ing the lifetime of the owner. The two men also agreed on the value of
endowing institutions of a permanent social value like museums, univer-
sities, and libraries. The salient difference between the steel magnate and
the banker was that Carnegie argued in secular terms and Schiff drew from
a God-given directive. Their solution to social problems raised charges of
arrogance and heavy-handed paternalism, but neither one was the purist,
rapacious social Darwinist. Indeed, Schiff once said: “There is, perhaps, no
more cruel principle... than.. ., as Herbert Spencer has expressed it, ‘the
survival of the fittest.’”^64
Schiff never rejected a role for government in public welfare, whether
through housing reform or municipal aid to settlement work, libraries, and
public lectures.^65 Nor did he think that the principle of church-state separ-
ation militated against state appropriations to institutions under denomi-
national control. When the threat of prohibiting the use of public funds for
sectarian institutions came before a New York constitutional convention in
1915, he and Marshall worked to avert the “great blow” to Jewish charita-
ble agencies. In Schiff’s scheme of things, ideas tested in the private sector
that proved of use or value deserved government support.^66
How Schiff applied the principles that underlay his philanthropy is re-
flected in the following account of his activities on behalf of certain institu-
tions and causes. His labors similarly show how he interpreted the behav-
ior of a Jewish leader, specifically in the area of philanthropy, toward Jews
and non-Jews in the America of his day. Most important, his very choice of
philanthropies testifies to the priorities generated by his vision of a secure
and vibrant American Jewry.
The Montefiore Home and HospitalOf all his many charities, the Montefiore Home was Schiff’s favorite. His
earliest major project, it was, he said, the one that gave him “greater satis-
faction... than... anything it has been my privilege and good fortune to
accomplish in my life.” “I have reared it as I would my own child,” watch-
ing its growth “fondly and proudly.”^67 But also a stern and domineering
parent, he ruled the institution for thirty-five years as a virtual fiefdom. In
large measure it was the mirror of the man—his character, values, and
methods.
The home was created to fill a specific void. The care of the Jewish incur-
ably and chronically ill—sufferers of cancer, tuberculosis, syphilis, drug ad-
64 Jacob H. Schiff