This event tells us a great deal about relationships. If theRothschilds truly had been competitors, they would have seizedupon this opportunity and used their great influence within theBank of England and the other investment houses in London tosqueeze out Peabody, not to assist him. The Barings, in particular,were already trying to accomplish exactly that. The Rothschildsmust have believed that a successful Peabody firm ultimatelywould be in their own best interest.
ANTI-SEMITISM WAS PROFITABLE
In later years, Jack Morgan (J.P., Jr.) would assume the role of astaunch anti-Semite, and this undoubtedly strengthened his hand atdealing with American investors and borrowers who were loath tohave anything to do with Jewish bankers. That, of course, includedofficials of the U.S. Treasury. It was particularly helpful during the1896 rescue of the federal government from a decline in its goldreserves. Fearing that it would not be able to honor its promise toexchange paper money for gold coins, the government was forcedto borrow $62 million in gold. The House of Rothschild was anobvious source for such a loan, but the Treasury wanted to avoid an 1 • Chernow, p. 11.
2. Jackson, pp. 56-57.
3. Josephson, p. 60.
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418 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND
anti-Semitic backlash. Everything fell into place, however, whenMorgan and Company became the
The consummate politicians of the Cleveland administration ...
were certainly aware of the dangers inherent in promoting a rescue effort for the United States Treasury that would be financed by those archetypes of "international Jewish financiers," the Rothschilds....
During these developments, Pierpont Morgan took no direct part in the s a l v a g e effort. Up to this point it l o o k e d as if the aging financier—he would be fifty-eight in two months—would be merely one among many in this and whatever subsequent bond arrangements would be necessary. It seemed as though he would move on into old age with little more to round out his obituary than his awkward attempt to profiteer on the sale of rifles at the start of the Civil War, his minor shorting of the Union in gold trading toward the close, and a bold but largely unsuccessful move in the 1880s to impose an eastern capitalist cease-fire on the country's warring railroads.
But there were steps being taken even now to bring him out of the financial backwaters—and they were not being taken by Pierpont Morgan himself. The first suggestion of his n a m e for a role in the recharging of the reserve originated with the London branch of the House of Rothschild.1
The apparent anti-Semitism of J.P. Morgan, Jr., was againextremely profitable during World War 1, when it was widely publicized that the Kaiser was funded by German-Jew bankers. To dealwith the Morgan group, therefore, as opposed to Kuhn Loeb, forexample, was in some circles almost a point of national patriotism.
