JACOB H. SCHIFF 
 
 January 10, 1847 — September 25, 1£
 
 Jacob Henry Sghiff 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
 
 BY 
 
 GYRUS ADLER 
 
 New York 
 
 The American Jewish Committee 
 
 1921
 
 Copyright by 
 
 The American Jewish Committee 
 
 1921 
 
 Hcprinted, toilh minor changes, from the American Jewish Year Book, Volume 23
 
 mi^ 
 
 JACOB HENRY SCHIFF 
 A BioGRAPHiCAii Sketch 
 
 I 
 
 Jacob H. Schiff was known in all parts of 
 the American continent, in every country of 
 Europe, in Palestine, in Japan, in fact through- 
 out the civilized world. Vaguely he was 
 considered as the combination of a great 
 financier and a great philanthropist, but in 
 neither capacity had the extent of his deeds 
 been brought home to any considerable pro- 
 portion of the vast numbers to whom his 
 name was familiar. 
 
 What manner of man was this who, of no 
 ruling family or exalted official station, so 
 impressed himself upon the imagination of 
 people in many climes and in all conditions 
 of life.'^ To answer this question is well nigh 
 impossible in a brief sketch. And yet the 
 attempt should be made, for mankind is 
 enriched by the story of great personalities, 
 and future generations are stimulated to high 
 deeds by the knowledge of the acts of those 
 who have gone before. The public, too, has 
 a right to know of the lives of those whom it 
 has followed and admired, so that it may be
 
 ^ Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 ennobled by the consciousness of the "merits 
 of the fathers." 
 
 Jacob H. Schiff was born at Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main on January 10, 1847, and died in 
 New York on September 25, 1920. He was 
 descended of a family known to have been 
 settled in Frankfort since 1370. The pedi- 
 gree carefully worked out in the Jewish En- 
 cyclopedia presents the longest continuous rec- 
 ord of any Jewish family now in existence. 
 The earliest Schiff, named Jacob Kohen Zedek, 
 was dayyan (ecclesiastical judge) of the Frank- 
 fort community in the fourteenth century. 
 Another, Meir Kohen Zedek Schiff, was parnas 
 (president) of the community in 1626. Among 
 those who followed were business men and a 
 number of Rabbis. Of the latter several were 
 men of distinction, notably Meir ben Jacob 
 Schiff, called Maharam Schiff (1608-1644). 
 He was a prolific author, composing commen- 
 taries on the entire Talmud, some of which 
 were published in 1737. Another member of 
 the family who gained eminence in the Rab- 
 binate was David (Tebele) Schiff, who became 
 chief rabbi of England in 1765 and died in 
 London in 1792. He was a preacher of great 
 power and also a man of native abihty, as is
 
 A Biographical Sketch 5 
 
 shown by his correspondence recently pub- 
 hshed by Doctor Charles Duscliinsky in his 
 work The Rabbinate of the Great Synagogue. 
 
 It is impossible and indeed inappropriate 
 even to endeavor to give here an outline of 
 the history of this distinguished family. The 
 few facts mentioned are intended to indicate 
 that for over six hundred years there can be 
 traced an unbroken line of rabbis, scholars, 
 men of affairs, and communal leaders, all of 
 whose qualities went to make up the back- 
 ground of the very remarkable man who is 
 the subject of this sketch and in whose single 
 person nearly all the traits of this long line 
 of ancestors were blended — some appearing in 
 greater proportion than others, but all never- 
 theless present. 
 
 His immediate forbears were Moses Schiff 
 and Clara Niederhofheim. The father, a 
 man of high sense of duty, exact and stern, 
 was rigorously devoted to religious observ- 
 ances, and demanded a similar devotion on 
 the part of his children; the mother was a 
 woman of sweet and conciliatory nature. The 
 distinctive traits of both of these personalities 
 were found in the son, for Mr. Schiff set before 
 himself a life of exacting duty, whilst toward
 
 6 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 others he showed great kindliness and consid- 
 eration. 
 
 His education, both secular and religious, 
 was thorough for a layman. In the course 
 of time, by wide reading and contact with 
 men, he acquired a broad, general cultivation. 
 He had a good knowledge of the Hebrew lan- 
 guage, and could freely quote the Bible in 
 the sacred tongue. He read some favorite 
 commentaries, and kept himself abreast of 
 the developments in biblical studies. His 
 exactness in method and his knowledge of, 
 and interest in, Jewish learning undoubtedly 
 went back to the excellent if severe training 
 of his boyhood days. 
 
 In 1865 he left Frankfort ostensibly for 
 England, but he had already determined upon 
 America as his future home. As the voyage 
 across the Atlantic was in those days still a 
 fearsome enterprise, he stopped in England 
 long enough to write a series of letters to his 
 mother which were left in the hands of a 
 friend to be mailed at regular intervals, so 
 that the mother should be spared the anxiety 
 of his passage across the ocean until a letter 
 would have been received from New York 
 announcing his arrival there.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 7 
 
 In New York he was employed for a time 
 in the brokerage firm of Frank and Sons, and 
 later became a partner in the firm of Budge, 
 Schiff and Company. After the death of his 
 father, in 1873, he went to Germany, intending 
 to live with his mother, but the spirit of America 
 had entered his soul, and his mother, to whom 
 he was deeply attached, herself suggested that 
 he should return to the United States. 
 
 On January 1, 1875, he became a member 
 of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Com- 
 pany, and before many years the older mem- 
 bers of the firm, recognizing his financial genius, 
 were glad to accord him the headship of the 
 house. 
 
 II 
 
 To describe the financial career of Mr. 
 Schiff is not the purpose of this sketch, which, 
 designed for the American Jewish Year Book, 
 will naturally place a disproportionate em- 
 phasis upon his relation to Jewish institutions 
 and to Judaism. 
 
 Still not even a brief sketch can be prepared 
 without giving some idea of the financial 
 operations in which his firm was engaged under 
 his leadership. During this period it became
 
 8 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 one of the two most influential private inter- 
 national banking houses on the Western Hemi- 
 sphere. It was characteristic of Mr. Schiff 
 that as a banker his activities were all creative, 
 looking to the development of the resources and 
 the extension of the commerce of the United 
 States. Hence, he was particularly concerned 
 in the financing of railway enterprises, recog- 
 nizing that the prosperity of a great country 
 depended, in large measure, upon the extent 
 and efficiency of its transportation agencies. 
 
 He believed it important for America to 
 bring the Atlantic and Pacific closer together, 
 thus aiding in uniting the citizenship of the 
 United States economically and politically. 
 In 1897 he reorganized the Union Pacific 
 Railroad which was described at the period 
 as being "battered, bankrupt and decrepit" — 
 an achievement of the first rank and con- 
 structive in the best sense. 
 
 Mr. Schiff had faith in his intuition of men, 
 and being swift to recognize genius, gave his 
 support to Edward H. Harriman. According 
 to financial authorities the Harriman-Schiff 
 railway combination became the most power- 
 ful, the most aggressive, and the most success- 
 ful that America had ever known.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 9 
 
 In like manner he was one of the first sup- 
 porters and associates of James J. Hill, who, 
 by the building of the Great Northern Rail- 
 way, virtually became the founder of a vast 
 empire in the Northwest. Mr. Schiff was for 
 many years a director of the Great Northern, 
 retiring only after a conflict of interest devel- 
 oped between it and the Union Pacific Railway. 
 The operations of Kuhn, Loeb and Company as 
 bankers for railways began with their associa- 
 tion with the Chicago and Northwestern some 
 fifty years back. One of their most important 
 connections was with the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road system which came especially to the 
 notice of the general public under the presi- 
 dency of A. J. Cassatt, who dreamed the 
 dream of a tunnel under the Hudson and of a 
 Railway Station in the City of New York 
 commensurate with the importance of the 
 great city, Kuhn, Loeb and Company suc- 
 ceeded in floating for the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road Company large loans in this country and 
 abroad. Two checks drawn to the order of 
 the Company on February 17, 1915, for 
 the amount of $49,098,000, and on June 1, 
 1915, for $62,075,000, which hang in modest 
 frames in the offices of Kuhn, Loeb and
 
 10 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 Company, attest the magnitude of their 
 loans. 
 
 Other railroads whose financial operations 
 his firm aided were the Baltimore and Ohio, 
 the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Delaware and 
 Hudson, the Illinois Central and Southern 
 Pacific. Of many of these railroads Mr. 
 Schiff became a director, but his participation 
 in large financial enterprises was by no means 
 limited to them. He also financed a number 
 of important industrial undertakings, such as 
 the Westinghouse Electric Company, the United 
 States Rubber Company, Armour and Com- 
 pany, the American Telephone and Telegraph 
 Company, and the Western Union Telegraph 
 Company. He served as a director of the 
 Western Union Telegraph Company, of the 
 Equitable Life Assurance Society, of the Na- 
 tional City Bank, of the Central Trust Com- 
 pany, of the American Railway Express Com- 
 pany, and of the Fifth Avenue Trust Company. 
 
 His advice was sought in these and many 
 other enterprises because of his wide knowl- 
 edge of affairs in America and Europe and of 
 the sound conclusions he was able to draw 
 from this knowledge. His confidence in the 
 great trans-continental railways was heightened
 
 A Biographical Sketch 11 
 
 by his repeated journeys to the West and the 
 South, so that he appreciated from personal 
 observation the richness of our great national 
 domain. He was alive to the fact that agri- 
 culture was the backbone of commerce, and 
 once, when asked what the stock market 
 indicated with regard to business possibilities 
 of the season, said that he did not follow the 
 stock market but rather the crop reports. 
 
