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Part one of this article discussed the early life of Max Judd (1851-
1906). Born Maximilian Judkiewicz in what is now Poland, Judd
came to America as child. Settling in St. Louis, he became a
successful businessman, an important chess promoter and
organizer, and one of the countrys best players. Part two discussed
the middle period of Judds chess career, during some of which he
might arguably be considered U.S. Champion, though he did not
claim the title. This final installment discusses Judds appointment
New Stories to an important diplomatic post, his involvement there with
European chess masters, and his return to America, where he again
about Old enjoyed chess success as a player and organizer.
U.S. Championship
Chess Judd was fortunate to escape without serious injuries from a spectacular 1845-1996
train wreck on his way from St. Louis to New York in February 1893; the by Andy Soltis &
Players train he was riding in went off the rails and caught fire. Gene McCormick

In March of 1893, Judd was appointed American Consul-General to

Jeremy P. Spinrad Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by President Grover
Cleveland. The appointment was a surprise; Judd was no political hack,
and cronyism did not seem to be involved. While Clevelands political
opponents derided some of his appointments as a carnival of spoils, initial
reaction to Judd was very positive. One paper praised Judd, saying The
convincing argument in his case is that he voted for Harrison [the
Republican nominee and Clevelands opponent] last November. So shines
a good deed in a naughty administration! The Chicago Tribune of March
23 gives a short biography of Judd, which is representative of what ran in
other papers:
The Steinitz Papers
by Kurt Landsberger
Max Judd of Missouri, nominated to be Consul-General at Vienna,
is a native of Austria, but came to this country with his parents as a
child. He has resided in St. Louis for the last twenty-five years. His
Play through and download appointment is the result of the almost universal request of the
the games from people of that city, and is looked upon by the Missouri delegation as
ChessCafe.com in the a compliment not only to the Hebrew race, which Mr. Judd
DGT Game Viewer. represents, but the people of the United States. He is a man of
wealth, of fine education, and good address.
The Complete
DGT Product Line It never was made clear whether or not the administration knew the
implications of this appointment at the time, because of one word in the
above paragraph. Judd was a Hebrew, i.e. of Jewish descent, at a time
when anti-Semitism in Vienna was a major issue. Depending on your Common Sense
view of the world, this demonstrated Americas ignorance of foreign in Chess
sensibilities, or showed that America would uphold its ideals where other by Emanuel Lasker
countries cravenly act as enablers for despicable regimes.
 Max Judd

Papers such as the New York Times were adamant that the United States
should not back down from the appointment. They wanted to press the
point, and see whether the Austrian government would actually refuse to
accept Judds credentials.

The United States correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna had
a classically bureaucratic take on the appointment. He said he could not
predict whether Judd would be accepted by the government, adding:

Yes, there is a strong anti-Semitic feeling at our capital, but no one

can form an opinion in advance as to what course will be pursued.
The fact that Mr. Judd is a Jew may render him persona non grata,
or it may have no weight in determining his acceptability. It seems
to me that some of the American newspapers get into a passion
unadvisedly. A government has the undoubted right to fail to give
any minister or consul his exequatur for any cause it sees fit. If it
wanted to reject him because he is red-headed that is its own
concern.

The Austrian government wanted the case to go away without having to

take a stand on the question of accepting a Jewish appointment. Thus, its
initial position was an objection based not on his religion, but on the fact
he was born in Austria-Hungary, and was in the emigration business.

The dispute was widely covered in the American press. Surprisingly to

me, it seems to have gotten much less attention in the Austrian papers
which are available on the web. This may be because the most
comprehensive papers were associated with the government, which
wanted to play down the issue. Thus, the Wiener Zeitung gave only a terse
announcement saying that there has been no official statement, while the
more right-wing Vaterland mentions that the anti-Semites will have
something to say on the matter, and that Judd being from Galicia will be a
big problem.

I expected to find much more on the issue from the Freies Blatt, a weekly
newspaper devoted to fighting anti-Semitism. Surprisingly, they do not
cover the issue at all. They had far more pressing concerns, notably a
bitter local election, with anti-Semites threatening to make huge gains. On
more general issues, they were still combating the popular notion that
Jews used Christian childrens blood in their Passover ceremonies, so
perhaps the question of an American Consul-General was simply not
worth fighting about.

