Class Book. Z 184- T fT M ( ?. Ccpight]^". CDEHWGHT DEPOSIT. Patriotism of the American Jew jVIy sympathies are with this bril- liant race. Centuries ago its nation- ality was destroyed in Palestine. It was dispersed over the face of the globe. The laws of almost all nations have discriminated against it; and yet it has shown such marvelous vi- tality that it has made for itself a proud place. Samuel W. Mc Call , House of Representatives , on the abrogation of the Russian Treaty, December, igiz. PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW By Samuel Walker McCall M FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS, GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS, AUTHOR OF "THE BUSINESS OF CON- GRESS," "THE LIBERTY OF CITI- ZENSHIP," "THE LIFE OF THOMAS BRACKETT REED," ETC. FOREWORD By Charles W. Eliot PRESIDENT EMERITUS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Plymouth Press, Inc. New York Copyright, 1922 The Plymouth Press, Inc. New York, N. Y. All rights reserved OCT -9 71 C1A686187 Preface IN this contribution I have endeavored to give some estimate of the part played by the Jew in the development of our history and of the title he has established to all the rights of our citizen- ship. The references to remoter history form a necessary background, being essential in my opinion to an understanding of the danger in- volved in any departure from the American atti- tude, which has been not merely beneficial to our- selves but also to Europe. With us race prejudice against the Jew had been steadily disappearing and gave promise of becoming outgrown. But it has recently been re- vived by concerted propaganda undertaken both here and in Europe, the evil results of which are already apparent. Before a settled race preju- dice, constitutional guarantees are likely to shrink into mere paper rights, and its influence to be seen in the enactment and administration of law. Resistance to the formation of unjust and hostile opinion against a race becomes a public duty. I have chiefly concerned myself with the accu- sation that the Jew can be true to no country and is lacking in the capacity for patriotism. I have thought the best way of dealing with this and similar charges was to point to what individual Jews had done and from that to derive the char- 8 PREFACE acteristics applicable to the race as a whole. This process while more tedious is also more rational than to have recourse to the imagination and produce from it some race trait by which all its members are to be judged. When a fault is shown by a Jew it is because he is a Jew; in the case of other men the race is not mentioned. For example, if a Jew is charged with treason the indictment is made to lie against the whole race; but in the case of Benedict Arnold he is not im- puted to the English race, and certainly not as a representative. Not the least of the wrongs in- flicted upon the Jew is that he is judged as one of a mass and not as an individual. Much research has been necessary and I have been fortunate in my helpers. I especially ac- knowledge obligation to Mr. Eliot Lord for dis- criminating and painstaking service in the collec- tion of material, verification of statements, and sifting of authorities. I have been fortunate enough to have the proof read by so distinguished a scholar as Professor George F. Moore, of Har- vard, and his suggestions upon ecclesiastical and the remoter race history and the protocols have been of great value. I also heartily thank Presi- dent Charles W. Eliot for his liberal and inde- pendent foreword. g^^^^^ ^_ j^^^all Foreword THE publication of Governor McCall's book on the Patriotism of the American Jew is remarkably timely. A wave of anti-Semitic feel- ing has lately passed over the American people, due partly to the striking success of well-educated Jews in the professions and in large business ever since they attained to full American citizenship, and partly to the recent immigration of many Eastern European Jews into the United States. This not unnatural feeling has been stimulated by an active propaganda through the Press, pro- ceeding from ignorant and narrow-minded Chris- tians — a propaganda which has been amply sup- plied with money for printing and publishing purposes. Governor McCall prefaces his conclusive demonstration of the patriotism of the American Jew by some account of the immense services of the Jewish race to mankind. The careful reader of his earlier chapters will learn how the Jews maintained monotheism against idolatry; how their own "Lord of Hosts" guided them in their frequent wanderings and fought with them in battle against their enemies, and how their one Lord was the chief of the first republic ever cre- ated on this earth — the Republic of the Judges. He will see that the Hebrews, centuries before 10 FOREWORD the Christian era, created for themsdves and transmitted to other races a superb literature in both prose and poetry, and later contributed to the preservation and transmission to modern times of the literatures of other nations, such as those of Greece, Rome, Arabia, and England. From the earliest times to the latest the He- brew race has been to a remarkable extent a liter- ate people, passing down from father to son and from generation to generation the art of reading and writing, the love of letters, and a strong be- lief in education. On down the centuries the synagogue has been a school for both children and adults, and the rabbis have been teachers of morality, social order, and domestic honor and love. The Hebrews have always been a migratory people, their migrations being induced alike by wars, famine, and persecution. At last a few million Jews have migrated to the United States of America, and there for the first time have found a country in which they hope and intend to stay. Although the American Jews are inter- ested in the new migration from other countries into Palestine and are prepared to support it liber- ally with money and engineering skill, it is hard to find an American Jew who proposes to migrate for life from the United States to Palestine. It is the main purpose of Governor McCall's FOREWORD 11 book to demonstrate beyond a question that the American Jew loves America, is grateful for his American refuge, and has been rendering great service to the United States ever since the Con- stitution was adopted — services military, naval, industrial, and financial — ^bearing voluntarily a part in public labors and burdens larger in pro- portion to their numbers than the immigrants of English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, or Scandanavian stock have borne. These are facts that the Chris- tian races inhabiting the United States today should carefully bear in mind, when they are urged to keep Jews out of the country, or to limit the opportunities of those already here. The moral teachings which have come down through the Jewish race have never been out- grown; and it is not probable that they ever will be. They cover the tenets on which alone human society can be securely founded — honor thy father and thy mother; thou shalt not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness against thy neighbor, or covet anything that is thy neighbor's. Here are the principles which guide mankind to sound family life, and to respect for the life, prop- erty, and rights of the neighbor. Jesus of Naza- reth gave a wider interpretation to the word neighbor and placed more emphasis on love in the two great commandments of the Mosaic Law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine 12 FOREWORD heart (Deuteronomy VI, 5), and thy neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus XIX, 18) ; but he expressly declared that "on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets/' Moreover, Jesus was himself a Jew by birth, training, and experi- ence, a kind of Jewish Prophet but more radical or revolutionary than the Scribes and Pharisees could endure. There can be no doubt that the American Jews are trustworthy in regard to the theory of politi- cal liberty; but it may well be that some of the less educated among them will depart in some measure from the English-American method of developing civil liberty; because for many gener- ations they have had no experience of any sort of liberty — religious, civil, social, or industrial. They promise, however, to be apt learners of the English- American practice of advancing gradu- ally through discussion and compromise towards safe freedom. It is a great satisfaction to all people who understand what invaluable contributions to re- ligious liberty have been made by the people and government of the United States to see that the anti-Semitic prejudice which is now manifesting itself in many parts of the world is not based on dislike of the Hebrew religion, but of some of the Jewish racial qualities. It is also satisfactory to all well-wishers for FOREWORt) 13 the human race that intermarriage between mem- bers of races that are not kindred is generally condemned by medical, sanitary, and eugenic authorities; so that the right policy in nations which include many different races is not fusion, or blending, or amalgamation, but separate paral- lel development of each race, acting in concord with the other races, but each preserving through many generations its own bodily and mental ad- vantages and historical characteristics. Here modern science is only corroborating the ancient Hebrew precept, "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed" (Leviticus XIX, 19). I hope that Governor McCall's book will be widely read by thinking people in the United States, and particularly by those who are in the habit of trying to take an active part in the for- mation of a wise public opinion. Charlds W. Eliot Contents CHAPTER I Dangers op Race Prejudice . . . II The Protocols: Political Forgeries III Persecution's Preface to a New World IV When Oppression Ruled .... V Pioneers Who Overcame Prejudice . VI Supporting the War for Independence VII Leadership in Religious Freedom . . VIII Meriting Washington's Approbation IX The Average and Quality of Patriotism X World War Valor and Sacrifice . XI Service Untrammelled by Sectarianism XII Pride IN American Citizenship. . . XIII Intolerance's Basis of Falsehood XIV Rise to Eminence in World Finance . XV In the Stress of Wall Street Conflict XVI Unique in the World's Philanthropy XVII Foreign Desolation's Urgent Appeal XVIII America's Noblest History at Stake Appendix 253 PAGE 17 28 42 53 69 83 94 103 115 131 142 148 159 167 186 209 219 233 CHAPTER I ^ Dangers of Race Prejudice At the business of fomenting antagonism against a race, America is new and, therefore, awkward. And the beginning that has been de- Hberately made here is of the crudest character. There is strength in our many-sided Ameri- can citizenship which makes it possible for our civiHzation to reflect the best quahties of so many races. Such a result, however, can only be brought about by co-operation. The division that would come from arousing race antago- nisms would serve to convert what should be a source of strength into a source of weakness. It is the statement of a very obvious thing to say that the intrusion of race issues