possible settlements in Mesopotamia and Cyrenaica precluded the optimal
administration of the Galveston plan in Europe. Nevertheless, the banker
did not consider his work a failure. He still hoped that those who were
brought in would attract others and that new efforts at western distribution
would be made after the world war.^36
The Galveston episode testified to Schiff’s administrative skills and force-
ful character. He chose strong associates in the United States, and within
the limits imposed by organizational rivalry he made good use of available
European talent. Juggling the problems of recruitment and placement, as
well as obstacles imposed by both America and Russia, he fearlessly pres-
sured his business contacts and the Taft administration. From its inception
in 1907 until 1914 he was the linchpin that kept the movement afloat.
When weighed on the scales of communal leadership, however, the
Galveston movement marked a defeat for the banker with the Yiddish-
speaking masses. His obsession with keeping America’s doors open as long
as possible was accompanied by a lack of concern about the desires of the
eastern Europeans. In his grand design the prospective immigrants were
pawns rather than partners. Ignoring the economic background and family
situation of the Russians, Schiff defined the proper type of recruits for the
plan, and he assumed the right to choose their destination. He, a man who
abstained from work on the Sabbath, also advised that they be prepared to
violate their day of rest. Nor did his usual concern for religious tradition
and Jewish education extend to the Galveston arrivals. Since the move-
ment could not lure prospective emigrants with plans for synagogues,
schools, and other communal agencies that contributed to the drawing
power of the large ghettos, it undercut both mass support as well as
Galveston’s chance of competing with the mid-Atlantic ports.^37 Schiff may
have praised the ideals and cultural baggage that the newcomers brought
with them, but his approach bespoke less a desire to comprehend the needs
of the Russians than to refashion them, perhaps the last of freely admitted
aliens, in an American mold.
The Territorialist Solution: Mexico and MesopotamiaAlthough America was the primary focus of the eastern European emi-
grants, the possibility of directing them to lands outside Europe and the
United States intrigued western Jewish leaders from the start of the mass
exodus. In 1882, at an international conference that arranged for a division
of labor with respect to the immigrant flow, the Paris committee was as-
signed the task of studying colonization in countries other than America
168 Jacob H. Schiff