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 PAL G RAVE STUD IES IN
T HE H I STORY OF FIN AN C E

JACOB SCHIFF
AND THE ART
OF RISK
American Financing of
Japan’s War with Russia
(1904-1905)

ADAM GOWER
 Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance

Series Editors
D’Maris Coffman
Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment
University College London
London, UK

Tony K. Moore
ICMA Centre, Henley Business School
University of Reading
Reading, UK

Martin Allen
Department of Coins and Medals, Fitzwilliam Museum
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK

Sophus Reinert
Harvard Business School
Cambridge, MA, USA
The study of the history of financial institutions, markets, instruments and
concepts is vital if we are to understand the role played by finance today.
At the same time, the methodologies developed by finance academics
can provide a new perspective for historical studies. Palgrave Studies in
the History of Finance is a multi-disciplinary effort to emphasise the role
played by finance in the past, and what lessons historical experiences have
for us. It presents original research, in both authored monographs and
edited collections, from historians, finance academics and economists, as
well as financial practitioners.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14583
 Adam Gower

Jacob Schiff and the

Art of Risk
American Financing of Japan’s War with Russia
(1904–1905)
Adam Gower
National Real Estate Forum
Beverly Hills, CA, USA

Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance

ISBN 978-3-319-90265-4 ISBN 978-3-319-90266-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90266-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941882

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Michael Berkowitz whose patience, sincere interest, intellectual
insights and good humor have made writing this book a joy.
 Acknowledgements

Much of the primary source research conducted in writing this book

was collected as a result of the invaluable help of archivists and librarians
around the world. It was a great pleasure to have met these knowledge-
able folks and I am grateful to them for having provided guidance with
regard their collections. In this respect, I acknowledge the contributions
of Tracey Beck at the Leo Baeck Institute; Gareth Bish at Alexander
Street; Clara Harrow and Lara Webb at The Baring Archive; Margaret
Kieckhefer at the Library of Congress; David Langbart at NARA; Susan
Malbin at the American Jewish Historical Society; Erin McAfee at the
Fondren Library, Rice University; Tomeka Myers at the Library of
Congress; Kevin Proffitt at the American Jewish Archives; Ruth Reed,
Susan Patterson, Sophia Volker and Alison Turton at the RBS Archives;
John Rooney at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton; John
Vincler at The Morgan Library & Museum; Gertrude Zimmerman at
HSBC; and last but by no means least, Hiroko Yoshimoto for her help
locating Japanese archives from various repositories.
I thank colleagues whose constructive and useful comments have
helped guide the contents of some of the chapters in the book.
Specifically, I thank Dr. Kunio Ishida, Prof. Jacob Kovalio, Prof.
David Myers, Prof. Fred Notehelfer, Prof. Avner Offer, Prof. Emily S.
Rosenberg, Dr. Neil Sandberg, Dr. Cheryl Silverman, Prof. Richard
Smethurst, Dr. Toshio Suzuki and Prof. Patricia Thane.
I would also like to thank my Editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Tula
Weis and Ruth Noble for helping bring this book to completion, and

vii
viii    Acknowledgements

gratitude also due to Hazel Bird for helping me get from final draft to
final, final draft.
Sir Martin Gilbert first encouraged me to write this book and intro-
duced me to Prof. John Klier who provided early resources and direc-
tion. They will both be missed.
I would especially like to thank my friends for their help and encour-
agement. Doug Krause for reading it while still in early stages and for his
feedback, and Jeremy Herz for helping with logistics.
And most of all, I would like to thank Debbie for giving me the time
I needed secluded in my study to get it done, and to Oliver, Simon and
little Felixy, just for being.
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Historiography 23

3 Jacob Schiff and His Cohort 75

4 Japan 109

5 The Business of Banking 143

6 The English Syndicate 181

7 Financing the War 197

8 Impact and Conclusions 271

Bibliography 301

Index 325

ix
 List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Growth in Japanese pre-war military expenditures (Note Both

the extraordinary and ordinary expenditures are read from
the left-hand y axis. The sum of these two types of
expenditure is totalled on the cumulative line, which reads
off the right-hand y axis. Source Data derived from Giichi
Ono, War and Armament Expenditures of Japan
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 63) 119
Fig. 4.2 The Japanese government’s wartime expenditures
(Note War department data illustrate those expenditures
allocated to the army. Source Data derived from ‘Table
of Amounts Paid Out for Extraordinary War Expenses’,
in Report on the War Finance (Japan: Department
of Finance, 1906), p. 17) 127
Fig. 4.3 Sources of funds to finance the war (Source Data derived
from ‘War Fund for Russo-Japanese War’, in Ushisaburo
Kobayashi, War and Armament Loans of Japan
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1922), p. 66) 128
Fig. 4.4 Specie reserve, 1904 (Source Data derived from ‘Table
Giving Amounts of Nippon Ginko [Bank of Japan]
Notes and Specie Reserve’, in Report on the War Finance
(Japan: Department of Finance, 1906), p. 24) 129
Fig. 4.5 Impact of foreign borrowing on Japan’s balance of
payments (Source Data derived from ‘Sterling Bonds,
June 1904–January 1906’ and ‘Monthly Income and

xi
xii    List of Figures

Disbursement for War, 1903–1907’, in Gotaro Ogawa,

Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1923), pp. 162, 168) 133
Fig. 4.6 Pricing comparison, foreign versus Japanese domestic bonds
(Source Data derived from ‘Table Showing the Results of
Issues of Exchequer Bonds and Extraordinary Military
Expenditures Loan’, in Report on the War Finance
(Japan: Department of Finance, 1906), p. 31 and further
data on p. 33; Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Archives 1904:
PAB/135, papers concerning 4.5% loan to Japanese
Government by Parr’s Bank Ltd.; RBS Archives 1904:
PAB/137, papers concerning 6% loan to Japanese
Government by Parr’s Bank Ltd.; RBS Archives 1905:
PAB/142, papers concerning 4.5% II series loan to Japanese
Government by Parr’s Bank Ltd.) 139
Fig. 4.7 Import and export volumes, 1903–1905 (Source Data
derived from ‘Comparison of the Exports and Imports
for the Last Four Years’, in Report on the War Finance
(Japan: Department of Finance, 1906), p. 39) 141
Fig. 5.1 Japanese government debt, interest-rate differential,
1870–1914: Japanese government bonds versus British
consols (Note The x-axis denotes the years 1870–1913;
the y-axis denotes the interest-rate differential
(0.01 equates to a 1% differential). Source Reproduced
from Nathan Sussman and Yishay Yafeh, ‘Institutions,
Reforms, and Country Risk: Lessons from Japanese
Government Debt in the Meiji Era’, Journal of Economic
History, Vol. 60, No. 2 (2000), pp. 442–467) 176
 List of Tables

Table 4.1 Net cost of foreign loans to the Japanese government 130
Table 4.2 Monthly receipts from foreign bond issues 131
Table 4.3 Chronology of tax hikes and revenue flows 135
Table 4.4 Japanese war-related domestic bond issues 137
Table 4.5 Real costs and revenues to Japan of exchequer bonds 138
Table 5.1 J. P. Morgan & Co.’s top ten syndicate participants,
1894–1914 157
Table 5.2 Frederick Cromwell, Mutual Life Insurance Company’s
treasurer: Investments and returns 168
Table 5.3 Bond price comparisons, 1904–1905 173
Table 5.4 Relative pricing of available foreign securities, May 1904 175
Table 5.5 Changes in issue conditions of Japanese government
bonds in London, 1870–1910 177
Table 5.6 Comparative syndication volume, 1894–1914 180
Table 6.1 Barings’ internal statement of commission received,
first Japanese loan 195
Table 7.1 Features and timing of the four wartime sterling loans 204

xiii
 Punch

Punch, 5 April 1905. This cartoon depicts American and English financiers
seated in the Japanese corner at a cockfight. The American (on the left)
wears a classic bolo tie and smokes a cigar, and next to him is his gambling
cup, marked ‘$75 Million Dollars’. The rotund John Bull character on the
right holds a cup with his £15 million stake. The two watch with a confi-
dent demeanour while a Japanese military gentleman stands inside the ring
with his fighting rooster. This cartoon was sent to Jacob Schiff on 12 April
1905 by his London agent, John Lord Revelstoke, a partner at Baring
Brothers, shortly after the successful launch of the third of four war-time
issues of Japanese bonds, the first of two £30 million offerings.
xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In 1904, Japan waged war against an ostensibly more powerful oppo-

nent, the Russian Empire. A significant component in Japan’s victory was
the financial support facilitated by Jacob Henry Schiff (1847–1920),1
an American Jewish banker who was born in Germany. Schiff has been
described, in the context of the Russo-Japanese War, as primarily moti-
vated by hostility to Russia, stemming from the tsarist government’s
ill treatment of its Jews. While this is certainly true, the case to be pre-
sented here is that Schiff’s motivations were diverse yet in his mind of
one piece, and that as a prominent banker his diligence was rigorous in
ensuring risks were mitigated. Additionally, Schiff’s unusually affirm-
ative attitude towards Japan in the early twentieth century was at least
as important in underpinning his actions, and perhaps an even greater
counterweight, than his animus against an antisemitic Russia.
Well before 1904, Schiff had established a pattern of philanthropy that
focused on helping people to help themselves. His enabling of Japan’s
war effort against Russia was consistent with this practice and predilec-
tion. By 1904, Schiff was personally familiar with the Japanese nation
and was deeply impressed by what he perceived as its people’s industri-
ousness and fidelity. Importantly, Schiff was scrupulous in his evalua-
tion of the Japanese loans before he underwrote them, though his peers

1 Life dates are given for individuals when they are first mentioned wherever such dates

are available.