into our social structure and political life will have the inevitable result of giving us less equal govern- ment. It will expose races to possible persecu- tion and increase the difficulty with which our friendly relations with foreign governments may be maintained. It will gravely endanger the very stability of the Nation. Racial antagonisms are likely enough to show themselves, even without stimulation, in condi- tions which are rich in material for their formation. There is danger enough that they 17 18 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW will spring up spontaneously and without special incitement on the part of anyone. The tendency to have our population divide itself into great cliques needs to be resisted, not encouraged, and when men deliberately set themselves to the task of arousing race hatred, the undertaking is by no means difficult in proportion to its wick- edness. With so much combustible material lying about us there may easily be kindled a conflagration which it will be very hard to control. The noble theory of political equality, lying at the base of our institutions, gives us no im- munity from those outrages upon law which have so often sprung out of the prejudices of race. We have sad enough proof of that in our own history, but we shall be thrice warned if we shall consider not only what has happened here but what has happened among other na- tions. One, therefore, who essays to stir up race hatred in this country must be deaf to the teachings of history or he must set before him- self a most exalted purpose to justify the peril to which he is exposing society. Of all the races of the world the one that has been the victim of the most outrageous and long continued persecution is the Jewish race. There is no fouler blot upon what we call civili- DANGERS OF RACE PREJUDICE 19 zation than the treatment that has been visited upon the Jews. After centuries of persecution the members of the race have been permitted in most countries during the last two or three gen- erations to enjoy the common rights of man- kind, and in our land they have, greatly to their own advantage and the advantage of the rest of us, been fully invested with the rights of citizen- ship. It would seem incredible in the light of experience that anybody should seek to revive the race feud against the Jew, and that such an attempt should be made in America of all coun- tries. Surely no man who hopes to look upon a world which is the abode of civilization can de- sire to see again a condition which constituted a glaring reproach upon all humanity. And no unwarped American could contemplate without shame our taking part in a movement that might bring to naught that emancipation which our country so honorably led in conferring. Nevertheless, an effort emanating from a re- sponsible source, has been undertaken among us to stir up race hatred against the Jews. Such a movement should not be permitted through in- action to gather strength. The time to oppose it is at the outset. It may be begun in ignorance, but, if its evil meaning is made clear, it can only be continued in open disregard of consequences the most deplorable. 20 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW After the city of Jerusalem fell, despite one of the most desperate defenses recorded in history, the Roman conqueror forbade the Jews ever again to enter the city. Since that time they have been without a country which as a race they could call a home. They fled to North Africa, to Spain, and even to Rome itself. They climbed the Alps with the Roman legions into Germany and Gaul. They crossed the channel into England before the Saxon invader came to that country. They penetrated into the deserts of Arabia. There was no known country in the world in which the sons of Abraham did not seek a refuge. But while the fall of Jerusalem marked form- ally the ending of their state, their real disper- sion dates from an earlier time. It began in the sixth century before the Christian era. After the conquests of Alexander, it attained larger proportions, proceeding from Babylonia and Egypt as well as Palestine. In the time of Christ, Philo estimates the Jewish population of Egypt at a million, and the Jews in Babylonia and the other provinces of the Kingdom were more numerous than those of Palestine. Many were carried off into slavery by Pompey; many perished in the war of 66-72 A. D'., or were car- ried off by the victors; many more suffered the same fate under Hadrian. DANGERS OF RACE PREJUDICE 21 But whatever the period to which it may be assigned, it was as effective a world-wide disper- sion of a race as if its members had been sown by the hand of the Creator over every land. Ordi- narily a race thus scattered would in time have lost its identity and would not have ap- peared as a distinctive race in subsequent history. It would have been absorbed by the established races with which it came in contact; and the blending might have measurably affected the character of the different race stocks. In that way only it might have exerted influence upon subsequent civilization. Undoubtedly, the his- tory of a race distinguished by the achievements of the Jews would have survived, if only on ac- count of its deathless literature, of which its liter- ary glories were only surpassed by its ethical and religious values. But there would have lingered no Jewish Problem to vex subsequent times. Why, then, was the race not thus absorbed? More than one answer may be given and more than one of them may possess an element of truth. The foremost reason, probably, is found in the indomitable vitality of its religious faith — a faith that not only survived persecution but was made stronger on account of it. The Jews carried with them everywhere their devotion to the worship of Jehovah. With the exercise of this worship there had come to them from Moses 22 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW as a part of the law a multitude of observances in the preparation of food and in the practical ordering of their lives. Perhaps the most power- ful influence was seen in the synagogue through which the whole people was educated in its re- ligion as revealed in its scriptures and in the unwritten law religious, moral and ceremonial. Thus, under conditions then existing in the world, so long as they adhered to their religion, with all that it implied they maintained their com- munity life and were to an extent isolated from the populations among which they lived. They became involved in difficulties with their neighbors not merely because of theological differences, but also by their peculiar habits of living. These habits, if we accept as true an opinion commonly received concerning them, re- flected a degree of science in advance of the times, and resulted in improved health conditions among them; but this result strangely contributed to their persecution. The so-called "black death" and other filth plagues, which would now and then exact from great cities a cruel retribution on account of lack of cleanliness and other viola- tions of the laws of health, fell more lightly upon the quarters where the Hebrews lived; and the people in their ignorance, with suspicion bred of prejudice, would point to the relative immunity of the Jews as proof that they were poisoning DANGERS OF RACE PREJUDICE 23 wells or exercising some other malign influence in order to destroy the balance of society, where- upon massacre would be wreaked upon the mem- bers of the race. Thus the chief cause of the persecution of the race probably grew out of re- ligious differences, heightened by differing phy- sical conditions resulting from the observance of religious health rules. After the power of the Jews had been broken in Palestine a new sect appeared which at first was even more despised. Its members were cast into prison, fed to wild beasts, and subjected to nameless tortures. But it spon- taneously grew in strength until it soon became the overshadowing power in all Europe. When the Roman Empire was broken into many fragments, each imperfectly performing the functions of government, and a wave of barbarism threatened to sweep away all that was left of civilization, it was this new church which furnished a refuge from the tem- pest. It came to be the ruler over kings and made more easy to be endured the conditions of the peoples over whom they held sway. It formed the mighty bridge across which were borne so many of the memorials of the ancient world. Strange to say, it has been the same church, the Christian church, which has been re- sponsible for the worst persecution of the Jews. 24 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW But it should be said at the outset that the attitude of the entire Christian Church in all its branches, Catholic as well as Protestant, is radi- cally different today. Anti-Jewish agitation seems to have little or no support in the pulpit of any church. The words of one of the greatest preachers of modern times so strikingly reveals the change from the attitude of the Fourteenth Century that a liberal quotation of them is justi- fied. Henry Ward Beecher, speaking of the Jews, in one of the most powerful of his sermons said in his Plymouth pulpit : "These heroic people stand preeminent as the unrecognized benefactors of the human race. If any people ever lived whose faults might be con- doned in consideration of their invaluable serv- ices to religion and to civilization, it is the He- brews. If any people ever had a full measure of every form and degree of injustice meted out to them, it is the Hebrews. "Let us look at the contributions which have been made to the world's stock in civilization by the Hebrews. It may surprise some to be told that commonwealth, as we understand it in republican governments, is unquestionably of the desert, and that our institutions sprang from the laws of Moses's mind; but it is true. The com- monwealth of the Israelites contained in it the seeds of all subsequent commonwealths. DANGERS OF RACE PREJUDICE 25 "An appeal to the people on all great questions of polity; the educating all the people to have a public sentiment about their own affairs; the at- tempt to conduct a government, whether by pro- phet, by priest, or by king, for the benefit of the people themselves, these fundamental elements belonged, and I think belonged first, to the He- brew commonwealth. "Closely allied to the organization of govern- ment, and indeed precedent to it, as the very condition of successful and continuous govern- ment, is the household. Now, the family emerged from barbaric forms earlier among the Hebrews than among any other people and passed into that condition which has enabled it to perpetuate itself. In no other nation were children ever reared with more care. In intelli- gence, in home life, in purity, in exaltation of sentiment, and in extraordinary care in the teach- ing of children, there are not to be found in the palmiest communities of the best Christian house- holds those that surpass the best families of Jews at this time. We have borrowed their example, and are rearing our children after the pattern and inspiration of the Jewish household, as it has existed from the days of Moses