 As to the correctness of his judgment, B. C. 
 Forbes, a well-known financial writer, has 
 declared, in speaking of him, that "Kuhn, 
 Loeb and Company have issued more good 
 investments and fewer bad ones than any other 
 banking concern in America." 
 
 The Japanese loan of 1904-5, which Mr. 
 Schiff financed, attracted world-wide attention, 
 and had important consequences. In 1904 war 
 broke out between Russia and Japan. Gold, 
 Mr. Schiff said once, was not essential to the 
 conduct of a war if the war was really a na- 
 tional effort — for the greater part of the cost 
 of the war was borne by the people of the 
 country who, if the war were popular, readily 
 took the paper money which all governments 
 put out to meet the greatly increased expen- 
 ditures for military purposes. Gold was use-
 
 12 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 ful for stabilizing the paper issues and only 
 necessary for purchases made abroad by the 
 warring nations. He used emphatically to 
 declare, long before it became the stock in 
 trade of a certain kind of propagandist, that 
 the statement that bankers could make or 
 prevent wars was a pure myth, and that nations 
 went to war whenever they wanted to. When 
 Japan requested a loan in waging what seemed 
 at the beginning a very unequal contest, Mr. 
 Schiff welcomed the opportunity to undertake 
 the financing of so much of the loan as was to 
 be placed in America. 
 
 The Japanese Government and people have 
 always been appreciative of this support, and 
 have recognized his personal influence in 
 securing it. In 1905 the Mikado conferred 
 upon him the Second Order of the Sacred 
 Treasure of Japan "in recognition of the 
 services rendered by you in connection with 
 the raising of the loans of the Imperial Gov- 
 ernment in the American and European mar- 
 kets." 
 
 On February 22, 1907, he undertook a jour- 
 ney to Japan accompanied by his constant 
 companion, Mrs. Schiff, and a party of friends. 
 Of this journey there exists a unique literary
 
 A Biographical Sketch 13 
 
 record in the form of a quarto volume beauti- 
 fully printed on Japan paper and charmingly 
 illustrated, bearing the title "Our Journey to 
 Japan, by Jacob H. Schiff. Printed as a 
 surprise to the Author, January 10, 1907." 
 The explanation of this rather unusual title- 
 page is that Mrs. Schiff printed the letters 
 which he sent home, and presented the vol- 
 ume to him on the occasion of his sixtieth 
 birthday. 
 
 The letters contain a lively and intimate 
 description of the stops of the party at Salt 
 Lake City, San Francisco, and Honolulu, but 
 naturally deal principally with Japan. Here 
 is a part of the record: 
 
 '^Wednesday, March ^8th is the great gala 
 day for me personally, the private audience 
 with the Mikado being set for half past eleven 
 o'clock, luncheon to be served right after the 
 audience. I am told it is the first time that 
 the Emperor has invited a foreign private citi- 
 zen to a repast at the palace, heretofore only 
 foreign Princes having been thus honored. . . . 
 We are first shown into a large reception room 
 where we are received by Mr. Nagazaki, the 
 Master of Ceremonies, who speaks English 
 fluently, and who informs the Minister of
 
 14 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 Finance that the Emperor will receive me 
 alone. He leaves us and returns shortly, 
 stating to me that he has been commanded 
 by his Majesty to invest me with the insignias 
 of the Order of the Rising Sun, which the 
 Emperor has graciously condescended to be- 
 stow upon me. Accordingly he divests me of 
 the Star of the Second Order of the Sacred 
 Treasure, which I had received the previous 
 year, and replaced it by the two decorations, 
 composing the second class of the Order of 
 the Rising Sun. Thereupon I am taken 
 through long halls into a smaller reception 
 room, where the Emperor receives me stand- 
 ing. He is dressed in military house uniform 
 (short jacket and koppi), also wearing the 
 Order of the Rising Sun and a number of 
 medals. Mr. Nagazaki is at his side as inter- 
 preter. The Emperor extends his hand and 
 bids me welcome to Japan, saying that he has 
 heard of the important assistance I have given 
 the nation at a critical time, and that he is 
 pleased to have an opportunity to thank me 
 in person for it. I reply that I feel my serv- 
 ices have been over-estimated, but from the 
 start my associates and I, believing in the 
 righteousness of the cause of Japan, when we
 
 A Biographical Sketch 15 
 
 had the opportunity practically to prove our 
 sympathy gladly embraced it." 
 
 There follows a description of the luncheon 
 and of other festivities, notably the report of 
 a speech made at a dinner by Mr. Bakatani, 
 the Finance Minister, who, characterizing Mr. 
 and Mrs. Schiff and their party as "the most 
 distinguished guests that we have ever had 
 from the United States of America," recites 
 the details of the aid Mr. Schiff had rendered 
 to Japan. He said that when Japan was un- 
 dertaking, in London in the spring of 1904, 
 to negotiate a loan of ten million pounds and 
 was finding difficulty in securing the amount 
 "Mr. Schiff in a single conversation with Mr. 
 Takahashi offered to underwrite single-handed 
 a half of what we wanted." He concluded 
 with the statement: "The amount of our loan 
 subscribed by Mr. Schiff from the first to the 
 fifth issue arrives at a grand total of £39,250,- 
 000." After the Russo-Japanese War was ended 
 the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company placed a 
 large issue of City of Tokio Bonds, the only 
 Far Eastern municipal loan ever taken in the 
 United States. So recently as in June, 1921, 
 the Japanese Consul attended the opening of 
 a Parkway in New York named in his memory
 
 16 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 '"Schiff Parkway," while the Japanese Com- 
 missioner on his way from London to Tokio 
 laid a wreath upon his grave. 
 
 Beside the Japanese loan, he financed loans 
 for other foreign governments such as Sweden, 
 Argentine, Cuba, Mexico, and China. Prior 
 to the World War his firm had important 
 transactions with the Central Powers. In 
 1900, in conjunction with The National City 
 Bank, they issued 80,000,000 marks of German 
 Treasury Notes, and in 1912, in association with 
 The National City Bank and Kidder, Peabody 
 and Company, $25,000,000 of Austrian Treas- 
 ury Notes. 
 
 Mr. Schiff on numerous occasions refused to 
 participate in Russian loans, and used his great 
 influence to prevent the entry of Russia into 
 the money markets of America, solely because 
 of the ill-treatment of the Jews .by the Rus- 
 sian Government. On various occasions, when 
 Russia was pressed for funds, offers were made 
 by agents of the Russian Government to 
 relax the restrictions upon the Jews in a 
 particular province in exchange for a loan of 
 fifty million dollars. Mr. Schiff invariably 
 rejected such advances, declining to buy 
 better treatment for a section of his coreli-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 17 
 
 gionists which he held should be accorded 
 them as a matter of right. 
 
 While not chronologically in place, there 
 may yet be a certain orderliness in discussing 
 here Mr. Schiff's attitude to the World War- 
 Its outbreak filled his heart with anguish. 
 He was the only member of his family who 
 had migrated to America Two of his brothers 
 and his sister had remained at the ancestral 
 home, while his other brother was established 
 in London. During the war his near relatives 
 were fighting in the armies of three countries 
 in Europe, on opposing sides. Mr. Schiff was 
 an American of the intensity which we some- 
 times witness in men who have migrated here. 
 The natural born citizen frequently takes his 
 citizenship as a matter of course. For the 
 naturalized citizen it often becomes almost a 
 sacrament. Lack of complete harmony with 
 American ideals and aspirations was unthink- 
 able to Mr. Schiff. Yet Germany was the 
 land of his birth. He had many ties of affec- 
 tion and friendship there, and he beheld the 
 conflict with horror. He hoped for a speedy 
 peace, and to that end urged a peace without 
 victory, and, affrighted at the danger to civili- 
 zation by the civil war of the white race in
 
 18 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 Europe, desired America to act as a neutral 
 mediator. 
 
 From the very beginning of the war he 
 reaHzed the disaster to the world in a German 
 victory. He recognized the iniquity of the 
 German Government, and stood firmly with 
 the American attitude toward submarine war- 
 fare. None was more bitter than he in de- 
 nouncing German outrages, but, like President 
 Wilson, he felt that there was a difference 
 between the German Government and the 
 German people. 
 
 Mr. Schiff maintained relations with indi- 
 viduals in Germany until the entrance of the 
 United States in the war in April, 1917, but 
 during the period of the World War, beginning 
 with 1914, Kuhn, Loeb and Company did no 
 financing directly or indirectly for the German 
 Government or its allies. On the other hand, 
 they placed large loans for the French cities 
 of Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons and Marseilles, 
 which were issued primarily for humani- 
 tarian purposes. He was also willing that 
 the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company par- 
 ticipate in the Anglo-French loan of 1915 
 if none of the money were made available 
 to Russia. This statement was issued by
 
 A Biographical Sketch 19 
 
 him on October 1, 1915, in regard to the 
 loan : 
 
 "With differing sympathies on the part of 
 individual members of our firm, we decided at 
 the outbreak of the war to refrain from financing 
 public loans for any of the governments of the 
 belligerent nations. 
 
