Events in the early 1890s underscored the urgency of disseminating ac-
curate and sympathetic reports on Russian Jewish suffering. Nineteenth-
century Jews looked upon the cultivation of “enlightened public opinion” as
the prime weapon against anti-Semitism. Children of the Enlightenment,
they genuinely believed, before World War I, in the power of reason to ad-
vance mankind along the paths of progress and justice. Hence, the stewards
aimed at a loud non-Jewish outcry, contradicting the erroneous diplomatic
reports, that might successfully ameliorate the Russian situation or at least
add weight to the argument for diplomatic intervention. Publicity also
dovetailed with the search for non-Jewish allies. Although the stewards
argued for humanitarian diplomacy (i.e., that the the mission of America,
the beacon of liberty to the world, obligated the country to champion the
cause of the persecuted) they were sufficiently astute to recognize a
minority’s need of political support. When news syndicates deliberately
purveyed misinformation and when influential journals like the North
American Review, the Nation, and Century Magazine opened their columns
to respectable writers who blatantly attacked Jews or blamed persecution
on Jewish behavior, countermeasures for reaching the American public
through a sympathetic press commanded top priority.^7
Schiff sought the cooperation of Oswald Garrison Villard of the Nation
and George Jones of the New York Times, and he sent articles from the Eu-
ropean press condemning Russian persecution to Horace White, editor of
the New York Evening Post. It was high time, he said, that American news-
papers took similar action. How was it that the press was quick to condemn
Russian atrocities in Siberia but showed no interest in what Russian Chris-
tians were doing to Russian Jews? The banker arranged for the publication
of “enlightening” books, and he looked for occasions—for example, a din-
ner in honor of Jesse Seligman—where his remarks on Russian conditions
would receive press coverage.^8
The public relations campaign was largely a hit-or-miss operation that
called on editors and publishers to report Russian persecution and that
thanked those who did. In one instance, Schiff and a few others took the in-
itiative by underwriting a trip to Russia by New York Times correspondent
Harold Frederic. The latter’s accounts of conditions were circulated by
various papers and shortly thereafter published in book form. Seeking al-
lies, Schiff also lent support to the Friends of Russian Freedom and its pub-
lication, Free Russia. The move sparked a warm friendship between the
banker and George Kennan, the man who had exposed the Siberian labor
camps.^9 Association with Kennan and his group alerted the stewards to a
cause larger than the Jewish question—the downfall of the Romanov em-
pire. To be sure, Jewish liberation under czarist rule remained Schiff’s im-
mediate focus, but subsuming that goal under the movement for a Russian
democracy became a possible strategy, worthy at least of minimal support.
128 Jacob H. Schiff