onward. "I cannot fail to point out, too, how in that Oriental land and in that early day, the virtue of industry, of personal independence, of work, was 26 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW understood and enforced. During the time that Plato declared that in his Ideal Republic there should be no mechanics, during that long inter- mediate period when to be a working man was to be shut out from all hope and honor and ele- vation in society, from four thousand years ago, down to this day, work has been honorable in the Jewish household, and that motto, that prov- erb stands, which stood at that early period: 'He who brings his child up without a trade brings him up to be a thief/ On that principle the children of the richest Jews, of Jews in the highest station, were taught how to maintain themselves by their own hands and by their own industry. The making of work honorable is one of the boons which God has given to the human race through this remarkable people. "Then we are to take notice how in the Jewish nation, from the very earliest day, woman took that position to which she has been coming for two thousand years since through the inspira- tions of Christianity. Whatever a woman could do well and was called of God by inspiration to do, that she was permitted to do; and she stood honored by what she was. That invaluable con- tribution to humanity we derived from the early example of this great people. "The Jewish religion bred a race of men who put into the building of themselves the attri- DANGERS OF RACE PREJUDICE 27 butes of truth, of justice, of humanity, of morality, of gentleness and of humility. It reared men who in their own time had no equals, and with whom there was nothing to compare. The Greeks built better temples than the Hebrews, but though Hebrew genius had never carved a marble it did better — it carved men. "The Jew may have been deficient in the per- ception of the beautiful as it was developed in matter; but his soul was all aflame with a con- ception of the beautiful as it was developed in the mind. " *As the hart panteth After the water brooks, So panteth my soul After thee, O, God !' "In the whole literature of the globe, you can- not find another such aspiration, and this is but one of ten thousand of the breathings of the Jew- ish mind, of its yearning after the divine. "No people ever taught the world such a les- son of endurance, of indestructible manhood, un- der every conceivable aggression and wrong, as the Jews have. It has been the very genius of the Hebrew people to work for the welfare of mankind by working for their own welfare. They fought the battle of liberty in fighting for their owm right to live. If ever a race was heroic, this race has been." CHAPTER II The Protocols : Political Forgeries The so-called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" have recently been brought forward among us as a basis for anti- Jewish agitation. And this has been done after they have been fully discredited in Europe, where scholars of independence and character had no difficulty in penetrating into their fraudulent character. Although the protocols have been many times effectually exploded, what they contain and the manner of their production shed such light upon the character of anti- Jewish agitation that more than a cursory reference to them is de- manded. The Jews have not merely been at- tacked because they were Jews but sometimes they have been assailed in order to promote some political or social purpose which did not pri- marily concern them; and the attack upon the Jews based on the protocols had primarily a political purpose. It may be said that the pro- tocols pretend to be the confession by "Hebrew Elders" of the malign purposes of their race toward civilization. What through centuries has been in effect charged times without number by the enemies of the Jewish race, it was very convenient to have put in the form of a confes- 28 THE protocols: political forgeries 29 sion by somebody who, whether he had an ex- istence or not, should at least be credited with a title which would imply authority to be the spokesman of the Jews. The Jewish race, it is confessed by these mythical Elders, in effect cherishes the purpose of producing revolution, overturning government, destroying Christianity and civilization, and in general of propagating the diseases of which all the world is now so mortally sick — and, in some inscrutable fashion, out of it all, to secure the dominion of the world for the Jew. This is surely a very ambitious program thus to be formally acknowledged by these Elders and so obligingly delivered over to the enemies of the Jew, with the result of fomenting agitation against the race. We are asked to believe that the Jews now inhabiting the earth seek to sacrifice themselves and subordinate their own interests entirely to the interests of the Jews of the future, whose power and glory they are thus attempting to secure. Also, these mysterious Elders would appear to be somewhat given to credulity to be- lieve that the billion and a half of non- Jewish people who would still survive would placidly yield authority to the few million of Jews for whom triumph had been secured in the manner proposed. There are other considerations in abundance which should have suggested caution 30 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW in accepting these "protocols." It should cer- tainly have imposed caution that they were brought forward for sensational disclosure not by a friend but by an enemy of Zion; and this enemy who produced them one who gave differ- ent and contradictory versions of how he pro- cured them. Competent scholarship made prompt exposure of the fact that some of the contents were pilfered bodily from older documents which were of un- questionable anti- Jewish origin. There is not one circumstance which sustains their authen- ticity. Professor C. H. Wright, Librarian of the London Library, writes: "We are left wondering why this kind of nauseating out-pouring of a perverted religiosity should be foisted on the British public in an anonymous shape without a clue to its real origin and full context." It is disclosed that the revelation is entirely an excerpt from a book by a Russian reactionary and partisan bf autocracy published, not this year, nor last year, but many years ago. That there existed or ever had been in this author's possession any authenticated dependable docu- ments was not even claimed. The writer af- fected merely to quote from manuscripts en- trusted to him by an anonymous acquaintance — concocted from what this Russian propagand- THE protocols: political forgeries 31 ist himself describes in his Moscow publication as "incomplete notes of lectures," delivered by an unnamed kcturer, on unknown dates, "iki Paris about 1901." "An intimate knowledge of Russian literature and intellectual life for the past twenty years convinces me that these protocols are worthless," is the dismissing comment of the London Libra- rian. These protocols, freshly revamped, fashioned to serve the vicious primitive purpose of hate, can mislead no one who in fairness gives them even casual scrutiny. They are clumsy and stu- pid forgeries fabricated without cunning. In- deed, the man who produced them, styling him- self Sergius Nilus, of the Department of Foreign Relations, Moscow — offers them as a post- script to explosive chapters of abuse that he is bent upon perpetrating against the Anglo-Saxon race. Even the London publishers who, com- mercially, had great stake in the canard's distri- bution, appear to have found any pretence of authenticity impracticable. In a featured "Pre- face" they confess that there is doubt of trust- worthiness, revealing that the anonymous author of the book is unable to provide any certificate of genuineness whatever. The "Preface" makes this confession, which is more direct than that of the "Hebrew Elders" : 32 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "We have said that this document flashes a blaze of light, and so it does, but whether the document is genuine or not, whether the blaze of light is true or false, can only be judged by in- ternal evidence and probabilities. We may say at once that Nilus advances nothing in the na- ture of real evidence to prove the document and that his account of how it came into his hands consists of assertion only, without evidence to support it." Ample appraisal of both the author's manner and matter can be found in the fact that even the rapacious maw of Russia's Anti-Semitic Ency- clopedia will not take a syllable of it. "Jumble of embittered nonsense," is stamped upon it by a scholar as distinguished as Aylmer Maude, known the world over as the translator of Count Tolstoi into English. There has just been brought to light a French book published more than a half century ago against Napoleon the Third. Parallel passages taken from this book and from the protocols show such an exact cor- respondence in substance and phrasing as to prove that the forger of the protocols was a liter- ary pirate of a high order. The English speaking nations have until re- cent times been remarkably free from that politi- cal and ecclesiastical anti-semitism which has too often shown itself upon the continent of Europe THE PROTOCOLS: POLITICAL FORGERIES 33 and indeed has seemed entrenched there; but two years ago there was an outbreak of this anti-semitism in England and the United States. There was the same starting point in both coun- tries. The basis of agitation was found in Eng- Hsh translations from the Russian of the proto- cols with portions of the introduction and epi- logue of the Russian editor, Sergius Nilus, and comments and applications by the anonymous translators who discreetly withheld their names. The translation published in America was inde- pendent of that brought out in England and was of a later edition of the original. A German translation had appeared a short time before and a French one almost simultaneously with the English versions, and there were publications in other European languages at about the same time. Very soon after the appearance of the "Jewish Peril" with its translation and interpre- tation of the protocols, the London Morning Post, the leading organ of the Tory party in England, inaugurated a series of sensational articles upon this "Peril." The action of the Post was anticipated by a few weeks in America, a weekly journal here having already seized upon the protocols. In the virulence of its attacks upon the Jews as a race and indiscriminately upon individual members of it, the American publica- 34 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW tion was by no means second to the Tory organ of Great Britain. The London Morning Post articles were col- lected in a volume entitled "The Cause of World Unrest" with an introduction appropriately in the same vein, and this volume was immediately re- published in New York. The simultaneous open- ing of this campaign in places so widely sepa- rated and based on a forged document which had appeared more than a dozen years before was obviously not an accidental coincidence. Who were the instigators of the campaign? All the circumstances combine to make it