ENEMY IN AMERICA.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15132, 29 January 1917, Page 5

ENEMY IN AMERICA.

Brief reference! has been made recently in American nevls to the activities of a Mr Jacob Schiff in the manoeuvres for bringing about through United States intervention a peace favourable to Germany, This German-American’s antecedents, his views and his iindoubtedly great influence in certain quarters in the United States are discussed by Mr D. Thomas (Jurtin. who has given the world some remarkable revelations of war time life, in Germany, in an article ip the London Daily Mail. -Mr Curtin sayjj the spear-head of the movement for » peace that, would be' a German Victor* is this, Mr Schiff, who’is a, well-knownj German banker in New York. Jacob B; Schiff " is a native of Main, the cradle of Europe’s great % narysial dynasties, and he has lived America since' i860; he has been., aijj Amerifian citizen since 1870. He ,js thf head: of the banking house of Messrf Kuhn, Locb' and C0.,,0f New York* which, with therexoeption of Messrs J* P. Morgan and Go., is the most powerftjf private banking concern in North Ames ica. “Mr Schiff, as the wealthiest Jej| in the United States,” writes Mr Curtim “also looks upon himself as the pope dj the Jewish community of the nation--* a self-conferred distinction 1 which is bit no means concurred in by all ’Americai| Hebrews, some of them my friends. l| my judgment .from my knowledge both of conditions in my own country and $ Germany’s; gnawing need of food, £ great deal of attention should be bS> stowed upon, the manoevres pf tKfc “American Neutral, Conference CodE* mittee’ and its plans (no doubt to Ha financed out of Mr SchifPs . 'plethorijr pur^ej 1 to, stampede publicTsentiment fii the direction of ending the-war through America’s good offices—ending it, always be it remembered, because Germany wantfe it ended now while she holds vast regions of Allied land.” •**.