[Rarebooks] OFFER: SCHIFF, JACOB H.: OUR JOURNEY TO JAPAN.

[Laderman]

SCHIFF, JACOB H.: OUR JOURNEY TO JAPAN. PRINTED AS A SURPRISE TO THE 
AUTHOR. JANUARY 10, 1907. PRINTED BY THE NEW YORK CO-OPERATIVE 
SOCIETY. 4TO, UP [ABOUT 200 PP.] Original gray boards, printed paper 
label on front board, paper spine [replaced]. Many small and large 
half tones after People whom he dealt with in Japan and some Japanese 
landscape views. With an inscription on Fr.Fr. EP, "'With kind 
Thoughts' Jacob H. Schiff". This is the second copy I have had in 
over 40 years. The other was not signed or inscribed. Now about VG.

In the Nineteenth century, The Russian Tsarist government had a 
policy of state anti-Semitism. Whenever the price of basic 
requirements such as flour or sugar was raised, the Jews were 
responsible. These constant anti-Semitic statements leaked by the 
secret police and their henchmen made pogroms a constant threat for 
the Jews, most of whom lived on the bare edge of poverty, also 
because of Russian oppression. They also had no power to affect these 
things in Russia. Not yet satisfied, the secret police commissioned, 
secretly, the book, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Which 
presents a Jewish conspiracy to control the world as a whole 
economically. This was a secret cabal of supposedly hidden Jewish 
elders. The one thing which the Russian government never thought of 
when they issued this canard, a book which is still being published 
as close to the USA as in Mexico City, and in Arabic in Egypt and 
elsewhere, was that their policies might make it come true even in a 
small way. At the same time that Tzarist Russia was persecuting its 
Jews it was also on an imperialist rampage across Asia, most of their 
Asian territories were gained in the 19th century. By the end of the 
century they had reached the Pacific, just North of Korea and facing 
parts of Japan. Actually long before that, the Japanese saw them 
coming and the modernizing Meiji government felt that they had to 
stop them or it would threaten Japan, and curtail Japan's own 
imperialist ambitions. Japan still did not have the capacity to build 
a modern war fleet, so they had to buy it from some European power. 
They found that Germany, newly a sea power, was interested in selling 
them modern war vessels, and they worked out the price. They would 
need some 70 million dollars. Therefore, the emperor's administration 
decided to float a loan from some Western power or powers. After 
trying for some years, they found that no power was willing to help them.

Meanwhile in the late nineteenth century, American Jewish merchants, 
most of them with German or other European ties, had founded a number 
of major banks in New York City. Perhaps the most influential of 
these was Jacob Schiff, who was the American representative of the 
Rothschild's bank. Disgusted with Russian anti-Semitism and realizing 
that the Japanese might be able to halt Russian imperialism, he 
decided to float the loan. He put up a good portion of it himself and 
then went around to the other New York bankers and raised the rest of 
it from them. He got the money to the Japanese early enough so that 
they could arrange to have their battle fleet made for them in 
Europe, and when the Russo - Japanese War occurred, it was found that 
the Japanese could withstand the Russians, and had sufficient naval 
and military abilities to beat them. It was the first case of any 
non-European power besting a European rival since the Turks began 
losing their battles in Europe in 1529.

The Japanese were very grateful to Schiff, who was rather quickly 
honored when he got their loan. But he was invited to visit Japan, as 
well, and this is the account of his party's trip across country and 
to Japan. He went with his wife and several friends. They arrived in 
Tokyo close to Passover, and celebrated Passover in the Imperial 
Hotel. The first Passover, they believed, which had ever been 
celebrated in Japan. He was feted by a state dinner with the emperor 
and the nobles and major officials, and given yet another award. They 
also visited various important noble families. When his wife said to 
a noble's daughter who asked about their life in New York [they lived 
in a mansion on Fifth Avenue] Schiff's wife said, "You must come and 
stay with us some time." Which was taken as an order, and the girl 
came and stayed with them while she went to Barnard and graduated 
from the school. Probably the first Japanese woman to get a Western 
education. At any rate this is the diary of the trip, Published by 
his wife, privately in a limited addition, as a surprise. $1250.00