appear as certain as such things can be that the authors of the plan were none other than the Russian emigres who at that time were endeavoring to gain the support of the European and American governments and of the public opinion of the world for the military enterprises undertaken to overthrow the Soviet Government in Russia and restore the old autocratic regime. It seemed to be an effective means to this end to convince the different nations that the then-existing govern- ment of Russia was a Jewish oligarchy forced upon the unhappy Russian people and that it was only the first stage in the execution of a deep-laid plan for bringing the whole world under the dominion of the Jews ; and the protocols were conveniently brought to light as a confes- THE protocols: political forgeries 35 sion of the purpose of the Jewish race to accom- plish that very result. As a part of this program the armies of Denikin and Wrangel scattered the protocols broadcast in the field of their opera- tions, at the same time inciting massacres of the Jews wherever they went. The propaganda for English readers of which "The Cause of World Unrest" may stand as an example was of the same origin and character. The purpose of the propaganda in all the coun- tries was to establish the contention that th^ crisis in which the world found itself and the imminent deadly peril which menaced it was not due to the atrocious and intolerable tyranny of the old Russian autocracy or to the obvious rea- sons for unrest which were elsewhere showing themselves as a result of the war, but to a for- midable conspiracy, the outcome of the long cherished purposes of a race, and that this con- spiracy had as its aim to undermine and overturn the whole structure of our modern civilization, political, economic, social and religious in order to establish upon its ruins the dominion of the Hebrew race. This was a beautiful program certainly, even if somewhat transparent. The plan and the means to be employed in order to carry it out were directed by a secret Jewish order which al- ready constituted in a large measure the invisi- 36 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ble government of Europe and America. The documentary proof of this purpose was furnished by the protocols, the genuineness of which it was claimed had been established by the exact corre- spondence between the plan which they laid down and the history of Europe from the French to the Russian revolutions. The author, who be- trayed by some fatal slips that he was not an Englishman but probably a Russian, gained the greater part of his acknowledged inspiration from a line of French authors beginning with the closing of the eighteenth century. He ascribed the revolution and subsequent democratic and anti-clerical movements to the machinations of this great conspiracy. In the older writings of this line the conspirators were the free Masons; later when anti-semitism became fashionable in France it was discovered that the Jews were the instigators of it all, working behind the veil of secrecy of the Masonic orders. Indeed the French translation of the protocols bore the title "Le Peril Judeo Maconnique.'' This combina- tion appealed to the Russians, and it appears in the publications of Nilus. According to a French writer who is cited as authority by the London Morning Post, the Templars formed a sinister connection with the order of assassins which in- fested the mountains around Jerusalem! and *'whose members must have been Jews since THE protocols: political forgeries 37 their object was the rebuilding of Solomon's temple." The first Masonic initiation was re- ceived by the master of the order from the old man of the mountain in a cavern on Mount Le- banon! The French and Russian literature of this Judeo-Masonic peril frequently linked the protestant nations, particularly the English, as descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel, with the Jews and Masons as allies in the Judaizing of the Christian nations and in forwarding other nefarious designs on all the good in the world. It may be noted here that Free Masonry has been diligently put forward by anti-Jewish writers and by some who profess friendship for the Jews as one of the instrumentalities for the propagation of Jewish power. One would infer that Free Masonry was one of the established Jewish orders. A basis for this inference is found not merely in such mystical writings as the protocols but a writer of the note of Mr. Hil- aire Belloc speaks of "The Institution of Free Masonry (with which they [the Jews] are so closely allied and all the ritual of which is Jewish in character )."'^ The relations of Masonry to the Jews are prob- ably not essentially different in America from what they are in Europe and it is a well-known fact that some of the Masonic lodges in America ♦The Jews, Hilaire Belloc, Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1922. 38 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW do not admit Jews at all and that in the American order as a whole the number of Jews is much smaller relatively than their proportion of the population. President Harding is a Mason as was also the first President, George Washington, and between the two may be found such other architects of dis- order and conspirators against the world's peace as Taft and Roosevelt and Andrew Jack- son. If the Masonic ritual is Jewish, precisely the same damning charge may be made against the "ritual" of the Christian religion. From the mystical workings of the professional anti- Jew- ish mind we may yet expect to see evolved the charge that Christianity itself is a contrivance of the Jews by which they aim to secure domin- ion of the world. It will be interesting to some American readers to know that the Tory London Morning Post, one of the first antagonists of the League of Nations, puts President Wilson and Lenin in the same category. Between the fourteen points of Wil- son and the Kremlin Manifestos as disintegrat- ing forces "there is," it says, "little to choose." "Common to both Washington and Moskow is the necessity of an international control of the world. To the one it is the league of nations, to the other it is the third internationale. The idea is the same although the instruments are differ- THE PROTOCOLS: POLITICAL FORGERIES 39 ent." At Paris Mr. Wilson was declared to be surrounded by Jews and to have become com- pletely under their influence. A French writer on Wilson takes the view that Free Masonry was used as a channel for the dissemination of these ideas. On the protocols themselves which are alleged to reveal the secrets of this remarkable con- spiracy, it is necessary to say but little more. They were published in Russia in 1905 as the con- cluding chapter to the second edition of a book, first issued two years previously by Nilus, of whom little is known beyond the fact that he had been connected in a subordinate capacity with a branch of the Russian secret police. He seemed to be possessed with the idea that the last times were at hand, signs of which he saw in the popu- larity of Tolstoi and the education of women. The heading of the chapter containing the pro- tocols is "Anti-Christ as a Near Political Possi- bility." Among the three or four contradictory stories which Nilus told of how the protocols came into his hands, perhaps not the least absurd was that they contained a plan worked out by the leaders of the Jewish people during many centuries, and were finally presented to the council of eld- ers by Theodore Herzl, the "Prince of the Exile'' at the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. 40 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW That they were forgeries, as I have said, inter- nal evidence puts beyond a doubt, and it leaves equally little doubt that they were invented in order to support the cause of Russian absolut- ism. They make the Jews themselves declare that autocracy is the only form of government under which mankind can flourish and that all the liberal propaganda of constitutional govern- ment, of democracy in the state and of religious freedom are only devices of the Jews to destroy civilized governments and the Christian church, to make way for universal autocracy at the head of which would be a Jewish king. The authors of the forged protocols did not draw heavily upon their own intellectual re- sources, but they helped themselves to whatever suited their purpose wherever it was found. Their indebtedness to the scene in the Jewish burying-ground in Goedsche's romance, "Biar- ritz," was at once recognized and an inter- mediate line, discovered in a separate recasting of the novelist, was put in the mouth of the representative of the twelve tribes into a single discourse, "The Rabbi's Speech.'' Later on in a definite exposure of the fraud to which I have alluded the London Times proved that the principles and methods avowed in the protocols are in a large part paraphrased from an anonymous attack on the policies of Napo- THE PROTOCOLS: POLITICAL FORGERIES 41 leon III, published in 1865, under a title which in translation runs: "Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu or the Statecraft of Machiavelli in the 19th Century." Certainly this adoption of methods not un- common in Russia and in the other continental countries does little credit either to England or America. The wonder is that anybody should have thought anything resembling public opinion or anything more stable than a passing preju- dice could be built up in the two English-speak- ing countries by the employment of such mystical trash. And yet it has been made the occasion of one of the most formidable and widespread drives ever directed against the Jews. The protocols are of importance here because they involve a sinister invitation to re-enact one of the most baleful chapters of all history, and to take a leap backward into a past which we would willingly forget. What gain can one see for our country or for civilization if amid the babble of confused race feuds which already threaten the United States, we are to uncover the banked fires of Jewish proscription? A glance at the past will show the danger, for in a time when the most barbarous scenes of history have been re-enacted with horrors added, it is wholly un- safe to presume that anything that has happened may not happen again. CHAPTER III Persecution's Preface to a New World Spain was easily the most tolerant of all the countries of Europe in its treatment of the Jews before the establishment of the Inquisition and after the rule of the Visigoths had been shat- tered. Granada was especially liberal towards them. This was doubtless due to the fact that it was the last foothold of the Moslem power in Spain, for the Arab rulers practiced a religious toleration which they extended alike to Jews and Christians. With the ascendency of Christian- ity and its practical control of the civil authority, intolerance made its appearance. In Granada the Jews were encouraged to engage in trade and to gratify their thirst for an education. In the Christian kingdoms of Spain the treatment they received was more unsteady and capricious, but they were given much liberty and the avenues of culture were open