Some months ago I published a magazine article descriptive of
a remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have received
from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were difficult letters
to answer, for they were not very definite. But at last I have received a definite
one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks the questions which the other writers
probably believed they were asking. By help of this text I will do the best
I can to publicly answer this correspondent, and also the others - at the same
time apologizing for having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads
as follows:
"I have read 'Stirring Times in Austria.' One point in particular is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself,
being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question to some
disinterested person. The show of military force in the Austrian Parliament,
which precipitated the riots, was not introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member
of that body. No Jewish question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language
proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was doing any mischief
toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews were the only ones of the nineteen
different races in Austria which did not have a party - they are absolutely
non-participants. Yet in your article you say that in the rioting which followed,
all classes of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against
the Jews. Now will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus
ever been, and are even now, in these days of supposed intelligence, the butt
of baseless, vicious animosities? I dare say that for centuries there has been
no more quiet, undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that
same Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account
for these horrible and unjust persecutions....
"Tell me, therefore, from your vantage-point of cold view, what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it
either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a Jew be permitted
to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has
become of the Golden Rule?"
I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person not crippled
in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few years ago a Jew observed
to me that there was no uncourteous reference to his people in my books, and
asked how it happened. It happened because the disposition was lacking. I am
quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color
prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can
stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being -
that is enough for me; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan;
but I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be
that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All
religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about
him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution,
and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English;
it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have
been condemned. Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying.
It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us.
As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself,
if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing
to do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay him reverence, for that
would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents. A person who has
for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four-fifths
of the human race, and political head of the whole of it, must be granted the
possession of executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large presence
the other popes and politicians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would
like to see him. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any other
member of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allow myself to
use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race. It is handy; and,
besides, that is what the term means to the general world.
In the above letter one notes these points:
1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.
2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?
3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?
4. The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.
5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?
6. What has become of the Golden Rule?
Point No. 1.
We must grant proposition No. 1 for several sufficient reasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Even his enemies will
concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not
a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome. In the statistics of crime his
presence is conspicuously rare - in all countries. With murder and other crimes
of violence he has but little to do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the
police court's daily long roll of "assaults" and "drunk and disorderlies"
his name seldom appears. That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense
is a fact which no one will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongest
affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence for
the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden on the
charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from their functions
without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works; when he is incapacitated,
his own people take care of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but with
a fine and large benevolence. His race is entitled to be called the most benevolent
of all the races of men. A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a
thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle.
The Jew has been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know,
no dramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenever a
Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessity of doing it.
The charitable institutions of the Jews are supported by Jewish money, and amply.
The Jews make no noise about it; it is done quietly; they do not nag and pester
and harass us for contributions; they give us peace, and set us an example -
an example which we have not found ourselves able to follow; for by nature we
are not free givers, and have to be patiently and persistently hunted down in
the interest of the unfortunate.
These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he is quiet,
peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal dispositions; that
his family life is commendable; that he is not a burden upon public charities;
that he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above the reach of competition.
These are the very quint-essentials of good citizenship. If you can add that
he is as honest as the average of his neighbors - But I think that question
is affirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man.
The basis of successful business is honesty; a business cannot thrive where
the parties to it cannot trust each other. In the matter of numbers of the Jew
counts for little in the overwhelming population of New York; but that his honesty
counts for much is guaranteed by the fact that the immense wholesale business
houses of Broadway, from the Battery to Union Square, is substantially in his
hands.
I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a trader's trust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trusting
Christian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used to sell his
subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with got rich at it; and
by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution made his throne
too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry, and
had to leave his earnings behind - $9,000,000. He had to risk the money with
some one without security. He did not select a Christian, but a Jew - a Jew
of only modest means, but of high character; a character so high that it left
him lonesome - Rothschild of Frankfort. Thirty years later, when Europe had
become quiet and safe again, the Duke came back from overseas, and the Jew returned
the loan, with interest added. ^*
[Footnote *: Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us that shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race
or creed, but are merely human:
"Congress has passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of Libertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is pathetically
interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest man may get into who
undertakes to do an honest job of work for Uncle Sam. In 1886 Moses Pendergrass
put in a bid for the contract to carry the mail on the route from Knob Lick
to Libertyville and Coffman, thirty miles a day, from July 1, 1887, for one
year. He got the postmaster at Knob Lick to write the letter for him, and while
Moses intended that his bid should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4.
