Sol Bloom | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York | |
| In office March 4, 1923[1] – March 7, 1949 | |
| Preceded by | Walter M. Chandler |
| Succeeded by | Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. |
| Constituency | 19th district (1923–45) 20th district (1945–49) |
| Chairman of theUnited States House Committee on Foreign Affairs | |
| In office January 3, 1949 – March 7, 1949 | |
| Preceded by | Charles A. Eaton |
| Succeeded by | John Kee |
| In office January 3, 1939 – January 3, 1947 | |
| Preceded by | Samuel Davis McReynolds |
| Succeeded by | Charles A. Eaton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1870-03-09)March 9, 1870 Pekin, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | March 7, 1949(1949-03-07) (aged 78) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 1 |
Sol Bloom (March 9, 1870 – March 7, 1949) was an American song-writer and politician fromNew York City who began his career as an entertainment impresario andsheet music publisher inChicago. He served 14 terms in theUnited States House of Representatives from theWest Side ofManhattan, serving from 1923 until his death in 1949.
Bloom was born March 9, 1870, inPekin, Illinois, toPolish-Jewish immigrants who soon moved toSan Francisco.[2] He was introduced to theater production in his early teens, then became a theater manager, staging boxing matches featuring"Gentleman Jim" Corbett. Seeking ever more spectacular attractions, he attended theExposition Universelle (1889) inParis, where he was particularly taken with the dancers and acrobats of the "Algerian Village," somewhat representative of France'sAlgerian colony.
Bloom could converse sparingly in four or five European languages, and was adept in sign language.[3]
Bloom established his reputation in 1893 at the age of 23 while developing the mile-longMidway Plaisance at theWorld's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Midway Plaisance offered enticing games and exhibitions presented by private vendors, removed from the more conservativeBeaux-Arts splendor of the official exposition and arranged around its "Court of Honor". After initially entrusting the midway to a Harvard anthropology professor, the committee turned to Bloom, whose "Midway" was so successful that the term resided henceforth in the American lexicon. At the "Street in Cairo", the North Africanbelly dance was reinvented as the "hootchy-kootchy dance" to a tune made up by Bloom, "The Streets of Cairo, or the Poor Little Country Maid", whose century-old lyrics had traditionally been sung by young boys: "O they don't wear pants/on the sunny side of France"; "There's a place in France/where the women wear no pants"; "...where the naked ladies dance", etc. Bloom did not copyright the tune, which he'd conceived on a piano at the Press Club of Chicago. In her bookStriptease, The Untold Story of the Girlie Shows, Rachel Shteir stated that Bloom made money equal to that of U.S. PresidentGrover Cleveland from his exotic dance shows.[4][5] Bloom also published and promoted “Coon, Coon, Coon”, one of the most famous entries in thecoon song genre.
Bloom's role in helping to develop the fair had been at the behest of MayorCarter Harrison III, whowas assassinated only days before the exposition closed. Bloom then rose in stature in Chicago's toughfirst ward among the Democratic party's bosses"Bathhouse" John Coughlin and"Hinky Dink" Kenna. Soon, he became Chicago branch manager of M. Witmark & Sons, the largest publisher ofsheet music in the United States, and by 1896 he was publishing under his own name and introducing photolithographs to make the scores more visually appealing. In 1897 he married Evelyn Hechheimer and settled in a fashionable district on South Prairie Avenue, billing himself as "Sol Bloom, the Music Man".[6] At the turn of the 20th century, he was awarded, to much fanfare, the first musical copyright of the new century for "I Wish I Was in Dixie Land Tonight" by Raymond A. Browne.
In 1903 he moved to New York City, where he dabbled in real estate and expanded his national chain ofdepartment store music departments. In New York, he soldVictor Talking Machines. Bloom soon switched his political affiliation from Republican to the Democrats'Tammany Hall, so that when Representative-electSamuel Marx of New York's 19th Congressional District died in 1922, Bloom was invited to run and won the usually Republican Upper West Side district of Manhattan by 145 votes. He represented the district until his death in 1949.
A confidential 1943 analysis of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee byIsaiah Berlin for the BritishForeign Office stated that[7]
(The committee's) main weakness is probably the leadership of Sol Bloom, whose chairmanship of the committee is due solely to the processes of seniority, and certainly not to any outstanding ability or knowledge of foreign affairs, but this is made up for by his blind loyalty to the President's policies ... Has been in Congress since 1923. Is politically friendly toward the British and has been a consistent supporter of F.D.R.'s foreign policies. A Jew, who was elected mostly by Jewish and foreign elements in his New York district, he tends, therefore, to be Europe-conscious and strongly anti-Nazi. He is of the easy-going, superficial, glad-handish type rather than a man of outstanding intellect; intensely patriotic in an emotional way despite his leaning towards internationalism. He helped to pilot the originalLend-Lease Act through the committee, and introduced the Act to extend Lend-Lease for one year. Age 73.
