<v Speaker 1>I'm Jerry Broadway and This is Anonymous America where we

<v Speaker 1>dig a little deeper into American history to find the

<v Speaker 1>unsung heroes behind our country story. And in this episode,

<v Speaker 1>if Alexander Hamilton was America's financial architect, Hame Salomon was

<v Speaker 1>the guy who kept the lights on long enough for

<v Speaker 1>Hamilton to have something to build from. Haydad Productions, This

<v Speaker 1>is Anonymous America. Hame Salomon was born in seventeen forty

<v Speaker 1>in what is now known as Poland. He spoke multiple

<v Speaker 1>languages and he had experience in international finance before he

<v Speaker 1>moved to New York in seventeen seventy five. Now, of course,

<v Speaker 1>the following year the colonies would declare their independence, which,

<v Speaker 1>as we all know, did not sit well with the

<v Speaker 1>King of England. Seventeen seventy six was also the year

<v Speaker 1>that the British Army occupied New York City, basically turning

<v Speaker 1>it into a military base for the next seven years.

<v Speaker 1>And once they had settled in, they sent for Hame

<v Speaker 1>Salomon because the British command had learned that one of

<v Speaker 1>the languages ham spoke was German, and so he was

<v Speaker 1>volume told that effective immediately, he was going to be

<v Speaker 1>an interpreter for the Hessian mercenaries that were serving under

<v Speaker 1>the British. Ham agreed, but he had other plans. Instead

<v Speaker 1>of just translating orders from the army, Ham encouraged the

<v Speaker 1>mercenaries to desert and convinced them to help a large

<v Speaker 1>number of patriot prisoners escape on their way out of town.

<v Speaker 1>Now the British discovered what he was up to, and,

<v Speaker 1>needless to say, they weren't happy, so he was arrested

<v Speaker 1>and thrown in prison for eighteen months, at which point

<v Speaker 1>he received a pardon from the King on the condition

<v Speaker 1>that he continued working as an interpreter between the British

<v Speaker 1>and the Hessians. Look nobody ever said the king was

<v Speaker 1>a genius. In seventeen seventy eight, Ham got caught doing

<v Speaker 1>the exact same thing again and was arrested. This time,

<v Speaker 1>he was charged with espionage and sentenced to death by hanging. Now,

<v Speaker 1>the details of what happened next are a little fuzzy.

<v Speaker 1>They've been lost to history because records from that time

<v Speaker 1>aren't exactly pristine. But here's what we do know. Hame

<v Speaker 1>escaped custody before the sentence could be carried out, presumably

<v Speaker 1>with the help from a group called the Sons of Liberty,

<v Speaker 1>which he had been a member of for many, many years,

<v Speaker 1>a little fact that the British overlooked during the vetting

<v Speaker 1>of spy candidates process. Hame and his family left New

<v Speaker 1>York City and they moved to Philadelphia. Now they were

<v Speaker 1>essentially penniless when they got there because the British had

<v Speaker 1>seized all of his property and all of his assets.

<v Speaker 1>But since Philly was the financial hum of the revolution,

<v Speaker 1>Hame set up shop as a broker, specializing in international

<v Speaker 1>finance and government securities. His knowledge in those fields allowed

<v Speaker 1>him to become one of the most successful wealthiest people

<v Speaker 1>in the country, which worked out great for the country

<v Speaker 1>because at the time the revolution was not going well.

<v Speaker 1>The Continental Congress had a recurring problem in those days.

<v Speaker 1>They broke, not budget deficit, broke, not government shuntdown. Broke.

<v Speaker 1>I'm not sure we can feed the army next week. Broke.

<v Speaker 1>Congress was printing money so fast it became nearly worthless.

<v Speaker 1>Soldiers weren't getting paid, Morale was coming apart at the seams.

<v Speaker 1>The revolution was in danger of running out of cash

<v Speaker 1>before it ran out of courage, and that's when Hame

<v Speaker 1>Salomon stepped up. One of the wildest facts about Ham

<v Speaker 1>is that the people at the time trusted him more

<v Speaker 1>than they trusted the US government. In seventeen eighty one,

<v Speaker 1>Ham began to sell government bonds by backing them with

<v Speaker 1>his own reputation and credit because investors believed that Ham

<v Speaker 1>would make good on obligations more than they believed the

<v Speaker 1>young American government would, and through the sale of those bonds,

<v Speaker 1>an enormous amount of money was raised for the cause. Now,

<v Speaker 1>we all know that it was in seventeen eighty one

<v Speaker 1>that the Battle of Yorktown was fought. But here's the

<v Speaker 1>part that gets overlooked about that very decisive battle of

<v Speaker 1>the war. George Washington needed money to move and supply

<v Speaker 1>his troops for the Yorktown campaign, and Congress didn't have it.

<v Speaker 1>Robert Morris, who was America Superintendent of Finance at the time,

<v Speaker 1>didn't have it. So Robert Morris turned to his personal broker,

<v Speaker 1>a guy named Hame Salomon. Hame loaned the government twenty

<v Speaker 1>thousand dollars for the campaign. In today's dollars, that would

<v Speaker 1>be about seven hundred thousand, and Washington used Ham's money

<v Speaker 1>to end the war, but Ham didn't just loan money

<v Speaker 1>to the government. He loans money directly to key leaders.

<v Speaker 1>Future President James Madison was among those who received financial

<v Speaker 1>assistance from Ham. Several members of Congress relied on him

<v Speaker 1>because they couldn't even afford their living expenses while serving

<v Speaker 1>the new nation, and between fundraising efforts and personal loans,

<v Speaker 1>Hame helped direct or provide enormous sums for the Patriot cause.

<v Speaker 1>But when he died in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty five

<v Speaker 1>at the age of forty four, many of those loans

<v Speaker 1>had never been repaid. Hame's family spent years unsuccessfully seeking

<v Speaker 1>reimbursement from Congress. The man who helped fund America's birth

<v Speaker 1>never got to see America pick up its tab as

<v Speaker 1>the government kicked off a habit of being in debt

<v Speaker 1>that continues to this day. And while Hame Salomon has

<v Speaker 1>gone mostly unnoticed in history books, a US postage stamp

<v Speaker 1>honored him back in nineteen seventy five as a financial hero.

<v Speaker 1>And if you look hard enough in the city of Chicago,

<v Speaker 1>you'll find a monument featuring George Washington, Robert Morris, and

<v Speaker 1>Haym Salomon standing together, But a stamp and a statue

<v Speaker 1>just doesn't feel like enough recognition for the guy who

<v Speaker 1>pretty much single handedly saved the revolution. And that's why

<v Speaker 1>we're honoring him here. Because when Americans talk about the

<v Speaker 1>heroes of the Revolution, we remember the soldiers who fought,

<v Speaker 1>the statesman who debated, and the generals who led. But

<v Speaker 1>sometimes the fate of a nation can come down to

<v Speaker 1>a guy with a ledger book, a good reputation, and

<v Speaker 1>enough courage to bet his entire fortune on an idea

<v Speaker 1>called America. That guy was same Salomon in That's Anonymous America.