 "Concerning the present Anglo-French Dollar 
 Loan, we have felt that as American bankers 
 we should assist in what we believe will result 
 in promoting the interest of the country's 
 commerce and industries, but it not having 
 been found practicable to give any actual 
 assurances that the Government of Russia— 
 against whose inhumanity the members of our 
 firm have ever raised their voices — is not to 
 derive benefit from the funds that are to be 
 raised through the Anglo-French Loan, I have 
 felt constrained to advise my firm to refrain 
 from becoming participants in the Loan." 
 
 When the Czar's Government fell in 1917, 
 Kuhn, Loeb and Company at once advised the 
 allies' bankers that there was no longer any 
 impediment to their participating in the allied 
 financing. He was in sympathy with the 
 Kerensky Government, and evinced this by a 
 subscription of one million rubles to the loan
 
 ^0 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 issued by that Government which, for the 
 time being, at least, is valueless. He sent 
 congratulations to Professor Miliukoff, and 
 received from him a cordial reply. He hoped 
 for great things from this Government which 
 he thought would establish a constitutional 
 regime in Russia. It is needless to say that 
 he was bitterly opposed to the Soviet Govern- 
 ment and to all of its doctrines. 
 
 He participated largely in the Liberty Loans 
 and in all efforts on their behalf, advised our 
 Government in financial matters, and by word 
 and act invited many another to patriotic 
 effort — in fact did all that an American who 
 had reached his seventieth year could do. 
 
 During his long life in America he took his 
 duties as a citizen with great seriousness. In 
 national politics he was a Republican, and 
 supported that party. In 1912, however, he 
 gave his vote to Mr. Wilson, aided his cam- 
 paign, and supported him for his second term. 
 Although personally very fond of Mr. Roose- 
 velt and supported him in state and national 
 politics when he represented the Republican 
 party, Mr. Schiff did not approve of the Pro- 
 gressive schism, and never supported that 
 party in either national or state politics. It
 
 A Biographical Sketch 21 
 
 was his intention, had he hved, to vote for 
 Mr. Harding in 1920. 
 
 In the Citj^ of New York he was a strong ad- 
 herent of movements to get municipal affairs out 
 of the hands of machine pohticians, and took a 
 prominent and active part in all public efforts to 
 that end. He was a member of the Committee 
 of Seventy in 1898, of the Committee of Fifteen 
 in 1902 and of the Committee of Nine in 1905. 
 
 Ill 
 
 To many it was as the philanthropist — the 
 man who not only loved his fellow-men but 
 translated his creed into action — that Mr. 
 Schiff was best known His method of giv- 
 ing unasked might be illustrated by many 
 examples. One will suffice. In 1886 the 
 Revered Doctor Sabato Morals of Philadel- 
 phia decided to establish a Jewish Theological 
 Seminary in New York. In the new institu- 
 tion a library was required, and the securing of 
 what then seemed a large sum (though it 
 would now be insignificant) for the purpose was 
 undertaken. Mr. Schiff had not been asked 
 to participate. One day he wrote that he had 
 heard of the enterprise, that if the entire sum
 
 22 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 had not been collected, he would like to con- 
 tribute, and that at all events he always 
 regarded it as a privilege to aid in the advance- 
 ment of Hebrew learning and wished to be 
 given the opportunity to take part whenever 
 such projects were proposed. 
 
 From 1886 to 1901 Mr. Schiff contributed 
 to the support of the Seminary, as he did many 
 other institutions. In the latter year, how- 
 ever, he realized that both for the conservation 
 of Judaism as well as for the promotion of 
 Hebrew learning in America it was necessary 
 to place the Seminary upon a better financial 
 and scholastic basis. Taking the lead as 
 usual, with a few others, he established an 
 endowment fund of $500,000 to which he was 
 the largest individual contributor. He pur- 
 chased a piece of ground, and erected a sub- 
 stantial fire-proof building, entirely at his own 
 expense, and bought two valuable collections 
 — those of Steinschneider and Kautzsch — for 
 the library. On the occasion of his seventieth 
 birthday he gave $100,000 to the Seminary on 
 the condition that the income should be used 
 to increase the salaries of the faculty, and he 
 bequeathed $100,000 to it in his will. Added 
 to these large gifts, he made annual contribu-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 23 
 
 tions to its various funds. He attended every 
 meeting of its Board of Directors and Execu- 
 tive Committee, except when he was out of 
 the country, was present at practically all 
 the student dinners, dedicated their House, 
 attended and spoke at the Commencements, 
 and in general showed the liveliest interest in 
 the welfare of the Institution. 
 
 With Doctor Solomon Schechter he formed 
 a firm friendship. These two strong natures, 
 at the outset of their relationship, occasionally 
 clashed, but they were both big men, and their 
 differences ended in a laugh, Mr. Schiff saying: 
 *'We are both Cohanim (priests), and the 
 priests traditionally have high tempers." With 
 Professor Friedlaender, too, Mr. Schiff had 
 formed friendly relations. The former's tragic 
 death was a severe blow to him. When the 
 news came in July, 1920, Mr. Schiff was 
 already seriously ill. But all his thoughts 
 were of the great loss the Seminary and Jew- 
 ish scholarship had suffered and of grief and pity 
 for the bereft widow and children. It required 
 almost physical force to prevent him from going 
 to the meeting held in memory of Professor 
 Friedlaender on September 9, though Mr. Schiff 's 
 own final summons came but two weeks later.
 
 2]^. Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 In 1911 he created, in connection with the 
 Seminary and the Hebrew Union College at 
 Cincinnati, a fund for the support of two 
 teachers Institutes, one of them east and the 
 other west of the Allegheny mountains. He 
 so strongly recognized the need of proper 
 teachers for Jewish religious schools that he 
 came to regard these teachers institutes at 
 least as important as the rabbinical semi- 
 naries, though he considered both as of 
 great value and close cooperation between 
 them essential. 
 
 This opinion resulted in an incident very 
 characteristic both of Mr. Schiff's tempera- 
 ment and of his bigness of character. In 
 1904 Dr. Schechter inaugurated the course for 
 teachers at the Seminary Building on West 
 123rd Street. The classes were held in the 
 evenings, and seemed to languish. After an 
 experiment of three or four years Dr. Schechter 
 became convinced that the Seminary was 
 situated too far from the neighborhood in 
 which nearly all of the students lived, to make 
 night courses successful. Accordingly the 
 question was broached of their being held 
 elsewhere. Mr. Adolphus S. Solomons, the 
 senior member of the Board of Directors, in-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 25 
 
 troduced a resolution providing for the removal 
 of the Teachers Institute to a locality further 
 down-town, which would be more accessible to 
 the students. Mr. Schiff opposed the resolu- 
 tion. He considered it bad administration, 
 tending to weaken both establishments, and 
 rendering proper supervision of the Institute 
 by the head of the Seminary impossible. His 
 arguments were vigorously combated. Mr. 
 Schiff had, as has been said, the priestly high 
 temper, and replied with the statement that 
 he regarded this resolution as so dangerous that 
 if it were adopted, much as he loved the Semi- 
 nary and close as it was to his heart, he would 
 feel constrained to resign from the Board, 
 The resolution to remove the Institute from 
 the Seminary building was adopted by an 
 overwhelming majority. Mr. Schiff left the 
 meeting room deeply chagrined. 
 
 His associates felt that he would not con- 
 tinue on the Board of Directors. He appeared, 
 however, at the next meeting of the Executive 
 Committee held a fortnight thereafter, and 
 without in any way referring to the previous 
 occurrence, arose at the close of the meeting, 
 stated his conviction of the great need for the 
 training of Jewish religious teachers, and an-
 
 ^6 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 nounced his intention to create a special Trust 
 Fund to this end to which he at once contrib- 
 uted $100,000. 
 
 This story is characteristic of a trait of Mr. 
 Schiff, which was noticeable especially in his 
 earlier years; a quickness of temper, a momen- 
 tary insistence upon his own judgment, and a 
 willingness to recognize upon reflection that 
 he had been hasty, to accept the views of his 
 fellow-fiduciaries and to make ample amends. 
 Within a very few years, at about his sixtieth 
 year, he mellowed greatly. The flashes of 
 temper disappeared, and he in turn exhorted 
 others not to be hasty and at all times to be 
 patient. 
 
