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Rh improvement in the position of the Socialist party in Ger- man political life had been shown by the way in which its leaders, particularly Scheidemann, were frequently called into conference with the imperial chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg. Scheidemann, in his book, gives a vivid account of some of these conferences, and also of the celebrated interviews which the leaders of parties in turn had with Hindenburg and Ludendorff in Berlin when the army authorities endeavoured to obtain the modification of the so-called " Peace Resolution " before it was produced in public. It was largely owing to the firm atti- tude taken up by Scheidemann and the Majority Socialists that the chancellorship of the incompetent Michaelis (July to Oct. 1917) was brought to a close. In June 1918 Scheidemann was elected vice-president of the Reichstag, and on Oct. 3, on the formation of the last imperial Ministry by Prince Max of Baden, he received a secretaryship of State without portfolio. The part which he and his associates in the leadership of the Governmental or Majority Socialists played on the eve and on the outbreak of the Revolution was somewhat ambiguous. There is said to be evidence that, while insisting upon the ab- dication of William II. and the renunciation of the Crown Prince's rights of succession they were prepared to tolerate the continuance of the monarchical form of government in the shape of a regency, with, perhaps, the Crown Prince's eldest son, a young boy, as the prospective monarch. If this be so their plans were speedily brought to naught by the greater vigour of the Minority or Independent Socialists, led by Haase. The Independents had been active in sowing the seeds of revolution among the troops at the front, the sailors at Kiel and Wilhelms- hafen, and the workmen in the munitions and other great factories. It was the Independents who forced the hand of Scheidemann and his associates by the arrangements which they had made in Berlin in the first week of Nov. 1918 for a general strike, a demonstration of the masses, and an appeal to the soldiers of the garrison to follow the example which had just been set in Kiel and other northern towns. And it was for this reason that the leaders of the Minority Socialists had to be admitted on equal terms and in equal numbers into the Pro- visional Government of the " Commissioners of the People," formed on Nov. 10 by Ebert, Scheidemann, Haase and three others. How little Scheidemann's party had been prepared for the course events took was shown by the fact that a proclama- tion appeared in the Socialist Vorwiirls on Nov. 10, announcing that Prince Max of Baden in resigning the chancellorship had handed over the conduct of affairs to Ebert, who accordingly signed this proclamation as " Imperial Chancellor " (Reichs- kanzler). On Nov. 9, when the revolution in Berlin was slowly and, at first, peacefully spreading throughout the city, it was only after the announcement of the Kaiser's abdication had been published by Prince Max of Baden on his own initiative, at noon, and after the troops which were in occupation of the Reichstag building had thrown their rifles into the Spree and gone home, that Scheidemann appeared in front of that building at two o'clock and dramatically proclaimed the republic.

Scheidemann was closely associated with the policy, alleged to have been inevitable, which led the provisional and, after- wards, the first properly constituted repubh'can Government to retain the services of reactionary officers and troops for the suppression of communist disorders. He was, therefore, together with Ebert and Noske made the subject of violent denunciations, not only by the Communists but also by the Minority Socialists after they had seceded from the Provisional Government at the beginning of Jan. 1919. When the National Constituent As- sembly met at Weimar on Feb. 6 1919 Scheidemann was se- lected as president of the first regularly constituted republican Ministry of the Reich. He guided the affairs of Germany through the stormy period of the first half of 1919, when it repeatedly looked as if the communist insurrections, which broke out in various parts of the country, might result in the overthrow of the democratic republic and in an experiment in some kind of Bolshevism. On July 20 1919, being unable to agree to the signature of the Treaty of Versailles, he resigned with the rest of his Ministry. He then resumed the leadership of the Major- ity Socialists in the National Assembly and subsequently in the first republican Reichstag. In Jan. 1920 he was elected chief burgomaster of his native town, Kassel.

SCHIFF, JACOB HENRY (1847-1920), American banker and philanthropist, was born at Frankfort-on-Main, Germany, Jan. 10 1847. He was educated in the schools of Frankfort and for a time worked in a banking house. In 1865 he went to New York City and two years later organized there the brokerage firm of Budge, Schiff & Co., which was dissolved in 1873. In 1875 he married a daughter of Solomon Loeb, head of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was taken into the firm and, on Loeb's re- tirement in 1885, succeeded to the leadership. Meanwhile, largely due to Schiff's energy, the firm had greatly expanded its business and had become known throughout the financial world. In 1897 his house took an active part in reorganizing the Union Pacific railway, which later secured control of the Southern Pacific, assisting E. H. Harriman in these transactions. In 1901 a struggle took place between Schiff and the Harriman interests on the one side and James J. Hill and J. P. Morgan on the other for possession of the Northern Pacific railway. The resulting compromise was the formation of the Northern Securities Co. as a holding company for their joint interests (see 27.733). After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 Schiff in- troduced Japanese war loans in America and subsequently was decorated by the Mikado. In his later years he gave much per- sonal attention to charities, especially for the Jewish people, and on his seventieth birthday distributed $700,000 among various charitable organizations and public institutions. He was a founder and president of the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, New York City, and vice-president and trustee of the Baron de Hirsch Fund. In 1903 he presented a Semitic Museum to Harvard. He was vice-president of the N.Y. Chamber of Commerce and a director in many large corporations. He died in New York City Sept. 25 1920. His estate was estimated at about $50,000,000. He bequeathed $1,350,000 to various in- stitutions, most of which had received benefactions during his life. The largest bequests were $500,000 to the Federation for the support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City and $300,000 to the Montefiore Home.

SCHIMMEL, HENDRIK JAN (1825-1906), Dutch poet and novelist (see 24.326), spent his last years in work on spiritualistic research. He died at Bussum in 1906.

SCHLESWIG. The older "Schleswig-Holstein Question" (see 24.33 5) had an important sequel as the result of the World War, in the severing from Germany of part of Northern Schleswig.

The Peace of Vienna of 1864 had set up a joint administration of Schleswig-Holstein by Austria and Prussia. In the Peace of Prague (1866) Austria surrendered to Prussia her claims to both duchies. As regards the administration of Northern Schles- wig (Nord Schleswig), an eventual cession to Denmark was reserved if the population should decide in this sense by a free vote. In 1878, however, Austria gave up this reservation, and Denmark in the Treaty of 1907 with Germany recognized that by the agreement between Austria and Prussia the frontier between Prussia and Denmark had finally been determined. The Danish population of Northern Schleswig had, it is true, never acquiesced in this settlement. Propaganda for union with Denmark never ceased, although it had greatly diminished in the years which preceded the World War. At the first elections for the Reichstag the Danes of Northern Schleswig won two seats, but after about 20 years they retained only one of them.

During the World War the movement in Northern Schleswig for separation from Prussia seemed to be in abeyance. It was only the Armistice of 1918, which gave prominence to certain points in President Wilson's programme, that once more inspired among the Danish population a vigorous demand for a plebiscite to decide the nationality of the North-Schleswigers. The Danish Government had at first adopted an attitude of reserve. But from the spring of 1919 onwards a propaganda was conducted in Copenhagen for " South Jutland," the chief leader in the movement being Hansen-Norremolle, who till then had