Sam Zemurray
Samuel Zemurray (born 18 January 1877 in Chişinău, Russian Empire as Shmuel Zmurri, † November 30, 1961 in New Orleans) was an American banana business. He founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, which played an important and controversial role in the history of Honduras.
Life
Zemurray original name was Shmuel Zmurri. His poor Jewish family emigrated in 1891 to the United States. Zemurray had no formal training. Since 1895, he participated in the banana trade in Mobile, Alabama. His early wealth was based primarily on a very successful company in New Orleans, where he had bought on the transport ships ripened bananas and sells them on the spot immediately, which he entered into the previously untapped market segment of ripe to over-ripe bananas. His success earned him the nickname " Sam Banana Man" one. At twenty-one he possessed a fortune of one million U.S. dollars. In 1905 he and his partner Ashbel Hubbard bought a bankrupt steamship line on the United Fruit Company ( UFCO ) participated with 60 % of the capital. Zemurray went to Honduras and bought bananas along the Río Cuyamel. Despite their high debt, they developed a profitalbes business. The UFCO sold its shares in 1907; 1910 was Zemurray President of Cuyamel Fruit Company. In 1910 he bought 5000 acres of land along the Río Cuyamel and became heavily indebted for it.
The governments of Nicaragua and Honduras negotiated with the U.S. Secretary of State Philander C. Knox and JP Morgan over a detachment their debts to British and French banks. With the Government of Nicaragua had been agreed that the customs administration was placed under U.S. regime to collect the debt. Zemurray wanted to negotiate the tariff with the President of Honduras, Miguel R. Dávila personally. Knox warned him that he should refrain from doing so, and let him be monitored by the Office of Naval Intelligence. Zemurray returned to New Orleans, where he met the fallen at the battle of nacaome Honduran President Manuel Bonilla. Zemurray brought Bonilla with a mercenary force to Honduras back in March 1911 occupied Bonilla and his mercenaries the Islas de la Bahia off the east coast of Honduras and on March 28, 1911 Miguel R. Dávila fled. Manuel Bonilla presented Zemurray land concessions and low taxes safely. 1916 Zemurray had paid his debt. Because of the fierce competition with the UFCO to Zemurray bought in other parts of Central America. In 1922 he bought the Bluefields Fruit & Steamship Company in Nicaragua by his father Jake Weinberger in New Orleans. 1930 sold Zemurray the Cuyamel Fruit Company to the UFCO in Boston for $ 31.5 million in shares. In the world economic crisis, the share price of UFCO fell by 90 % from its resale value. 1933 Zemurray convinced the majority of the shareholders, to make him a director of United Fruit Company. He reorganized the company, decentralized decision making, and the company was profitable again. 1951 commissioned Zemurray Edward Bernays campaign against Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán a carry. In 1951 he retired as President of the UFCO.
Zemurray and his family made the Tulane University, the Escuela Agrícola Panamericana El Zamorano and the Zionist movement generous donations. Since the 1920s, he knew Chaim Weizmann personally. Zemurray also supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.