Herbert H. Lehman Herbert H. Lehman was committed to the common
good. He believed that the role and responsibility of government
was to look after those who desperately needed help and could
not help themselves; children, the elderly, the poor, the
disabled, and victims of oppression. He was a humble,
uncharismatic leader who approached problems in all their
complexity, resisting simplistic explanations and solutions. As
Governor of New York in the midst of the Great Depression, he
turned a budget deficit into a surplus while pushing through
social reforms we now take for granted: minimum wage,
unemployment insurance, old-age benefits, public housing, civil
rights, medical care for the disabled, and laws to protect
workers. From 1943 until 1946, as director of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, he directed the
largest international relief effort in history: 24 million tons
of food, clothing, and medical supplies to 500 million victims
of world war. He also gave his own money, often a