fifth, an immediate postwar loan, in New York, London, Berlin, and Paris.
With Kuhn, Loeb as the hub of American action, Schiff effectively mobi-
lized the participation of leading firms, like the insurance companies as
well as Rockefeller and Morgan interests. Japanese bonds generated lively
activity in the United States, and the pace of the sales forced Schiff to en-
gage personally in the tiresome task of countersigning tens of thousands of
bonds. The American share of the five loans combined amounted to over
$196 million, a sum that was said to set a record for large-volume financing
before World War I. In 1905, Schiff advised Japan to accept the peace
terms worked out at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but he pledged Kuhn,
Loeb’s continued aid irrespective of the outcome.^97
Not only was Kuhn, Loeb’s aid to Japan a critical component in bring-
ing about Russia’s defeat, but it was a major victory for Schiff. Like the
Union Pacific affair, it boosted his reputation nationally and internation-
ally. Having eclipsed the House of Morgan in the enterprise, Kuhn, Loeb
was now the primary manager of American accounts held by the Japanese
government. Schiff visited Japan in 1906, and in the course of what the
Yiddish Forward described as a triumphal tour, he was decorated by the em-
peror with the Order of the Rising Sun. Schiff’s contributions to the war
effort left a double-edged legacy in Japan. On the one hand, his friendship
was long remembered; on the other, as the all-powerful Jewish banker, he
and his firm fed the later currents of Japanese anti-Semitism.^98
Out of the war a warm relationship developed between Schiff and Japa-
nese banker Baron Korekiyo Takahashi, a financial representative of his
government in 1904 in London and New York. Takahashi sent his young
daughter back to New York with the Schiffs to live with them for three
years while she furthered her education. Through Takahashi and others,
Schiff maintained a keen interest in Japanese economic and political affairs.
He also kept alert to any signs of anti-Semitism in Japan. As a friend of
Japan and informal adviser on financial matters, he worked to maintain
good relations between Japanese and Americans. In 1908, for example, he
invited forty of America’s top financial and educational leaders to a dinner
for a high Japanese official. In his speech he emphasized the close ties that
bound the two nations, and he tried to minimize the tension generated in
Japan by prejudice in California and by the voyage of the American fleet
around the world.^99
After the Russo-Japanese War, business reasons and anti-Russian senti-
ment led Schiff to continue his support of Japan. (He temporarily aban-
doned that policy in 1910 when Japan allied itself with Russia.) He fully re-
alized that he was dealing now with a more aggressive Japan. During his
visit he had become convinced of Japan’s determination to establish firm
control over Korea and Manchuria and to dominate China. At that time he
tried but failed to secure Japanese consent to E. H. Harriman’s control or
34 Jacob H. Schiff