... "No truer friend, once in Jesse Seligman's confidence did man ever have. With his partners, his brothers, he has been of inestimable service to the United States Government from the time of the Civil War.
"A believer in Republican principles, he was a quiet but all-important influence in the councils of his party. Sagacious in counsel, always for peace and unity, liberal in view, rendering to all their just dues, he will be sorely missed in all circles—social, charitable, business and political."
The foregoing may be fitly supplemented by the following extract from a sermon delivered by the late Henry Ward Beecher, June 14, 1877. Mr. Beecher's pointed references to the absurd prejudices which so frequently manifest themselves at summer resorts have not yet lost their force or application:
"I have the pleasure of the acquaintance of the gentleman whose name has been the occasion of so much excitement—Mr. Seligman. I have summered with his family for several years. I am acquainted with him, with his honored wife, and with his sons and daughters; and I have learned to respect and love them. During weeks and months I was with them at the Twin Mountain House; and not only did they behave in a manner becoming Christian ladies and gentlemen, but they behaved in a manner that ought to put to shame many Christian ladies and gentlemen. They were my helpers and they were not only present at the Sunday services at the Twin Mountain House, but they were present at the daily prayer meetings on week days, volunteering services of kindness. I learned to feel that they were my deacons and that in the ministration of Christian service they were beyond the power of prejudice and did not confine themselves to the limitations which might be prescribed by their race."
Hon. Carl Schurz makes reference, as the reader will have noted, to the "unsurpassed catholicity of spirit" manifested by Jesse Seligman's "bequests without regard to religion or nationality." Among the beneficiaries of his concluding bounty were numbered no less than thirty-six different non-Jewish institutions, the aggregate of these legacies amounting to a very large sum. Unsurpassed as was this breadth of liberality, it was by no means the first time when a Jew gave signal evidence of the supreme catholicity of Judaism and the Jewish spirit. Adverting but passingly to the story of Hyam Salomon's liberality, we may stop to remember that Judah Touro, whose patriotism had been attested with his blood in the defense of New Orleans, in 1815, left in his last will and testament in 1854, an example of catholic munificence unequalled before his time and unsurpassed since. Over and above the various bequests made by him to Jewish institutions in different cities of the Union, he left amounts averaging $5000 to fourteen charitable institutions under the control of various Christian denominations, besides $80,000 to the municipality of New Orleans for the poor of that city, and $10,000 to the city of Newport, R. I., for a public improvement. This latter formed the nucleus of the public park of that city, which has commemorated in its "Touro Avenue" the public spirit of this Jewish citizen, who has yet another memorial on Bunker Hill monument, to the erection of which he so largely contributed.[28]
Michael Reese, of San Francisco, who died in 1878, bequeathed amounts aggregating $70,000 to a number of non-Jewish charities, besides $50,000 to the University of California, and left provisions which eventuated in the establishment of the non-sectarian Michael Reese Hospital of Chicago. Rosenna Osterman, of Galveston, and Isidor Dyer, of the same city, divided their estates among charitable institutions without distinction of creed.
Miss Ellen Phillips, of Philadelphia, whose long and useful life, constantly devoted to the cause of charity, closed on February 2, 1891, after aiding the cause to which she was devoted by her unceasing munificence during her lifetime, bequeathed the bulk of her property to various charitable institutions. She left the large collection of paintings and statuary which she inherited from her brother, the late Henry M. Phillips, to the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, as an addition to the collections in Memorial Hall, and divided a very large sum of money among numerous charities, naming ten different non-Jewish institutions among her beneficiaries.
The will of Dr. J. D. Berndt, of Pittsburg, Pa., divides a considerable estate almost equally between Jewish and non-Jewish institutions, over twenty of the latter class being named, and the residuary estate of nearly $35,000 is equally divided between the American Hebrew College of Cincinnati and Carnegie Library of Pittsburg.