinian and other Jewish problems, have worked on questions of important public bearing with Jewish lawyers like Justice Brandeis and Judge Mack and with great Jewish leaders like Stephen Wise, whose enthusiasm and genius has been a blessing to every cause to which they have adhered.
That is the whole story. Its consequences have been highly diverting. A certain newspaper in this country was conducting a sort of anti-Jewish propaganda and seeking to prove that the Jews were running the government of the United States, set me down as one of the examples of a disguised Jew holding an important public position. Young men were employed and sent to interview all of my relatives to discover just how much Jewish blood I had, and when they denied I had any the young gentellemen always expressed great regret that my family knew so little about me. They read the baptismal records in all the churches to which any Baker or any Murphy ever went, and they photographed the moulding gravestones in two family cemeteries where my quiet ancestors had their first contact with moderyn photography. Meanwhile I have enjoyed the story and Ravbbi Margolies, who must have heard it, offered to trade jobs with me and become Mayer of Cleveland if I would take over his synagogue as Rabbi. We were about equally qualified for each other’s jobs.
Incidentally, it may be worth while to say that my wife’s maiden name was Elizabeth Leopold. Maybe that is where the cat got in the bag. The Leopold family is, I believe, Dutch. At any rate, it is Quaker and ancient Pennsylvanian. The rest of her family is Price and Streeper, both old English. They were all good Presbyterians until I captured Mrs. Baker to the extent of her permitting our children to be baptized in the Episcopal Church, beyond which neither she nor I have ever discussed a sectarian difference. So far as I have been able to learn, there is no suggestion of Jewish inheritance on either side of the family.
I will add one other observation. So nearly as I can balance such matters, I am about as often called a Roman Catholic as I am a Jew. I wish I could find among my ancestors some one who had been a Roman Catholic. Unhappily, however, that great Church does not appear to have been adhered to by any of my forbears from the time of Martin Luther down.
Affectionately yours,
(Signed) Newton D. Baker.
Original Format
Letter
To
Hayes, Ralph A.
Files
Collection
Citation
Baker, Newton Diehl, 1871-1937, “Newton D. Baker to Ralph Hayes,” 1926 May 18, WWP16609, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.