© The Author(s) 2018 1

A. Gower, Jacob Schiff and the Art of Risk,
Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90266-1_1
2 A. GOWER

considered them to be too speculative.2 This differentiated him from

the majority of his cohort. There can be no doubt that his financing of
Japan’s war effort was founded upon sound economic principles of risk
assessment and anticipated return. While he may have perceived that the
Russian pogroms demanded a muscular response from a committed Jew
of considerable means, Schiff’s motivations to act in the way in which he
did with respect to Japan were primarily consistent with his excellence as
a banker.
Schiff’s supporting role in Japan was unprecedented in several respects,
but this is not reflected in the historiography. Although Schiff was a con-
servative investor who consistently took great pains to ensure his affairs
were prudent, he forcefully undertook what most of his contemporaries
believed to be a risk in financing Japan to undergird its clash with Russia.
Chief among the reasons why he was willing to do this were his strongly
favourable perceptions of Japan and his vehemently negative perceptions
of Russia, against which Japan was pitted. Schiff’s reputation for sound
business dealings, his stature as a giant in American and worldwide bank-
ing, and his personal fortune were all at stake. But he was both earnest
and fervent in his conviction that his standing would be preserved, if not
enhanced, in the wake of the Russo-Japanese conflict, because his sharply
contrasting views of the erstwhile opponents led him to perceive that the
risks were mitigated. As Schiff saw it, to permit a barbarous nation like
Russia to prevail would have been a threat to the advance of global civ-
ilization. Russia’s treatment of its Jews was a blight on humanity, and
not only did Russia’s march into Asia have to be stopped but also tsarist
power had to be forced into retreat. The status of Japan, however, was
not simply an afterthought or an unintended consequence.
In the light of his pivotal role in this significant conflict and forma-
tive stage of Japan’s development, it is important to consider the back-
ground and distinctive perspective of Jacob Schiff. He was a traditionally

2 Wallace Donham, lecturing in 1908 at Harvard, stated that the concept of underwrit-

ing ‘has got about as many meanings as you want to apply to it, but… seems to be the
meaning of guaranty’ where ‘some firm or association of firms guarantees to a corpora-
tion that it will be able to make a certain disposition of its securities’. Wallace B. Donham,
‘Underwriting Syndicates and the Purchase and Sale of Securities Through Banking
Houses’, in Corporation Finance [Mimeographed Lectures Notes] (Harvard Graduate
School of Business Administration, Baker Library, 1908), p. 173. Donham was vice presi-
dent of the Old Colony Trust Company, Boston, MA.
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

observant Jew, perhaps to a greater degree than any of his peers in the
banking establishment. Schiff also maintained an impassioned kinship
with Jews worldwide, including the impoverished Jewish masses, even
though he was sometimes considered aloof.3 But similar feelings of
loyalty and solidarity were also manifested in his attitude towards the
Japanese nation and its people. What has thus far escaped the notice of
scholars is that Schiff had an empathy for the Japanese that was at least as
strong as his antipathy for Russia. He would be emboldened to help to
give the Japanese a leg up: a kind of vote of confidence and a substantial
economic fillip. Where others saw risk, Schiff saw opportunity and a way
of doing the right thing—on several levels.
Schiff had access to much the same information as others in the bank-
ing world, so why did he act differently from the bankers in his milieu,
including those with whom he worked closely? Clearly, bankers were
looking for opportunities and most if not all were aware of Japan’s need
for finance. What influenced Schiff to act so differently with regard to
the Japanese and how did he ensure his decision to do so was not folly?
Certainly on the surface, most German Jewish bankers had assimilated
into American, British or central European secular culture (respectively)
to a far greater extent than Schiff. Was his relatively entrenched Jewish
identity and desire to protect his Russian co-religionists paramount in
driving his decisions, or was he first and foremost a banker, concerned
with mitigating risk and generating profit? Did his regard and ambition
for Japan contribute to his decision to finance the loans to that country?
Jacob Henry Schiff was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on 10 January
1847 to Moses Schiff (1810–1873) and Clara (née Niederhofheim,
1817–1877). His father came from a long line of distinguished rabbis
and his direct lineage can be traced as far back as the 1370s, further per-
haps than any other Frankfurt Jewish family. One in three of his male
ancestors are said to have been either a rabbi, a Jewish religious judge,
or a lay leader of the Jewish community. Among the most famous of
his forbearers was Meir ben Jacob Schiff (1608–1644), known as the
Maharam Schiff, who was a Talmudic scholar and whose works to this

3 See Joshua M. Karlip, The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish

Nationalism in Eastern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), p. 109
for a reference to Schiff’s ambivalence (born of his sense of loyalty to America) regarding
the idea of spoken Yiddish as a unifying element for the worldwide Jewish community.
4 A. GOWER

day are quoted in most editions of the Talmud,4 and David Tevele Schiff
(1722–1791), who was the chief rabbi of Great Britain from 1765 until
his death.5 Jacob Schiff’s adherence to his orthodox upbringing set him
apart from many of his peers, who had been similarly raised but who had
assimilated to a greater or lesser extent. This distinguished his worldview
and actions throughout his life.
In 1865, at 18 years of age, he left his homeland for the USA just
as the American Civil War ended. In America, he saw the opportunity
to shed the hereditary bonds of cultural and political restrictions that
would have defined his life had he remained confined in the hierarchi-
cal European establishment. His lineage could be traced further back
than the great banking houses of the Rothschilds and the Speyers6;
however, while his immediate family had become wealthy, they had
not risen to the same level of financial success as these renowned fam-
ily firms. To break free from the destiny of his birth and inherited sta-
tus, he departed for America alone and of his own volition, arriving
with limited resources. He was not, as Theresa Collins notes, reduced
to peddling, as some of the earlier German Jewish banking house found-
ers such as Marcus Goldman (1821–1904) had been originally,7 but nei-
ther did he arrive in the pocket of any of the great European banking
houses, as did August Belmont (1813–1890), who arrived representing
the Rothschilds.
While attempting to liberate himself from the established Jewish
banking networks, Schiff still recognized the influence that derived from
familial connections with the great Jewish banking houses of Europe.
He wanted to use the networks that he had at the same time escaped,
and he remained a part of the community despite having gone beyond
it. Building his career at Kuhn Loeb, he married founder Solomon
Loeb’s (1828–1903) daughter Therese (1854–1933) in 1875 and spent

4 Nissan Mindel, ‘Rabbi Meir (MaHaRaM) Schiff (Circa 5357–5393; 1597–1633)’,

www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/112373/jewish/Rabbi-Meir-MaHaRaM-Schiff.
htm, accessed 12 August 2014.
5 Naomi W. Cohen, Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership (Hanover:

Brandeis University Press, 1999), p. 256, n. 70; Todd M. Endelman, The Jews of Britain,
1656–2000 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2002), p. 54.
6 Theresa M. Collins, Otto Kahn: Art, Money, & Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University

of North Carolina Press, 2002), p. 51.

7 Cohen, Jacob H. Schiff, p. 54.
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

four decades contributing to the growth of the house into one of the
most powerful financial institutions in America, ensuring that every
partner was either related or married to a descendent of the company’s
founders.8
The timing of Schiff’s arrival in America was fortuitous. He began his
career in banking right before the panic of 1873 bankrupted many rail-
road companies, and he seized the opportunity of the market correction
to become one of the most powerful men in railroad finance through
Kuhn Loeb. Schiff’s most notable contributions to railroad finance were
perhaps his financing of E. H. Harriman’s (1848–1909) work reorganiz-
ing and building the Union Pacific Railroad in famous rivalry with J. P.
Morgan (1837–1913) and the expansion of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
His personal wealth was said to have been approximately $50 million,9
putting him second behind J. P. Morgan, who had $68.3 million and an
art collection said to be worth $50 million alone. However, neither man
came close to the wealth of industrialists Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919),
John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937), Henry Ford (1863–1947) or E. H.
Harriman, although they led among the bankers.10
Exploiting the opportunities that emerged in post-Civil War America,
Schiff carved a niche for himself that seemed to justify the reasons he
had left Germany and that propelled him to the top of his industry. He
sought out other Davids among the nation’s Goliaths. He did this by
focusing on those railway assets that were ‘not personally owned by
families’ among the New England elite.11 Collins perceptively iden-
tifies Schiff as an underdog, driven to act and think independently, by
pointing out that he cultivated relationships with similarly independent
bankers in Europe, themselves not already aligned with Morgan, Speyers
or the ‘other established houses’ that Collins refers to.12 Among the
most important of these relationships was Schiff’s alliance with Ernest
Cassel (1852–1921). We will see that the relationship with Cassel was an
important component of Schiff’s dealings with Japan.

