Opposition to the militant pacifists came to a head in the mayoral elec-
tion of 1917, which pitted a Socialist and Jew, Morris Hillquit, against John
P. Mitchel. By then, differences within the pacifist wing had intensified,
and animosity generated by Socialist “un-Americanism” engaged Jews and
non-Jews, pacifists who sided with the war, and even the government in an
anti-Hillquit smear campaign. The campaign joined uptown and down-
town. Spokesmen for the anti-Hillquit Jews interpreted support of the So-
cialist primarily as a Jewish issue that could only harm the community. A
former Jewish member of Congress put it this way: “The Socialist party is
regarded by the people of the country... as un-American... and as voic-
ing sentiments that are pro-German, and as antagonistic to American insti-
tutions and ideals. The East Side, because of the... Socialist party there
... has been charged with being unpatriotic, and serious misgivings have
been indulged in because of the un-Americanism that has prevailed.”
Representing the stewards and urging a “house-cleaning of our own,”
Louis Marshall wrote a strong letter to the Yiddish Forward. He denied
that he opposed Hillquit because he was a Socialist, but he indicted the
candidate for urging “a premature peace, a peace which would be a Ger-
man peace,... and a large vote in his favor would be hailed with delight by
the enemies of America.” “I am alarmed at the thought that the Jews of
New York,” Marshall continued, “shall be charged by the American peo-
ple... with virtual treason and sedition, and with the purpose of creating
for themselves in the United States a ghetto of separatism, of taking them
out of American life, and of nullifying all that has been done through
these many years to prove that the Jew is a loyal, faithful, patriotic Ameri-
can citizen.” Like Marshall, who feared anti-Jewish charges of disloyalty
and bloc voting, Schiff and other prominent Jews endorsed Mitchel. Call-
ing for Jewish repudiation of Hillquit, the banker contributed to Mitchel’s
campaign.^52
Schiff’s anger at the militant Socialist pacifists cooled in the case of
Judah Magnes. Magnes was not the typical wild-eyed, atheistic radical. A
rabbi and spokesman for religion, a man of great charm who selflessly de-
voted his marked talents to Jewish causes, and Marshall’s brother-in-law,
he had long bridged uptown and downtown. A member of the AJC and the
driving power behind the kehillah, he earned Schiff’s respect for his tireless
communal work and for his sincere if misplaced principles. Magnes was a
maverick and a critic in the circle of the stewards but, basically loyal, he was
their beloved bad boy. Schiff disapproved of Magnes’s Zionism, and he ad-
mitted that Magnes’s pacifism endangered the Jews (one Jew told Schiff
that he refused to donate to Jewish war relief because of Magnes), but
Schiff’s affection for his young associate lasted. The rupture came only at a
publicized AJC executive meeting in 1918 where Schiff attacked the
Bolsheviks in Russia and on the Lower East Side who harmed their fellow
206 Jacob H. Schiff