 But the Seminary was not the only Jewish 
 institution of learning to which Mr. Schiff gave 
 his interest and support, and since he aided 
 institutions which represent different shades 
 of Jewish religious belief and practice, it may 
 be fitting at this place to endeavor to give 
 some idea of his point of view with regard to 
 Judaism. He had been reared in the rigid 
 school of Frankfort Orthodoxy, of which 
 Sampson Raphael Hirsch was the leader. 
 Upon his arrival in America, he became a 
 member of the Reform Synagogue, and so
 
 A Biographical Sketch 27 
 
 remained during all his life. He was attracted 
 to this form of Judaism by a number of cir- 
 cumstances, but the one he mentioned most 
 frequently was that it satisfied the religious 
 cravings of those who could no longer adhere 
 to the ancient rabbinical religion, and thus 
 averted conversion to Christianity. He fre- 
 quently asserted that had Reform Judaism 
 regularly existed in Germany at the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth century, the family of 
 Moses Mendelssohn and others like them 
 would not have been lost to Judaism. There 
 were, however, curious lapses in Mr. Schiff's 
 adherence to the Reform Synagogue, and 
 he frequently said that no Jew could be 
 a good Reform Jew unless he had once been 
 an Orthodox Jew. In the discussions con- 
 nected with the reorganization of the Seminary 
 he expressed his notion of its policy as an 
 adherence to "reasonable" orthodoxy, a phrase 
 which offended some, but which nevertheless 
 was not devoid of theological value. He 
 strictly abstained from all secular occupation 
 on the Sabbaths and festivals, and always 
 visited the synagogue on Saturday mornings. 
 On Friday evening, before dinner, he read the 
 services to his family, and that evening was
 
 S8 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 his family evening. The Seder services at 
 Passover were always a great occasion, never 
 to be forgotten no matter what the circum- 
 stances. In his letters from Japan he gives 
 this interesting note: 
 
 ^'Monday, April 9th. We return to the 
 hotel and because of the weather stay indoors, 
 preparing for the holiday which begins this 
 evening. Thoughtful friend Neustadt has 
 brought 'Matzoth' from San Francisco — we 
 should hardly have been able to procure any 
 in Tokio, as there appear to be no co-reli- 
 gionists here — and as the evening arrives we 
 give the 'Seder' in our apartments, probably 
 the first time this has been done in the capital 
 of the Mikado. Mother has prepared the 
 festive table just as at home — nothing is 
 missing for the ceremonies — and with the 
 entire party around the table, we read the 
 'Hagada.' Ernst [his nephew, Ernst Schiff of 
 London] reading the youngest child's part ('Ma 
 Nishtano'). Thus in a homelike way we cele- 
 brate the old festival in distant lands." As late 
 as April, 1920, showing that this event never 
 lost its importance for him, he wrote: "We had 
 eighteen at Seder, which passed off quite pleas- 
 antly, and I hope so did your own celebration."
 
 A Biographical Sketch 29 
 
 The Hanukkah lights were Ht not only in 
 his own house, but he went to the houses of 
 his children, and was present at the lighting 
 of them for his children and grandchildren, 
 one of his dearest wishes being the transmis- 
 sion of these traditions to his descendants. 
 
 The Day of Atonement was a real day of 
 fasting and prayer to him, and on the very 
 last one of his life, Wednesday, September 22 
 (he died on the 25th), he fasted the entire day, 
 read the services with his family (not feeling 
 able to go to the synagogue), and experienced 
 the greatest satisfaction at having been able 
 to get through the day. 
 
 But it did not require that a Sabbath or 
 New Moon or Holy Day should remind him 
 of God and his religion. He was essentially 
 a devout person. Every morning he read his 
 prayers at the stated time. After meals he 
 said grace. He did not eat forbidden food. 
 He stood outside the gate of the cemetery at 
 Dr. Schechter's funeral because of the laws of 
 the priesthood. During his illness he wrote 
 once: "I shall try now to get my sleep, nerve 
 and energy back; with care and with God's 
 help I hope to succeed, but in any event I 
 have so long a stretch of good health and
 
 30 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 happiness to my credit tliat I should have 
 naught but gratitude to the Almighty." 
 
 This digression makes it unnecessary further 
 to explain Mr. Schiff's interest in Jewish 
 religious education of all kinds, even if the 
 institution were not in exact accord with his 
 own views. Frequently he quoted the sen- 
 tence: "Would that all the Lord's people were 
 prophets." 
 
 He was a generous supporter of the Hebrew 
 Union College, making gifts to its Endowment 
 Fund, its Building Fund, bequeathed $100,000 
 to it, and in other ways indicated his in- 
 terest in its progress. He attended the 
 dedication of its new buildings, maintained 
 an affectionate relationship with its vener- 
 able president. Dr. Kohler, and made a large 
 gift to the Pension Fund of the Union of 
 American Hebrew Congregations. Shortly 
 before his death the College conferred upon 
 him the honorary degree of Doctor of Hebrew 
 Letters. 
 
 The Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, 
 better known as the Yeshibah of New York, 
 also claimed his aid. In 1905 he hoped to 
 bring about a useful modification in the policy 
 of the Yeshibah, and at the same time co-or-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 31 
 
 dinate its work with that of the Seminary. A 
 conference was called by him to this end, and 
 an agreement was entered into conditioned 
 upon which he granted his assistance. Much 
 to his regret, this understanding was not car- 
 ried out. 
 
 vSecondary education he recognized not only 
 as intrinsically important but essential for the 
 institutions of higher learning which he so 
 greatly prized. And so it was that he inter- 
 ested himself in the Bureau of Education of the 
 New York Kehillah, to which Bureau he became 
 a generous contributor and whose activities he 
 followed with unflagging concern. He like- 
 wise was a liberal patron of the Up-Town 
 Talmud Torah, and of many similar establish- 
 ments. 
 
 He had a good knowledge of Jewish litera- 
 ture and a deep interest in its diffusion. Prior 
 to the establishment of the Jewish Publication 
 Society of America he would occasionally aid 
 an author to publish a work by guaranteeing 
 its cost to the publishing firm. He had a plan 
 in mind to set aside a sum of money to create 
 a Fund for this purpose, when the project for 
 a Publication Society began to take shape. 
 He was abroad in 1888 when the meeting which
 
 32 Jacob Henry Schijf 
 
 organized the Society was held. He cabled 
 his greetings and five thousand dollars. Al- 
 though never in any way associated with the 
 management of this Society, he remained its 
 steadfast friend, and through his interest and 
 generosity enabled it to make the preparations 
 for several important contributions to Jewish 
 literature. 
 
 He was a constant reader of the Bible, and 
 strongly favored the idea of a new English 
 translation by Jewish scholars. In 1908 he 
 presented the sum of $50,000 to the Society 
 to enable it to carry out this undertaking, and 
 its successful completion was a source of great 
 happiness to him. The first copy on India 
 paper, elegantly bound, was presented to him 
 with a suitable inscription. 
 
 That he was permitted to have the merit 
 of having done this pleased him greatly, and 
 he used to read from this copy to his grand- 
 children, though for his own study he went 
 back to a familiar Hebrew edition with a 
 German translation and commentaries. 
 
 A dinner was given to celebrate the com- 
 pletion of the manuscript of this translation, 
 and at it he announced his intention to make 
 further provision for the publication of Jewish
 
 A Biographical Sketch 33 
 
 literature, both in the original and translation. 
 For this purpose he gave another Fund of 
 $50,000 for the publication, in text and trans- 
 lation, of a selection of the Jewish Classics. 
 This work was delayed by the World War, 
 but it may be expected that not many years 
 will elapse before this Series — a further monu- 
 ment to his interest in Jewish learning and 
 literature — will begin to appear. Not con- 
 tent with these gifts, he also gave to the Pub- 
 lication Society one-half of the sum necessary 
 to create a press for the printing of Hebrew 
 works. 
 
 The Jewish Encyclopedia, a monumental 
 work which, in spite of shortcomings, has been 
 of great service in the spread of Jewish knowl- 
 edge, was undertaken by the publishers as a 
 purely business enterprise without a clear ap- 
 preciation of the great cost and labor involved. 
 After the first volume appeared the discon- 
 tinuance of the work was threatened. Mr. 
 Schiff had not favored the undertaking, be- 
 lieving that the time was not ripe nor the 
 plans well matured. At the invitation of 
 Isidor Straus, however, he attended a small 
 conference, and, fearing that the honor of 
 American Jewry would suffer if this widely-
 
 3Ji, Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 advertised work should remain a torso, he 
 became one of a number to aid in rendering 
 its completion possible. 
 
 He realized that the library of the Seminary 
 in New York was designed for scholars and, 
 situated as it was on the Heights beyond 
 Columbia University, was far from the center 
 of Jewish population. He knew, too, that 
 the search after Jewish lore was unquenchable 
 in the Jewish soul and that many a merchant 
 or mechanic or news-boy might, by reason of 
 the Jewish tragedy which forced the great 
 migration from Russia to America, be a stu- 
 dent or even a scholar. To render books 
 accessible to these and to professional men 
 living in the center of the city he made pos- 
 sible the establishment of the very excellent 
 Jewish Department of the New York Public 
 Library, which is probably the most largely 
 used Jewish collection in the world. 
 
 In 1911 Mr. Herbert Putnam, the Librarian 
 of Congress, approached Mr. Schiff with a 
 view to securing a considerable Jewish library 
 which was then offered for sale. After con- 
 sultation and consideration he agreed to make 
 this gift to the National Library with the 
 understanding that a competent Semitic scholar
 
 A Biographical Sketch 35 
 
 would be placed in charge of the collection 
 and that funds would be provided for its growth 
 and upkeep. By this arrangement an import- 
 ant nucleus for a Jewish library was established 
 at Washington which bids fair to develop 
 steadily and provide opportunity for the ever- 
 increasing number of students who resort to 
 the National Capitol. Under the generous 
 system of inter-library loans this collection is 
 also made available to students all over the 
 country. 
 
