E.A. de Lima
Elias David Abinun "E.A." de Lima (April 24, 1865 – October 1, 1931) was a Curaçao-born American banker, merchant, lawyer, and public official. He was the founding president of the Battery Park National Bank of New York, a financial institution specializing in shipping, grain, and international commercial accounts. He also belonged to the mercantile firm D. A. de Lima & Co., whose challenge to duties collected on Puerto Rican sugar produced the landmark 1901 United States Supreme Court decision De Lima v. Bidwell.
During the aftermath of World War I, de Lima served as treasurer of the United States Sugar Equalization Board, the federal corporation responsible for purchasing and distributing the 1918–1919 Cuban sugar crop and helping stabilize American sugar supplies and prices. De Lima was also active in the development of commercial relations between the United States and Latin America and advised American businesspeople and policymakers on international banking, credit, and foreign exchange.
Early life and education
De Lima was born in Willemstad, Curaçao, then part of the Dutch West Indies, on April 24, 1865. He was the son of David A. de Lima and Sarah Wolff de Lima. His family belonged to Curaçao's long-established community of merchants engaged in commerce between the Caribbean, Europe, North America, and South America.
After moving to New York, de Lima attended Cornell University, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1886. While at Cornell, he was active in public speaking and student affairs. He received the Woodford Prize, served as class orator, served on the board of The Cornellian, and belonged to Theta Delta Chi and the Bench and Board society.
De Lima subsequently studied at Columbia Law School, completing his legal education in 1889. He was admitted to the New York bar the same year.
Mercantile and legal career
After completing his education, de Lima joined D. A. de Lima & Co., a New York export and commission house with extensive commercial connections in Latin America. The firm maintained offices in New York and Rio de Janeiro and handled orders for American machinery, manufactured products, and industrial equipment intended for South American markets.
The firm's activities placed de Lima at the intersection of international commerce, customs law, banking, and the expanding economic relationship between the United States and the Caribbean. Cornell's institutional history credited him with helping test the constitutionality of the federal government's tariff treatment of Puerto Rico in De Lima v. Bidwell.
De Lima v. Bidwell
The litigation arose after D. A. de Lima & Co. imported sugar from San Juan, Puerto Rico, following Spain's cession of the island to the United States at the conclusion of the Spanish–American War. Customs officials nevertheless treated the sugar as a foreign import and collected duties on it.
The firm paid the duties under protest and brought an action against George R. Bidwell, the collector of the Port of New York, seeking their recovery. The case became one of the group of constitutional decisions known as the Insular Cases.
In May 1901, the Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Rico had ceased to be a foreign country for purposes of the federal tariff laws after the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. The duties collected on the firm's sugar were therefore unlawful, and the importers were entitled to recover the payments. Although later Insular Cases developed the doctrine that not every constitutional provision automatically applied in newly acquired territories, De Lima was an important early determination of Puerto Rico's changed legal relationship with the United States.
Banking career
In 1904, de Lima helped organize the Battery Park National Bank in Lower Manhattan. The institution was organized on September 30, received its federal charter on October 19, and opened for business on November 21, 1904. De Lima was elected its first president.
The bank initially had $200,000 in capital and a paid-in surplus of approximately $103,000. Its offices were situated near Battery Park and the New York Custom House, placing it close to the city's shipping, commodities, foreign-exchange, and import-export businesses. Contemporary advertisements emphasized that the bank welcomed shipping and export accounts.
De Lima remained president for nearly two decades. Federal banking records identify him as president alongside cashier Edwin B. Day from 1905 through 1917 and cashier Arthur H. Merry from 1918 through 1922. By 1921, the bank reported $1.5 million in capital, approximately $1.7 million in surplus and profits, and more than $12 million in deposits.
The Battery Park National Bank developed a particular specialization in grain-dealer accounts, international commerce, foreign exchange, and the financing of shipments between the United States and Latin America.
In 1923, the directors of the Battery Park National Bank and the Bank of America approved a merger. Battery Park was first converted into a state-chartered bank and was then absorbed by the Bank of America as an additional branch. De Lima subsequently served as a director of the enlarged Bank of America organization.
Public service
Sugar Equalization Board
The United States Sugar Equalization Board was incorporated on July 11, 1918, under authority of the federal government and operated as an agency of the United States Food Administration. Its objectives included purchasing and distributing the 1918–1919 Cuban sugar crop, coordinating supplies with the Allied powers, equalizing the costs of domestic and imported sugar, and preventing severe regional shortages and price disparities.
Following the transfer of much of the board's work from Washington to New York, its financial and executive organization was restructured. On April 16, 1919, de Lima was elected treasurer, succeeding James Ford Bell, whose resignation became effective three days later. As treasurer, de Lima entered the organization while it was administering contracts with Cuban producers and American refiners and beginning the gradual dismantling of wartime restrictions on sugar consumption and distribution.
The board's officers served without compensation. Its control of the domestic sugar industry ended when its contract with American refiners expired on December 31, 1919, although the corporation remained in existence to settle accounts and litigation. It was formally abolished in 1926.
Relations with Latin America
De Lima became known in New York financial circles as an advocate of closer commercial and banking relations between the United States and Latin America. Drawing on his experience in the export trade, he argued that successful foreign commerce required detailed knowledge of international finance, the industries producing exported goods, local markets, commercial credit, and foreign-exchange practices.
He advised prospective exporters to begin with the fundamentals of the business and argued that the long-term position of the United States in South American markets would depend upon its ability to provide suitable goods, develop American banking facilities in the region, and improve mechanisms for financing foreign commercial paper.
De Lima also served on a United States committee concerned with Colombia during the Second Pan-American Financial Conference. The committee brought together bankers, manufacturers, academics, transportation executives, and federal officials to consider commercial and financial relations between the two countries.
His papers and speeches included commentary on the Federal Reserve Act and its relationship to international banking. A printed address by de Lima concerning the act is preserved among the papers of Federal Reserve Bank of New York governor Benjamin Strong Jr.
De Lima was additionally involved in discussions preceding the establishment of the American-administered customs receivership in the Dominican Republic. Historian J. Fred Rippy identified him among the New York banking figures who urged the United States government to intervene in the republic's unstable debt and customs situation in late 1904.
Civic and university activities
De Lima served as a director of the North American Trust Company and the First National Bank of Staten Island. He was also a trustee of the S. R. Smith Infirmary on Staten Island and an advisory counsel to a Staten Island branch of the Corn Exchange Bank.
He remained active in Cornell alumni affairs. During the university's early-1920s fundraising campaign, he served on a committee charged with soliciting major gifts from alumni and other supporters.
His memberships included the Cornell Club of New York, the Theta Delta Chi Graduate Club, the National Arts Club, the New York Athletic Club, and the Municipal Art Society of New York.
Personal life and death
De Lima married Estela A. de Lima in New York City on October 27, 1886. They had four children: Beatrice, Edith, Ernest Jr., and Estela.
De Lima died in Manhattan on October 1, 1931, at the age of 66. He was buried at Salem Fields Cemetery in Brooklyn.
See also
- DeLima v. Bidwell