Despite the scanty attention paid to the Judd appointment in the major
Vienna newspapers, the issue seems to have been widely known. The
satirical paper Der Floh has Judd appear in its political sketch for the
week of May 7, 1893 (German-speaking readers can find it toward the
bottom of the first column here). He appears, wondering who he is:
Could someone tell me whether I am the duly appointed Consul-General
to Vienna for a great world power, or not? A rabid anti-Semite yells out
Jud! (Jew in German). Judd thinks the man is asking for him, but he
replies no, he is simply in the habit of yelling Jud!. The sketch
continues for a while, but it is clear that readers were expected to know
about the issue, despite the lack of attention to it in the general press.

Some of the American papers found it odd that there were objections to
Judd, given that the man he was replacing, Julius Goldschmidt, was also
Jewish. In my opinion, the only real difference was that the anti-Semites
were much stronger than they had been at the time of the previous
appointment. Some other suggestions were made, including what proved
to be a completely spurious rumor that Goldschmidt was trying to
sabotage the appointment in order to keep the position. It was suggested
that Goldschmidt was a non-practicing Jew, and therefore less
objectionable. This also seems dubious. The Washington Post notes that
no one knew that Goldschmidt was non-practicing when the appointment
was made, and no objections were made at that time. In addition, Judd
described himself not as a Jew but as a freethinker, though he did attend
the St. Louis Synagogue.

The American ambassador to Austria at this time was Frederick Grant,

the son of the former American President and Civil War general. Grant
insisted on putting the Austrians on the spot, rather than assist in a
diplomatic face-saving compromise. He publicly told the Austrians that if
they dont like Judd, there were plenty of other American Jews who
werent born in Austria, and one of these would be the next choice for the
position. After a great deal of American pressure, the Austrians relented,
and Judd became Consul-General.

Vienna had perhaps the strongest chess club in the world in the late
nineteenth century. Judd modestly said that there were a dozen Viennese
players as good or better than he was, and many more just a shade
weaker. Judd played in a number of strong master tournaments in Vienna.
His best performance there was in an 1897 eight-player round-robin.
Schlechter won with 6 points, but Judd finished second with an
excellent score of 5-1, losing only to Schlechter, ahead of such
internationally known players such as Marco (5), Fahndrich (4), Wolf
(2), and Zinkl (2).

During his term as consul, Judd is occasionally quoted in the American

papers on trade issues, and sometimes gives more general interviews. In
one, he decries Germanys miserable sweatshops. In another, he notes that
strikes in Vienna are much less violent than strikes in the United States,
although they are much more political.

A legal precedent was apparently set over a very minor lawsuit (just
$360) involving the commission on the sale of Judds home. Judds
lawyer argued that since Judd was a U.S. consul, the suit should be filed
in a federal district court instead of the state circuit court. The judge ruled
that a consul can be sued in the state court.
 Wilhelm Steinitz

In early 1897, after his second world title match with Lasker, Wilhelm
Steinitz was forcibly confined for about a month in an asylum for the
insane in Moscow. This incident, one of the more bizarre in Steinitzs life,
is described at length in The Steinitz Papers by Kurt Landsberger; we
wont go into its details here. He may have suffered a temporary
breakdown from the strain of the match and depression at the irrevocable
loss of his title, or this may have been a genuine early sign of mental
illness. Or perhaps, as Steinitz himself told it, he was the victim of a hero-
worshipping young girl he had employed, whose infatuated love he
spurned and who, in retaliation, arranged to have him committed with the
connivance of her wealthy family. Whatever the reason for his
confinement, Steinitz suffered greatly and was very angry about the
whole incident.

