Jack Salzman, Cornel West Struggles in the Promised

136 // NANCY J.WEISS
be generous. (Roy Wilkins remarked years later, "Jewish people.. .have a tradition
of giving to things in which they believe or wish to support It's part of their
religion—It's a social response and responsibility.. ..It really has been a revelation,
the way they believe in giving.") The result was important financial support
for the NAACP from some of the wealthiest Jews of the day: Jacob Schiff and his
son-in-law, Felix Warburg, both bankers at Kuhn, Loeb & Company; Julius
Rosenwald, the Chicago philanthropist who was president of Sears, Roebuck;
Samuel Pels, the soap manufacturer; and Herbert H. Lehman, a partner in the
New York banking house, Lehman Brothers, who had retired from the family firm
to make his career in politics. 40
The contributions came, in part, because the Jews who were the most actively
involved in the work of the NAACP used their connections to persuade other
Jews to give as well. Arthur Spingarn was one such emissary; Louis Marshall was
another. Judge Julian Mack, a Zionist leader who was a member of the NAACP
branch in Chicago, regularly sent Association literature to Julius Rosenwald.
Herbert Lehman solicited contributions from friends whom he thought might be
"interested in the work of the association." James Weldon Johnson and Walter
White turned to Spingarn, Marshall, Lehman, and Marshall's son-in-law, Jacob
Billikopf, the director of the Federation of Jewish Charities of Philadelphia, for
advice on the best approach to potential Jewish donors. "Here is the new draft of
the letter to go to wealthy Jews," White wrote to Spingarn. "Will you read it and
telephone me your opinion." Eager to make the case for the NAACP to a new
partner at Lehman Brothers, White asked Lehman to make the introduction.
Seeking a share for the NAACP of the estate of a Jew who had bequeathed
$1 00,000 for charitable causes, White turned to Billikopf and James Marshall for
help. Marshall agreed to approach the executors, and Billikopf advised him on
strategy: "Play up the names of Father, Julius Rosenwald, and various other
Jewish benefactors. The personal element may play a part in the equation."'' 11
With the NAACP in desperate financial straits in the depths of the
Depression, Jews played a significant role in keeping the organization going. As
a membership organization that depended heavily on income from its branches,
the Association was particularly vulnerable to the economic crisis. The year 1930
brought "one of the most acute financial situations it [had] ever encountered."
Jacob Billikopf made the connection to William Rosenwald, a philanthropist who
was the youngest son of Julius Rosenwald, who agreed to make a gift of $1,000
a year for three years if four other individuals would do the same. Herbert
Lehman, Samuel Fels, Felix and Frieda Schiff Warburg, and Harold Guinzberg,
the publisher of Viking Press, met Rosenwald's challenge; the only non-Jew to
respond was Eclsel Ford of the automobile family. Smaller pledges were made by
a number of individuals, several of them Jewish. All told, the Rosenwald offer
resulted in $26,250 in pledges over the three years, nearly half of the contributions
received by the Association in that period.'' 2
In 1933, with the NAACP's finances again in a "most dolorous" state, it was