8 See
Investment Banking Through Four Generations (New York: Kuhn, Loeb & Co., 1955).
9 Cohen, Jacob H. Schiff, p. 2.
10 Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of

Modern Finance (New York: Grove Press, 2010), pp. 158–159.

11 Adler as quoted in Collins, Otto Kahn, p. 53.

12 Collins, Otto Kahn, p. 53.

6 A. GOWER

By the time of the Russo-Japanese War, Schiff’s power and influence

were centred primarily on the railroad industry, for which Kuhn Loeb
had become a major financier. This was in contrast to the extraordi-
nary power that the Rothschilds had in Europe. There the Rothschilds’
business had evolved over the centuries to be in large part politically
driven. Whether in peace or at war, nations’ fortunes depended on how
the Rothschilds wielded their power. In the newly developing country
of America, there was much less direct national political interference in
business and much more opportunity for private individuals acting inde-
pendently, aided by the explosive growth of the American economy.
The Rothschilds failed to fully exploit the American railway boom,
in part because of their reliance on an ineffectual representative, August
Belmont, who will be discussed below. They were also sceptical about
the American government’s commitment to the gold standard and
were concerned about the stability of the American market—factors
that, if the Rothschilds’ doubts turned out to be valid, would do noth-
ing to bolster their gold-mining interests.13 Kuhn Loeb’s foray into
Japanese bonds, led by Schiff, was as defining for Kuhn Loeb as it was
for America’s financial markets, and certainly empowering for both.
Schiff’s approach stood in contrast to the assertive political influence of
the Rothschilds, who, in one instance, ‘rather ingenuously remarked’, as
Niall Ferguson comments, that ‘it is always a delicate matter to question
the policy of a government’.14 Questioning governments’ policies was
clearly how they operated as a rule.
In his support for Japan, Schiff saw that country as an underdog.
The Japanese were dignified and industrious and were worthy of his
support. In the years preceding the Russo-Japanese War, Japan had
emerged from centuries of isolation, had successfully overcome oner-
ous trading pacts with colonial powers, had forged a military pact
with England and had fought a minor war with China—a weak, sub-
dued nation largely controlled by Western states. In facing down Russia
over territorial disputes in its backyard, Japan was at a critical juncture
in its history. At this point, no non-Western power had successfully
industrialized, nor were any to do so until the mid-twentieth century.

13 Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, Vol. 2: The World’s Banker 1849–1999 (New

York: Penguin, 1988), p. 348.

14 Ibid., p. 347.
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

Countries largely fell into three primary categories: Western and indus-
trialized, colonies of Western countries and non-colonies. Thus, Japan,
though neither Western nor colonized, was on a trajectory that sub-
stantially differed from those of other non-colonized nations.15 Were it
not for the war loans Schiff provided, Japan faced the loss of ‘credi-
bility amongst foreign lenders and the distinct possibility of economic
collapse’.16 For Japan, the war with Russia bordered on the existential.
Had it lost, it faced the threat of being colonized economically and of
losing hope, at least in the near term, of having any significant influence
on the world stage.
Schiff was first introduced to Japan in 1872, ten years before the wave
of pogroms beginning in the early 1880s elevated Russian antisemi-
tism to great prominence. One of his first interlocutors on the subject
of Japan was General James H. Wilson (1827–1925), for whom Schiff
had raised finance for railroad bonds in Europe while he was still run-
ning Budge, Schiff & Co., the company he had co-formed soon after his
arrival in America and before entering Kuhn Loeb. The experiences of
Japan that Wilson recounted to Schiff were affectionate, detailed descrip-
tions of an honourable, independent people with a deep cultural history
and a welcoming acceptance of foreign influence. Schiff was struck with
the notion that Japan, rather than shutting itself off from outside influ-
ences, accepted the best from other cultures and peoples it encountered
without compromising its own cultural integrity. He wanted to acknowl-
edge and reward the Japanese for their desire to integrate into the world
community, and he wanted to benefit from giving Japan assistance in its
growth and development.
At the same time that Schiff was hearing from Wilson regarding
the culture of Japan, he was also learning that there was potential to
lend to Japan. Also in 1872, he was introduced by the US Minister to
Japan, C. E. De Long (died 1876), to Yoshida Kiyonari (1845–1891).
Yoshida had been appointed by the Japanese government as its loan

15 Stephen C. Thomas, Foreign Intervention and China’s Industrial Development, 1870–

1911 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1984), pp. 1–77.

16 Ono Keishi, ‘Japan’s Monetary Mobilization for War’, in John W. Steinberg, Bruce W.

Menning, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David Wolff and Shinji Yokote (eds.),
The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero (Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 264.
8 A. GOWER

commissioner and was looking to the New York or London markets for a
£4 million loan. Schiff discussed a 7% loan with Yoshida and referred him
to his ‘head office’ in Frankfurt.17
Though nothing ultimately came of these discussions, it seems clear
that Schiff was immediately drawn to trying to seek opportunities in
Japan. He ambitiously foresaw the possibility of funding the aspiring
nation’s entire railroad expansion. ‘It is my opinion’, he wrote in a let-
ter to James Wilson expressing his desire for business with Japan, that it
was ‘only a question of time when the Japanese Government will have
to secure sovereign aid both material and scientific, and I think we then
stand as good a chance as anybody in America’.18 His view of Japan was
a pragmatic, long-term one. He saw economic opportunity in Japan in
the same way that he saw it in the railroads of America, which, like Japan
in relation to the USA, had not had established banking relationships
when he began to finance them. Over thirty years after he first identified
the country as a prospect for investment, Schiff threaded an opportunis-
tic needle through America to Japan that, remarkably, the Rothschilds,
for all their global power, had completely missed.
The Rothschilds had failed to exploit opportunities in America by
assigning their representation to the ostentatious and politically dis-
tracted August Belmont, who proved a feeble intermediary. Belmont,
who had married the daughter of Commodore Matthew C. Perry
(1794–1858), the man who had opened up Japan after centuries of isola-
tion, ‘used the Commodore as his butler’19 and in so doing also blithely
failed to deliver Japan to the Rothschilds.20 Schiff capitalized on the
opportunities missed by the New England elite on the railroads and by
the Rothschilds in America and Japan.

17 Toshio Suzuki, Japanese Government Loan Issues on the London Capital Market 1870–

1913 (London: Athlone Press, 1994), p. 59.

18 Letter from Schiff to Wilson, 5 July 1872, JWP: 1872–1898.

19 Stephen Birmingham, Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York (New York:

Harper & Row, 1967), p. 76.

20 In his definitive biography, The House of Rothschild, Niall Ferguson proposes that a

commitment to European politics and investments plus a lack of faith in Japan were the pri-
mary reasons the Rothschilds failed to invest in Japan. They were unable to see the wood
for the trees, so to speak, and, though Ferguson does not suggest it, had Belmont more
astutely used his extended family connections, maybe he could have drawn the Rothschilds’
attention to the opportunity, as Wilson did for Schiff. Ferguson, The House of Rothschild,
Vol. 2, pp. 395–396.
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

As Schiff’s power and influence in railroad finance grew, they were

paralleled by a growth in his philanthropic generosity. He is said to have
given away over $100 million during his lifetime. He believed that the
highest level of charity was to provide the means by which a recipient
could gain the dignity of supporting himself, and he considered it par-
amount that, as a donor, he should not delegate the responsibility for
ensuring that funds were distributed appropriately. He exercised a strong
influence in the running of the institutions to which he donated.
After the Russian pogroms escalated in the early 1880s, Schiff’s phil-
anthropic and political attention became focused on alleviating the plight
of his co-religionists in Russia, and, as their flight to America intensi-
fied, this focus fell on the question of immigration. Two things in par-
ticular distinguished his role in this regard. The first is that his work on
immigration was solely and specifically a result of the barbarity of the
pogroms, in contrast to his financing of Japan, which involved both
political and business motivations. The second is that, while he led the
initiatives to alleviate the suffering of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was
for the most part supported by words and action of the broader Jewish
community, in contrast to his decision to finance Japan, which he made
independently and individually.
Schiff stood out in his community as being one who early on sup-
ported mass immigration to America in principle and who was also active
in supporting the Russian Jews once they arrived. This position was ini-
tially in contrast to that of his peers and made him an increasingly pop-
ular figure, highly regarded in the broader Jewish community.21 While
public support grew for his work alleviating the distress caused by the
pogroms, there was no clear Jewish community mandate for his policy
regarding Japan.
The dominant theme of the historical narratives and interpretations
concerning Schiff and Japan is that he financed the country ‘because
of the pogroms’. Certainly, Schiff wanted to relieve the victims of the
pogroms in any way possible. He was sensitive to the problem that, by
consistently providing direct financial aid to victims still in Russia, he

