Schiff’s tasks were self-assumed, and he plotted strategy with only a hand-
ful of trusted friends. The creation of relief committees in aid of pogrom
victims and even the subsequent work of the American Jewish Committee
(AJC) in defense of foreign Jews neither lessened his importance nor cut
down his image. Behind the scenes he still called the signals and passed on
all important plays.
Schiff wondered at Russia’s self-defeating policy of anti-Semitism. Once
given their rights, Russian Jews were certain to become productive and pa-
triotic assets to their country.^4 But as long as the czar’s government per-
sisted in its course, only pressure from outside sources could effect a
change. Prepared to consider any suggestion that offered the slightest
glimmer of amelioration (Schiff alternated between optimism and pessi-
mism about the plight of Russian Jewry) he tried numerous ways, usually
simultaneously, of generating that pressure. To be sure, some methods, like
the mobilization of public opinion and appeals for government interven-
tion, had been utilized by American Jews as far back as the Damascus Af-
fair. Radically new, however, were Schiff’s independent efforts to isolate
Russia in the diplomatic arena, notably through international financial
pressure. Different too, precisely because Schiff directed the protracted
campaign against Russia, was the style of Jewish protest. The earlier timid-
ity of Jewish supplicants was gone. Now the American Jewish establish-
ment had in Schiff an aggressive spokesman who pursued the objective
with little fear of incurring disfavor.
The anti-Russia crusade brought Schiff to the height of his communal
powers and to a position never before attained by an American Jewish
leader. The rank and file of American Jews knew little of his anti-Russia ef-
forts and were consulted even less. Since he operated independently and
without a power base, he saw no reason to change his belief in control from
the top down. From his point of view, unleashing an inchoate and politi-
cally immature immigrant community was sure to generate noisy, dis-
jointed, and irresponsible actions that could undermine the tried tech-
niques of quiet, personal diplomacy.
After the pogroms and the restrictive May Laws of 1881, Schiff and a
few other American Jewish stewards closely monitored the Russian Jewish
situation. In 1890, despite denials by the American minister to St. Peters-
burg, they learned from their counterparts in western Europe of new im-
pending restrictions that included expulsions from Moscow and other cit-
ies. On the initiative of Oscar Straus, who maintained his contacts with the
State Department after his first tour of duty as minister to Turkey, and
Jesse Seligman, whose firm served as fiscal agent for the Navy Department,
they presented their case to Secretary of State James Blaine and President
Benjamin Harrison. They had two objectives: to expose the misinformation
126 Jacob H. Schiff
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