JACOB SCHIFF AND MY UNCLE BEN DAYNOVSKY
Trillin, Calvin
JACOB SCHIFF AND MY UNCLE BEN DAYNOVSKY Calvin Trillin " T h e silk-hat banker Jacob Schiff, concerned about the conditions on the East Side of New York (and embarrassed by the image it...
...W h e n it c o m e s to n i n e t e e n t h century rapacious capitalism, my f a m i l y ' s hands are c l e a n ." My wife didn't say anything...
...I always thought of him as retired...
...Anyway, Who's Who has more Lithuanian Schiffs than German Schiffs, even if you count Dorothy Schiff...
...I have never heard my mother's views on the subject, but I have always assumed that she would believe that the use by my father's family of a port no one else seemed to be using had something to do with the stubborness for which they retain a local renown in St...
...D i d you know, by the way, that Schiff had a heavy German accent...
...I refer you to page one hundred fifty-nine of Our Crowd," I said...
...It took Uncle Ben several weeks to recover from his physical injuries, and even then...
...What c h e c k s ? " she said...
...U n l e s s you think that Jacob Schiff s descendants are embarrassed by my moving to New York instead of staying in our assigned a r e a ." " I ' m sure Jacob Schiff s descend a n t s d o n ' t know anything about t h i s , " my wife said...
...less) to St...
...I think you'd better find yourself a h o b b y , " she said...
...I suppose when it came time to deal with the threat of my Uncle Ben, he said something like, 'Zend him to Galveston...
...As a child, I often saw h im during Sunday trips to St...
...I s n ' t she the publisher of the New York Post'" " Y e s , but why is it that she is publisher of the New York Post...
...I wouldn't argue about long distance — she said that rich people were bound to be sensitive about being taken advantage of...
...I said to my wife when I read about the Galveston Project in The Provincials...
...When I told her that Schiff used to charge people who made telephone calls from his mansion — local calls...
...H e r e ' s a n interesting passage in this book about some of the German-Jewish charity on t he Lower East Side: 'Money was given largely but grudgingly, not out of the great religious principle of tz'dakah, or charity on its highest plane, given out of pure loving kindness, but out of a hard, bitter sense of resentment, and embarrassment and worry over what the neighbors would think.' " . " I don't see what you hope to gain by finding out unpleasant things about Jacob Schiff," she said...
...To be absolutely truthful, it occured to me more than once that my grandfather and Uncle Ben might have caught the wrong boat...
...F i r s t that car makes a mysterious right turn and now h e ' s being attacked by a gang of s t o c k b r o k e r s , " I said...
...A s a matter of fact, I 'm thinking about taking up g e n e a l o g y , " I said...
...I t hardly seems f a i r ." " T h e r e ' s something very interesting about the Schiffs listed in Who's Who,'' I said to my wife not long after our first conversation about the Galveston Project...
...A bunch of stockbrokers...
...M y Uncle Ben Daynovsky never finked on a n y b o d y , " I said...
...I 'm sure he must have been right, because she had an odd accent in English...
...Journal...
...S c h i f f had made two particularly large advances to the Pennsylvania Railroad, and he had the cancelled checks framed on his w a l l ." " D i d he r e a l l y ? " she said, showing some interest...
...Why shouldn't you count Dorothy Schiff...
...Then it took a sharp right t u r n , crossed the t w o backyards, and knocked down my Uncle Ben...
...My grandfather died before I was born, but my Uncle Ben is still living in St...
...My f a t h e r ' s family certainly came to Missouri from Eastern Europe around 1908 via the port of Galveston, and, I'll admit, that route struck me as rather odd every time we read in history class about how all the tired, poor, huddled masses swarmed into this country through Ellis Island...
...T h a t is kind of c r u d e , " she said...
...I wouldn't argue about long distance— she said that rich people were bound to be sensitive about being taken advantage of...
...Jo — trips so monopolized by visits to my father's relatives that I always assumed St...
...Maybe that passage in The Provincials was w r o n g , " my wife said when she came into the living room one evening and found me reading intently...
...S h e is the publisher of the New York Post because several years ago, during oneof the big newspaper strikes, she When I told her that Schiff used to charge people who made telephone calls from his mansion—local calls...
...Zum of dese foreigners iss embarrassink.' " " I never heard you make fun of anybody's accent b e f o r e , " my wife said...
...descendants of Jacob Schiff seem to be outnumbered by some Schiffs who were born in Lithuania and now manufacture shoes in Cleveland...
...I t ' s always hard to k n ow what to say to f o r e i g n e r s , " she said...
...J o . As I imagine my mother's imagining it, my grandfather would have fallen into an argument with some other resident of Kiev (or near Kiev, as it was always described to me, leading me to believe as a child that they came from the suburbs) about where immigrants land in the United States...
...W h o is Jacob Schiff that he should be embarrassed by my Uncle Ben Daynovsky...
...Until a few years ago, Uncle Ben was known for the tomatoes he grew in his backyard and pickled, but I 'm certain he n e v e r produced them c o m m e r c i a l l y . A few years ago, when he was already in his eighties and definitely retired...
...Stubborn, O.K...
...I just hope that no one in St...
...It never occured to me, though, to explain it all by assuming that Jacob Schiff found my family not only tired and poor and h u d d l e d but a l so embarrassing...
...Joseph, Missouri, leaving only sixty miles or so for my father to travel in order to complete what I had always assumed to be one of the few K i e v - G a l v e s t o n - S t . Jo-Kansas City immigration patterns in the Greater Kansas City area...