to them. They attained dis- tinction in the universities and were permitted, with few or no restrictions, to engage in finance and trade. This period in both Moslem and Christian Spain is regretfully referred to by historians of the Jewish race as "the golden age" in Spain for the Jews. It was golden in the freedom which it extended to them and in 42 persecution's preface to a new world 43 the opportunity that it gave to the uncrushed Jew to show of what he was capable. But much of the gilding was rubbed off of this golden age at the opening of the Thirteenth Century by new and humiliating impositions. Consorting with Christians was banned under heavy penalties. The Jews were compelled to live in ghettos, and in most of these ghettos there was but a single gate. They were ordered to wear some distinguishing badge, which would make it clear that they were Jews. Humiliating exactions were imposed upon them, and the authorities were insistent not merely that they should always remember that they were Jews, but that they deserved to be under the ban of Christians. For instance, in one Spanish city every Jew was required to pay an annual tax of thirty dineros as a perpetual reminder of the number of pieces of silver Judas received. This surely was a strange appraisal to put upon a race of which the other apostles and the Re- deemer himself were members. But it has not been an uncommon practice for the Jew hater to treat Judas as the typical member of the race. It would be as justifiable to treat Benedict Ar- nold as the typical American or Englishman. But in comparison with the treatment accorded the Jew generally in Europe, there is warrant for regarding the toleration which he enjoyed in 44 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Spain as marking relatively a golden age. The Jew prospered on the whole and along with him the country prospered also. He had an op- portunity to gratify his ambition, to make accu- mulation, to take part in enterprise, and in nearly all, if not all, activities relating to business, he had the privileges of those about him. He was forbidden, however, in the Christian States from holding lands, which was a serious bar at a time when landed property was the chief form of property — and he had to wear his hateful badge. But compared, for instance, with the Italy of later years, where the daily overflow of filth from the Tiber seeped into the habitation of the Jews, and where they were compelled to undergo even physical mutilation and torture, he had rea- son to be grateful for the treatment accorded him in Spain. The Jew demonstrated that he had a genius for finance. Spain especially courted him and distributed titles and decorations to reward him for the help he had given and to encourage him to make new contributions. Largely on account of the Jews, the national finance of Spain was masterful, and it enabled her to maintain her po- sition and to extend her power through her wars. A glance at the other countries will show that they accorded the Jew few of the opportunities persecution's preface to a new world 45 he had in Spain. It was not a time when human rights cut any figure, even for those who were not Jews. A man received Httle consideration just because he was a man. The Jews were subject to repressive laws and to the most obstinate prejudice. Riots against them were under httle restraint. In France, the victims of invidious distinctions, and shut off from the ordinary avenues of mak- ing a living, they were finally banished alto- gether. The persecution against them reached its climax in a massacre, in which it is estimated by some historians that as many as ten thousand Jews lost their lives. German princes let out their Jews as soldiers to fight for other countries. At least one English king threw them into prison, and wrung money out of them through the most abhorrent torture. If there was no other reason for christening that period in the world's history the Dark Ages, the treatment accorded the Jews would be a suf- ficient reason. The Fifteenth Century's horror and glory were Spain's; and in the center of that horror and glory looms the Jew. The climax of all per- secution in Europe was, strangely enough, reached in Spain, in the country which had given him the most generous treatment. 46 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Ferdinand and Isabella were persuaded that their kingdom and Christianity itself were in peril on account of the ''conversos" who were Moors and Jews who had been forced to accept Christianity but who in secret clung to their former faiths. The Inquisition was introduced on the urgency of the King and Queen. Many of the Bishops protested to the Pope. The fact remains that the Inquisition was introduced and that most frightful engine of torture and oppres- sion was turned against the conversos. Proces- sions of these unhappy creatures would be driven through the streets to public squares, and they would be tortured, strangled and burned alive. The atrocious treatment visited upon the Jews by the authorities under the forms of law reacted upon the multitude, and as a result massacres were carried on with little restraint or discrimina- tion. Under the rigorous rule of the Inquisi- tion, the number of Jews in Spain was greatly reduced, and then an edict of banishment was promulgated against all who should not within four months declare themselves Chris- tians and receive the rite of Baptism. It was, in effect, a decree of expulsion against most of the survivors of the race. But thousands of Jews remained secretly after the edict, and the Inquisition was scarcely less active for the persecution's preface to a new world 47 next two centuries in persecuting secret Jews both in Spain and in her American colonies. For them there were few lands to which to fly. Discrimination was nearly world-wide. Almost everywhere they would be compelled to face pro- scription and prejudice. Just as the Mohammedan in Spain had taught a lesson in toleration, so an asylum for the fugitives was found in the dominions of the Sultan of Turkey. Religious toleration was a part of the fundamental law of Islam, and Turkey did only what other Moham- medan States had done. Whether the great pros- perity which Turkey then enjoyed was aug- mented by the influx of the Jews, it received many of that race from Spain, among whom, was Don Jose Mendes Masi, the famous financier. Spain, at the time of the Inquisition, contained about seven and a half million people, of whom over a quarter of a million were Jews; less than one-fourth of these accepted baptism to escape expulsion. The remainder lost their lives, or were forthwith driven into exile. They were forbidden to take gold or silver out of the coun- try, and therefore it made little difference whether or not they were permitted to collect the debts that were due them. The property that they were permitted to carry with them was thus limited to only a few forms, which would have little money value. To drive a whole race into 48 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW exile, into new lands, and stripped of nearly all its possessions, was cruelty of the most bar- barous kind. "The sum of human misery inflicted by this edict,'' writes H. C. Lea, Christian historian, "was incomputable," in sequel as it was to "the most glorious centuries of Spain, those in which the Jews enjoyed the greatest power in the courts of kings, prelates and nobles in Castile and Aragon, when the treasures of the kingdoms were virtually in their hands, when it was their skill in organizing the supplies that rendered practicable the enterprises of such monarchs as Alfonso VI and VII, Fernando III and Jaime I." The Edict of exile was finally put in force in August, 1492. It seems to be more than a coin- cidence that the date coincided with the Ninth Day of Ab which had long been observed by the Jews as the anniversary of the destruction of the Holy Temple. And here may be witnessed one of the start- ling contrasts of history. On the 2nd day of August the last of two hun- dred thousand Jews were scourged out of the kingdom. Nothing on that day could be more odious to the nation than a Jew. He was made a national sacrifice. On the next day, the 3rd day of August, out of the same port from which the remnant of the Jews were driven, the fleet of persecution's preface to a new world 49 Christopher Columbus, financed by Jews, sailed on its epochal voyage which was to end in the discovery of the new world. On the 2nd of August the Jew was loaded down with the hatred of a nation and reached the lowest depth of contempt. On the next day he was seen not merely as a patron of the nation, but as the bene- factor of the world, ushering in a new era in the history of mankind. Emilo Castellar, accepted in Spain as the de- pendable biographer of Christopher Columbus, makes note of the fact that it happened ''that one of the last vessels transporting into exile the Jews expelled from Spain, passed by the little fleet bound in search of another world." The most striking emphasis was thus given to the contrast between the humiliation and woe that had come upon the Jews in Spain, and one of the most shining events of history, in which the Jews had a noble share. Enforcement of the edict nearly completed the work of the obliteration of the Jews in Spain. The country had been under so great a debt to their business activities and enterprise, and pub- lic finance had owed so much to their manage- ment, that their departure from Spain marked the beginning of the decline of the glory of that country. The governing bodies of cities sent ap- pealing memorials to their king. They presented 50 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW the black records of commerce prostrated and abandoned, and of complaints that artisans were thrown out of employment and compelled to flee to other kingdoms. The history of the first unsuccessful attempt of Columbus to secure the means with which to make his voyage is known to every school boy, but the source from which the means were finally procured is much less widely known. The Span- ish King and Queen were greatly interested in the plans of Columbus but they were poor, and were unable to help the navigator. He was turned away for lack of funds. But it happened that there was a wealthy Jew at the palace. His name was Luis de Santangel. He was one of the conversos, to whom the decree did not apply. He was masterful in public finance. After Columbus had been turned away by the King and Queen, de Santangel took up his cause and prevailed upon them to ask Colum- bus to return. The story that the Queen pawned her jewels that she might secure the means with which to help Columbus is a pretty romance. Luis de Santangel provided the means out of his own private purse. He advanced the money neces- sary to equip the fleet, which was said to be four million maravedis. This made it possible for Columbus to undertake his voyage.