21 Not all scholars see Schiff as having been supportive of immigration. See Ehud Manor,

Forward: The Jewish Daily Forward (Forverts) Newspaper—Immigrants, Socialism and

Jewish Politics in New York, 1890–1917 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009). Manor
considers Schiff to have been ambivalent on the matter of immigration and motivated
solely to preserve his status in the Jewish community.
10 A. GOWER

might be creating a ‘Pogrom Endowment Fund’.22 Also, importantly, it

was not on the Jewish agenda to save Japan: Schiff acted for the most
part independently of the Jewish community in electing to support
Japan. He looked externally, not just internally. He had neither had the
community’s support nor its opposition. Schiff acted entirely of his own
self-motivated volition, echoing the pioneering spirit that drove him
from Germany to America. While the Jewish community openly debated
civil rights and issues such as immigration, actively supporting Japan was
an ideological position initiated by Schiff that set him apart.
Throughout his life up to 1904, Schiff consciously separated his busi-
ness life from his religious and philanthropic life, never allowing the two
to overlap. None of his philanthropic interests were simultaneously busi-
ness interests. He did not make money from his philanthropic ventures,
and his business activities were separate from his philanthropy and from
his religious beliefs and practice. In 1904, they intersected, leading Schiff
to trigger the financing of Japan’s war effort against Russia. This was a
signal event in his life, in which he actively and directly integrated his
Jewish philanthropic interests with his business interests. This was where
the two fundamental driving passions of his life came into focus, lead-
ing to what were to prove his life’s defining actions. In Japan, he saw
a nation that not only offered financial reward and opened up another
front for him against Russia but also spoke to both Jewish and broader
human rights.23 It served as an example of his religiously motivated belief
that providing the means to self-sufficiency is the highest form of aid.
Thus, he provided Japan with the economic wherewithal to prevail in the
war independently and to resist alone the tyrannical Russian oppressor.
While Schiff’s support for Japan in 1904 was one of the rare instances
in his life when his religious identity fused with his business interests, his
actions at that time were far from being devoid of economic logic. In

22 Cohen, Jacob H. Schiff, p. 141.

23 Iam grateful to Fred Notehelfer for having provided the important caveat that preju-
dice was rife in Japan when Schiff first had contact with the country in the early 1870s and
to question whether Japan was indeed, ‘a model of “human rights” in contradistinction to
Russia’. Email to author, 29 September. 2014. However, Schiff was likely aware that these
prejudices had gradually been eroded (see ‘Religious Freedom in Japan’, New York Times
(26 August 1906) p. 8), and certainly believed that Japan was fighting a cause on behalf of
‘the entire civilized world’. Jacob H. Schiff, ‘Japan After the War’, North American Review,
Vol. 183, No. 597 (1906), p. 162.
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

the works that focus on Schiff, there has not been great attention paid
to his handling of financial risk. Yet, from a business perspective, in his
decisions he mitigated risk to the greatest extent possible. One of the
chief contributions of my approach is to illuminate the historical context
of these actions and the extent to which Schiff was diligent in all regards.
This is an important addition to the historiography, which tends either
to gloss over his business activities in financing Japan or to ignore them
completely.
Schiff very carefully assessed the risks and saw many factors to recom-
mend Japan. He understood that Japan had adopted the gold standard. He
knew that the country was the recipient of substantial indemnities from the
Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), which were fully financed by European
banks. Japan had a sophisticated banking system, comfortingly recogniza-
ble by its Western characteristics and was well connected on the London
markets. Schiff had seen the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC),
Parr’s Bank and Baring Brothers all wanting to underwrite the Japanese
bonds, but thwarted in proceeding with the loans by uniquely European
political intrigues. Additionally, Barings had direct experience of having
lent to Japan and were flattering in their description of the first-hand expe-
rience they had of the industriousness and integrity of its people.
In addition to holding a firm belief that he was acting cautiously
and with moral integrity, Schiff had calculated that there was little busi-
ness risk. His belief in this regard is what distinguished his actions most
acutely from those of his fellow bankers. Paul Warburg (1868–1932),
one of Schiff’s partners at Kuhn Loeb, agreed that there was support for
Japan’s cause ahead of the war. However, Warburg believed that the rea-
son other banks failed to step forwards to initiate the underwriting at the
scale that the Japanese government wanted was that there was too much
scepticism about whether Japan would prevail. ‘In the end’, Warburg
said, Japan ‘was likely to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of her
enemy’.24 He thought that Schiff

welcomed the opportunity of joining the London banking group in this

enterprise [issuance of the Japanese loans], even though it was very doubt-
ful whether a Japanese loan would succeed here [in America]. Foreign
loans in those days were a rather unusual thing for the American investor;

24 Warburg Memo, JSP: Box 1861, Folder 6.

12 A. GOWER

adding to that the doubt that prevailed concerning the length and out-
come of the war, it was obvious that the venture was not free from consid-
erable risk both as to money and prestige.25

Schiff himself was not immune to concerns that investing in foreign

bonds could be a hazardous enterprise. In June 1904, he agreed to
underwrite a small Rio de Janeiro bond issue in New York that Stern
Brothers was issuing in Europe. Noting the extent to which ‘it is very
difficult to tell in advance whether the bonds will go well here’,26 Schiff
felt that the issue in New York was, in contrast to the Japanese issues,
entirely experimental for the American market. Rio, he felt, was remote
and unknown to the American markets. He felt that if the issue in Rio
was successful it would be so based ‘entirely on the strength of our
name’, a fact he found no comfort in for this particular bond.27
His view on the Japanese issue was very different. While it is true
that demand for the Japanese bonds he sold outstripped his and other
bankers’ expectations, this did not stem from unanticipated support
for Schiff’s political objectives. Rather, buyers believed the potential
for financial returns outweighed the risks. The pricing was highly com-
petitive in comparison with that for other options available to inves-
tors. Schiff had no qualms in bringing Kuhn Loeb’s reputation to the
Japanese issues and in so doing enhancing the markets’ confidence in
the offering. The markets bought into the loans because they believed
that Japan’s position was right, that Russia’s position was wrong, that the
profile of the potential financial returns was solid, and that because Kuhn
Loeb were the underwriters risk had been ameliorated. For the markets,
the background was geopolitical and economic. Punishing Russia for its
treatment of Jews did not enter into the investors’ calculus at all.
Aside from his efforts to mitigate risk, Schiff believed that, by lend-
ing to Japan in its hour of need, he could gain the trust and loyalty of a
grateful nation and presumably win post-war financing concessions as a
result. This practical economic motivation was reinforced by the sense of
injustice he saw the Japanese were facing against a belligerent Russia that
was, in his eyes, oppressing its own people internally, most specifically his

25 Ibid.

26 Letter from Schiff to Kahn, 23 June 1904, JSP: Reel 688.

27 Letter from Schiff to Noetzlin, 14 July 1904, JSP: Reel 676.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

Jewish co-religionists, and adopting the same bullying tactics in relation

to the apparently feeble Japan. It would not emerge until later that Japan
was willing to exercise the same brutality over nations and peoples in its
dominions that Schiff had been critical of in Russia.
Peter Bauer and Basil Yamey argue that economic intervention of
individual foreign entrepreneurs in developing nations’ progress can have
a disproportionately strong impact.28 Schiff’s role in Japan’s advance-
ment was one such example of this dynamic. In providing the critical
component that crystallized Japan’s war finance, Schiff cleared the path
for Japan’s elevation to its unique position as the only non-Western
nation to independently industrialize before World War II.29
Schiff’s actions were the avant-garde in what became American impe-
rialistic expansionism without the use of a military to wrest control. They
dovetailed into the genesis of what was to become America’s pathway to
dollar diplomacy and primacy in the world’s financial markets. Western
powers had shifted away from a direct colonization model. They had
started instead to use their military strength to control the means of
production in foreign nations as those nations started to industrialize.
America was at the very dawn of a foreign policy that sought to create
a gold-backed dollar bloc. Schiff, harmonizing with both these trends,
independently saw an opportunity to economically influence Japan
through his war loans.30 Russia was attempting to use its military power
to control regional trade and dominate other nations. Schiff saw the
potential economic might of Japan as its most valuable resource and per-
ceived his own potential financial might in financing it. The pen of finan-
cial contracts was for Schiff America’s counter to the sword of Russia’s
army in influencing control over Japan’s future.
Theresa Collins, the most recent biographer of Otto Kahn (1867–
1934), provides an intriguing (yet fragmentary) portrait of Schiff, con-
ceding that one cannot possibly understand Kahn and his era without
considering Schiff. Indeed, Jacob Schiff was an extremely significant fig-
ure in American history, modern Jewish history, Japanese history, and

28 Peter T. Bauer and Basil S. Yamey, The Economics of Under-Developed Countries

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 106.