Moses got the contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end
of the first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate
he was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with the Post-Office
Department. The department informed him that he must either carry out his contract
or throw it up, and that if he threw it up his bondsmen would have to pay the
government $1459.85 damages. So Moses carried out his contract, walked thirty
miles every week-day for a year, and carried the mail, and received for his
labor $4 - or, to be accurate, $6.84; for, the route being extended after his
bid was accepted, the pay was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years,
a bill was finally passed to pay to Moses the difference between what he earned
in that unlucky year and what he received."
The Sun, which tells the above story, says that bills were introduced in three or four Congresses for Moses' relief, and that committees repeatedly
investigated his claim.
It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving expression
to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election, eleven years to find
out some way to cheat a fellow-Christian out of about $13 on his honestly executed
contract, and out of nearly $300 due him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded.
During the same time they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions - a third of it
unearned and undeserved. This indicates a splendid all-around competency in
theft, for it starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up
to ship-loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the man that
bets on it is taking chances.]
The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of them, because he cannot get entirely rid of
vexatious Christian competition. We have seen that he seldom transgresses the
laws against crimes of violence. Indeed, his dealings with courts are almost
restricted to matters connected with commerce. He has a reputation for various
small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning
himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which
leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find
him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court
and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent
and faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with
an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier - like the Christian
Quaker.
Now if you offset these discreditable features by the creditable ones summarized in a preceding paragraph beginning with the words, "These
facts are all on the credit side," and strike a balance, what must the
verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and demerits being fairly weighed
and measured on both sides, the Christian can claim no superiority over the
Jew in the matter of good citizenship.
Yet in all countries, from the dawn of history, the Jew has been persistently and implacably hated, and with frequency persecuted.
Point No. 2.
"Can fanaticism alone account for this?"
Years ago I used to think that it was responsible for nearly all of it, but latterly I have come to think that this was an error. Indeed,
it is now my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.
In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter xlvii.
We have all thoughtfully - or unthoughtfully - read the pathetic story of the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph,
with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts of the
poor, and human liberty - a corner whereby he took a nation's money all away,
to the last penny; took a nation's livestock all away, to the last hoof; took
a nation's land away, to the last acre; then took the nation itself, buying
it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, till all were slaves;
a corner which took everything, left nothing; a corner so stupendous that, by
comparison with it, the most gigantic corners in subsequent history are but
baby things, for it dealt in hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits
were reckonable by hundreds of millions of dollars, and it was a disaster so
crushing that its effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-day, more
than three thousand years after the event.
Is it presumable that the eye of Egypt was upon Joseph the foreign Jew all this time? I think it likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it. Was
Joseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long in Egypt?
and in time would his name come to be familiarly used to express that character
- like Shylock's? It is hardly to be doubted. Let us remember that this was
centuries before the crucifixion.
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin historians. I read it in a translation many
years ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It was alluding to a time
when people were still living who could have seen the Savior in the flesh. Christianity
was so new that the people of Rome had hardly heard of it, and had but confused
notions of what it was. The substance of the remark was this: Some Christians
were persecuted in Rome through error, they being "mistaken for Jews."
The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians, but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other they hated
a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that
the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates Christianity and was not
born of Christianity? I think so. What was the origin of the feeling?
When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the Mississippi Valley, where a gracious and beautiful Sunday-school simplicity and unpracticality
prevailed, the "Yankee" (citizen of the New England States) was hated
with a splendid energy. But religion had nothing to do with it. In a trade,
the Yankee was held to be about five times the match of the Westerner. His shrewdness,
his insight, his judgment, his knowledge, his enterprise, and his formidable
cleverness in applying these forces were frankly confessed, and most competently
cursed.