 Much earlier than some of these enterprises 
 in behalf of Jewish and Semitic learning was 
 Mr. Schiff's interest in that department of 
 study at Harvard University. Through fam- 
 ily connections he became attracted to this 
 ancient American seat of learning. Both of 
 his brothers-in-law were Harvard men — Morris 
 Loeb, a distinguished chemist, who unhappily 
 died in his early prime, and James Loeb, well 
 known for his collections of Greek antiquities, 
 the publications describing them, and particu- 
 larly for the Loeb Classical Library, that re- 
 markable production, originally designed to 
 cover in text and translation the entire Greek 
 and Latin literature from Homer till the fall 
 of Constantinople in 1453, of which some two
 
 36 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 hundred volumes have aheady appeared. Mr. 
 Schiff was also strongly drawn by the great 
 personality of President Charles Eliot, with 
 whom he formed a lasting friendship. When 
 he was invited in 1889 to act as a member of 
 the advisory committee on the Semitic depart- 
 ment of Harvard University he readily ac- 
 quiesced. Among his most notable acts was 
 the establishment of the Semitic Museum at 
 Harvard. A number of gentlemen had made 
 gifts for this purpose, but at Mr. Schiff's 
 request they were withdrawn in order that 
 he might have the pleasure of erecting the 
 building and providing for the collection 
 himself. It was also due to his generosity 
 that Harvard was enabled to send an expedi- 
 tion to Samaria, which uncovered that inter- 
 esting site, and secured inscriptions which have 
 proved important for a knowledge of the early 
 life of Israel and for Semitic epigraphy. In- 
 cidentally these activities brought him into 
 close and affectionate relations with Professor 
 David G. Lyon, the well-known Assyriologist 
 who is curator of the Museum. 
 
 But his interest in higher education was by 
 no means confined to Semitic learning. He 
 was one of the earlv friends of Barnard Col-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 37 
 
 lege, an institution for the education of women 
 connected with Columbia University, With 
 Seth Low, its president and sometime mayor 
 of New York, he had intimate relations, both 
 political and personal. For a number of 
 years he was treasurer of Barnard College, and 
 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his 
 arrival in America he made a gift of a large 
 sum to that institution for the erection of a 
 recreation hall for the students. It is sig- 
 nificant that in this act he not only aided the 
 cause of higher education but marked his 
 recognition of the opportunities which America 
 had afforded him by a gift which would be 
 useful to students of all creeds and which was 
 a token that all America and not a mere sec- 
 tion of it was embraced within his noble 
 heart. 
 
 In 1898 he founded the Schiff Fellowship in 
 Political Economy in Columbia University. 
 
 In 1912 he made a gift of $100,000 to Cor- 
 nell University to aid in the promotion of 
 Germanic studies, and during the World War 
 he withdrew the implied limitation upon the 
 purpose to which the fund was to be devoted 
 so that it might be applied to the furtherance 
 of the study of any modern language or liter-
 
 38 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 ature. He was a contributor to the funds of 
 Johns Hopkins University and of other insti- 
 tutions of learning. He also aided in the 
 establishment of the University of Franlvfort, 
 his native town. 
 
 IV 
 
 Charity in its large sense — the doing of 
 deeds of goodness and mercy — Mr. Schiff was 
 devoted to both as a Jew and a humanitarian. 
 It was his rigid rule to give at least his tithe 
 to the poor. He was, however, a strong 
 believer in organized charity, either as ex- 
 pressed through institutions or carried on by 
 an individual based upon inquiry and investi- 
 gation — and through all his acts of loving- 
 kindness ran the feeling that as God had 
 blessed him with plenty, it was but right and 
 just that he should share it with those less 
 fortunate. 
 
 Of the numerous charities in which he was 
 interested, to none did he give the attention 
 which he lavished on the Montefiore Home 
 and Hospital. This institution, established 
 on the one hundredth birthday of that great 
 Jew, Sir Moses Montefiore, was created at the 
 suggestion of Adolphus S. Solomons in 1884.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 39 
 
 Mr. Schiff was elected president in 1885, and 
 held that office for thirty-five years. He saw 
 it grow from a small home for chronic invalids 
 to one of the greatest hospitals in the country, 
 supporting over eight hundred beds, with a 
 distinguished medical staff, laboratories for re- 
 search, and a modern equipment, complete in all 
 of its appointments. Much of this extraordinary 
 achievement was due to his own efforts or to 
 his personal gifts. He was familiar with every 
 detail of the management of this model hos- 
 pital, and knew personally all but the transient 
 patients. Besides attending numerous board 
 and committee meetings he visited the hos- 
 pital every Sunday morning, spending the 
 entire morning and allowing no other call or 
 engagement to take him away from this duty. 
 He rarely wrote a letter about the Montefiore 
 Home or made a reference to it without speak- 
 ing of it as his "labor of love." In Julj^ 
 1920, one Sunday morning, when already ill, 
 he came in from the country to make his cus- 
 tomary and last inspection and to chat with 
 the older patients. The splendid pavilion 
 which he provided was just approaching com- 
 pletion, and he was happy to think that he 
 had been able to create this additional instru-
 
 Jf.0 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 ment for the alleviation of human suffering. 
 It was always a cause of satisfaction and 
 pride on his part that this institution was 
 conducted strictly according to the Jewish 
 law, and that it contained a dignified and 
 charming synagogue. 
 
 The Henry Street Settlement was another 
 work of mercy and justice which had a strong 
 hold on his heart and mind. This institution 
 under the inspiring leadership of Miss Lillian 
 Wald, not only performed the function of a 
 settlement in a congested neighborhood but 
 also established and spread the idea of dis- 
 trict visiting nurses. In illness the nurse has 
 always been, even in the days before training 
 was known, an agency as potent in the care 
 of the sick as the physician. All know what 
 the modern trained nurse has meant to the 
 hospital and to the home. But what of the 
 ailing poor.'' To bring this indispensable 
 relief to the home of the needy was the admir- 
 able conception of Miss Wald, and for its 
 realization she found Mr. Schiff, with others 
 of his family and many friends, devoted cham- 
 pions. It was not simplj^ the work but the 
 atmosphere of the place from which it was 
 conducted that exalted his spirit so that he
 
 A Biographical Sketch J^l 
 
 not infrequently made pilgrimages to Henry 
 Street, and ate his evening meal in that abode 
 of high thinking and good cheer. But his 
 interest in the visiting nurse was not confined 
 to one institution. He gave a fund for rural 
 district nursing, so badly needed, conducted 
 under the auspices of the American Red 
 Cross, of whose New York County Chapter 
 he was for many years treasurer. 
 
 At the time of the Kishineff massacre, with- 
 out organization of any kind and with the 
 help of but a few friends, he brought together 
 throughout the United States a vast sum for 
 the victims of that atrocity. 
 
 When the World War broke out in 1914, the 
 first call for help from the Jewish population 
 of the affected zone was a request for $50,000 
 received from Mr, Morgenthau, then Ambas- 
 sador at Constantinople, for the Jews of 
 Palestine. To meet this request the American 
 Jewish Committee voted $25,000, and Mr. 
 Schiff personally offered to give $12,500 (the 
 first of many larger gifts), if the provisional 
 Zionist Committee would give a like amount. 
 The condition was met, and there was thus 
 begun the great work of the Jewish War 
 Relief Committees, which, through the cen-
 
 ^^ Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 tralized agency of the Joint Distribution Com- 
 mittee, under the devoted leadership of Mr. 
 Schiff's son-in-law, Felix M. Warburg, has 
 distributed nearly forty million dollars. 
 
 Into the work of these collecting and distrib- 
 uting agencies Mr. Schiff, though then nearly 
 seventy years of age, entered with great ardor. 
 He attended meetings, large and small, organ- 
 ized dinners, headed drives, wrote and tele- 
 graphed, gave largely himself, in fact did 
 everything in his power to alleviate the dread- 
 ful sufferings which the war brought in greater 
 measure upon the Jews of Eastern Europe 
 than upon any other section of stricken human- 
 ity, with the possible exception of the Arme- 
 nians. 
 
 And these labors were being carried on 
 alongside of equally strenuous work for the 
 Red Cross and the various war work agencies, 
 to all of which Mr. Schiff devoted himself 
 with enthusiasm. He took a particular inter- 
 est in the Jewish Welfare Board, constituted 
 of various national Jewish organizations, to 
 contribute their share to the welfare of the 
 American soldiers and sailors and particularly 
 to provide for the religious needs of those of 
 the Jewish faith, an organization, in the work
 
 A Biographical Sketch Ii-S 
 
 of which his son, Mortimer L. Schiff, greatly 
 aided. Yet he was not unmindful of the 
 good work of other creeds. He made large 
 contributions to the war work of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association, the Knights 
 of Columbus, and the Salvation Army. Amer- 
 ican patriot that he was, it was the men in 
 uniform whom he was eager to serve irrespective 
 of their creed. 
 
 But Mr. Schiff was not content to limit his 
 labors on behalf of his coreligionists to the 
 promotion of a religious life and the allevia- 
 tion of their sufferings. He had imbibed the 
 atmosphere of American liberty and equality. 
 He knew that in the North American Colonies 
 Jews had been granted British citizenship long 
 before it was accorded them in the mother 
 country. He remembered the words of Wash- 
 ington spoken to the Jewish congregation of 
 Newport: "It is no longer toleration that is 
 spoken of," and whenever he saw the oppres- 
 sion of his people, his righteous indignation 
 impelled him to some sort of action— for to 
 think of something meant with him that action 
 should follow.
 
 4-^ Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 I Mr. Schiff had for years been acquainted with 
 
 ^ the misery of his brethren in the Russia of 
 the Czars. Like most Jews of the Western 
 world he had in his earHer days known httle 
 about the Jews in Russia. In spite of the 
 supposed sohdarity of the Jewish people, 
 there was but little contact between the Jews 
 of the West and of the East and even less knowl- 
 edge the one of the other. Graetz, the great 
 historian of the Jews, whose monumental 
 work was finished in 1875, practically ignored 
 the Jews of Russia. 
 
