Sam Zemurray

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Samuel Zemurray (January 18, 1877-November 30, 1961) was a U.S. businessman. He made his fortune in the banana trade and founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, which played a significant and controversial role in the history of Honduras. Zemurray later became head of the United Fruit Company.

Zemurray's original name was Schmuel Zmurri. He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia (present-day Chişinău, Moldova) to a poor Jewish family that emigrated to America when he was fourteen years old. Zemurray had no formal education. He entered the banana trade in Mobile, Alabama in 1895, at the age of eighteen. His early wealth was largely due to a very successful venture in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he bought the bananas that had ripened in the transport ships and then sold them locally. His success earned him the nickname "Sam the Banana Man." By age twenty-one he had banked $100,000. He later bought a steamship and went to Honduras. In 1910, he bought 5,000 acres (20 km²) of land along the Cuyamel River. He later added more land and found himself heavily in debt.

Honduras and Nicaragua at the time were working to reschedule their debts. United States Secretary of State Philander C. Knox was involved in the negotiations, which would have agents of bankers J.P. Morgan and Company sitting in the countries' customs offices to collect the taxes needed to repay the debt. Zemurray feared that he would be taxed out of business and appealed to Knox for help. Knox spurned him so he returned to New Orleans, where deposed Honduran president Manuel Bonilla was living. Zemurray smuggled Bonilla back to Honduras and a revolution was fought that led to Bonilla's return to power. Bonilla granted Zemurray land concessions and low taxes that saved his business.

In 1930, Zemurray sold his company, Cuyamel Fruit, to the United Fruit Company of Boston, Massachusetts for $31.5 million in stock and retired. But the company suffered because of mismanagement and the Great Depression. The stock plunged 90% from when he sold, so Zemurray returned to the business in 1933 by voting out the board of directors. Zemurray reorganized the company, decentralizing decision making and made the company profitable once more. He retired as president of United Fruit in 1951.

Zemurray and his family made generous donations to Tulane University, Zamorano, and to other philantropic ventures. His former mansion on Saint Charles Avenue is now the residence of Tulane's president. His daughter, Doris Zemurray Stone, an archaeologist and ethnographer, served as the director of the National Museum of Costa Rica and endowed numerous professorial chairs in U.S. universities.

Sam Zemurray died in New Orleans, where he had lived for most of his life.

[edit] References

The Associated Press. "Samuel Zemurray, 84, Is Dead; Headed United Fruit Company." The New York Times. December 2, 1961.
Thomas P. McCann. On the Inside. Beverly, Massachusetts: Quinlan Press, 1987.