Visiting Vienna soon after his release, Steinitz stayed for a while with
Judd, whom he had met fifteen years earlier and who treated him with
great attention (The Steinitz Papers, p.240, quoting from Neishtadts
Pervyi Champion Mira (The First Champion of the World, Moscow,
1971). Steinitz consulted Judd about pursuing redress from the Russian
government. Some sources say Judd tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade
him against this course, but Landsberger quotes a report from the Berlin
Anzeiger of March 20, 1897, that [Judd] promised Steinitz that he would
protest the treatment which befell him in Moscow, and that When the
consul general offered to help him with his claims, he was
mollified. (The Steinitz Papers, p.241)

Whatever the outcome of Steinitzs efforts at legal redress, Judd seems to

have helped the aged warrior greatly. Neishtadt reports that Very soon
the old man felt so well that he gave an exhibition on 22 boards with
excellent results Again hoped flashed in Steinitz: maybe, not
everything is lost!

A few years later when Steinitz, by then inarguably ill, was confined to a
state mental hospital in New York, Judd took the lead in raising money to
pay the costs of a private asylum. He offered $125 of his own if three
others would match this amount, to pay for a year of private care. In
addition, he offered to place $1,000 (equivalent to at least $20,000 today)
of his own money into a fund (he hoped to get twelve people to do the
same), with interest from the fund being used to pay for Steinitzs care as
long as was necessary.

Harry Pillsbury also visited Judd in Vienna. After Pillsbury and Berthold
Englisch drew all the games of a little match there, Judd teased Pillsbury
that he would now be known as the American Schlechter. Pillsbury
must have been amused, since he mentioned this to reporters.

Judd traveled to and from Europe sharing boats with various celebrities,
both from the world at large (notably Mark Twain) and the chess world
(he lost two games to Walbrodt on the boat to Europe).

Returning to the U.S., Judd was active both playing and promoting chess.
He won all the local St. Louis tournaments. The distance to St. Louis
from other chess centers, combined with the fact that Judd was not a
chess professional and needed to spend most of his time in his home city,
made matches with other players difficult to arrange. Judd was wealthy,
and always offered to pay all expenses of visitors for proposed matches in
St. Louis. Nevertheless, logistics interfered with planned matches against
Showalter and Marshall in the years 1898 to 1901. Pillsbury, the one
American player of the time who was truly in a class above Judd, did win
a series of games against him 4-1 in early 1899. In other years, Pillsbury
and Judd played some games during almost all of Pillsburys famous
tours of the United States.

Judd had a particularly good year in chess in 1903. He demolished J.G.

Nix 8-0 in a match, easily won the St. Louis Chess Clubs major annual
tournament, and more importantly won the strong championship
tournament of the Western Chess Association. The tournament itself, an
eighteen-player round-robin, ended in a three-way tie, as Judd scored
14-2 along with the strong Chicago players Johnston and Uedemann.
Judd won the playoff decisively, scoring three wins and a draw against
the other two.

Given these strong performances, it is natural that Judd was selected to

play in the international tournament Cambridge Springs 1904, but he was
unable to play.

Harry Nelson Pillsbury

Judd was also active as a chess promoter. Among many events, he paid
Janowskys expenses for a trip to the United States, and also raised
money towards a planned Janowsky-Pillsbury match that unfortunately
never came to pass. The Chicago Tribune of March 8, 1903 notes that
Through Max Judd of St. Louis, Dr. Lasker has been tendered a
professorship of mathematics at the state university, though it seems that
there was considerable confusion regarding this offer.

Judd was heavily involved in the Seventh American Chess Congress, held
in Saint Louis itself in 1904. Judd was an organizer, a major donor, and a
player; he wanted this tournament to be a great showcase for St. Louis
and for American chess in general.

As part of its effort to promote the tournament, the program committee

(which included Judd) proposed issuing a gold medal to the American
player making the highest score in the tournament, and that this player
should be called the American Champion. Pillsbury, who was generally
felt to hold this distinction, objected. Judd wrote to Pillsbury, asking that
he submit the matter to his friend, the respected jurist Walter Shipley, for
resolution. Shipley wrote a detailed letter with his view of the succession
of American champions, and the committee agreed not to use the title of
U.S. Champion in referring to the tournament winner.

McCormick and Soltis, in The United States Chess Championship, 1845-

1996, try to paint this as an egotistical Judd trying (yet again, in their
account) to grab the title of American champion for himself. They
compare his argument to dynastic disputes of the Middle Ages. Judds
argument, however, is simple and consistent with his earlier actions. He
simply claimed that there was no U.S. Champion, and never had been.
Shipley argued that Lipschtz became undisputed American champion
when Mackenzie died, and after that there was a clear line of succession
through Showalter to Pillsbury.