* ♦Appendix: "The Jew Who Established Columbus. persecution's preface to a new world 51 There were Jews also who were members of the company which sailed under Columbus. His physician, Bernal, was a Jew, as also were the surgeon, Marco, and one of the two interpreters. In order to find his way upon the seas, reliance was had upon the maps and tables prepared by Cresques, who was commonly known as the "Map Jew,'' and whose work had been proven and revised by Zacuto, another Jew, who was re- puted to be the foremost mathematician of Spain. It is significant that the first letters written by Columbus recording his successes and describing his discoveries were addressed to Luis de Sant- angel and Luis de SantangeFs cousin, Gabriel Sanchez, who was the converso treasurer of Aragon. The verse of James Russell Lowell has philo- sophical application: For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame, Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame — In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. Spain surely lost by the distress she brought upon the Jew. But the whole world, including Spain, shared in the gain which he helped secure for mankind. Whether the jewels of the Queen 52 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW had been pawned elsewhere as cynics sportively relate, they were not available to help the dis- coverer. The undoubted fact, which has impor- tance here, is that Luis de Santangel nobly stepped in and advanced the money that was needed. Isabella gave the royal stamp ; but that it was given, and the means provided, and that the fleet of Columbus spread its sails for the new world, was due to a Jew. And the debt that the world is under to the Jews would be greatly aug- mented, if, as a result of the investigation now being carried on by some of the learned societies of Europe, it should appear that not only was the money for the adventure furnished by a Jew but that the great navigator himself was a mem- ber of the same race. History would indeed furnish a no less strik- ing contrast than was seen between the banish- ment of the Jews from Spain, and their making the expedition of Columbus possible, if it should prove that after all, the voyage resulted in found- ing a new theater for the persecution of the Jew. The distinctive principles heretofore avowed by America will need to be abandoned before so sin- ister a contrast can be established. CHAPTER IV When Oppression Ruled The banishment of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by no means cured the ills from which that country had been suffering, nor did it terminate the history of the Jewish persecution there. It is said that shortly after the enforcement of the decree of banishment an attempt was made to bring the Jews back again. Commerce had declined sadly; public finance showed the lack of the direction it had received from the exiles, and the industry of the country was languishing. The Jews, however, were not attracted, even if — as is not historically certified — any such over- ture were made them. But persecution was a long time dying, and even after all the burnings and banishments there appear to have been Jews enough left to perse- cute. Two hundred years after Ferdinand and Isabella there was a Madrid burning of heretics, so-called, of whom nearly a score were Jews. This festival of persecution was conducted with great ceremony as a part of the solemnizing of one of the puppet marriages of royalty. Boxes for the royal family and for the nobility were erected in an imposing public square. A proces- sion marked by great pomp and ceremony passed 53 54 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW by. Reports of the event have been preserved in great detail, but an official memorandum madfc by a Briton who witnessed it conveys a sufficient glimpse of it: About 6 of ye clock the evening 19 Jews were carried to ye place of execution, being halfe a musket shot out of toun, those wch were reduced to ye xtian beliefe being 12 in number were first strangled & then burnt, the 7 vies 6 men & one woman were throun into the fire a live, the execution was not finished until 3 of ye clock in ye morning. Hond Sir Yr Honrs< most faithful & most obedt Servan. Sir Rich Bulstrode Rich Fitz Gerald What happened in Spain was in a general way characteristic of what happened elsewhere in Europe, but just as in Spain the opportunities of the Jews had been greater, so, when persecution set in, it was attended with more barbarous cru- elties there than in other countries. In Germany discrimination of the most aus- tere kind was very sternly applied. A striking picture of conditions existing in the latter part of the 18th Century is given by Christian William Dohm, military councillor under Frederick the Great: "Almost in all parts of Europe the tendency of the laws and the whole constitution of the state is to prevent as far as possible the increase of these Asiatic refugees. Residence is either denied them or granted at a fixed sum for a WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 55 short time. A large proportion of Jews thus find the gates of every town closed against them; they are inhumanly driven away from every bor- der, and nothing is left to them except to starve, or to save themselves from starvation by crime. Every guild would think itself dishonored by ad- mitting a Jew as a member; therefore in almost every country the Hebrews are debarred from handicrafts and mechanical arts. Only men of rare genius, amidst such oppressive circum- stances, retain courage and serenity to devote themselves to the fine arts and the sciences." Their minds not less than their bodies were threatened with starvation. They lived their lives under the heaviest handicaps if they were permitted to live at all, and when they suc- ceeded in accumulating property it was liable to be taken from them by force. A traveller, com- ing by chance upon a group of the hunted and starved Jews upon the continent during the 17th Century, might well question whether they were human beings. That these outcasts, so emphati- cally under the ban of the law and society, should persist, in the face of such discrimination so long continued, occasions wonder at the vitality of the race. Bishop Greer epitomizes for Christian ob- servers the historic miracle. *'Other nationalities in the history of the world,*' says that student,. ^6 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "and some of them very great and apparently the strongest, as though they were destined for- ever to endure, have risen and run their course and fallen down, or fallen in, and perished and ceased to be. But here is a nationality which, through all the changing experiences and vicissi- tudes of the centuries, has not only preserved but extended its dominion, has not only survived but flourished and advanced; which, without los- ing or compromising itself, has nevertheless in- spirited itself into nearly all the other nations of the world, and whose quickening and vital en- ergy, as George Eliot observes, is beating today in the pulses, unnoted and uncredited, of many millions of people." Martin Luther, coming into prominence and power as the mighty reformer that he was, was enough hostile to the Jews to have pleased the authorities of the Inquisition. 'What then is to be done to this depraved, damned people?'' he asked. In answer to his own question he pro- ceeded to advise that the synagogues be reduced to ashes "for the glory of the Lord and Chris- tianity," and then that the Christians "destroy the homes of the Jews and drive them all under one roof or into a stable like the gypsies, that all prayer books and the Hebrew Bible be forcibly taken from them and that they should be for- bidden to pray or to speak the name of God on WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 57 pain of death, that their money should be confis- cated and that they be reduced to servitude." Luther was the leader of Protestantism and his words created great animosity against the Jews. But it is easy to convict him of inconsist- ency regarding them. At the beginning of the Reformation he said : "They are kinsmen, broth- ers and cousins of our Lord; hence, if one is to glory in flesh and blood, the Jews are more closely related to Christ than we are. I beg you, therefore, my dear Papists, when you have your fill of abusing me as a heretic, that you revile me as a Jew." Again he said, "A few very insipid theologians still defend this fury, and prate in their arrogance that the Jews are the slaves of the Christians and are subject to the Emperor. Wherefore, tell me, I pray, who would accept our religion, no matter how meek and forbearing he be, when he sees that they are treated by us with so much cruelty, not only in an unchristian but even in a bestial manner ?" And this was an- other Luther fulmination: "Our fools, the pa- pists, bishops, sophists and monks, have hitherto so dealt with the Jews that a good Christian must needs become a Jew; for they have dealt with the Jews as though the latter were dogs and not human beings, and have done nothing but scold them." 58 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW In heart and conscience there may not have been two Luthers, but there were two Lutheran epochs. In one (when he issued his book of 1523, "J^sus a Born Jew") he showed modera- tion, "It is my advice that they be treated gently * * * permit them to work and acquire sub- stance among us, that they may find opportunity to be with us and about us." Then, again in "The Jews and Their Lies," 1542, he savagely speaks of "cutting their tongues through the back of their necks." Influences that centered about one of the noble figures of history, Moses Mendelssohn, who lived two centuries after Luther's time, had very much to do with mitigating the treat- ment of the Jews in the German-speaking coun- tries. The charm of his life and his great liter- ary fame won for him a high place in the public opinion of Germany and Austria. He made an effective contribution to freedom of the Jews in his "Jerusalem oder, die religiose Macht und Judenthum." He it was who most influenced Dohm, the Christian, to write that epoch- making work in favor of Jewish emancipa- tion which aroused opinion in all the German States, and he it was whom Lessing embodied in his "Nathan The Wise," which proved to be one of the most popular and lasting crea- tions in German dramatic poetry. That the WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 59 great poet should in this masterpiece select a Jew as the embodiment of wisdom and virtue won for Lessing the fierce antagonism of prejudiced people. But the work powerfully strengthened the forces that were cooperating in favor of do- ing justice to the Jews. It was a most fortunate circumstance for them that at last support had been enlisted from among the literary masters of the age. Toleration soon became fashionable. It was manifest in the public mind and was or- dered in royal decrees. Christians were urged to practice it. Universities and schools opened to the Jews. Many vexatious restrictions were re- moved and while complete equality was not ac- corded the race, its conditions were greatly im- proved. France, as I have said, drove the great mass of the Jews out of the country at an earlier time and consequently there were few Jews left upon whom barbarities might be inflicted. Where the Jews were permitted to be, however, they re- ceived little better treatment