In the cotton States, after the war, the simple and ignorant negroes made the crops for the white planter on shares. The Jew came down in
force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants on credit,
and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's share of the present
crop and of part of his share of the next one. Before long, the whites detested
the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro loved him.
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villager
stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to lend
money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessaries of life on credit while
the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned the crop; and next year
or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.
In the dull and ignorant England of John's time everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands;
he was the king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways;
he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe out his account
with the nation and restore business to its natural and incompetent channels
he had to be banished the realm.
For the like reasons Spain had to banish him four hundred years ago, and Austria about a couple of centuries later.
In all the ages Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a mechanical trade, the Christian had to
retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and he took the
business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to get at something
else. Since there was no way to successfully compete with him in any vocation,
the law had to step in and save the Christian from the poor-house. Trade after
trade was taken away from the Jew by statute till practically none was left.
He was forbidden to engage in agriculture; he was forbidden to practise law;
he was forbidden to practise medicine, except among Jews; he was forbidden the
handicrafts. Even the seats of learning and the schools of science had to be
closed against this tremendous antagonist. Still, almost bereft of employments,
he found ways to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways to invest his
takings well, for usury was not denied him. In the hard conditions suggested,
the Jew without brains could not survive, and the Jew with brains had to keep
them in good training and well sharpened up, or starve. Ages of restriction
to the one tool which the law was not able to take from him - his brain - have
made that tool singularly competent; ages of compulsory disuse of his hands
have atrophied them, and he never uses them now. This history has a very, very
commercial look, a most sordid and practical commercial look, the business aspect
of a Chinese cheap-labor crusade. Religious prejudices may account for one part
of it, but not for the other nine.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they did not take their livelihoods away from them. The Catholics have persecuted the Protestants
with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed agriculture and the
handicrafts against them. Why was that? That has the candid look of genuine
religious persecution, not a trade-union boycott in a religious disguise.
The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria and Germany, and lately in France; but England and America give them an open field and yet
survive. Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there are not
many takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that
is because they can't earn enough to get away. The Scotch pay themselves that
compliment, but it is authentic.
I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world's attitude towards the Jew; that the reasons for it are older than
that event, as suggested by Egypt's experience and by Rome's regret for having
persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, under the mistaken impression
that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew - a skinned eel who was
used to it, presumably. I am persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany
nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from the average Christian's inability
to compete successfully with the average Jew in business - in either straight
business or the questionable sort.
In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which frankly urged the expulsion of the Jews from Germany; and the agitator's reason was as frank
as his proposition. It was this: that eighty-five per cent. of the successful
lawyers of Berlin were Jews, and that about the same percentage of the great
and lucrative businesses of all sorts in Germany were in the hands of the Jewish
race! Isn't it an amazing confession? It was but another way of saying that
in a population of 48,000,000, of whom only 500,000 were registered as Jews,
eight-five per cent. of the brains and honesty of the whole was lodged in the
Jews. I must insist upon the honesty - it is an essential of successful business,
taken by and large. Of course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even among
Christians, but it is a good working rule, nevertheless. The speaker's figures
may have been inexact, but the motive of persecution stands out as clear as
day.
The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the newspapers, the theatres, the great mercantile, shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests,
the big army and city contracts, the tramways, and pretty much all other properties
of high value, and also the small businesses, were in the hands of the Jews.
He said the Jew was pushing the Christian to the wall all along the line; that
it was all a Christian could do to scrape together a living; and that the Jew
must be banished, and soon - there was no other way of saving the Christian.
Here in Vienna, last autumn, an agitator said that all these disastrous details
were true of Austria-Hungary also; and in fierce language he demanded the expulsion
of the Jews. When politicians come out without a blush and read the baby act
in this frank way, unrebuked, it is a very good indication that they have a
market back of them, and know where to fish for votes.