...I always considered the Galveston passage to b e o n e of those eccentricities of ancestral history that require no explanation — the kind of incident we hear about so often from people who have family trees concocted for themselves by wily English genealogists ( " F o r some reason, the old boy showed up late for the Battle of Hastings and therefore survived to father the first Duke, and t h a t ' s why we're here to tell the t a l e . " ) I .have always been content — pleased, really — to say simply that my grandfather (Uncle Ben's brother-in-law) happened to land in Galveston and thus made his way up the river (more or Calvin Trillin is a staff writer at THE NEW YORKER, where he writes a series of reporting pieces called "U.S...
...I had begun thinking that it was important that she share my views of Jacob Schiff, but she was hard to convince...
...When the time came to emigrate, my grandfather went fifteen hundred miles out of his way in order to avoid admitting that he was wrong...
...What about the c h e c k s ? " I said one evening...
...she said...
...One of his s o n s , my ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ cousin Iz, brought Uncle Ben back from the hospital and said, " P o p , do me a favor: next time you're in the backyard planting tomatoes, keep an eye out for the traffic...
...Y o u shouldn't take it p e r s o n a l l y ," my wife said...
...T h e checks Schiff had framed on the wall of his o f f i c e , " I said...
...my wife said...
...W e l l , I suppose for the same reason anybody is the publisher of any p a p e r , " my wife said...
...I would say s o , " I said, putting away the book...
...he h a s lived there for sixty or seventy years now, without, I hasten to say, a hint of scandal...
...I think the Schiffs are investment b a n k e r s , " my wife said...
...Uncle Ben was in his backyard planting tomatoes when a woman lost control of her car a couple of blocks behind his h o u s e . The c a r went down a hill, through a stop sign, over a meridian strip, through a hedge, and into a backyard two houses down from Uncle Ben's house...
...His most recent book is AMERICAN FRIED, published by Doubleday...
...1 think, he continued to be troubled by the implications of that sharp right turn...
...I said...
...My Uncle Ben would be m o r t i f i e d...
...And who are they that they should be embarrassed by my Uncie Ben Daynovsky...
...my wife said...
...I can't believe he had checks framed on the wall of his o f f i c e , " my wife said...
...Jo was known for being populated almost entirely by Eastern European immigrants, although I have since learned that it had a collateral fame as the home of the Pony Express...
...Y o u can say what you want to about my Uncle B e n , " I said, " b u t he never made his living as a moneyl e n d e r ." I 'm not quite sure how my Uncle Ben did make his living...
...Maybe Schiff gave the money to the Galveston Project just because he wanted to help people like your grandfather get s e t t l e d ." " I 'm glad you brought that up, because I h a p p e n to be c o n s u l t i ng another s o u r c e , " I said, holding up the book I was reading so that she could see it was Our Crowd, which I had checked out of the library that day with the thought of finding some dirt on Jacob Schiff...
...I t was for $ 6 2 , 0 7 5 , 0 0 0 . '" " I think that's rather embarrassi n g , " she said...
...H e always said she had an odd accent in Yiddish...
...She d i d n ' t seem shocked at all when I informed her, from my research inOur Crowd, that Schiff had a private Pullman car, something that anyone in my family would have considered ostentatious...
...finked on the other publishers in t he New York Publishers Association, settled with the union separately, a nd t h e r e f o r e saw to it that the Post survived, giving her something to be publisher o f ." ' ' S ince when did you become such a big defender of the N ew Y o r k Publishers Association...
...B u t listen to w h a t ' s very interesting about the Schiffs listed in Who's Who: the Schiffs who sound as if they're I always considered the Galveston passage to be one of those eccentricities of ancestral history . . . It never occurred to me, though, to explain it all by assuming that Jacob Schiff found my family not only tired and poor and huddled but also embarrassing...
...H i s t o r i c a l p e r s p e c t i v e , " I said, continuing to flip back and forth between the Jacob Schiff entry in the index and the pages indicated...
...Jo hears about it...
...But I simply can't understand how anyone could consider him embarrassing...
...JACOB SCHIFF AND MY UNCLE BEN DAYNOVSKY Calvin Trillin " T h e silk-hat banker Jacob Schiff, concerned about the conditions on the East Side of New York (and embarrassed by the image it created for N ew York's German Jews), pledged half a million dollars in 1906 to the Galveston Project, which helped direct more than ten thousand East European migrants through Galveston into the South and S o u t h e a s t ." . . . The Provincials: A History of Jews in the South, by Eli N . Evans And who is Jacob Schiff that he should be embarrassed by my Uncle Ben Daynovsky...
...O n e of them was for $ 4 9 , 0 9 8 , 0 0 0 , " I said...
...T h e y started i t . " " M y Uncle Ben never associated with robber barons like Gould and H a r r i m a n , " I said to my wife a few d a y s later...
...I ' m not taking it personally...
...O n e t i m e , he was called upon to give a toast to the Emperor of Japan, and he said, 'First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen,' " I said...
...I 'm taking it for my Uncle B e n , " 1 said...
...I ' m not sure, but my mother's mother was from Lithuania and my father always implied that it was nothing to be proud of," I said...
...S h e had enough money to buy i t ." " O n l y partly t r u e , " 1 said...
...The other man said Ellis Island...
...N o t as crude as the other o r i e , " I said...
...W h a t ' s so interesting about t h a t ?" " W e l l , if J a c o b Schiff thought people from Kiev were embarrassing, you can imagine how embarrassed he must have been by people from Lithuania.'' " W h a t ' s the matter with people from Lithuania...
...my grandfather said Texas...
Vol. 1 • May 1975 • No. 1