29 Thomas, Foreign Intervention, p. 16.

30 Eugene Stanley, ‘Foreign Investment and Foreign Expansion’, in Wright, H. M. The

New Imperialism, Analysis of Late Nineteenth-Century Expansion (Lexington: D. C. Heath

and Company, 1961), pp. 77–80.
14 A. GOWER

the history of international business and finance in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries. The characterization of his activity as
mainly ‘pro-Jewish and anti-Russian’, an oft-repeated refrain in the histo-
riography, only scrapes the surface.
It is important that Schiff be recognized and understood in each of
these contexts, especially in order to comprehend the dramatic ascend-
ance of Japan. While on the one hand Schiff was part of a well-known
and investigated group, the German and American–German–Jewish
banking elite, in important respects he diverged from his cohort,
and the distinctive course he pursued had profound effects through-
out the world. But, due in part to a reluctance (by academics since the
Holocaust) to probe relationships between Jews and money, and per-
haps more importantly because Japan grew intensely nationalistic and
aggressive and became America’s arch-enemy and Nazi Germany’s ally,
most historians did not even think to scrutinize Schiff’s relationship with
Japan. Indeed, there are few examples of historians examining the role of
Jewish bankers in the development of nation states. Antony Lentin writes
of Sir Edgar Speyer’s (1862–1932) influence and eventual downfall in
England, but, though Lentin references antisemitism,31 he focuses pri-
marily on Speyer’s German not his Jewish heritage. Niall Ferguson and
Ron Chernow speak of the political impact of the Rothschilds and the
Warburgs, respectively, but in isolation from the bankers’ sense of their
own Jewish identity.32 Derek Penslar touches upon these themes,33
but it seems that only Fritz Stern has examined in-depth the relation-
ship between a Jewish banker (Gerson von Bleichröder) and his country,
Germany, in the context of how Bleichröder saw himself and was per-
ceived by the secular world around him.34
Schiff has also become a figure for anti-semites and conspiracy the-
orists. Derek Penslar discusses the idea that people do not like talking

31 Antony Lentin, Banker, Traitor, Scapegoat, Spy? The Troublesome Case of Sir Edgar

Speyer (London: Haus, 2013), p. 27.

32 Niall Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, Vol. 1: Money’s Prophets, 1798–1848 (New

York: Penguin, 1988); Ferguson, The House of Rothschild, Vol. 2; and Ron Chernow, The
Warburgs (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).
33 Derek J. Penslar, Shylock’s Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).

34 See Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck and Bleichröder and the Building of the

German Empire (New York: First Vintage Books, 1977).

 1 INTRODUCTION 15

about Jews and money because doing so opens up these kinds of stereo-
typical images. Although there is little basis to what is written in this area
about Schiff, these kinds of accusations might help us to understand why
there is reticence among academics to comment on him.
This book aims to open a window onto a particular historical
moment: onto a confluence of interests that helped to propel Japan’s
emergence on the world stage. It also aims to examine in detail the prac-
tical aspects of how Schiff undertook this monumental effort.
This is not a conventional biography. It is not intended to refute the
notion that the pogroms were a matter of urgent concern for Schiff.
Rather, it is an examination of the background of Schiff’s financing of
Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. Scholars who have written on
this topic previously have provided a patchwork of valuable insights,
which include recent innovative interpretations that have arisen regard-
ing Schiff’s role.35 Other historians have used some of the same archival
sources as I have. Richard Smethurst and Toshio Suzuki are among the
most complete in their use of banking archives.36 They too have accessed
the archives of Barings Bank, HSBC and Parr’s Bank, for example. Their
approach, however, has been different. Whereas I focus on Schiff’s
role and motivations, Smethurst looks at the contribution of Takahashi
Korekiyo (1854–1936), Japan’s financial commissioner during the war.
Suzuki analyses the dynamics of Japanese loan issues in the London
markets.
This book takes a different approach by building upon the work of
historians who have commented before, weaving together the diffuse
insights with newly gleaned source data, producing an interpretation of
Schiff’s role that reveals him as simultaneously prudent and speculative.
Schiff brought a transnational view to American markets that at the time
were for the most part still concentrating on internal growth dynamics.
This is especially so compared to most of his contemporaries. He was
not just interested in a foreign culture; he was someone who helped to
change its history.

35 See Mina Muraoka, ‘Jews and the Russo-Japanese War: The Triangular Relationship

Between Jewish POWs, Japan and Jacob H. Schiff’ (PhD dissertation, Brandeis University,
2014).
36 Richard J. Smethurst, Takahashi Korekiyo: Japan’s Keynes, from Foot Soldier to Finance

Minister (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Suzuki, Japanese Government
Loan Issues.
16 A. GOWER

Methodology
I lived in Japan for most of the 1990s and through learning to speak
Japanese I came to understand Japanese culture quite well. While there
I worked for the American Jewish Committee (coincidentally founded
by Schiff) translating Japanese non-fiction books with Jewish themes
into English. Some of those books were viewed as being antisemitic,
and Committee executives would contact publishers and government
officials to explain the reasons behind the antisemitism. Their objective
was to ameliorate the impact of negative perceptions of Jews in order to
facilitate stronger ties between Japan and Israel. The initial idea for this
book was to study the relations between Japan and Israel, though some-
thing quite different emerged. While examining the background to that
topic, it appeared to me that Schiff’s engagement with Japan was per-
haps the earliest formative contact between Jews and the Japanese. Yet
I was struck by the assumptions about the two peoples that most of the
historians seemed to take for granted. Many of these provided a tightly
encapsulated version of the history of Jacob Schiff and his support of
Japan over Russia in 1904. I found that this merited further investigation
and deserved a thorough treatment on its own terms. My unease with
the state of the historiography I encountered was also heightened by my
own experience in the business world. It seemed incongruous to me that
as expert a banker as Schiff would allow political ideology to trump pru-
dent financial underwriting. Moreover, I perceived that some historians
did not fully understand how such business practices worked at the time.
They seemed to be explaining events without carefully situating them in
the context of the history of banking.
My experience has informed my interpretation of the importance of
diligent underwriting in making loans and how this must have motivated
Schiff’s actions with regard to the Japanese loans. From my own work as
a banker I understand that, while a bank may tend this way or that in its
lending practices, the disciplines for mitigating risk are largely consistent
and ever-present. Yet, while being conscious of not relying too heavily
on my own experience, I noticed that no historian had considered this
perspective with regard to Schiff’s financing of Japan. These things have
changed over time, but their historical evolution has not been contextu-
alized very well in this time period.
In an earlier version of my book, I proposed that Jacob Schiff saw in
the Japanese a reflection of the Jews. While my argument here stresses
Other documents randomly have
different content
and trees. A “country week” may come from a very small sum, but it
is an investment on which interest is unending, and whoever has
once made it will find that the pleasure is not for the child alone,
and that life opens up more possibilities than had come even to
one’s deepest dreams.
For those who desire more specific knowledge than that afforded
by the story of the undertaking as a whole, it is sufficient to give one
or two details which will enable any one interested in further
examination of the matter to obtain reports and information from
headquarters. For Philadelphia these headquarters are at 1112
Girard Street, from which the companies of children, registered and
numbered, are sent out. A letter addressed “Officers of the Country
Week,” at this number, will always receive prompt attention, the
work having received formal organization some years since, and
owning a regular board of untiring and devoted officers. They have
come to include now not only children, but tired shop-girls, young
mothers worn with care, and working women of all orders, and there
is opportunity not only for those who are willing to open their houses
without charge, but also for those who must cover expenses, the
Board paying wherever necessary, a sum per child, sufficient to
cover these. For New York there is perhaps a trifle less system, but a
work equally beneficent, and for all information regarding it, it is
sufficient to address either “The Tribune Fresh Air Fund,” The Tribune,
Park Row, New York, or the Rev. Willard Parsons, care of New York
Tribune.
Contributions or inquiries either will be welcomed, and matters
are now so perfectly systematized, that distance to be traveled
proves no obstacle, and even the remotest village on the lines of the
great railroads may have its share in this most beautiful and
essential form of service.
 LEARN TO ENJOY PEOPLE.

BY MARGARET MEREDITH.