 The increase in the hostility of czaristic 
 Russia to its Jewish subjects, which began in 
 1881, evidenced by innumerable restrictive 
 laws and regulations, added to in 1890, and 
 followed by that horror, the "pogrom," govern- 
 ment-instituted massacres and looting of the 
 Jews, gradually brought about a forced migra- 
 tion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from 
 Russia to America. By reports and more 
 still by actual contact with the refugees the 
 facts became known to Jews in America, and 
 Mr. Schiff was stirred to the depths of his 
 being by the misery and suffering that his 
 coreligionists — veritable martyrs to the faith 
 — were enduring. For, be it understood, that.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 45 
 
 in spite of all statements that economic and 
 racial questions were at the bottom of these 
 persecutions, the waters of baptism into the 
 Greek-Orthodox Church could always wash 
 away economic or racial disabilities. Nor 
 was it only the Jews who were suffering in 
 those days. The Catholics of Poland and 
 the Protestants (few in number though they 
 were), in fact all dissenters from the Greek- 
 Orthodox Church were under the harrow. 
 There was thus presented a thoroughly cruel, 
 illiberal, mediaeval regime from which modern 
 man had no hope. 
 
 If one wishes to have confirmation of the 
 truth of the beliefs held by Mr. Schiff and 
 others as to the policy of the Czar's Govern- 
 ment towards the Jews, it can be found in 
 the published Memoirs of Count Witte who 
 held the important oflfices of Minister of 
 Finance and Prime Minister to the Czar, 
 
 Mr. Schiff felt that the big questions con- 
 nected with the condition of the Jews in 
 Russia and Roumania and their immigration 
 into the United States required drastic action. 
 Sometimes he took it after consultation with 
 others and sometimes without. Occasionally 
 his burning indignation and zeal outran his
 
 ^6 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 discretion. On one occasion he seriously pro- 
 posed to President Roosevelt that the United 
 States should intervene in Russia as it had in 
 Cuba! Again he asked Mr. Roosevelt to 
 send a representative to the conference at 
 Algeciras, called in 1906 to consider a settle- 
 ment of affairs in Morocco, with instructions 
 to labor for the securing of the rights of citi- 
 zenship for the large number of Jews in that 
 country. President Roosevelt did appoint 
 Mr. Henry White, and thus took part in an 
 International European conference in which no 
 American interest was involved. Mr. Schiff 
 soon came to feel, however, that no individual 
 should act on his own responsibility in such 
 momentous affairs. 
 
 There had been formed between New York 
 and Philadelphia a small social group known 
 as the Wanderers — a Saturday night supper 
 club. This company was a variegated one. 
 It included several lawyers, bankers, literary 
 men, scientific men, Jewish scholars, journ- 
 ahsts, a painter, and an architect. These 
 men smoked and talked, as such a group 
 naturally would, about every subject under 
 the sun; but largely under the influence of 
 Jewish conditions in Russia and particularly
 
 A Biographical Sketch -47 
 
 of the brutal outrage at KisliinefF, they 
 came to the conclusion that an organization 
 should be brought together calculated to help 
 secure human rights for the Jews in Russia 
 and in other lands where they were denied. 
 
 Moreover there was one grievance which the 
 Jews of America had on their own account — 
 one which they felt to be the single blot upon 
 their American citizenship. In the days be- 
 fore the World War the passport was for 
 American citizens travelhng abroad an amiable 
 formality, and the visa, the bugbear of these 
 latter years, was practically unknown, except 
 in the case of two countries — neither of which 
 had reached the standards of Western civiliza- 
 tion — Russia and Turkey. In theory the 
 passport is a letter of credence given to a 
 national of a country proceeding abroad and 
 invoking courtesy on the part of the country 
 or countries which he proposes to visit. There 
 is no obligation in international law except as 
 required by treaty provision for one country 
 to receive a national of any other country 
 The old rule that everyone not a Greek was a 
 barbarian still held in theory. But in prac- 
 tice and as the result of travel and commerce 
 this idea had been modified, and in many
 
 45 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 cases treaties had actually been made granting 
 the nationals of the contracting parties mutual 
 right of travel in the respective countries. 
 Between Russia and the United States such a 
 treaty had been entered into in 1832. 
 
 But Russia held that this treaty did not 
 apply to American citizens of the Jewish faith 
 and the Russian consuls in the United States 
 interrogated every person applying for a visa 
 as to his religion. If the religion was given 
 as Jewish the visa was withheld. Incidentally 
 it should be said that the same discourtesy 
 was extended to Roman Catholic priests and 
 Protestant missionaries. 
 
 It was to discuss and solve questions like 
 these that Mr. Schiff joined with others in the 
 formation, in 1906, of an organization known 
 as the American Jewish Committee, to which 
 he devoted much time and attention and in 
 whose work he was always active. 
 
 As many misstatements have been made 
 about the passport question and the abroga- 
 tion of the treaty of 1832 with Russia, and 
 propagandists have put a sinister interpreta- 
 tion upon it, it may be said without qualifica- 
 tion that the attempt to secure a proper ob- 
 servance of the treaty of 1832, on the basis
 
 A Biographical Sketch 4^9 
 
 of equal rights of all American citizens under 
 it, had been recognized as the duty of every 
 American President and Secretary of State for 
 forty years. Every diplomatic expedient had 
 been tried, and the Czar's Government had 
 always answered by delays or evasions or the 
 "appointment of a commission to examine into 
 the whole Jewish question." 
 
 In a letter to Count Witte, when the latter 
 was leaving America after the Portsmouth con- 
 ference, in 1905, President Roosevelt urged that 
 the Czar's Government straighten out the pass- 
 port question and remove the only possible 
 cause of irritation between the United States 
 and Russia. Count Witte says that he gave 
 this letter to the Czar in person, but for five 
 years no action was taken. 
 
 At the close of President Roosevelt's admin- 
 istration, the American Jewish Committee 
 brought the subject to the attention of Presi- 
 dent Taft, who endeavored to solve it by dip- 
 lomatic measures with the same lack of success 
 as had fallen to the lot of his predecessors. 
 
 Thereupon the proposal was made that since 
 Russia was, in fact, and had been for many 
 years, actually violating the treaty by main- 
 taining that under its terms she had the right
 
 50 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 to discriminate between the nationals of the 
 United States, and in pursuance of that right 
 to conduct an inquisition into their rehgious 
 behefs on American soil, steps should be taken 
 to abrogate this treaty. This proposal was 
 laid before President Taft at a conference at 
 which Senator Knox (then Secretary of State) 
 and W. W. Rockhill (then Ambassador to St. 
 Petersburg), Mr. Schiff, and several others 
 were present. Mr. Schiff was treated with 
 great honor on that occasion, which really 
 reflected the respect in which he was held. 
 The President, with the insistence of the Sec- 
 retary of State, gave Mr. Schiff the precedence 
 at his right, and for two hours the subject was 
 discussed. Some time later President Taft 
 gave a luncheon for a number of Jewish gentle- 
 men, and told them in effect that our Govern- 
 ment could do nothing. As the party left the 
 White House, one of the company said: "Alas, 
 we are in exile;" but Mr. Schiff said: "This 
 means a fight." An appeal was made to the 
 American people and later to Congress, and 
 finally notice of the abrogation of the treaty 
 was given by President Taft after a resolution 
 to that effect had passed the House of Repre- 
 sentatives with one dissenting vote, and Mem-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 51 
 
 bers of the Senate Committee on Foreign 
 Relations had informed the President that it 
 would pass the Senate unanimously. 
 
 Mr. SchiflF attended the hearing on this sub- 
 ject before the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
 of the House of Representatives at a full ses- 
 sion. The classic presentation of the subject 
 by Judge Mayer Sulzberger and the masterly 
 legal argument of Mr. Louis Marshall, lasting 
 for three hours, in which he met all questions 
 and all comers with answers based on interna- 
 tional and constitutional law, treaties, and 
 precedents, greatly impressed Mr. Schiff, and 
 when he was called upon to speak he said that 
 he had nothing to add to their presentation, 
 but that he had a request to make. "I know," 
 he said, "you gentlemen are going to pass this 
 resolution. All I ask is that you make it 
 unanimous." And they did. This was the 
 shortest and most effective speech a man could 
 make. 
 
 His profound gratification at the course of 
 events he expressed a few days later in a letter 
 in which he wrote: "The action of the House 
 has been most gratifying and I agree with you 
 that we may now expect equal action on the 
 part of the Senate. It is all like a dream and
 
 52 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 I little thought when I said to the President 
 last February after he had turned us down, 
 'this question will not down, Mr. President, 
 we had hoped that you would see that justice 
 be done us, but you have decided otherwise; 
 we shall now go to the American people' that 
 the latter would be so readily aroused, and 
 that action on their part would be so prompt 
 and effectual. Louis Marshall has outdone 
 himself all through and to him more than to any- 
 body else is due what we have accomplished." 
 This incident is narrated rather fully to 
 show what part Mr. Schiff had in it and the 
 motive which actuated him and his colleagues. 
 It was in no sense an international action, and 
 was dictated by the determination to clear 
 away the last vestige of governmental dis- 
 crimination against the Jews in America on 
 the part of a foreign government and to secure 
 recognition of the inviolability of the American 
 passport in the hands of all of its citizens with- 
 out distinction of creed. The benefits of this 
 action would have accrued equally to Catholic 
 priests and Protestant missionaries. It was 
 in effect the most signal act of justice to the 
 Jews ever undertaken by a great State and 
 heartened the Jews of Russia in their misery. 
 