You note the crucial point of the mentioned agitation; the argument is that the Christian cannot compete with the Jew, and that hence his very bread
is in peril. To human beings this is a much more hate-inspiring thing than is
any detail connected with religion. With most people, of a necessity, bread
and meat take first rank, religion second. I am convinced that the persecution
of the Jew is not due in any large degree to religious prejudice.
No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his money he is a very serious obstruction to less capable neighbors who are on the same quest.
I think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly values the Jew is not
shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found out in the morning of time
that some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship
God, and that over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite - but that they
all worship money; so he made it the end and aim of his life to get it. He was
at it in Egypt thirty-six centuries ago; he was at it in Rome when that Christian
got persecuted by mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to
him has been heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy - but
it has paid, for it has brought him envy, and that is the only thing which men
will sell both soul and body to get. He long ago observed that a millionaire
commands respect, a two-millionaire homage, a multi-millionaire the deepest
deeps of adoration. We all know that feeling; we have seen it express itself.
We have noticed that when the average man mentions the name of a multi-millionaire
he does it with that mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust which
burns in a Frenchman's eye when it falls on another man's centime.
Point No. 4.
"The Jews have no party; they are non-participants."
Perhaps you have let the secret out and given yourself away. It seems hardly a credit to the race that it is able to say that; or to you,
sir, that you can say it without remorse; more than you should offer it as a
plea against maltreatment, injustice, and oppression. Who gives the Jew the
right, who gives any race the right, to sit still, in a free country, and let
somebody else look after its safety? The oppressed Jew was entitled to all pity
in the former times under brutal autocracies, for he was weak and friendless,
and had no way to help his case. But he has ways now, and he has had them for
a century, but I do not see that he has tried to make serious use of them. When
the Revolution set him free in France it was an act of grace - the grace of
other people; he does not appear in it as a helper. I do not know that he helped
when England set him free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have stepped
forward with great Zola at their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe
^*) the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, do you find
a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? In the United States he was created
free in the beginning - he did not need to help, of course. In Austria and Germany
and France he has a vote, but of what considerable use is it to him? He doesn't
seem to know how to apply it to the best effect. With all his splendid capacities
and all his fat wealth he is to-day not politically important in any country.
In America, as early as 1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who had a spirit
of his own and a way of exposing it to the weather, made it apparent to all
that he must be politically reckoned with; yet fifteen years before that we
hardly knew what an Irishman looked like. As an intelligent force and numerically,
he has always been away down, but he has governed the country just the same.
It was because he was organized. It made his vote valuable - in fact, essential.
[Footnote *: The article was written in the summer of 1898. - Ed.]
You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. That is nothing to the point - with the Irishman's history for an object-lesson.
But I am coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In all parliamentary
countries you could no doubt elect Jews to the legislatures - and even one member
in such a body is sometimes a force which counts. How deeply have you concerned
yourselves about this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or even in America, for
that matter? You remark that the Jews were not to blame for the riots in this
Reichsrath here, and you add with satisfaction that there wasn't one in that
body. That is not strictly correct; if it were, would it not be in order for
you to explain it and apologize for it, not try to make a merit of it? But I
think that the Jew was by no means in as large force there as he ought to have
been, with his chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly liberal
terms, and it must surely be his own fault that he is so much in the background
politically.
As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned some figures awhile ago - 500,000 - as the Jewish population of Germany. I will add some more -
6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 in the United States. I take
them from memory; I read them in the Cyclopaedia Britannica ten or twelve years
ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. If those statistics are correct, my
argument is not as strong as it ought to be as concerns America, but it still
has strength. It is plenty strong enough as concerns Austria, for ten years
ago 5,000,000 was nine per cent. of the empire's population. The Irish would
govern the Kingdom of Heaven if they had a strength there like that.
I have some suspicions; I got them at second-hand, but they have remained with me these ten or twelve years. When I read in the C. B. that
the Jewish population of the United States was 250,000, I wrote the editor,
and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than that
in my country, and that his figures were without a doubt a misprint for 25,000,000.
