an Allied mission to the United States to secure a major loan for the Allies.
In this instance, the banker again sought to balance his loyalties. A German
sympathizer with a deep Jewish aversion to Russia, he and his firm were
nonetheless American and, aside from the profits involved, obligated to
promote the nation’s commerce and industry. The partners of Kuhn, Loeb
divided on how to proceed—Otto Kahn and Schiff’s own son favored par-
ticipation in the loan—and a conference was called. Schiff was prepared, he
said, not to oppose the loan as long as its advantages in no way accrued to
Russia, but they all understood that the idea of separating Russia from En-
gland and France would be rejected. The drama of the conference as told
by Cyrus Adler lay in Schiff’s opening remarks:
I have thought about this situation all night. Before asking your opinions, I
want to tell you that my mind is made up, unalterably. I realize fully what is at
stake for the firm... in the decision we are going to make. But come what
may, I cannot run counter to my conscience, I cannot sacrifice my profound-
est convictions for the sake of whatever business advantage, I cannot stultify
myself by aiding those who, in bitter enmity have tortured my people and
will continue to do so, whatever fine professions they may make in their hour
of need. I ought not to be asked to do so. It is not fair to put me in this di-
lemma.... I know your objections and counter-arguments and criticisms.
They do not and cannot affect my conclusion. This is a matter between me
and my conscience, and no one but I myself can solve it for me. You are
younger men. Some of you do not feel as I do on what I consider the morally
controlling element of the question. The future of the firm is yours.Schiff offered to resign if the partners did not agree with him, and at that
dissent collapsed. Several partners subscribed privately to the loan, but
Schiff’s law still ruled the rarely divided firm. The banker continued his ef-
forts to block loans to Russia, arguing eloquently but futilely that such aid
was “truly a reason for the American people to bow their heads in shame
and mortification.” Ironically, in the face of wartime needs, London dis-
creetly pressured the czarist regime to make concessions to the Jews.^26
Kuhn, Loeb not only lost out to the pro-England Wall Street houses,
but the matter reinforced the image held by the Allies and the general
American press of Schiff as a German partisan. Among Jewish leaders who
sided with the Allies, Rabbi Stephen Wise called him more pro-German
than pro-Jewish. The banker wryly noted to Israel Zangwill that, because
of his primary desire for an honorable peace, Germany found him inade-
quately pro-German, while at the same time England and France regarded
him as an agent of the kaiser. In some Yiddish circles, however, his stand
was acclaimed. The loyal Day congratulated the banker in an editorial em-
phasizing his Jewish loyalties. “A man who occupies such an important
The World at War 197