 ^
 
 A Biographical Sketch 53 
 
 VI 
 
 Palestine — the Holy Land — has always loom- 
 ed large in the hearts and minds of the Jewish 
 people. The poets sang of Zion and the people 
 daily prayed for their restoration to the land of 
 their fathers. Mr. Schiff had joined that wing 
 of the Synagogue in which the prayer for the 
 restoration had been eliminated, and the mis- 
 sion of Israel was held to be the bringing of 
 the knowledge of the one true God to all the 
 peoples of all the lands in which Israel was 
 dispersed. But there were several strains of 
 Judaism woven into the texture of his soul, 
 and none chanted more fervently than he: 
 "For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah and 
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." 
 
 When the modern Zionist movement was 
 organized by Theodor Herzl in 1897, Mr. 
 Schiff, like many Jews, Orthodox, Conserva- 
 tive, and Reform, kept aloof from it. The 
 absence of any distinctly religious pronounce- 
 ment in the Basle platform, the presence and 
 the leadership of a number of non-religious 
 Jews, and the secular nationalist implications 
 of the movement offended him, and he vigor- 
 ously expressed the opinion in public and in
 
 5Ji. Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 private that his smpathies were with Jews by 
 faith and not Jews by race. 
 
 Open-mindedness, however, was one of his 
 most distinguishing traits, and he was attracted 
 by the nobihty and loftiness of the character 
 of Theodor Herzl. The news of the death of 
 that great man appeared in the press on a 
 Sabbath morning. Mr. Schiff was very nmch 
 saddened by the tidings. For many minutes 
 he was silent, and then after expressing his 
 grief, he related that the year previous he had 
 made an appointment in Europe to meet Herzl, 
 that the latter's health prevented the meeting, 
 but that instead he had held a conference with 
 one of Herzl's most trusted lieutenants, that 
 Herzl's plans had been explained to him, and 
 that to his regret he had been forced to the 
 conclusion that they could not be carried out. 
 
 Meanwhile he was showing his interest in 
 Palestine by aiding two projects — the Jewish 
 Agricultural Experiment Station, planned by 
 the late Aaron Aaronsohn, the discoverer of 
 wild wheat, and the Hebrew Technical Insti- 
 tute at Haifa, originally begun by the Wissotzky 
 family of Russia. To the latter institution he 
 made large gifts, although he declined mem- 
 bership on the governing boards of both.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 55 
 
 These institutions proved a great disappoint- 
 ment to him. 
 
 This interest in Palestine did not, however, 
 modify his attitude toward pohtical Zionism. 
 When his friend Dr. Schechter joined the Zion- 
 ist movement, in 1906, Mr. Schiff engaged in a 
 pubHc discussion with him in the New York 
 Times in which he expressed the opinion that 
 Zionism was incompatible with American citi- 
 zenship. A decade later he wrote: "It is quite 
 evident that there is a serious break coming 
 between those who wish to force the formation 
 of a distinct Hebraic element in the United 
 States, as distinct from those of us who desire 
 to be American in attachment, thought and 
 action and Jews because of our religion as well 
 as cultural attainments of our people. 
 
 I am quite convinced of it that the Amer- 
 ican people will not willingly permit the forma- 
 tion of a large separate Hebraic group with 
 national aspirations, and that if not we, our 
 posterity are to become sufferers in conse- 
 quence." 
 
 With reference to the proposal that the Jews 
 should seek representation as a nation in the 
 Council of the League of Nations he wrote on 
 August 29, 1920: "In view of what has been
 
 56 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 proposed by the Committee of Jewish Delega- 
 tions in Paris, we can only pray, that God 
 grant us protection against our friends and 
 leave us to get on with our enemies as best 
 we can." 
 
 As the war progressed and General Allenby 
 captured Jerusalem, when the Russian Revolu- 
 tion indicated a break-up of the then great 
 centers of Russian-Jewish learning, and the 
 horrors of the Ukraine were super-added, Mr. 
 Schiff began to despair for the future of Jewry 
 in Eastern Europe. He adopted a more favor- 
 able view on the settlement of Jews in Pales- 
 tine, which he looked upon as a future center 
 of Judaism and of Jewish culture. He made 
 considerable contributions to various funds for 
 the development of Palestine, and even offered 
 to join the Zionist organization provided that 
 upon the occasion of his being accepted as a 
 member a statement which he had prepared 
 would be published by the organization. The 
 offer was declined, and Mr. Schiff lived and 
 died outside of the Zionist camp. 
 
 The war period witnessed a great upheaval 
 in Jewish life in America. One of its mani- 
 festations was the growth, under Zionist leader- 
 ship, of a' nationalist movement with the en-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 57 
 
 deavor to capture or, failing this, to overthrow 
 existing Jewish organizations which did not 
 accept the new dogma. Mr. Schiff was one 
 of those who initially strongly opposed these 
 views. This fact and various remarks of his 
 at meetings in 1916 made him the target for 
 violent attacks in the Yiddish press and plat- 
 form. He was deeply wounded by these 
 attacks, and made a statement which has 
 dignity and pathos that remind one of the 
 words of Samuel after Saul was crowned: 
 
 "I have lived for fifty-one years in New 
 York. I am now almost at threescore and 
 ten, and I believe ever since I have grown 
 into manhood, there has not a day passed that I 
 have not been seeking the good of my people. 
 
 Whosoever can assert that for the time he 
 knows me, or who knows of me, I have ever 
 denied myseK to my people, have denied my- 
 self to their wants, have denied myself to any 
 cause, that I have waited until Jewish prob- 
 lems have been brought to me instead of going 
 after them in ray desire to cooperate, that I 
 have not given, not only of my means but 
 day in and day out and I may say night in and 
 and night out — have not given of myself, let 
 him rise and accuse me."
 
 58 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 His last days were saddened by the appear- 
 ance of an anti-Jewish agitation in the United 
 States, the one country in which this mediaeval 
 monstrosity had never found a lodgment. He 
 strongly urged the American Jewish Committee 
 not to notice these scandalous attacks, and it 
 was out of deference to his deeply expressed 
 feeling and the pain which a contrary action 
 would have given him during his illness that 
 his colleagues, even at the risk of being mis- 
 understood, delayed a reply. This suspension 
 of judgment in a vital matter is a measure of 
 the respect and affection which his long services 
 and his personality inspired. 
 
 VII 
 
 This narration, it is hoped, has given the 
 impression of a many-sided man of affairs and 
 of good deeds, always anxious to be of use to his 
 fellow-men and of service to the public. But 
 there were numerous other interests and inci- 
 dents in his life, deserving of at least a word. 
 Convinced that a better distribution of immi- 
 gration was desirable, he joined in a plan in- 
 volving large expenditure and much trouble to 
 land immigrants at the port of Galveston in
 
 A Biographical Sketch 59 
 
 Texas and arrange for their distribution through 
 the Southwest. He provided a building for 
 the Young Men's Hebrew Association at 92nd 
 Street and Lexington Avenue, in New York, 
 and interested himself in the growth of similar 
 organizations for men and women. He aided 
 in the building of a large number of synagogues 
 in small towns in the United States, always 
 assuring himself by investigation that the 
 local community was too small to bear the 
 burden itself. He conducted a lively corre- 
 spondence with Baron de Hirsch, and became 
 one of the trustees of his foundation in Amer- 
 ica. He was received in private audience by 
 the king of England in 1904 and by the Em- 
 peror of Germany in 1911. He served on the 
 Board of Education of New York, and was 
 vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. 
 In 1893 he anonymously gave a fund to Seth 
 Low to enable students of Columbia University 
 who did not possess the means to visit the 
 Columbian Exposition at Chicago. He pre- 
 sented a model of the dinosaur in the American 
 Museum of Natural History to the Natural 
 History Society of Frankfort. He was chair- 
 man of the East Asiatic section of the Amer- 
 ican Museum of Natural History, provided the
 
 60 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 funds for an Ethnological expedition to China, 
 and made gifts to the Zoological Gardens in 
 Bronx Park. He interested himself in the devel- 
 opment of Cooper Union, and presented a foun- 
 tain for Seward Park to New York City. He 
 took part in the movement to create a park at 
 105th Street in memory of Isidor and Ida Straus, 
 whose heroic death at the sinking of the 
 Titanic produced a profound impression, and 
 presided at the dedication. He was for a 
 number of years a jnember of the Board of 
 Managers of the New York Zoological Society 
 and of the Board of Directors of the Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. 
 
 He was keenly interested in the education 
 and development of the colored race, made a 
 number of large contributions to Tuskegee 
 and other colored institutions, and maintained 
 a close friendship with Booker T. Washington 
 and his successor. Major Moton. 
 
 His early association with the Jewish Pris- 
 oners' Aid Society developed his deep interest 
 in the problem of delinquency, and led to his 
 being one of the founders of the Jewish Pro- 
 tectory and Aid Society, to which he gave a 
 substantial portion of its original building 
 fund. This Society now covers the entire
 
 A Biographical Sketch 61 
 
 field of delinquency among the Jews of New 
 York, both male and female, adult and juvenile. 
 He was also very much interested in the work 
 of the Prison Association of New York (non- 
 sectarian under Protestant auspices), of which 
 he was one of the vice-presidents at the time 
 of his death. 
 