I also added that I was personally acquainted with that many there; but that
was only to raise his confidence in me, for it was not true. His answer miscarried,
and I never got it; but I went around talking about the matter, and people told
me they had reason to suspect that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings
were mainly with the Christians did not report themselves as Jews in the census.
It looked plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; and
look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans, and Chicago, and Cincinnati,
and San Francisco - how your race swarms in those places! - and everywhere else
in America, down to the least little village. Read the signs on the marts of
commerce and on the shops; Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein (precious stone),
Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violet odor),
Singvogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazing list of
beautiful and enviable names which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so
long ago. It is another instance of Europe's coarse and cruel persecution of
your race; not that it was coarse and cruel to outfit it with pretty and poetical
names like those, but that it was coarse and cruel to make it pay for them or
else take such hideous and often indecent names that to-day their owners never
use them; or, if they do, only on official papers. And it was the many, not
the few, who got the odious names, they being too poor to bribe the officials
to grant them better ones.
Now why was the race renamed? I have been told that in Prussia it was given to using fictitious names, and often changing them, so as to beat
the tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and that finally the idea
was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with one and the same
surname, and then holding the house responsible right along for those inmates,
and accountable for any disappearances that might occur; it made the Jews keep
track of each other, for self-interest's sake, and saved the government the
trouble. ^*
[Footnote *: In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in some newly acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named
Abraham and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could not tell t'other from
which, and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put
into the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the graceless young
lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of consequence, and they
labelled the race in a way to make the angels weep. As an example, take these
two: Abraham Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned. - Culled from "Namens Studien,"
by Karl Emil Franzos.]
If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia came to be renamed is correct, if it is true that they fictitiously registered themselves to gain
certain advantages, it may possibly be true that in America they refrain from
registering themselves as Jews to fend off the damaging prejudices of the Christian
customer. I have no way of knowing whether this notion is well founded or not.
There may be other and better ways of explaining why only that poor little 250,000
of our Jews got into the Cyclopaedia. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am
strongly of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America.
Point No. 3.
"Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?"
I think so. If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be
trying to teach my grandmother how to suck eggs, I will offer it. In
our days
we have learned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere - in
railway
systems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor
politics,
in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strength may be,
big or
little, we organize it. We have found out that that is the only way to
get the
most out of it that is in it. We know the weakness of individual
sticks, and
the strength of the concentrated fagot. Suppose you try a scheme like
this,
for instance. In England and America put every Jew on the census-book
as a Jew (in case you have not been doing that). Get up volunteer
regiments composed
of Jews solely, and, when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front,
so as
to remove the reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that
you feed
on a country but don't like to fight for it. Next, in politics,
organize you
strength, band together, and deliver the casting vote where you can,
and, where
you can't, compel as good terms as possible. You huddle to yourselves
already
in all countries, but you huddle to no sufficient purpose, politically
speaking.
You do not seem to be organized, except for your charities. There you
are omnipotent;
there you compel your due of recognition - you do not have to beg for
it. It
shows what you can do when you band together for a definite purpose.
And then from America and England you can encourage your race in Austria, France, and Germany, and materially help it. It was a pathetic tale
that was told by a poor Jew in Galicia a fortnight ago during the riots, after
he had been raided by the Christian peasantry and despoiled of everything he
had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and he wished he could be excused
from casting it, for, indeed, casting it was a sure damage to him, since no
matter which party he voted for, the other party would come straight and take
its revenge out of him. Nine per cent. of the population of the empire, these
Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plank into any candidate's platform!
If you will send our Irish lads over here I think they will organize your race
and change the aspect of the Reichsrath.
You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in politics here, that they are "absolutely non-participants." I am assured by men competent
to speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedingly active
in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their work and their
votes among the numerous parties, and thus lose the advantages to be had by
concentration. I think that in America they scatter too, but you know more about
that than I do.
Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into
the value of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the
Jews
of the world together in Palestine, with a government of their own -
under the
suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne, last
year,
there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was received
with decided
favor. I am not the Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that
concentration
of the cunningest brains in the world were going to be made in a free
country (bar Scotland), I think it would be politic to stop it. It will
not be well
to let the race find out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we
should
not ride any more.