There is one surpassing beauty of manner which, I think, might

be attained by cultivation—that of taking an interest in people who
are talking to you, with the subtile added charm of seeming at
leisure to enjoy them as long as they choose to stay.
With some it is natural. I was struck to-day with the sweet
graciousness of a young girl, ill dressed (for her) and very busy, who
almost deceived me into wasting ten extra minutes of her precious
time, by the satisfied air with which she sat down beside me in her
parlor and welcomed my inopportune appearance. It was not politic,
to be sure, for getting her cake making done, but, ah how politic for
winning admiration!
Of the few whom I have remarked, in our busy American life, as
possessing this faculty supremely, one family had long lived abroad,
and were people of leisure. The look of content, and of being
established for an indefinite time, with which any one of them sat on
the sofa before a dull chance acquaintance, was an imprint, no
doubt, of their idle life, but it was also the imprint of an exquisite
training. It was the quintessence of the aristocratic manner.
We do not want gilded uselessness; far better remain as we are;
busy, even if chiefly for ourselves; but there are some who, in the
midst of hard work, have been wise enough to leave spare time in
their plan of life for casual meetings with their fellows. I think of two
women, both, as it happened, the main stay of churches—churches
widely removed in geography and opinion; both were responsible in
the care of those churches, and both entered with marvelous
industry into the details and into the drudgery of their work. I heard
a servant say of one that she had never known her to utter an
impatient word when cards were handed in; while her cordial ways
won the hearts of all. The other, older and poorer, and not versed in
the ways of the world, it was even more wonderful to see sitting
hour after hour engrossed and pleased as one and another used up
her morning; though the standing puzzle among all who knew her
was, how she possibly found time for all she did.
This heartiness is more attractive to the small than to the great
among one’s friends; for those full of attractions themselves are not
so apt to be received with indifference. It is those modest as to their
own fascinations who are grateful for being made welcome and at
home; the shy girl just emerged from the school room to do her
difficult part in society, the old lady who is painfully conscious that
she knows very little about the topics of the day, the estimable
young man of moderate capacity. These must be tolerated—why
should they not be made happy?
I know that I am playing with edged tools, advising an attempt
that is all too apt to end in affectation, even in deceit, an overdone
aspect of admiration which would disgust; but you can avoid that.
Really, about all you need is to deal strictly with yourself as you walk
down stairs to the parlor; force yourself to stop inwardly fuming that
you are interrupted, to accept the fact that this is not an
interruption, but probably a better occupation for you for twenty
minutes than that from which you were called, at any rate the
inexorable duty of the moment, and to be discharged as such.
Instead of sitting half numb and self-absorbed, talking only in the
rôle of a machine for receiving a caller, try at once to throw yourself
quite away from the life upstairs out into the life of your visitor. The
calls will consume a little more of your time, will average a little
longer, even in spite of waiting carriages, but they will prove a
recreation instead of a weariness, and you will gain twenty friends
where you now gain one.
 A little girl once traveled in the stage-coach with Madame La Vert,
and the child’s indignant contradiction afterward: “She isn’t a fine
lady at all! She’s just like me, and I love her,” made plain in a
sentence the secret of her power.
Why is not this sympathetic treatment of others aimed at by all?
Why should the reigning belle be so nice with her tongue and her
smile, and the older woman, who probably feels the want of
affection far more keenly, be quite oblivious that this same winning
kindliness which she has so long ceased to exhibit, and has replaced
by the dry manner of formal endurance, would, perhaps as promptly
as the wand of Cinderella’s god-mother, transform some of these
prim callers into life-long friends.
OUR LADIES OF SORROW.

BY MRS. E. A. MATTHEWS.
Three sisters guard the lives of mortal men
With care unvarying, from youth to age.
Ever around us, though beyond our ken,
Do they in silent ministry engage.
Mysterious Trio—hand in hand, they go
Through the sad realm of human pain and woe!

Mother of Tears, of bitterness, and grief,

Thou art, to-day, in many a silent room—
Before thy steps, death stealeth, like a thief,
And turns life’s sunshine into blackest gloom.
When hearts are rent with unavailing prayer
For life’s lost treasures, Mother, thou art there!

Dark-browed and dreadful, Tenebrarum, thou!

Bringer of unbelief, doubt, and despair,
Mother of suicide, revenge, and gloom—
With frenzied look, and maniac’s awful glare—
When man is hated, and when God denied,
Thou standest, mocking, at the wretch’s side!

But thou, O Goddess, mild Mother of Sighs,

Sweet source of pity, patient sorrow’s balm,
At thy mild bidding all our anguish dies,
And grief’s wild billows soften into calm.
When human hearts bring sympathy and share
The woes of others, Mother, thou art there!

When the sad penitent laments in vain

O’er wasted moments—thou dost hope restore—
To the pale captive, and the child of pain,
Thou bringest liberty and health once more!
All generous deeds and tender charities
Are in thy hands—O, blessed Mother of Sighs!
 THE NICARAGUA AND PANAMA
ROUTES TO THE PACIFIC.

BY FELIX L. OSWALD, M. D.