In Congress Bloom oversaw celebration of the George Washington Bicentennial (1932) and presided over the U.S. Constitution Sesquicentennial Exposition (1937). He chaired theHouse Committee on Foreign Affairs beginning in 1939. A strong supporter ofZionism, Bloom was a delegate to theconvention in San Francisco that established the United Nations. The first words of thePreamble to the United Nations Charter, "We, the Peoples of the United Nations .. ." were suggested by Bloom.[8]
In January 1946, Bloom represented the US at the first meeting of theUN General Assembly in London. He called his success in persuading a majority of the Assembly to allow the new United Nations organization to assume the finances of the earlierUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration "the supreme moment" of his life.[9]
Bloom was the chairman of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee from 1939 to 1947 and then again in 1949, during critical periods of American foreign policy. In the run-up to World War II, he took charge of high-priority legislation for theRoosevelt Administration, including authorization forLend Lease in 1940. He oversaw Congressional approval of the United Nations and of theUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which worked to assist millions of displaced people in Europe. He was a member of the American delegation at the creation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 and at theRio Conference in 1947.
In coordination with America's mainstream Jewish leadership, especiallyWorld Jewish Congress executivesStephen Wise andNachum Goldman, Bloom strongly opposed and obstructed[citation needed] theHillel Kook-ledEmergency Committee for the Rescue of European Jewry, (also known as theBergson Group).
In the fall of 1943, Bloom initiated a Congressional hearing to investigate Kook and his group's rescue-oriented actions and their demand that America do something meaningful[clarification needed] to protect the Jews of Europe. Right beforeYom Kippur that year, Bloom tried to dissuade a group of about 400 Orthodox rabbis from marching to Washington and appealing to PresidentFranklin D Roosevelt for some meaningful way to save remnants of Jews abandoned in Europe. Along with some progressive American Jewish leaders, Bloom felt the rabbis looked too un-American and that their march would be an unseemly spectacle. The "Rabbis' March" proceeded, however, with Hillel Kook. (Roosevelt avoided meeting them on the advice of a Jewish adviser.)[citation needed]
Bloom adopted the mainstreamZionist position[clarification needed] that the only way to save the doomed Jews of Europe was for Britain to open the gates toMandatory Palestine.Stephen Wise stated the same ideology at the Congressional hearing. Hillel Kook said one of the main reasons his group's rescue activity was intensely obstructed was that his desire to save Jews from the Nazis with any possible place of refuge, not just Palestine.[citation needed] This was considered a betrayal of Zionism.[clarification needed]
In spite of the obstruction, Roosevelt established theWar Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944 due to the persistent pressure, publicity and lobbying by the Bergson Group and the demand from Treasury SecretaryHenry Morgenthau and his team. Per Prof.David Wyman, the WRB protected close to 200,000 people. Some consider this to be an overestimate. One of the WRB's known achievements was convincing Swedish nobleRaoul Wallenberg to go to Budapest, where he saved large number of Jews from the Hungarian Fascists and the Nazis.
Bloom urgently lobbied PresidentHarry Truman in 1948 to immediately recognize the Jewish state of Israel, which Truman did. When theRepublicans took control of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the 1946 election, Bloom worked closely with the new chairman,Charles Eaton. They secured approval for theTruman Doctrine and theMarshall Plan.[10]
He died in Washington, D.C. on March 7, 1949 at the age of 78.
The Sol Bloom Playground inManhattan is named in his honor.[11]
His papers, most of them dating from 1935 to 1949, are stored at theNew York Public Library.
Bloom lost a bet withWashington Senators pitcherWalter Johnson after Johnson successfully threw a silver dollar across theRappahannock River inFredericksburg, Virginia. Although the wager had been highly publicized, Bloom cited technicalities and refused to pay.[12]
In 1937, Bloom spearheaded the writing and publication ofThe Story of the Constitution by the United States Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission.
His wife Evelyn (died 1941) was a composer and singer,[13] and their daughter Vera was an author and lyricist who provided words to the tango "Jalousie".[14][15][16]
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 19th congressional district March 4, 1923 – January 3, 1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 20th congressional district January 3, 1945 – March 7, 1949 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee 1939 – 1949 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theHouse Foreign Affairs Committee 1949 | Succeeded by |
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