to Jewish affairs, except perhaps to Jewish physical charities. But even among
this handful of men, how hard it is to get them to understand the real state of
Jewish affairs, and to think and act opportunely and comprehensively.^81For their stand on a congress, Schiff, his cohorts, and the AJC were sub-
jected to constant abuse. The Yiddish press led the attacks, calling the ste-
wards who mistrusted the people unfit to manage Jewish affairs. Patience
wore thin, tempers flared, and friends clashed as the opposing camps dug
in their heels. Adler, who threatened to resign the chairmanship of the
committee’s executive, bitterly affirmed that the Zionist critics, allied with
the labor unions, socialists, and anarchists, were following an organized
plan for the total destruction of the committee. Schiff wondered why the
masses supported such dangerous agitation instead of focusing on impor-
tant Jewish issues. Regretting his subsidies to certain errant newspapers, he
tried for a while to offset their influence by building up the new Yiddish
Day. (Magnes counseled Schiff to make an outright purchase in order to
reach downtown, but the banker replied that such action would increase
attacks by other Yiddish journals.) Prominent individuals joined the
chorus, sometimes at the cost of friendship. A case in point was Dr. Harry
Friedenwald, a founder of the AJC and an officer of the Federation of
American Zionists (FAZ). In a forceful defense of the masses—their right
to participate in the solution of their own problems and their lack of confi-
dence in the committee—Friedenwald resigned from the AJC, indicting it
for ignoring the people and for causing the schism that tore the commu-
nity apart. He predicted that “the new generation will not follow blindly in
the footsteps of Marshall and Schiff any longer.” Friedenwald’s resignation
and the sharp rebuttal from the committee estranged him forever from an
old friend, Cyrus Adler.^82
Non-Jews watched the controversy too. In London, David Lloyd George
dismissed the congress idea with contempt: “A war cannot be run by a San-
hedrin.” In America, Charles Eliot asked Schiff for an explanation after he
read Brandeis’s charges that the AJC operated secretly and was self-
perpetuating. Recalling Schiff’s pressure on Witte at the end of the Russo-
Japanese War, Eliot suggested that an agent for the international Jewish
bankers submit the Jewish case at Versailles. After all, they had the experi-
ence of international dealings, and they enjoyed confidential relations with
each other.^83
Put on the defensive, Schiff doubted whether mass support for a con-
gress could be stopped and whether “we shall be able to counteract these
influences and succeed in leading the Jewish masses aright.” Despite his
pessimism, he counseled prudent but positive action that could enhance
the committee’s bargaining power even if the congress supporters were to
win. Since an active minority was more likely than a passive one to curb the
218 Jacob H. Schiff