City Alums Reflect
on Legacy of Alexander Hamilton
By Dorothy Davis
The
subject of the New-York Historical Society’s major exhibit, “Alexander Hamilton: The Man
Who Made Modern America,” on view until February 28, 2005, was a gifted
child of another age, who overcame a devastating childhood to achieve greatness.
Four former gifted
children of our age, prominent alumni of The City University of New York,
who also overcame challenging childhoods to achieve success, took part in
a lively discussion, “Hamilton’s
Innovations: Today’s Success Stories,” at the Society the other
evening.
Hamilton’s financial
and political policies that made America the democratic world power it is today
and enabled the participants’ successes in finance, publishing and education
underpinned their stories. They talked of their experiences growing up in immigrant
communities, as high-achieving students and professionals, as contributors
to our society.
“My college education
opened up the world to me,” said Dr. Charlotte Frank, a Senior Vice President,
The McGraw Hill Companies, and the former Executive Director of the Division
of Curriculum and Instruction for the New York City Board of Education as well
as a former NYS Regent. “Suddenly I was out of the Bronx, onto this big
campus. Some teachers took me to museums. I was introduced to the city. As
part of being a business major I went down to Wall Street.”
“My interests at City College were young women and hopefully working
on Wall Street,” said Roger Hertog, Director and Vice Chairman, Alliance
Capital Management. “But I had a difficult professor who tried to make
you think, and did it in a non-political environment. He taught a course
on the Federalist Papers and the Greeks. Reading the Federalist Papers is
not easy to begin with, not to mention thinking about them in relation to
Aristotle and Socrates. This teacher, whatever you said, he’d argue
with you. When the whole class agreed on something he’d argue with
it.”
“I guess my experience
was less intellectual than others,” said Robert Friedman, Partner, Sage
Capital Management LLC and, until his retirement, a partner at Goldman Sachs. “I
went to engineering school at a time described as the Sputnik Era. If you were
any good at math and science you were moved into engineering. [When our class
met for the first time] we were told, ‘Look to your left and look to
your right, in four years two of you are not going to be here.’ We had
slide rules, closeted ourselves, did engineering and math problems for five
full years. I went to business school, Baruch College, at night and it was
the same kind of environment.”
These experiences
are reminiscent of Hamilton’s. He attended King’s College (now
Columbia University) as a young immigrant from the Caribbean, and a new world
opened up to him in New York City, a major commercial center. He was a principal
author of the Federalist Papers, and a talented debater, and he also had
a marked interest in the ladies. He came to manhood at a time of great challenge
in our country, and he worked hard to achieve success.
All of the panelists said that
their admiration of Hamilton had grown over time.
As Dr. Frank
observed, “I
didn’t know anything about Alexander Hamilton when I was in college,
other than that he was on the ten dollar bill. When I got older I appreciated
him. He was strongly opposed to slavery. He believed in a system of free common
schools where all children would be educated.”#
For more information: www.nyhistory.org
