Keeping The Gates Open

Jacob Schiff and the Galveston Plan for Refugees

Galveston, 1907, via Wikiimages

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In 1907 the American philanthropist, Jacob Schiff, wrote to the author and playwright, Israel Zangwill, in London. He told him that the previous day he’d had a conference with several other Jewish leaders, at which they had discussed how to divert the flow of Russian, Jewish immigrants away from the overcrowded cities on the East Coast. They proposed to open a facility, either in New Orleans or at the port at Galveston, Texas, where boats carrying Russian immigrants would arrive. From there the immigrants would be directed to cities in the southwestern states, where they would be helped to settle.

In his letter, Schiff told Zangwill that he was donating half a million dollars to the project, a huge sum for those days. He believed this would be sufficient to help 20,000- 25,000 people to settle in what he called the American Hinterland. He told Zangwill that it would be up to him to make the plan work.

Schiff and his colleagues had come up with the plan in response to growing opposition in Washington to the large numbers of people arriving from Russia. The failed revolution of 1905 had resulted in a new wave of pogroms, encouraged by the Russian government who found it convenient to deflect blame for the unrest onto the Jews. The powerful restrictionist lobby in America, who wanted to see an end to immigration, were piling pressure on the politicians. Many Jewish leaders feared that the gates to America were about to close. President Theodore Roosevelt had already warned Schiff that if economic conditions worsened and the overcrowding continued, the consequences may become “worse than distress.”

Jacob Schiff is rarely discussed today but in the early years of the 20^th century he was the unrivalled leader of American Jewry. A small, dignified man, who always appeared in public in a frock coat and striped trousers, with starched collar and cuffs and a white cravat, his bearing made him look far taller than he actually was. Born in Germany in 1847, he had emigrated to America at the age of 18 and joined the banking firm of Kuhne, Loeb & Co. Forceful and intelligent, by 1885 he had been appointed as the head of the firm. He was fully immersed in Jewish communal affairs, donating to dozens of cultural and welfare causes, presiding over many of them and networking widely on behalf of Jewish refugees and the underprivileged, at the highest echelons of government.

The man Schiff wrote his letter to, Israel Zangwill, was a little younger. The two men had met and had become friends on a visit Schiff and his wife had made to London. Zangwill’s novels, Children of the Ghetto, King of Schnorrers and Dreamers of the Ghetto, portrayed the reality of Jewish life in London’s East End. They had earned him a reputation as the Jewish Charles Dickens.

In 1896, Zangwill had met the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl and become a committed Zionist. He broke away from the Zionist movement after Herzl’s death, because he disagreed with their rejection of the British idea of a Jewish homeland in East Africa. He felt that the Zionist insistence on building a Jewish state only in Palestine was impractical and self-defeating. He created a new group, the Jewish Territorial Organisation with the purpose of procuring a “territory upon an autonomous basis for those Jews who cannot or will not remain in the lands in which they at present live.” It was the Jewish Territorial Organisation, under Zangwill’s management, that Schiff decided should implement his plan.

Schiff didn’t agree with Zangwill’s vision of establishing an autonomous Jewish state anywhere in the world. Nor was he a supporter of Zionism. He was quite happy to see Jews living, as they had done for centuries, as a minority in a wider society. All he wanted was for them to be able to live free, decent lives, and not to be persecuted. Nevertheless, Schiff co-opted the Jewish Territorial Organisation to run his project, in the expectation that Zangwill would gain the support of the British government.

Zangwill was in two minds about accepting Schiff’s suggestion that he implement the plan. He recognised that America was a far better place than Russia for Jews to live, but he didn’t like the idea of settling Jewish refugees in a country where they would still not be independent. And he was concerned about the dangers of assimilation if Jews were to live freely among everyone else. He feared that America would be the “euthanasia of Jews and Judaism.” On the other hand, he recognised that Schiff’s project was practical and a far less expensive solution for the refugees than trying to eke out a living in an overcrowded New York. He agreed to be involved.

The plan went ahead. An office was opened in Galveston to receive the immigrants when they arrived. A second office was opened in Bremen in Germany, from where a steamship would depart for Galveston every three weeks. A third office was opened in Kiev, employing around 100 agents. Their job was to approach prospective Russian immigrants, assess their suitability and make sure they were young and fit enough to work and make a life for themselves in America. One of the conditions Schiff insisted upon was that they were prepared to work on the Sabbath. Otherwise, he believed it would be too hard for them to find work. He was later persuaded to back down from that condition, though Zangwill stipulated that:

The emigrant must not be over 40 years of age. If married, he, his wife and children must be strong and healthy, and able to satisfy all the requirements of the Immigration Laws of the USA. The emigrant must pay his own fare from Bremen to Galveston which is 41 dollars. The intending emigrant should clearly understand that economic conditions everywhere in the United States are such that strict Sabbath observance is exceedingly difficult, in many cases almost impossible.

Zangwill added that “No unmarried female or child of either sex under the age of sixteen who is unaccompanied by a parent or married relative will be admitted.”

Meanwhile in America, Schiff’s staff were on the lookout for work opportunities. They interviewed the immigrants when they arrived, trying to match them to the most suitable jobs available. Their task was not easy. However difficult it was for an immigrant to find housing and work in New York, at least they knew that when they arrived there, they would find other Jews, people who spoke their language, perhaps even friends from the old country. None of that was likely if they were scattered around the South and West of the country, in cities where Jewish communities were either small or non-existent, where maybe nobody had even met a Russian and where prejudice was likely to be intense.

Things did not run smoothly. As Jacob Schiff recounted, years later, “The fact that only one line of transportation from Europe to Galveston was available — the North German Lloyd steamers from Bremen — placed the emigrant who wished to come to Galveston more or less at the mercy of this single steamship company, and while on the whole the accommodation the latter furnished was reasonably satisfactory, a journey of twenty-three days in steerage quarters brought in itself discomforts, which frequently led to not always unjustified complaints on the part of emigrants.”

Nor were the American authorities particularly helpful. Schiff had assumed that they would support his plans to divert immigrants away from the East Coast cities, to settle them in less developed areas, where labour was greatly in demand. He was disappointed to find that, not only were they not encouraging, but that they were extremely obstructive. Immigration officers scrutinised those arriving at Galveston more rigidly than at any other port in America. According to Schiff, on average 1.21% of immigrants arriving at an American port were refused entry and sent home. At Galveston the figure was 5%.

Then in 1914, war broke out in Europe. It was no longer practical or safe to ship immigrants across the Atlantic from Germany. The Galveston committee decided to cease their work. They still believed in what they were doing, but the obstacles were too great.

The Galveston project ran from 1907 to 1914. At the outset, Schiff had hoped that it would help 20,000 to 25,000 immigrants settle in America. In the event, it only managed to achieve a fraction of that number. During the seven years that it ran, the Galveston project enabled around 7,500 immigrants to enter America. It is not an inconsiderable number, even if it didn’t fully meet Jacob Schiff’s expectations.

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