in a position to be dunned for significant contributions, and those men
were already overburdened. Besides, since Americans disapproved of Jew-
ish money leaving the country, why incur additional ill-feeling? Further-
more, how could the Europeans, who understood neither the American
scene nor the specific American projects, decide which emigrants to send
or which projects of the fund to support? After all, the Americans bore the
brunt of the Russian exodus, and, as had been arranged, they had been
promised a share of ICA’s income. Since the Europeans had also reneged
on their promise to keep the degenerate and the utterly destitute from im-
migrating to America, the Americans would have no recourse but to op-
pose free immigration.^13
Schiff frequently vented his anger at the “Paris Gentlemen” (his term)
for their seeming callousness to American sensibilities. He once warned
that if American demands were not treated seriously, “self-respect” and
“self-preservation” would force the severance of ties with Europe and cur-
tailment of American work. Then, he concluded darkly, the world would
judge which side was to blame. Schiff wanted no less than an equal partner-
ship with the Europeans. “I am unwilling,” he wrote to Judge Myer Isaacs,
first president of the Hirsch fund, “to permit the Paris Gentlemen to ad-
dress us and deal with us in the dictatorial spirit and tone, which they have
assumed. We are doing the work, not under them, but as their peers, and if
they are not satisfied with what we are doing, they can take the responsibil-
ity.”^14 Since the Europeans were less tractable on the idea of equality, ill-
feeling erupted sporadically before World War I.
In 1915, when Schiff testified before the Commission on Industrial Rela-
tions, part of the discussion dealt with the Baron de Hirsch Fund. Like the
Rockefeller, Sage, and Carnegie funds, the Hirsch Fund’s wealth had
aroused the curiosity if not uneasiness of the commission. The banker sum-
marized the work of the fund, which by then had grown to $4 million and
of which he was still a trustee and vice president. Affirming his unshaken
belief in “preventive charity,” he spoke with special pride of the fund’s
training schools and of its “tremendous” success in reducing poverty. A de-
fender of private philanthropy under elitist control, he adamantly opposed
the notions that democratizing the choice of trustees or involving the
government in its administration could improve the fund’s operations.^15
Relief for the GhettoSchiff believed that the purpose of philanthropy in the ghetto transcended
temporary physical relief. Both individually and together, the various
88 Jacob H. Schiff