It is curious how often the first impression of experts has been

confirmed by the verdict of posterity. During one of his journeys of
inspection Peter the Great visited the mouth of the Volga River and
pointed out the advantages of fortifying a certain promontory which
a military commission, after long controversies, has now selected for
the site of a bombproof arsenal. The gold discoveries in Upper
California were predicted by Sir Francis Drake; those of the Ural by
Baron Humboldt; and after fifty years of coast surveys, mountain
surveys, negotiations, reports and counter reports, it seems now
probable that two American Republics will ratify the opinion of Don
Rodrigo Contreras, who more than three hundred years ago called
the attention of the Spanish Government to the advantages of the
Nicaragua Lake system, and its navigable effluent, as the rudiment
of an inter-oceanic canal, and the superiority of that route over
those both of Darien and Panama—Tehuantepec having then not yet
entered into competition. This Rodrigo was the son-in-law of Davila
Pedrarias, the first governor of Panama, and in his coasting trips
between the landings of the southern isthmus had probably noticed
a circumstance which may yet turn the scales in the decision of the
canal problem, though it had escaped the attention of the routine
sailors of a latter age, and perhaps even of some professional
engineers who confined themselves to the comparison of altimetrical
surveys.
The matter is this: Along the north shore of the Caribbean Sea
the coasts are deep and rocky, but further south, as the Cordilleras
decrease in elevation, the shore is lined with sandbanks, and can be
approached only through shallow estuaries, just as the coasts of the
Mediterranean become sandy at their southeastern extremity, the
only point where the circle of lofty coast ranges is broken by the
delta of a swamp river—the depth of the shore waters being
apparently proportioned to the height of the shore lands. Even single
depressions in the chain of a long-stretched coast range are often
confronted by isolated sandbanks—as if a collapse of the mountain
walls had shoaled the littoral sea. But at Panama that tendency is
aggravated by another cause. For the last two hundred years the
line of the overland route has followed the Rio Chagres and its
western tributaries; the adjoining hill country became studded with
settlements, and, as usual in Spanish colonies, “civilization” led to
forest destruction and progressive aridity. The abundant rains of the
summer solstice, which were formerly absorbed by the not less
exuberant vegetation of a tropical coast region, now reach the valley
in the form of raging torrents, saturated with the mould of the
treeless hill-slopes; and the alluvium deposited at the river mouth
has thus gradually formed silt banks, against which the repeated
improvements of the estuary have proved only a temporary remedy.
The Russians had a similar experience with the port of Azof, once
the best harbor in the basin of the Euxine; but after the destruction
of the inland forests the naked hills of the Don revenged themselves
by a hydra growth of dunes that defied all expedients of human skill,
and after diking and dredging away some ninety million roubles, the
government yielded to Nemesis and removed the wharves to the
harbor of Taganrog. In order to enable vessels of deeper draught to
enter the mouth of the Chagres, the canal itself would have to be
supplemented by a channel mole, a marine canal of nine miles,
protected by dikes which in their turn might become a source of peril
to sailing vessels approaching the estuary during the prevalence of
the frequent gales which make the headlands of the southern
Caribbean so many Guardafuis.
The Bay of San Juan de Nicaragua, on the contrary, is remarkably
free from storms, and the San Juan is not a swamp river. It is the
effluent of a chain of rockbound lakes, one of them of sufficient
extent to equalize the drainage of torrents from above, so that an
overflow of the San Juan could be caused only by the simultaneous
rising of all its lower tributaries, aided by a northwest gale that
would drive the waters of the lake toward the estuary. A conjunction
of that sort occurred in the summer of 1872, when the San Juan
rose some twenty feet in as many hours; but even then the river did
not shoal its delta, but tore out a new channel through Costa Rican
territory, which now receives a lion’s share of the outflow; but there
is no doubt that an isolated mishap of that sort can be remedied by
a short-line canal from the coast to a point above the divergence of
the rival streams, or by the same means that reclaimed the channel
of the Mississippi at New Orleans. Further up all serious difficulties
cease. The rapids of the San Juan can be passed by locks of
moderate depth, the total difference between the level of Lake
Nicaragua and that of the Atlantic being hardly twenty-five feet. The
lake itself will need no improvements. Throughout its breadth of
seventy-five miles (three fifths of the distance from ocean to ocean)
it maintains an average depth of fifteen fathoms, has no dangerous
sandbanks, no driftwood islands, while its undercurrents secure it
against the danger of being shoaled by the floods of its affluents.
The project of locating the western terminus at Port Brito, on the
Pacific, would reduce the length of the canal proper to about twenty-
eight miles, and shorten the trip for vessels from our ports by nearly
seven hundred miles—the distance from Port Brito to Panama.
The question is, if all these advantages would justify the
construction of a second canal. For we need not delude ourselves
with the fear—or hope—that the Panama project would be
abandoned; the present interests of the French stockholders, if not
the name of Monsieur de Lesseps, is a guarantee that their work will
be completed. They have gone too far[A] to retreat before the
completion of a single rival; for on the other hand it is equally sure
that the Tehuantepec scheme has lost its last hope of practical
support, since even the promise of a monopoly could hardly override
the veto of Nature. It is enough to say that the Mexican projectors
admit that the proposed route through the lowest gap of the
Chimalapa Range would require the construction of one hundred and
forty locks—with the alternative of tunneling through thirty miles of
granite rocks—for we know how nearly a difference of fifteen locks
defeated the chances of the Wellington canal against its American
rivals.
Nor should we, in this respect, underrate the advantages of the
Panama route. The distance from ocean to ocean is only forty-eight
miles, against one hundred and fifteen at Nicaragua, and two
hundred and twelve at Tehuantepec, and neither hills nor rocks
oppose any obstacle that could not be overcome by the conqueror of
Suez. Yet there remains a consideration which in connection with the
result of other comparisons must leave a preponderance of
arguments in favor of Nicaragua. For three fifths of the year the
valley of the Rio Chagres is a reeking hotbed of malaria,[B] and from
Aspinwall to Panama only dreary sandhills alternate with festering
swamps. Nicaragua, on the other hand, is the healthiest region
between Chili and California, and offers scenic attractions absolutely
unequaled in any other part of the New World, and which can hardly
have been surpassed when the Mediterranean peninsulas were still
clad in the glory of their primeval forests. I visited the lake region of
Nicaragua in 1875, after having seen California, the West Indies, and
the highlands of Mexico, and only here I relinquished my doubt that
the international park of Switzerland had, after all, a transatlantic
rival. The harbor of San Juan is nearly a thousand miles from
anything an Anglo-American would call civilization, and since their
Walker and Spalding experiences the natives are, on the whole,
rather inclined to dispense with the patronage of enterprising
foreigners; but, for all that, the time is near when the islands of Lake
Nicaragua will be studded with international hotels. The luxuriance
of the tropical hill forests is equaled in the mountains of Oaxaca; the
climate is not superior to that of the northern Antilles; but the
scenery of the highlands, with their fourteen active volcanoes, would
turn the scales. Of the forty-six craters in the maritime Cordilleras,
five are eruptive and nine smouldering and smoking volcanoes,
besides a score of infernillos—smoking caves and fissures, opening
in the rocks of the foothills, as if the obstruction of the roof-
chimneys had forced the subterranean fires to break a vent through
the basement of the Sierra. And, moreover, these craters are, with
few exceptions, of easy access from both sides of the mountains,
and at all seasons of the year. The climate of Nicaragua enjoys the
advantages of the real tropics. In the western hemisphere that term
is as ambiguous as the “beginning of spring.” At Brownsville, Texas,
nearly twelve hundred miles further south than Naples, I have seen
snowstorms that would appall a Shetlander; and even in Mexico
frosts are not confined to the upper tablelands. But the traveler who
reaches the fourteenth parallel has left the winter zone behind. In
Leon, near the northwest end of the lake system, he will find
butterflies in December, and when he sits down to his Christmas
dinner of sweetmeats and broiled bananas, mine host will introduce
a caza-moscas, or fly-brush boy. Moscas of a larger variety also
infest the lagoons of the old town, but mosquitoes are rare, and
further inland unknown, for Leon is the gate city of the western
highlands, one of its suburbs being only a short distance from the
foothills of the Cerro de las Pilas, a naked peak whose summit
affords a complete panorama of the lake region and the coast range.
In the north the Sierra Madre of Honduras looms on the horizon like
a white-crested cloud, flanked by the blue ridge of the coast range,
and the volcanic domes of the central plateau which attains its
maximum altitude in the uplands of Matagalpa. But forty miles
southeast of Leon the great tableland which stretches in an almost
unbroken line from Denver across Mexico and the highlands of
Central America is intersected by the basin of the Isthmus lakes; and
here, as if the disruption of the Sierra had opened a vent for the
furnaces of the nether world, volcanoes and hot springs are massed
in a way which to my knowledge is paralleled only in the Island of
Java, where a highland region of twelve hundred square miles is
veiled with the almost perpetual smoke of its burning mountains.
About twenty miles north of Las Pilas the continuity of the coast
range is broken, and the main chain seems to be segregated into
numerous isolated mountain groups, each of them crowned with two
or three volcanic cones. At the end of the cape which forms the
breakwater of the sound known as the Estero Real stands the
volcano of Conseguina, the Vesuvius of the New World. In one of its
last eruptions it caused an inundation by completely obstructing the
outlet of the Rio Casco, and in 1835 it scattered its ashes as far as
La Guayra and Tehuantepec, i. e., over a circle fourteen hundred
miles in diameter. The head of the bay is begirt by the dolerite cliffs
of two other volcanoes, one of which fronts the shore with a sheer
precipice of 4,400 feet, rising from a pedestal of rock colonnades
with cavernous interspaces where trickling springs have generated a
rank vegetation of climbing evergreens. The same arrangement
repeats itself at the head of Lake Managua, where the volcano of
Monotombo rises in tower-like basalt cliffs to a vertical height of
7,400 feet. Professor Vanhouten, of the canal survey, makes the
highest point of the peak 7,700—at all events a thousand feet more
than the summit of Mount Washington. The “South Dome” of the
Yosemite, if my memory serves me right, rises hardly 5,000 feet
above the valley, and the granite front of the “Captain” considerably
less than 4,000, while the grandeur of the basalt coliseum is yet
doubled by the mirror of the Island Sea, as the first colonists
translated the Indian name of Lake Managua. The lake is dotted with
wooded islands which accompany the south shore into the strait of
Panalaya, and where that strait opens into the broad basin of the
lower lake, the islands, too, expand, two of them so much, indeed,
as to have mountain ranges, broad valleys and secondary lakes of
their own. Like all the higher ridges those island mountains
culminate in volcanoes; the steep peak of Ometepec rises to a
height of 5,200 feet, and gives its island the form of a pyramid.
West, east, and north of both lakes volcanoes rise above the shore
mountains in all directions, and northeast of Lake Managua not less
than seven of them stand close together, like the peaks of the
Sieben-gebirge, on the upper Rhine. The volcano of Chiltepec can be
recognized by its cloven peak, the upper part of the cone having
collapsed during one of its eruptions; Tellica and Santa Clara by the
smoke trails of their ever-seething craters. The “Hell of Mesaya,”
sixty miles further south, has the deepest crater of any known
volcano, as Kilauea has the widest, and Stromboli the most
obstreperous. The upper two thousand feet of the cone form a mere
shell, and from the brink of the crater the spectator looks down into
a dizzy abyss of trachite cliffs, rent by vertical fissures, and now and
then veiled by the eruption of a smoke whirl. From the hills on the
east shore of the lake the prospect toward the peaks of the island
mountains affords views of marvelous and almost incomparable
beauty. Yet all along the shores of that lake land, with the exception
of the richest alluvial creek estuaries, can be bought for three dollars
an acre, even on flat topped bluffs and near rock springs in sheltered
dells, more inviting than the finest artificial parks. Thus far only
camping British sportsmen have now and then availed themselves of
such opportunities, though Nicaragua offers hunting grounds to the
lovers of nearly every kind of outdoor pastime and science.
Geologists can watch the active operations of the Titans that have
transformed so large a portion of our planet. Antiquarians can here
find treasures, from the tomb of a Toltec warrior to the monuments
of a buried city; the neighborhood of San Carlos and Mayagalpa is
covered with ruins, and on the island of Zapotera colossal idols rise
like sphinxes from the ground and from the debris of fallen temples.
Naturalists can watch the jaguar and the tapir in their native haunts,
catch butterflies enough to stock a museum, study the habits of five
different species of quadrumana, including the large Coaiti
(Lagothrix paniscus), with his spider arms and strange, flute-like
cries, can visit the bat caves of Dipilta or the bird islands of
Bluefield’s Lagoon, that make Nicaragua a zoological epitome of the
American tropics, and offer a winter asylum to legions of feathered
refugees from the North.
In Nicaragua the rainy season ends in November, and the winters
are dry and pleasant, and far less capricious than in Florida, where
sultry Gulf winds so often alternate with very perceptible polar
waves. Nicaragua will become the winter rendezvous of American
tourists. An international highway, built by American engineers and
American capital, would soon aggregate North American settlements
that would add to the charms of a tropical garden-land a feeling of
security which the traveler in other parts of Spanish America must
generally forego; villas, watering places, and hotels for the
accommodation of winter guests will spring up by scores, and the
canal will soon become something more than a thoroughfare of
international travel. The stockholders of such an investment could
well dispense with a formal protectorate, and the obstacle of the
Clayton-Bulwer treaty[C] is precisely analogous to the scruple which
no politician would blame Prince Bismarck for setting aside in the
Congo affair. In both cases England had for years the refusal of an
opportunity which she failed to improve, and in the unwritten by-
laws of international ethics the iners non obstet is a rule which held
good even in the Black Sea controversy. Besides, the alternative of a
French monopoly and eventual protectorate in Panama may help to
moderate the opponents of the Monroe Doctrine.[D]
While Nicaragua will be visited for its own sake, Panama, like Vera
Cruz and Cayenne, will be shunned by northern travelers, though
considerations of proximity will secure it the inter-oceanic traffic of
South America. Vessels carrying tobacco from Brazil to Peru, or
guano from Peru to Caracas, will prefer the risk of the Chagres fever
swamps to the certain disadvantages of a voyage around the distant
south cape of the continent.
Nicaragua will compete with Switzerland, Italy, and the winter
resorts of southern California, as well as with our transcontinental
railways. Panama will compete with Cape Horn.

