examined the influence of Judaism and Jewishness on Schiff’s principles
and behavior, both analyses are for our purposes incomplete.
The growth of Kuhn, Loeb into one of the most powerful investment
banking houses in New York paralleled the development of a nation rap-
idly becoming a modern industrialized state. The small firm on Nassau
Street under Kuhn and Loeb had been content to live by its initial an-
nouncement: “We do not chase after business.... We do business with
people who come to us.” After 1875, however, it embarked on new policies
and an aggressive search for clients. The change to the fast lane at a pace
that overtook older Jewish firms, notably the Speyer and Seligman houses,
was the work of Jacob Schiff. To be sure, there were other partners, but on
Wall Street and to outside observers Schiff wasKuhn, Loeb until his death
in 1920. Established Gentile bankers had earlier turned up their noses at
small and risky ventures with the comment “let the Jews have that one”;
but not too long thereafter, Kuhn, Loeb, under Schiff’s drive and diligence,
commanded their unqualified respect.^25
With the help of young Abraham Wolff, who also joined Kuhn, Loeb in
1875, Schiff set the firm on a different track. Where Loeb was passive,
Schiff was bold. A pioneering instinct and a faith in the economic expan-
sion of the nation drew him to uncharted fields. Loeb’s son James later crit-
icized Jacob for some ill-advised investments, but Schiff persisted. Some
twenty years later he admitted that he had grown more conservative. By
then he adhered to a self-imposed rule—don’t go into anything about
which you know little or nothing. When the elder Loeb became aware that
his younger associates were bent on change, he felt constrained to with-
draw. Since Kuhn had long since left, Schiff was the acknowledged head of
the firm by 1885. Business differences notwithstanding, Schiff’s letters at-
test to an abiding respect for his father-in-law and for Therese’s brothers.^26
Schiff’s hard work was matched by a great pride in the firm. According
to a writer for the Magazine of Wall Street, the pride was warranted, because
Kuhn, Loeb, he said, was known to have sold more good securities and
fewer bad ones than any other banking house. Schiff’s integrity and that of
Kuhn, Loeb, a sine qua non for any successful banking firm, was assumed.
“If that is gone,” Schiff said, “our business is gone, however attractive our
show window might be.” The young banker built on the reputation of the
modest but respectable firm of Kuhn and Loeb, and he never thought of
renaming the firm for himself.^27
Like other investment bankers, Kuhn, Loeb forged ties with suppliers
of capital—banks, trust companies, insurance companies. Investment firms
also augmented their limited capital by organizing or joining syndicates,
devices by which a group of investors pooled their resources and shared the
The Making of a Leader 9