YOUNG, OWEN D.

Owen D. Young was a prominent corporate lawyer and businessperson who played a major part in negotiating German reparations following world war i. His 1929 proposal to restructure reparations, called the Young Plan, was an attempt to relieve financial pressure on Germany and end active oversight of its economy by the United States, Great Britain, and France.

Young was born on October 27, 1874, in Van Hornesville, New York. He graduated from St. Lawrence University in 1894 and earned a law degree from Boston University in 1896. He later completed a doctorate in Hebrew literature in 1923 from St. Lawrence.

Young practiced law in Boston from 1896 until 1913, when he moved to New York City where he served as general counsel for the General Electric Company. He was chairperson of the board of directors from 1922 to 1939 and again from 1942 to 1944. Young also organized Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919 and was its honorary chairperson from its inception until 1929.

"Managers [are] no longer attorneys for stockholders, they [are] becoming trustees of an institution."
—Owen D. Young

In 1924 Young and Charles G. Dawes represented the United States at the post-World War I reparations conference. The treaty of versailles had mandated that a Reparations Commission be formed to determine how much Germany was to pay the Allies for war destruction and to set the terms of payment. The German government complained that the payment schedule was unrealistic. In response, the U.S.

representatives helped formulate the Dawes Plan under which Germany was to make billions of dollars of reparations stretching over a period of years.

The German economy prospered from 1924 to 1929 but it still could not make its annual reparations payment. The Reparations Commission, seeking to resolve the issue, appointed Young in 1929 to head a committee to develop a workable reparations plan. Young played a major role in creating the proposal, which reduced German reparations to approximately $26 billion, one-third the amount originally assessed in 1921. Payments were spread out over 58 years, ending in 1988, and were to be made to the new Bank for International Settlements. The Young plan also called for the dissolution of the Reparations Commission and an end to Allied occupation of the Rhineland. The German government quickly agreed to these terms.

Despite the more favorable terms, right-wing German opposition leaders campaigned against the Young Plan, seeing it as another attempt to humiliate Germany. adolf hitler and his Nazi party demanded the government repudiate the war debt and the war-guilt clause of Versailles upon which the debt was based. Nevertheless, the plan was approved by the German Reichstag. When Hitler came to power in 1933, however, he refused to recognize the plan and repudiated all war debts, making the Young Plan a dead letter.

Young died on July 11, 1962, in St. Augustine, Florida.

further readings

Case, Josephine Young, and Everett Needham. 1984. Owen D. Young and American Enterprise: A Biography. Boston: David R. Godine.

Marks, Sally. 2003. The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918–1933. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

cross-references

Hitler, Adolf; Treaty of Versailles.

Owen D. Young

Owen D. Young (1874-1962), American industrialist and monetary authority, authored financial plans for Germany after World War I.

Owen D. Young was born Oct. 27, 1874, on a farm near Van Hornsdale, N.Y. At the age of 16 he entered St. Lawrence University and in 1896 took his law degree cum laude from the Boston University Law School. Starting as a clerk in the firm of Charles H. Tyler, in 1907 Young became a partner. He also lectured at the Boston Law School. In 1898 he married Josephine Edmonds, who bore him four sons.

Young specialized in public utility securities law. The Panic of 1893 and the ensuing depression required reorganization of many utility companies, mainly because of the demise of their major supplier, General Electric (GE).

In 1913 Young's handling of a case against a GE subsidiary brought an invitation to become GE's general counsel. By 1922 he had become chairman of the board. Always interested in the problems of the laboring man, he pushed for the adoption of employee stock option plans and the use of unemployment insurance.

Young's participation in President Woodrow Wilson's Second Industrial Conference following World War I marked the beginning of his counseling of five U.S. presidents. In 1924 he coauthored the Dawes Plan, which provided for a reduction in the annual amount of German reparations, a loan to stabilize the German currency, and the French evacuation of the Ruhr Valley. The Dawes Plan worked, primarily because of American loans and investments. In the late 1920s investments fell, and Germany again defaulted on its payments. In 1929 a new international body met to consider a program for the final release of German obligations. Young acted as chairman. Germany's total reparations were reduced and spread over 59 annual payments. The Young Plan, which also reduced Allied war debts to the United States, collapsed with the coming of the Great Depression.

During the 1920s Young organized the Radio Corporation of America and acted as its board chairman until 1929, when he became chairman of the executive committee. In 1939 he retired to the family farm, where he began dairy farming. More than 20 colleges awarded him honorary degrees. Long interested in education, he served as a New York State regent and in 1949 labored on the state commission that recommended the present system of higher education. His donations to the New York Public Library were valued at over $1,000,000. He died on July 11, 1962.

Further Reading

For further details on Young see Ida M. Tarbell, Owen D. Young: A New Type of Industrial Leader (1932), and the section on him in Ray Thomas Tucker, The Mirrors of 1932 (1931).

Additional Sources

Case, Josephine Young, Owen D. Young and American enterprise: a biography, Boston: D.R. Godine, 1982. □