[A] The Panama Star and Herald reports that $68,000,000 of

the total appropriation of $120,000,000 have already been
expended. The preliminary surveys alone cost 7,000,000 francs.
After the plan of Monsieur de Lesseps the canal will be thirty feet
deep, one hundred and twenty feet wide, and about forty-six
miles long.
[B] Panama (the city), too, is one of the unhealthiest spots on
earth. Two months ago (January 2, 1885) the wife of Monsieur
Jules Dingler, the Director-General of the Canal Company,
succumbed to the same fever that had cost the lives of all her
children. Dr. Ferdinand Lahr, the Sanitary Superintendent, died on
the same day.
[C] Captain Bedford Pim, of the British navy, states various
reasons that would insure the tolerance, or even the coöperation
of Great Britain. He estimates the aggregate cost at
$200,000,000, and believes that England, under certain
conditions, would assume one half of the demanded guarantee of
three per cent. interest.
[D] It is a curious fact that the originator of that doctrine is not
an American, but a British statesman. George Canning, on the
eve of his departure for Verona, having got an inkling of a South-
European federation for the purpose of assisting Spain in the
reconquest of her lost transatlantic possessions, postponed his
trip and put himself in communication with the American minister,
in order to call the attention of our government to the favorable
opportunity for asserting the claims of a counter alliance.
 GEOGRAPHY OF THE HEAVENS FOR
JUNE.

BY PROF. M. B. GOFF,
Western University of Pennsylvania.

THE SUN.

“’Tis by thy secret, strong attractive force,

As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourne
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.”

Had our poet written his Summer in 1781, the year in which
Uranus was discovered, instead of 1727; or could he have waited till
1846, his “utmost Saturn wheeling wide his round of thirty years”
would probably have been changed and in beautifully flowing verse
would have been expressed the wonderful fact of “utmost Neptune,
wheeling wide his round, whose years could only be by four and
sixty and one hundred told.” So much in one respect had astronomy
grown in a little more than a century. But we could have no heart to
blame our poet’s neglect of our “utmost” planets, even had he
known of their existence, since he was so evidently in earnest in
giving its due to our glorious orb, recognized to-day as the source of
all our light, and heat, and life.
 “From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature’s depth;
He comes, attended by the Hours
And ever-fanning Breezes, on his way;
While from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth and skies,
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.

“When now, no more the alternate Twins are fired,

And Cancer reddens with the Solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the Night;
And soon, observant of approaching Day,
The meek-eyed Morn appears, mother of Dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled East;
Till far o’er Ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the luster of her face,
White break the clouds away.”

Had our poetic friend, Thompson, lived in Meadville or New York,

instead of London, he would not even on the 21st of June, have
been so much disposed to sing:

“Short is the doubtful empire of the Night;”

for the shortest night of New York is over an hour longer than the
shortest night of London. But what were Meadville and New York in
1727? June 21st is our longest day, in latitude 41° 30′, a little more
than fifteen hours from sunrise to sunset; the night, of course, a
little less than nine hours. On this day the sun reaches his northern
limit, 23° 27′ 3.2″, and at 2:42 a. m. begins his southern journey; or,
to put it astronomically, the sun enters Gemini, and summer begins,
on June 21st, at 1:42 a. m. On the 1st, sun rises at 4:31 a. m., sets
at 7:24 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 4:29 a. m., sets at 7:32 p. m.;
and on the 30th rises at 4:33 a. m., sets at 7:34 p. m. Many persons
judging from the temperature will be inclined to think on the 21st
that the sun must be at midday directly above their head; but it will
have an elevation of not more than 73°.

THE MOON
Enters upon its last quarter on the 5th, at 6:56 p. m.; new moon on
the 12th, at 5:34 p. m.; first quarter, 19th, at 8:40 a. m.; and full on
the 27th, at 6:09 a. m. Farthest from the earth on the 28th, at 12:54
a. m.; nearest the earth on the 13th, at 11:12 a. m. Greatest
elevation, 66° 56′ 25″, on the 13th; least elevation, 30° 2′ 40″, on
the 27th. Rises on the 1st, at 10:15 p. m.; sets on the 16th, at 10:41
p. m.; and rises on the 30th, at 9:27 p. m.

MERCURY
Will be our morning star till the 27th, after which it will be evening
star till the end of the month. On the 1st it will rise at 3:34 a. m., or
about one hour earlier than the sun, and can probably be seen by
good eyes. On the 16th, it will rise at 3:46 a. m.; and on the 30th,
will set at 7:51 p. m., or a few minutes after sunset, but will be too
near the sun to be visible. Its motion will be direct, amounting to
59° 50′. Its diameter will decrease from 7″ to 5″. On the 5th, at
2:00 p. m., will be 48′ south of Neptune; on the 11th, at 10:57 a.
m., 2° 57′ north of the moon; on the 23d, at 11:00 p. m., 1° 41′
north of Saturn; on the 24th, at 3:00 a. m., in perihelion (nearest
the sun); and on the 27th, at 10:00 a. m., in superior conjunction
with the sun.

VENUS,
Although she acts the part of an evening star, is rather “mild” this
month. She rises after the sun, and sets on the 1st, at 7:56; on the
16th, at 8:20; and on the 30th, at 8:33 p. m. Her diameter increases
four tenths of a second of arc; and she makes a direct motion of 40°
3′. On the 7th, at 5:00 p. m., she is 1° 32′ north of Saturn; on the
13th, at 10:54 a. m., 5° 48′ north of the moon; and on the 26th, at
3:00 p. m., in perihelion.

MARS
Has a direct motion of 22° 6′; his diameter remains constant, 4.4″,
during the month. Can be seen at the early dawn. He rises at the
following times: On the 1st, at 3:22; on the 16th, at 2:59; and on
the 30th, at 2:33 a. m. On the 10th, at 6:00 p. m., 1° 29′ north of
Neptune; on the 10th, at 7:55 p. m., 3° 51′ north of the moon.

JUPITER
“Speaks for himself” every evening this month. On the 1st, he rises
at 10:34 a. m., and on the 2d sets at 12:06 a. m.; on the 16th, rises
at 9:50 a. m., and sets at 11:16 p. m.; and on the 30th, rises at 9:03
a. m., and sets at 10:23 p. m. He has a direct motion of 4° 2′ 31″;
and his diameter decreases from 34″ to 31.6″. On the 17th, at 9:44
a. m., he is 3° 44′ north of the moon. It may interest the general
reader to know that while he is admiring, night after night, this
beautiful body making its way through the “lesser lights” of the
heavens, that the astronomer is laboring diligently to discover its
properties and learn with exactness its motions. From the last report
of Prof. G. W. Hough, Director of the Dearborn Observatory, Chicago,
we find that “the disk of Jupiter was observed on every favorable
occasion, and micrometric measures made on the principal spots and
markings, including the great red spot first remarked in 1878.” These
observations were made principally with a view to obtaining the time
of revolution of the planet on its axis; and the result of the
observations from September 12, 1883, to June 11, 1884, a period
during which the planet made 660 revolutions, was a mean of 9h.
55m. 38.5s., which differs from the mean of five years’ observation
by 1.5s.; the former mean being that much greater than the latter.

SATURN
Will be evening star till the 18th; after which date, morning star till
the end of the month. On the 1st, rises at 5:40 a. m., and sets at
8:24 p. m.; on the 16th, rises at 4:47 a. m., sets at 7:31 p. m.; on
the 30th, rises at 4:00 a. m., sets at 6:44 p. m.; from which it will be
seen that except during the first part of the month it will be invisible
to the naked eye. Its diameter is 15.6″ and does not change to the
amount of one tenth of a second during the month. On the 7th, at
5:00 p. m., 1° 32′ south of Venus; on the 13th, at 1:19 a. m., 4° 3′
north of the moon; on the 18th, at 6:00 p. m., is in conjunction with
the sun; on the 23d, at 11:00 p. m., 1° 41′ south of Mercury. This
planet has also been the subject of observation from the Dearborn
Observatory, for the purpose of detecting markings on the rings; but
“nothing indicating a division in the outer ring has ever been
noticed.”

URANUS.
On the 1st, this planet rises at 1:10 p. m.; on the 2nd, it sets at
1:18 a. m.; on the 16th, rises at 12:12 p. m., and on the 17th, sets
at 12:18 a. m.; on the 30th, rises at 11:18 a. m., and sets at 11:24
p. m. Decreases in diameter two tenths of a second; and has a
direct motion of 14″ 30′. On the 5th, at 1.00 p. m., it appears
stationary; on the 19th, at 10:15 a. m., is 55′ north of the moon; on
same date, at 10:00 p. m., is 90° east of the sun.

NEPTUNE
Is a morning star throughout the month, and has a direct motion of
1° 0′ 16″. Diameter increases from 2.5″ to 2.6″. It rises as follows:
On the 1st, at 3:47; on the 16th, at 2:49; and on the 30th, at 1:56
a. m. On the 5th, at 2:00 p. m., is 48′ north of Mercury; on the 10th,
at 6:00 p. m., 1° 29′ south of Mars; on the 10th, at 7:49 p. m., 2°
21′ north of the moon. The 26-inch equatorial of the National
Observatory at Washington, D. C., was during the past year chiefly
employed in observations of the satellites of Neptune, Uranus,
Saturn and Mars.
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