be remembered for good,” a reference to a palace eunuch who befriended
Mordecai in the book of Esther), he told Straus, “Mr. Sulzer saved the day
for us.” Straus’s family, however, thought differently. Straus’s sister-in-law,
Mrs. Nathan Straus, commented bitterly that Oscar’s election might have
benefited the Jews and that Schiff’s stand “has hurt the Jewish cause more
than can be made good in years to come.” Nevertheless, Straus and Schiff
remained friends.
Never in doubt, Sulzer’s victory climaxed a campaign in which he played
up his aid to the Jews. Less than a year later, however, he was impeached.
Since the governor had failed to report Schiff’s check for $2,500 in his
statement of campaign contributions, Schiff became peripherally involved
in the proceedings. He testified that the gift was “unrestricted” and that
Sulzer had the use of the money for any purpose whatsoever. It was at best
a disingenuous answer, for a note in the banker’s handwriting on the face of
the check indicated that the gift was earmarked for campaign purposes.
More important to Schiff, however, was the need to demonstrate to non-
Jewish powerbrokers that Jews paid their political debts.^70
Abrogation failed to bring about Russian Jewish emancipation, but
Schiff and the AJC could claim at least a partial victory. Their campaign
had shown that American Jewry refused to accept the government’s viola-
tion of Jewish equality. More than the others, Schiff and Marshall, whom
Schiff called the “real soul” behind abrogation,^71 personified a new breed
of emancipated Jew, different from his cringing ghetto ancestors and un-
afraid to defend Jewish rights.
152 Jacob H. Schiff