1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schurman, Jacob Gould

SCHURMAN, JACOB GOULD (1854-), American educationist (see 24.386), was appointed in 1912 U.S. minister to Greece and Montenegro, serving one year. During the World War, when Germany began unrestricted submarine warfare, he urged that American rights be firmly insisted upon; he pointed out that the destruction of the “Lusitania” in 1915 threatened to efface the distinction between combatants and non-combatants long recognized by civilized peoples. In 1915 he was first vice-president of the N.Y. State Constitutional Convention. In Oct. 1917 he was appointed a member of the N.Y. State Food Commission, resigning in June 1918 to go to France as lecturer to American soldiers under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. He was opposed to many of President Wilson's policies, especially in connexion with Mexico, and also to Article X. of the Covenant of the League of Nations, believing that it would involve the United States in war. As early as 1913 he urged the independence of the Philippines in the near future; in 1914 he declared in favour of woman suffrage. He resigned the presidency of Cornell University in 1920. He was appointed minister to China in 1921. He was the author of The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 (1914, lectures at Princeton).