None pointed out, however, that Schiff was surprisingly thin-skinned. He
shrank from personal confrontations, and his protests to the contrary not-
withstanding, he was troubled by criticism or opposition, especially by
those whom he respected or feared. As he showed in the Equitable affair,
he did not accept blame easily, no matter what the merit of the evidence
against him. Rather, he looked for excuses or for other culprits in order to
exonerate himself.
Despite his self-assuredness, the banker thought of himself as a modest
man who shunned publicity and public accolades. (Once he asked a journal
not to refer to him as “the greatest living Jew.”) Yet he would have appre-
ciated the many tributes that poured in from European bankers after his
death. The most glowing came from Gaspard Ferrer of Baring Brothers in
London: “No one on Wall Street stood on a higher plane than Schiff; in
character, ability, and humanity he was in the very foremost rank, and that
in a generation which grew the biggest kind of men—Mr. Morgan,... Mr.
Hill, Mr. Harriman,... and many others. Those were the days when the
individual had full scope for his energies and abilities [and] Mr. Schiff cer-
tainly made the most of his opportunities.”^114
The banker kept his Jewish life distinctly separate from his business. He
never hid his involvement in Jewish matters, but he discussed them only
with a few of his banking associates—Maurice de Hirsch, Ernest Cassel,
and Max Warburg. In the United States his closest friends outside the firm
were Jews who shared those concerns. Nevertheless, the same skills that he
honed to a fine art in business—bold initiative and meticulous administra-
tion—characterized his handling of Jewish affairs as well.
The man who built up Kuhn, Loeb to its awesome heights enjoyed an
unrivaled reputation as the foremost American Jewish leader. His power as
a leader rested mainly on his prominence in the financial world; his wealth
alone permitted him to support a vast array of civic and Jewish institutions
and, if he so desired, to direct their policies. Respect for the banker’s eco-
nomic status allowed him to ask favors for Jewish causes from Gentiles as
well as Jews. Impressed by the influence that Schiff wielded in the larger
society and proud that he readily identified with them, his fellow Jews were
usually prepared to follow his lead.
40 Jacob H. Schiff