Fraser, Leon, 1889-1945

American banker; Reparations Commission general counsel for the Dawes Plan.

BIOGHIST REQUIRED Leon Fraser was a PhD graduate of Columbia University (he later added a law degree to his resume) who worked as a reporter for the New York World, was admitted to the New York bar (even though he did not yet hold a law degree), and returned to Columbia to teach public law at his alma mater. Fraser's support of pacifist causes in the years before America's entry into World War I caused Columbia to drop him as an instructor, but when America declared war on Germany, Fraser enlisted in the Army as a private. He rose to the rank of major by the end of the war and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his efforts; after the war he held a variety of administrative positions in both government and private industry, and he served as a director, trustee, chairman, and treasurer for a number of businesses and charitable organizations. Fraser and another American, Gates McGarrah, served as the first two presidents of BIS, the Bank for International Settlements. (Fraser is another anachronism in this piece: the BIS was not founded until 1930 and Fraser did not become its president until 1935, so he could not accurately have been described as "president of the Bank for International Settlements" in 1923.) In 1945, while the 55-year-old Fraser was president of First National Bank of New York, he committed suicide at his summer home in North Granville, NY. He left behind a suicide note stating that he had been "depressed mentally and [had] suffered from melancholia that gets steadily worse." Obituaries noted that he had been in "low spirits" since the death of his wife two years earlier.

Biographical/Historical Note

American banker; Reparations Commission general counsel for the Dawes Plan.