In our April number, and again in May, this department presented selections from the writings of Louis Marshall, a founding father of the American Jewish Committee, which is now celebrating its Fiftieth Anniversary. Jacob H. Schiff, famous of course in the annals of American finance, was another of the Committee’s founders. Profoundly religious, he acted upon a broad sense of responsibility not only to the Jewish community, but to the American people as a whole. Below we print excerpts from some of his letters; they deal with various matters of social import, expressing views strikingly in advance of his time. The selections are taken from Cyrus Adler’s two-volume biography Jacob H. Schiff: His Life and Letters (Doubleday, Doran, 1929); Adler was himself a founder of the Committee.

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(Shocked by the situation of the unemployed following the panic of 1907, Schiff had been instrumental in establishing in 1908 the National Employment Exchange, a non-sectarian bureau. He was active in the organization until 1915, when he took issue with the management over complaints that the Exchange was discriminating against Jewish and Catholic applicants. In the end, he wrote a letter of resignation, from which we publish the following excerpt.)

March 27, 1916

. . . In founding the Exchange, it was the basic understanding that it was to be purely a social service society, was to serve all alike without discrimination, neither in favor nor against any class of workers, and the question of a return upon the capital which had to be provided was to be a secondary consideration, if any at all. . . .

Some months ago I was flooded with letters from applicants to the Exchange protesting against the discrimination that was practiced against seekers of employment of the Jewish faith—in some instances, also against Catholics—and also against the discourtesies and indignities these applicants had to submit to from the employees of the Exchange.

In investigating this, I found to my amazement that the situation had scarcely been overstated. I discovered that the forms applicants had to fill out contained a space requiring a statement of the applicant’s religion—this is an American social service society!—and that applicants who stated their faith as Jewish were treated with scant courtesy and discouraged from returning for further aid and information. When I brought this to the notice of the directors, the manager did not deny that these conditions existed, but justified them as resulting from the unwillingness Of many employers to employ Hebrews, and from the conditions made that such should not be sent. While I was well aware of the existence of this prejudice, and that it was unfortunately widespread, I insisted before the directors—of whom, however, seldom more than two or three were present at the meetings of the board—that as far as the National Employment Exchange was concerned, it could not make itself the handmaid of prejudiced employers; that it must not inquire into the religion of any applicant; that it could not consent to do anything else than to carefully look into the qualifications of applicants for any given position; that it should in every instance send to employers men or women whom it believed competent for a vacant position; and that if employers had prejudices, and wished to discriminate, they must decide themselves in the last instance, whether or not to employ any candidate sent by the Exchange. . . .

(Jacob Schiff felt a strong sympathy for the Negroes, and spoke up in defense of their rights on various occasions. In the early part of Wilson’s administration, he wrote to the President protesting against the segregation of colored employees in the government departments in Washington. An excerpt from this letter [undated] follows.)

. . . May I ask to be permitted to add my voice to that already raised in defense of the inalienable rights of the colored people, who are human beings, as we are, endowed by our common Father with the same characteristics, with the same feelings of pride, and whom we have no right to humiliate because of the fact, for which they are not responsible, that they have a different color than our own. Unlike others of the many elements that compose our population, the forebears of the colored people in the United States did not come into this country of (heir own free will, but were brought here by brute force and under conditions which greatly enhance the obligation we of the twentieth century have, to see that the descendants of the free men and women who were brought here from their distant homes to be sold into slavery have vouchsafed unto them the human rights without the enjoyment of which no one who is imbued with the dignity of life can feel happy. It is entirely proper that the officers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People are asking their fellow citizens to address you, Mr. President, as head of this entire nation, of which the colored people form an integral part, in support of the protest the association has sent to you, and, because of this, I have not a moment’s hesitation in respectfully asking you that proper consideration and heed be given to the protest which has been made, and from what I believe to know of your high-minded sense of justice, I have little doubt that this will be done by you.

(On May 21, 1920, in the last year of his life, Jacob Schiff sent a telegram to Moor-field Storey, president of the NAACP🙂

I am fully in accord with you that race problems can be settled only by complete justice to the Negro, and so long as this be not granted to the utmost and this grave question which becomes more important from year to year as an economic problem as part of our labor situation is not completely settled to the satisfaction of both the white and the colored people, it will come back to plague us and make us feel ashamed of ourselves.

(During the depression of 1908, in a letter to Mayor George B. McClellan of New York, Jacob Schiff advocated a public works program.)

. . . I wonder whether you have observed in passing any of our public places, such as Union Square, the Recreation Piers, and other spots where the unemployed gather, how large a number of men are among the multitude, with that sad, far-away, despairing look upon their faces, men whose whole appearance betokens even now that they are making an effort to keep up an appearance of self-respect and dignity. Every day authenticated reports come to me of families on the verge of collapse, because their breadwinners, willing to do any kind of work, cannot find employment and would rather starve than ask for charity support.

In such a condition of affairs it appears to me to be the urgent duty of all who can create work to promptly do so; in the first instance, the municipality, for which it will be cheaper and better to spend half a million or a million in wages than to have to increase its appropriations to the Police Department, to the penal institutions, to the hospitals and the almshouse. The parks, the streets, the speedways, and various other communal properties need work to be done upon them, which, if now taken in hand, would, especially if work in connection with the contracts already decided upon be accelerated, give employment to a very considerable number of unskilled workmen. Several hundred thousand dollars thus put into circulation during the next few months would mean so very much to the unemployed in this city, and would prevent a great amount of suffering and tend to maintain the self-respect of thousands of our people. I urge that with the Comptroller, whom I am likewise writing, you give early consideration to this situation, and, convinced that you will take action . . . I am with great respect . . .

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