for honoring dignitaries. He also cooperated with the Committee on Pub-
lic Information and with the National Security League in propaganda
work directed at the foreign-born. As personal contributions to the war ef-
fort, he put part of Montefiore’s medical complex at the disposal of the
army, he turned over his summer house to the War Department for use as
a rest home for army nurses, and he donated his automobile to Lillian
Wald and her nurses during the influenza epidemic. Caught up in the pop-
ular frenzy of wartime hypernationalism, he gladly lent his name to patri-
otic and Americanization organizations. Not surprisingly, one of the latter
was the American Friends of German Democracy, which aimed at educat-
ing Germans in the United States in the principles of democracy.^38
Yet Schiff the American patriot was also Schiff the Jew, or as he was known
by then, “the greatest Jew in America.”^39 Again there was a potential clash
of loyalties. Since anti-Jewish prejudice intensified during the war, the ste-
wards were saddled with two seemingly contradictory responsibilities. On
the one hand they insisted on unconditional patriotism and conformity
from their fellow Jews, and on the other they defended Jews against preju-
dice that was cloaked in the name of Americanism.
America’s entry into World War I, John Higham has written, “called
forth the most strenuous nationalism... that the United States had ever
known.” The pervasive spirit of 100 percent Americanism, almost evangel-
ical in fervor, dictated single-minded loyalty along with service to the na-
tion. A national crisis of major proportions often served as a unifying fac-
tor, but in 1917 American wartime nationalism unleashed ugly forces of
nativism as well. Age-old stereotypes of the alien and unassimilable Jew,
the international and clannish Jew tied only to other Jews and incapable of
rooting himself in non-Jewish society, or the physically stunted Jew unwill-
ing or unable to engage in armed combat still colored Christian percep-
tions. Whether or not Jews ran afoul of patriotic expectations, they became
objects of suspicion. Doubtless because of Schiff’s dominance, the neutral
AJC, for example, was charged with being pro-Germany. One Yiddish pac-
ifist complained of the double standard that made Jews no better than
second-class citizens. Whereas “genuine Americans can afford to be for
war or against war,” Jews had to line up unanimously in favor of the war ef-
fort.^40 With regard to Jewish behavior, Schiff took his cue from the general
American mood. Ever fearful of anti-Semitic repercussions, he and his as-
sociates focused principally on Jewish loyalty. Anti-Jewish discrimination
could not be ignored, but proper Jewish conduct was the first priority.
It was difficult to effect a rapid and dramatic change in the attitude of
American Jews toward the belligerents, but the stewards tried. Although
accounts have stressed the “revolutionary” shift to a pro-Ally stance in the
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