than had been ac- corded them in Spain even during the inquisi- tion. But there came about in that country, even if slowly, amelioration in the treatment of the Jews. Still they perforce led fugitive lives, hid- ing in the shadows until the period of the French Revolution. Mirabeau, foremost in that gigantic convulsion, championed their cause with great 60 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW power. He received his inspiration in favor of the race while engaged upon a secret mission on which he was sent to Prussia where he met some learned Jews, and among them Moses Mendels- sohn, for whom he conceived a high admiration. In considering "Mendelssohn and the Political Reform of the Jews," Mirabeau in a public mani- festo asked: "'May it not be said that Mendels- sohn's example, especially the outcome of his ex- ertions for the elevation of his brethren, silences those who with ignoble bitterness insist that the Jews are so contemptible that they cannot be formed into a respectable people?" In the same treatise he urged the banishment of every humili- ating distinction against the Jews and the open- ing to them of every avenue for earning a liv- ing: "Instead of forbidding them agriculture, handicrafts and the mechanical arts, encourage them to devote themselves to these occupations." And, again, he lamented "that so highly gifted a nation should so long have been kept in a state wherein it was impossible for its powers to de- velop." "Every far-sighted man," he insisted, "must rejoice in the acquisition of useful fellow citizens from among the Jews." The Jews also came naturally within the scope of the political principle by which he was animated. "Nothing," he declared, "should dominate except justice. WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 61 Nothing should dominate but the rights of each man to which all else is subject." Upon his election as a deputy from Provence to the States General, Mirabeau was asked by a Jew what he proposed to do. He replied: "I will make a human being of you." The French Revolution accomplished religious liberty but it did not quite extend to all Jews full rights of citizenship. In establishing French emancipation Mirabeau himself is a witness to the influence of the liberal attitude of America. Already civilization was beginning to obtain its examples here. Already we had followed inde- pendence and liberty, with a government that had for foundation equality in practice. Mira- beau had the inspiration of Washington, Jeffer- son, Madison, and the Adamses, already em- bodied in our State and National Constitutions. In England there was little relief to the picture presented by the continental countries. The Jews preceded the Normans on that island by centuries and representatives of the race were there before the time of the Saxons. All the other races, whatever the antagonisms among them, seem to have united cordially in the perse- cution of the Jews. They were banished under Canute but appeared again on the return of some degree of tolerance. At the time of the Crusades they were persecuted with renewed fury and their 62 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW money was extorted by the monarchs. King John for example threw a Jew into prison and demanded a large sum which was not yielded up. On each day a tooth of the Jew was pulled and the demand renewed. Finally after seven days the value of the remainder increased like that of the Sibylline books and the victim paid the price the King demanded. The movement against the Jews culminated at York where large numbers of them took refuge in the castle and perished by the sword or were burned. The work was completed under King Edward I, who banished all who were left of the race, and very few traces can be found of the Jew in England for more than three hundred years. When Cromwell became ruler a new policy was adopted and the Jews were permitted to re- turn. The grim old Protector could be fierce enough in war, but he was far from being with- out humanity, and he must have been indeed in- human to take part in such brutal persecution as that of which the Jews had been the victims. Nor would such a course have been more revolt- ing to his humanity than to his reason. The Hebrew scriptures prophesied the coming of a Messiah. Whether Christ was that Messiah was a fundamental point of difference between the Christian and the theological Jew. Upon that point, which involved the fulfillment of the WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 63 Jewish scriptures, the Jew, at least, had a right to an opinion. Could force be added to the argu- ment upon either side by having one of the dis- putants burn his adversary alive or put him upon a rack and tear his limbs from their sockets? If the righteousness of the Christian religion could be judged by the actions of those who professed it, it would hardly appear to be a rational way in which to make converts to it to indulge in conduct which would disgrace sav- ages and which of all things was most abhorrent to the divine teachings of Christ Himself. With the policy of persecution Cromwell could not have the slightest sympathy. On the: con- trary he declared, "Great is my sympathy with this poor people whom God chose and to whom He gave His law." He welcomed Manasseh Ben Israel who had undertaken a special mission to secure the restoration of the Jews in England. As a believer in Christianity Cromwell favored the return of the Jews. Such a policy coincided also with his sense of the commercial advantage of his country. He saw Holland by a policy of liberality securing the carrying trade of the world, and that very much of it was won through the enterprise and commercial spirit of the de- spised race. A colony of powerful and wealthy Jews was established in London under Crom- well's encouragement and from that day the Jew 64 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW has been an influential element in the commercial life of England. The result Cromwell desired was apparently reached by connivance rather than by positive change of law. It is doubtful whether the law had ever actually prohibited the Jews from liv- ing in England although it had been rigorously enforced with that result in view. Upon that point the lawyers had differed. Lord Coke, who mingled theology with the law, laid down the principle in his Commentaries that infidels were perpetual enemies, wholly without rights which could be enforced in courts of justice. He held that Jews were infidels within the scope of that principle. At a later period the court refused to follow Coke where a Jew was endeavoring to recover a debt which was justly due him. The judges also overruled the claim that a Jew was an infidel and perpetual enemy who could not be a witness. An enforcement of the "perpetual ene- my" principle would have made it doubtful whether even Jews born in England or in its possessions became English subjects or that any common law rights could be claimed by them. As late as the beginning of the American Revo- lution the perpetual enemy principle was invoked in court before Lord Mansfield but that great jurist interrupted counsel about to quote from Coke with the statement: WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 65 "Don't quote the distinction, for the honor of Lord Coke." The court declared the principle to be unsound and overruled it ; but more than one judge of less ability and independence than Mansfield had felt bound by Coke's authority. Acts of Parliament from time to time had given the Jews abetter status. In 1740 they were recognized as the king's subjects in the colonies; and it was provided that in taking the oath of ab- juration they might omit the words "on the faith of a Christian." By the end of the century nearly all discrimination against them except in their right to enjoy political privileges had been swept away. But they were compelled to wait until the coming of another generation be- fore civil disabilities were completely removed. When a measure to that end was pending in Par- liament, but which was not destined at that time to succeed, one of its antagonists sarcastically proposed that it should be brought forward on Good Friday. Macaulay, who generally showed himself the splendid champion of justice, gave a most pertinent retort: "We know of no day fitter for terminating long hostilities and repairing cruel wrongs," he said, "than the day on which the religion of mercy was founded. We know of no day fitter for blotting out from the statute book the last 66 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW traces of intolerance than the day on which the spirit of intolerance produced the foulest of all judicial murders, the day on which the list of the victims of intolerance, that noble list wherein Socrates and More are enrolled, was glorified by a yet greater and holier name/' Of all the countries in modern Europe the one in which the Jew was first treated with liberality, was Holland. The Dutch signalized their inde- pendence by throwing their gates open to the persecuted of all races and creeds. At once the Jews swarmed into Holland from all the other countries of Europe. The commercial city of Amsterdam presented a spectacle where men of all religions were tolerated and found themselves secure in their persons and property. By one writer of that day it was stigmatized as "a com- mon harbor" of all opinions and of all heresies; by another as a "cage of unclean birds." Andrew Marvell, known in history as the incorruptible friend of John Milton, relieved his outraged heart in verse: Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, As but the offscouring of the British sand, And so much earth as was contributed By English pilots when they heaved the lead, Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell Of shipwrecked cockle and the muscle shell — This indigested vomit of the sea Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. WHEN OPPRESSION RULED 67 Sure when religion did itself embark And from the East would Westward steer its ark. It struck, and splitting on this unknown ground Each one thence pillaged the first piece he found. Hence Amsterdam, Turk-Christian-Pagan-Jew, Staple of sects and mint of schism grew, That bank of conscience, where not one so strange Opinion but finds credit and exchange. The noble outstanding example that courage- ous little Holland set must ever be considered reverently here, for Holland's high hearted hu- manity was our land's earliest inspiration. In brief is here presented the black record of proscription and persecution throughout Western Europe over the dark Middle Ages, showing that, until the interposition of Holland, there was no- where an abiding shelter for the Jews. Here are shown, too, the tenacity with which prejudice ad- hered to its evil courses and the slow amelioration which finally brought in the better order. Until the amelioration came after a long struggle there appears to have been, with the honorable excep- tion of Holland, a uniform attitude of hostility., There was, indeed, greater cruelty among peoples who were willing to resort to physical torture. But everywhere there was the same intolerance. Everywhere Jews