 He gave hearty support to the work of the 
 Hebrew Free Loan Association, as he thor- 
 oughly believed in constructive rather than 
 palliative assistance. With this same thought 
 in mind, he founded the SeK Support and Self- 
 Help Funds of the United Hebrew Charities, 
 which he maintained single-handed by large 
 annual contributions. 
 
 He earnestly advocated co-operation among 
 those serving the sick, as evidenced by the 
 Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, 
 on the Committee of which he served for many 
 years. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The tale of good deeds is not to be numbered, 
 and if this story is told aright there has been 
 awakened an interest in the personality of the 
 man himself. 
 
 On May 6, 1875, he married Theresa, the
 
 62 Jacob Henry Schijf 
 
 daughter of Solomon and Betty Loeb, people 
 of great sweetness of life and disposition. 
 Mrs. Loeb was very much interested in the 
 development of music, and herself sent many 
 students abroad to have their talents culti- 
 vated. The relationship of members of the 
 family to the foundation of the Musical Arts 
 Society is probably due to her influence. The 
 first impulse toward Mr. Schiff's interest in 
 the work of district nursing also came from 
 Mrs. Loeb. To Mr. and Mrs. Schiff were 
 born two children — Mortimer L. and Frieda. 
 The former, a member of Kuhn, Loeb and Com- 
 pany since 1900, was closely associated with his 
 father in his business and other activities, the 
 latter married Felix M. Warburg, also now a 
 member of the firm and distinguished for his 
 philanthropic work. With Mrs. Schiff's par- 
 ents, their brothers and sisters, and with their 
 own children, and later grandchildren and 
 great grandchildren, a wonderfully sweet do- 
 mestic life grew up of which, as the elders 
 passed, Mr. Schiff became the center. In 
 the midst of modern surroundings he main- 
 tained a relationship with all the members of 
 his family which may be fairly likened in its 
 dignity and simplicity to that of the patriarchs.
 
 A Biographical Sketch 63 
 
 Mr. Schiff was short of stature, of medium 
 build and erect carriage. He had blue eyes 
 capable of expressing compassion or indigna- 
 tion. He wore a beard which had lately 
 grown white, and was always carefully dressed 
 appropriately for every occasion. A flower 
 usually graced his button-hole. 
 
 Promptness was a distinguishing trait. He 
 was always on time for an engagement, and 
 answered every letter on the day of its receipt. 
 He exacted promptness in return. He hated 
 waste, saved pieces of wrapping paper and 
 string, and used them to pack up with his 
 own hands the newspapers and magazines 
 which he collected in his house and which 
 daily he sent to various hospitals and prisons. 
 
 He was a moderate, even a frugal, eater for 
 the last twenty years of his life. His exercise 
 in the city was walking; he always walked 
 from his house at 78th Street to 59th Street 
 and sometimes as far as 14th Street before 
 taking the Subway to his office. At Sea- 
 bright, his country place, he bicycled every 
 afternoon — even after he had attained his 
 seventieth year. At Bar Harbor he took 
 long walks, and did a bit of mountain-climb- 
 ing up to the summer of 1919.
 
 64 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 He enjoyed the opera and the theatre, and 
 usually planned to have three evenings of 
 entertainment in the week. 
 
 In his house on Fifth Avenue he had good 
 pictures and good books, but was in no sense 
 a collector of either, though he took pleasure 
 in his collection of jade. 
 
 His place at Seabright which he enlarged 
 and rebuilt was a great delight to him. The 
 farm, the stock, the gardens, the walks, the 
 splendid alley of trees which he planted he 
 was fond of showing to his guests. His hos- 
 pitality was delightful; every individual's 
 tastes and peculiarities were studied and pro- 
 vided for. Early every morning he was in 
 his gardens, and himself brought to each lady 
 of the household a rose or some other flower 
 of the season. 
 
 He remembered innumerable people's birth- 
 days and wedding anniversaries by a gift, a 
 note or a telegram; and when he sent a gift 
 it was quite certain that he had personally 
 made the selection. 
 
 If a friend visited New York he called or 
 left a card, or if one were ill he promptly made 
 a visit to show his solicitude and friendship. 
 For all the nice attentions of life he always
 
 A Biographical Sketch 65 
 
 found time, in spite of exacting business and 
 public duties. 
 
 He was accessible to all people on all sub- 
 jects, though not easily persuaded when his 
 mind was fixed. 
 
 He was frankly gratified at a friend's appre- 
 ciation. On January 10, 1917, his seventieth 
 birthday, he wrote: "May I say to you that 
 I am deeply touched by your beautiful, if to 
 some extent at least, unmerited appreciation 
 of my life upon my attainment this day of 
 the Biblical age. God has blessed me so 
 lavishly that had I done less in the years 
 that are now behind me than it was my privi- 
 lege to do I should feel no respect for myself, 
 but that I have gained the respect and good 
 will of men like you is certainly the highest 
 reward I can wish for." Again he wrote: 
 "I care very much for the good opinion and 
 good will of my friends." 
 
 He was a loyal friend to many men in the 
 business world — Harriman and Cassatt have 
 been mentioned. General Wilson was a close 
 and dear friend and a frequent companion. 
 President Eliot has already been spoken of. 
 A phrase in a letter from Abram S. Hewitt (No- 
 vember 21, 1901) speaks volumes: "Among the
 
 66 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 friends whom I have made in the evening of 
 my Hfe no one has endeared himself to me by 
 acts of courtesy and friendship more than 
 yourself," Levi P. Morton, Jacob Riis, James 
 J. Hill, and many still among the living he 
 numbered in this company, and he greatly 
 valued their good opinion. With Sir Ernest 
 Cassel, whom he originally met in a business 
 way, he formed an especially close friendship 
 which many differences in life and opinions 
 never marred and which was close and intimate 
 in spite of the dividing ocean. 
 
 He was fond of travel — crossed the American 
 continent five times, made twenty trips to 
 Europe, visited Palestine, Egypt, and Algiers, 
 and took long motor trips in America and 
 Europe. When air travel was still in its 
 infancy he made an ascent in a Zeppelin, and 
 wrote notes from that conveyance to a num- 
 ber of friends. This was much for a man of 
 his conservative nature to undertake, for he 
 was fond of the old things, and his horses only 
 slowly made way for the swifter motor. 
 
 He was earnest and impressive as a public 
 speaker, had a fine sense of humor and skill 
 in illustrating a point by an appropriate 
 anecdote or in enforcing it by means of a pun-
 
 A Biographical Sketch 67 
 
 gent witticism. He attended the annual 
 meetings of the many organizations with 
 which he was affiHated, and expressed his 
 personal appreciation of the manner in which 
 the officers and boards performed their duties. 
 His encouragement and appreciation to all who 
 performed a public service included those in 
 the humblest circumstances. He hated in- 
 justice, and frowned upon all conduct that 
 savored of self-seeking, disloyalty, and dis- 
 honorable practices. His standards were high, 
 yet he was charitable in his judgments. He 
 mingled with men of every shade of thought 
 and natives of all parts of the world. He 
 showed great interest in the well-being of his 
 fellow-men, and evinced solicitude and affec- 
 tion toward his intimates. 
 
 He had a charming way with little children, 
 and made close friends among them. 
 
 He was averse to public attention, and when 
 he reached the age of seventy and many 
 societies and innumerable admirers indicated 
 the purpose to do him honor, he slipped away 
 from New York with his family to Atlantic 
 City. Personal modesty was a distinguishing 
 characteristic. He cared little for distinctions, 
 and social preferment held no charms for
 
 68 Jacob Henry Schiff 
 
 him, though he was sought after in many cir- 
 cles both for his quahties of heart and mind. 
 
 He prized the degree of Doctor of Commer- 
 cial Science which was conferred upon him by 
 New York University in 1916 in the following 
 terms: "Jacob Henr-x Schiff: In this land 
 of your adoption you have won a place of 
 acknowledged leadership in financial and com- 
 mercial pursuits. For enterprise and breadth 
 of vision, for probity and worth, for the patron- 
 age of learning; for fidelity to the best tradi- 
 tions of your race and for altruistic service 
 that transcends the boundaries of race and 
 religion. New York University bestows upon 
 you the degree of Doctor of Commercial 
 Science and directs that your name be added 
 to the roll of her Alumni." 
 
 About this time he wrote (January 12, 1916) : 
 "I have before this been offered similar honors 
 but no degree, to which I could not claim 
 some justification to receive has attracted me. 
 The D. C. S. was not exposed to this exception 
 and I therefore thought I might accept it." 
 
 He was very democratic in his dealings 
 with men. His office was always open, and 
 he received innumerable visits at his home 
 from all sorts and conditions of men for the
 
 A Biographical Sketch 69 
 
 discussion of all sorts of subjects. Yet he 
 had the pride of noble antecenents — of a great 
 family and of a people which had distinguished 
 itself by giving to the world a sublime litera- 
 ture and many men of genius. 
 
 His health began to fail in the winter of 
 1920. At no time, however, was he bedrid- 
 den. In April of that year he went to White 
 Sulphur Springs, in the early summer to White 
 Plains, and in the latter part of July to the 
 White Mountains. Not regaining his strength 
 or sleep, he came back to Seabright and occu- 
 pied himself with reading, writing, and even 
 going to New York to his office during the 
 last week of his life. He resented help, and 
 by the exercise of his indomitable will was up 
 and about — the veritable Master of the House 
 — imtil the actual day of his death when he 
 took to his bed and passed away without a 
 struggle, just as the Sabbath concluded. 
 
 He was indeed a great man who worthily 
 played his part.
 
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