Point No. 5.
"Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?"
On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. On the score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it will
continue. That is, here and there in spots about the world, where a barbarous
ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilization prevail; but I do not think
that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed and raided.
Among the high civilizations he seems to be very comfortably situated indeed,
and to have more than his proportionate share of the prosperities going. It
has that look in Vienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but
he can stand that; it is no particular matter. By his make and ways he is substantially
a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angels dislike a foreigner. I am
using this word foreigner in the German sense - stranger. Nearly all of us have
an antipathy to a stranger, even of our own nationality. We pile gripsacks in
a vacant seat to keep him from getting it; and a dog goes further, and does
as a savage would - challenges him on the spot. The German dictionary seems
to make no distinction between a stranger and a foreigner; in its view a stranger
is a foreigner - a sound position, I think. You will always be by ways and habits
and predilections substantially strangers - foreigners - wherever you are, and
that will probably keep the race prejudice against you alive.
But you were the favorites of Heaven originally, and your manifold and unfair prosperities convince me that you have crowded back into that snug
place again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last week in Vienna a
hailstorm struck the prodigious Central Cemetery and made wasteful destruction
there. In the Christian part of it, according to the official figures, 621 window-panes
were broken; more than 900 singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many
small ones were torn to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the
wind; the ornamental plants and other decorations of the graves were ruined,
and more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery's
whole force of 300 laborers more than three days to clear away the storm's wreckage.
In the report occurs this remark - and in its italics you can hear it grit its
Christian teeth ". . . lediglich die israelitische Abtheilung des Friedhofes
vom Hagelwetter ganzlich verschont worden war." Not a hailstone hit the
Jewish reservation! Such nepotism makes me tired.
Point No. 6.
"What has become of the Golden Rule?"
It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It is Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and
give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into this
discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home. It is strictly
religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those
things. It has never been intruded into business; and Jewish persecution is
not a religious passion, it is a business passion.
To conclude. - If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent. of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust
lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard
of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the
planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out
of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's
list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and
abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.
He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done
it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused
for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet
with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek
and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples
have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and
they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them
all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities
of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of
his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other
forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
Postscript The Jew As Soldier
When I published the above article in Harper's Monthly, I was ignorant - like the rest of the Christian world - of the fact that the Jew had
a record as a soldier. I have since seen the official statistics, and I find
that he furnished soldiers and high officers to the Revolution, the War of 1812,
and the Mexican War. In the Civil War he was represented in the armies and navies
of both the North and the South by 10 per cent. of his numerical strength -
the same percentage that was furnished by the Christian populations of the two
sections. This large fact means more than it seems to mean; for it means that
the Jew's patriotism was not merely level with the Christian's, but overpassed
it. When the Christian volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome and applause,
but as a rule the Jew got a snub. His company was not desired, and he was made
to feel it. That he nevertheless conquered his wounded pride and sacrificed
both that and his blood for his flag raises the average and quality of his patriotism
above the Christian's. His record for capacity, for fidelity, and for gallant
soldiership in the field is as good as any one's. This is true of the Jewish
private soldiers and the Jewish generals alike. Major-General O. O. Howard speaks
of one of his Jewish staff-officers as being "of the bravest and best";
of another - killed at Chancellorsville - as being "a true friend and a
brave officer"; he highly praises two of his Jewish brigadier-generals;
finally, he uses these strong words: "Intrinsically there are no more patriotic
men to be found in the country than those who claim to be of Hebrew descent,
and who served with me in parallel commands or more directly under my instructions."
Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families contributed, between them, fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these, a father and three
sons; and another, a father and four sons.
In the above article I was not able to endorse the common reproach that the Jew is willing to feed upon a country but not to fight for it, because
I did not know whether it was true or false. I supposed it to be true, but it
is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon supposition - except when
one is trying to make out a case. That slur upon the Jew cannot hold up its
head in presence of the figures of the War Department. It has done its work,
and done it long and faithfully, and with high approval: it ought to be pensioned
off now, and retired from active service.
