nent bankers, Cassel and Schiff. Doubtless his hopes were also raised by the
appointment of Oscar Straus as American ambassador to Constantinople.
Long a protagonist of the plan—Straus told Schiff in 1909 that “whoever
will control the railroad to the Persian Gulf will be a mighty international
power”—Straus was in a key position to push it along and to keep both ITO
and American Jews better apprised of political and economic developments.
Zionists too grew interested after hearing of Cassel’s plan to establish a
British-backed bank in Turkey. If Schiff, a friend of both Cassel and Zang-
will, shared in the banking investment, then Mesopotamia might provide
the means for cultivating Schiff on behalf of the Zionist Organization.^47
Schiff never joined ITO; he reasoned that it would take decades before
any ITO land offered relief for the eastern Europeans. Both he and Cassel
were prepared, however, to consider the Mesopotamian plan, particularly
since Schiff insisted that it be handled by the ICA, more representative of
world Jewry than ITO and unencumbered by political demands. Without
the support of Jews world-wide, he told Zangwill, the idea of a settlement
would fail. In a public interview the banker repudiated any idea of linking
the settlement with political or nationalist aims: “I have no sympathy with
and will take no hand in any scheme involving political conditions such as
the formation of an autonomy of any kind. I would have the Jews go to
Mesopotamia as they do to America—to the former instead of to the latter
because, with the Mesopotamian scheme of irrigation carried out their op-
portunities would be so much greater.” He also denied, in an interchange
with the president of the Zionist Organization, that Kuhn, Loeb was at
that time involved in Cassel’s banking venture or that he personally was
ready to endorse Zangwill’s schemes financially or otherwise. Although he
needed Zangwill’s cooperation on the Galveston plan, Schiff stubbornly
dissociated himself from ITO. Forced to back down, Zangwill’s organiza-
tion became a participant in, rather than the exclusive engineer of, the
Mesopotamian project.^48
Schiff refused to commit himself to so large an undertaking without as-
surances of its practicability. As was his wont, he stressed the importance of
a business-like approach: an investigation of the region, the formation of a
Jewish corporation, and an appeal to Turkey for a charter. Toward those
ends he suggested a cooperative international effort on the part of the ICA,
ITO, Hilfsverein, Zionist Organization, Anglo-Jewish Association, and
American Jewish leaders. Under ICA’s leadership, the Jews should ask Tur-
key for a specific charter that granted the right to acquire and colonize the
land and that guaranteed the capital for irrigation and communications.
The entire plan, he insisted, depended on Turkey’s active support, particu-
larly by a guarantee of principal and interest. Estimating the costs at
around $250 million, he warned against expectations that Jewish money
without a Turkish subvention could cover the project.^49
In Search of a Refuge 173