the discrimination of elitist cultural institutions and opinion molders.
With great passion he explained to Bishop Potter: “When prejudice flows
from the fountain-head, the effect must necessarily make itself felt
wherever the stream touches. And this flow from the fountain-head is the
spirit which, as by a tacit understanding, excludes the Hebrew from the
Trustee-room of Columbia College, of the public Museums, the public li-
brary, and many similar institutions of influence upon the public mind.”
The masses were not the principal culprits, for “the river cannot rise
higher than its source.” Rather, the blame for prejudice lay upon “those
who have the influence and power to counteract it, but decline even to
make an effort in this direction, though they may mourn for the guilt of its
existence.”
Schiff revealed much about himself in that letter. Just as he believed
that the wealthy bore a distinct obligation in matters of philanthropy, so
did he ascribe to American communal leaders a responsibility for social
tolerance. Unafraid to lecture the highly respected cleric, Schiff had no
patience for Christian hypocrisy or for those who piously condemned
anti-Semitism at the same time that they abetted its persistence. He was
disturbed by Potter’s earlier comment that Jewish resentment of social
discrimination was surprising—didn’t Jews too look askance upon inter-
marriage, the bishop had asked—and he saw no reason to blunt his custo-
mary forthrightness.^90
Focusing on the “fountain-head,” Schiff showed a special sensitivity to
anti-Jewish prejudice in private schools that was manifested in discrimina-
tion against Jewish students, faculty, or directors. Generous gifts to various
universities, including Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell, enabled him to
monitor the situation at different seats of higher learning. When he heard
that his brother-in-law, James Loeb, was not appointed to Harvard’s board
of overseers because he was Jewish, he brought the matter to the attention
of his friend and president of Harvard, Charles W. Eliot. The latter told
him that the report was inaccurate; but although the president’s evidence
was rather weak, Schiff seemed eager to be reassured, and he dropped the
subject.^91 At Columbia, suspecting an anti-Jewish bias in faculty appoint-
ments, the banker asked anthropologist Franz Boas, then in the sociology
department, to investigate. Boas found no evidence for the report, but
Schiff was not convinced. He also acted when accounts of bias against
Jewish students reached him. He replied to a Cornell student who had
complained of prejudice on campus that discrimination unfortunately was
“inherent” in the student body and therefore not easily eradicated. Never-
theless, he was prepared to seek corrective measures from a Jewish trustee
and from the president of the university.^92
Schiff was not so naive as to believe that philanthropy constituted the
perfect antidote to discrimination; social anti-Semitism, he once said,
72 Jacob H. Schiff