Lubin, Simon Julius, 1876-1936

Simon Lubin, son of David Lubin (1849-1919), was a labor and agricultural economist, social worker, and educator. He graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in 1903, after having studied economics and philosophy. As a businessman, he ran Weinstock and Lubin, Inc. As the president of the California State Immigration and Housing Commission (1913-1923), he worked to improve the conditions in agricultural labor camps, developed an educational program for aliens, mediated and investigated labor disputes, and prepared housing and social welfare legislation. He also was a member of the National Labor Board, and organized the Sacramento Regional Citizens' Council (founded in 1926), a civic association dedicated to working on economic problems. He also served as a Chief of the California State Bureau of Commerce and was a founder of the Pan American Institute of Reciprocal Trade.

Biographical Sketch

Simon Julius Lubin was born in Sacramento on November 27, 1876. He began his long career of social and civic service, after graduation from Harvard University in 1903, as a settlement worker in Boston's South End House. In 1904 he lived in the lower east side of New York City, studying social problems. Returning to California in 1906, he took over the management of the store his father, David Lubin, founded with Harris Weinstock in Sacramento.

He achieved state-wide recognition in 1912 when he was appointed by Governor Hiram W. Johnson a member of the State Immigration Commission which was to investigate the immigration problems anticipated with the opening of the Panama Canal. He drafted a bill to create a permanent Commission of Immigration and Housing, which was approved by the Legislature in 1913. The Governor appointed him president of the new Commission which included also, as members, Mrs. Mary Gibson, the Reverend Father Edward J. Hanna, Paul Scharrenberg and Arthur B. Fleming. The Commission was entrusted with two major problems, the welfare of the immigrant and the related problem of his housing, and also handled special assignments such as investigations of the 1913 Wheatland hop field riot; the IWW activities during World War I and the vice conditions in Sacramento in 1918; the improvement of agricultural labor camps; and the development of housing legislation. In 1923 Lubin resigned from the Commission, at the request of Governor Friend W. Richardson, after a disagreement over the Governor's dismissal of Commission member Paul Scharrenberg.

Lubin continued his career as civic leader, organizing the Sacramento Region Citizens Council in 1926 and the Pan American Reciprocal Trade Conference in 1930, and serving as director of the Department of Commerce of California, 1932-1934, and special commissioner of the National Labor Board in 1932.

He died on April 15, 1936.