However, this notion that Lipschtz was undisputed champion is, at the
very least, debatable. Quotes given in earlier parts of this article would
indicate that some people viewed Showalter as the rightful champion at
that time, and the position that there is no champion does not strike me as
at all absurd. Indeed, this is precisely why Judd did not claim to be
American champion after beating Showalter; he did not believe that he or
anyone else had clear claim to such a title.

If you believe that there is no established champion, a tournament to

select a champion seems like a natural event, and a good way to add
excitement to the planned national chess congress. Soltis & McCormicks
final remark about Judd is that Any lingering hopes Judd may have had
about pressing his claim to be champion by acclamation were dashed
[when he was beaten by Marshall] in the seventh round of the St. Louis
tournament. This is an unkind and unfair cut against one of the good
guys of American chess, who promoted the game generously and nobly
throughout his entire life.

Judd finished second in the St. Louis congress, scoring 7-2. Marshall won
with a score of 8-. Marshall had won the Cambridge Springs
tournament over Lasker and others, and had been the favorite from the
start. We would like to say that Judd put up a good fight against Marshall,
and might have won, but unfortunately he somehow misplayed the
opening badly, and lost in only seventeen moves. Still, Judds 7-2 score
was a very good result, as he finished ahead of such veterans as
Uedemann (6-3) and Kemeny (5-4), as well as younger talents Jaffe (4-5)
and Mlotkowski (2-6). Some highlights from his games there:

Judd-Jaffe, Seventh American Chess Congress, St. Louis, 1904 (notes by

Taylor Kingston, assisted by Fritz8):

18.Bxd4! hxg3

If 18...exd4 19.Rfe1 00 20.Qxe7.

19.hxg3 Kd8 20.Bf2 Kc7 21.b4 Kb8 22.

a4 b6 23.b5 Qb7 24.a5 Bd8 25.axb6
Bxb6 26.Ra6 Rc5 27.Rfa1 g5 28.fxg5
fxg5

Judds play has been an almost textbook-

perfect example of how to open
attacking lines when the kings stand on
opposite wings, while keeping his own
king relatively safe.

29.Rxb6 Qxb6 30.Ra6 Qc7 31.Bxc5

Qxc5+ 32.Qf2 Qc7 33.b6 axb6 34.Rxb6
+ Kc8 35.Ra6 Qb8 36.Qa2
 Black might as well have resigned here.

36Ba4 37.Rxa4 Qb6+ 38.Qf2 Qb1+

39.Bf1 Qb7 40.Ra7 1-0

Mlotowski-Judd, Seventh American Chess Congress, St. Louis, 1904:

25.Bf2?

Apparently White disliked 25.g3 Rg4,

losing the e-pawn, but the text has its
own drawbacks.

25Rxg2 26.Bg3 Rxc2!

The point. If now 27.Kxc2 Bxe4+ and

28Bxh1, winning easily despite the
opposite-colored bishops.

27.Ra1 Rb2 28.Ra5 b5 29.Kc3 Re2 30.Rxa7 Bxe4 31.Kb4 c6 32.Rg7

Bg6 33.Ka5 Ra2+ 34.Kb4 c5+ 35.Kxb5 Bd3+ 36.Kb6 Rb2 37.Rg5
Rxb3+ 38.Ka7

38c4! 39.Rxe5 Kc6 40.Ra5 c3 41.Bf2

Bb5 42.Ra1 c2 43.Bd4 Rb1 0-1

Judd died on May 7, 1906, after a period

of illness, only age fifty-four. Despite
his illness, he drew a game with
Marczy shortly before his death. Judd
was remembered fondly as a great player
and patron of chess. Judd deserves to be
remembered as a chess player who was
very successful in life. He was a success
in business, within his community, and he was acclaimed for his service
in government.

For those who may feel that this article has been too solemn, do not
despair. Fortunately, chess history is also full of real clowns, and I will be
sure to write about them as well.

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