were excluded from those occupations that were essential in their struggle for the necessities of existence. Everywhere they were the objects of obloquy and contempt. Is it short of miraculous that any race should have 68 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW survived such treatment and retained any vestige of humanity? Their extremity is recorded with pathos in the solemn hnes of Byron: Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall ye fiee away and be at rest? The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country — Israel but the grave. CHAPTER V Pioneers Who Overcame Prejudice The first group of Jews to reach what is now the United States came from Europe by way of Brazil. They had fled from Portugal to escape persecution in that country, which was Spanish- like in its cruelty. If Holland had persisted in the campaign which she entered upon in Brazil, and succeeded in establishing her authority there, doubtless tolerable conditions would have resulted for the Jews, and this particular first migration to us would not have occurred. But after a short and ineffective attempt, Holland had withdrawn and left the Portuguese in posses- sion. The treatment of the Jew, which Portugal had put in practice at home, she continued in her colony. The barbarous persecutions which she meted out to them, drove them to seek a new refuge, and they landed at New Netherland. Thus, there arrived the original American Jew, — not seeking gold or lands, or with the pur- pose of establishing a government of his own, but simply fleeing from oppression. The migra- tion was as free from any gainful purpose as was that of the Pilgrim Fathers. Even in Spain, the most relentless enemies of the Jews had not surpassed those in Portugal. 69 70 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW There is no more cruel chapter in the history of Jewish persecution than Portugal wrote in 1739. Antonio Jose da Silva was the notable poet and dramatist of Portugal at that time. He was born in Brazil of Portuguese parentage. His father and mother had both fled to the latter coun- try in order to escape the persecution at home and they were treated with such cruelty there, that after a time they preferred to brave the persecu- tion of the mother land and returned to Portugal, taking their son with them. The plays of the young dramatist were full of what critics call "Aristophanic wit" and he was very popular with the people. But there came on a frenzy of religious pas- sion and the poet was seized and put to torture. He was burned, and, to make the torture more exquisite, his mother and wife were pinioned near him and compelled to witness his sufferings. The brief address he made in his defence is su- perbly worthy of preservation. "I am," he said, "a follower of a faith God-given. Ac- cording to your own teachings, God once loved this re- ligion. I believe He still loves it, but because you main- tain He no longer turns upon it the light of His counte- nance, you condemn to death those convinced God had not withdrawn His grace from what He once favored. You demand that we become Christians, yet you are far from being Christians yourselves. Be at least men. Act toward us as reasonably as if you had no religion at all to guide you and no revelation for your enlightement." PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 71 That night, it is said, there was produced one of his operas at the opera house at Lisbon, and the people applauded the happy epigrams of their favorite poet, who had that day been sacrificed. Spanish and Portuguese persecution of the Jew showed itself not merely in Brazil, but in Mexico, Peru and other parts of the southern world. It was a happy inspiration that led him to come northward, where a different destiny than he had ever enjoyed was awaiting him. The first company of Jews to come to America were twenty-seven in number. They were desti- tute and hopeless. Their personal effects were seized by the ship owners to pay for the expenses of their passage and in addition two of their number were taken into custody to be held as hostages until all had been paid. Peter Stuyvesant was the Governor of New Netherland. He had no affection for the Jews. He was sufficiently burdened with trouble, with the Indians pressing upon him and the New England Colonies asserting claims against him, and, although he was most martial in his disposi- tion, he thought it prudent to compromise with his enemies. But he wanted nothing to do with the Jews. He urged upon his home government that none of the Jewish nation should be per- mitted to "infest" New Netherland. All un- conscious that he was laying the foundation of 72 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW the mightiest Hebrew city the world had ever seen, he blindly resisted the distinction that fate was conferring upon him. Holland, however, assumed a liberal policy. It was the same policy that she enforced with regard to the Jews who swarmed across her bor- ders from other countries, and it was altogether likely that she would not set it aside in one of her colonies. And in addition to the general policy of Holland there was a special reason why the Jews should not be ill treated in New Netherland. Members of that race had large investments in the West India Company and some had been chosen to the Board of Directors. The Governor was informed by the home government that the course he recommended was "inconsistent with reason and justice" and it was declared to be the law that the Jews were to be allowed to "reside and trade in New Netherland.'' There was the one condition annexed, that they should have the rights of residence and trading "provided the poor among them shall be supported by their own na- tion.'' This condition has been followed by the shining result of societies to care for the orphan, for the sick and the poor and to provide educa- tion, that reflect the highest honor upon the race. One of the first Jews to reach New Netherland showed himself possessed of the spirit of John Hampden. Mr. Louis Marshall, who is a most PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 73 competent judge, calls Asser Levy, who was this immigrant, "the protagonist of Jewish rights and liberties in America." Time and again he re- sented the discrimination which Stuyvesant put upon his race. There was a provision that the burghers should stand guard, but Stuyvesant, al- though warned by his Dutch directors who "ob- served with displeasure certain of his actions," declared that this requirement did not apply to Jews, and, instead of their standing guard, they were subjected to a special tax. Asser Levy re- fused to pay the tax, just as Hampden resisted the ship money imposition. Levy was informed that it was imposed upon Jews alone because they did not stand guard. He replied: "I have not asked to be exempted, I demand the right to stand guard." He could not be permitted to do that because, they told him, he was not a citizen. "I will become one," he replied. And immediately he entered into a vigorous contest for naturaliza- tion, and he kept up the battle until he was naturalized. He thus became the first Jewish citizen of America, and made true the sententious charac- terization of Mr. Marshall, who says aptly of this first Jewish immigration that it "will serve equally as an inspiration to the Jew, and as a valuable lesson to fellow-citizens of other denomi- nations, to become better acquainted with the 74 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Jewish Pilgrim Fathers who, when the in- habitants of what was destined to become the cos- mopoHs consisted of a mere handful, landed here as the pioneers of Jewish settlement. They were poor and humble, as were the Fathers of the Knickerbockers. They were unfortunate, as were most of the dwellers in the infant colony. They were imbued with a deep and abounding trust in God, a virtue possessed by the greater part of our early American colonists. They differed in one respect only — ^they were the victims of the preju- dice and of the intolerance of the entire world.'^ Two years before the arrival of the first Jew in New Netherland, Rhode Island enacted that "all men of whatever nation soever they may be, that shall be received inhabitants of any of the towns, shall have the same privileges as English- men, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.'^ The action of this colony reflected the attitude of Roger Williams, who of all the early colonists of this country was not surpassed in toleration in his treatment of men who differed with him in race and creed. Under this liberal sanction Newport became the favorite refuge of the Jews in North America, and they honorably associated themselves with the development of the town. It was held that they could not be admitted to citizenship on account of an old law, which pro- hibited "admission free to this colony" to those PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 75 who did not profess the Christian reHgion. But the Jews were protected in their property rights, and in carrying on trade were given equal free- dom with the other members of the community. One of them, Aaron Lopez, engaged in com- merce with great success, and came to be recog- nized as the leading merchant of New England. It is said that he had thirty ships constantly em- ployed in trade with the most distant parts of the world. The attitude of the Puritans was generally not one of toleration, and it might be expected that they would have shown little friendship for the Jew. But historical research made by a Jewish writer* acquits the Puritan of ungenerous treat- ment of the members of the race. "If the Puri- tans' conduct toward the Quaker was harsh and intolerant," declares this review, "their behavior toward the Jews who strayed into their midst was, on the other hand, tolerant and indulgent. A thorough research does not disclose one single case of anything bordering on persecution of the Jew by the Puritan." This is a striking con- clusion in view of the fact that the general atti- tude of the New England Puritan of that day was not at all one of religious toleration. It was in the commonly accepted spirit that Governor Winslow wrote to Governor Winthrop : *Joseph Lebowitch, in Menorah Magazine, January, 1903. 76 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "Speaking of universal tolerance I utterly abhor it as such as would make us odious to all Chris- tian Commonwealths." In generous contrast to this sentiment is the treatment accorded Solomon Franco, who had found his way into Massachu- setts in 1647, and, failing to realize upon a pri- vate claim, was left without means of sus- tenance. The Governor and Council liberally gave a grant out of the public treasury of six shillings a week "for ten weeks until he can get his passage into Holland so as he goeth within that time." Franco, it is believed by Jewish his- torical authorities, was the first of his race in Boston. Shortly afterwards Judah Monis, a Jew, became an instructor at Harvard* where he re- mained for forty years. But he was baptized with much ceremony before his appointment and he married a Christian. The steps by which the Jews secured an equality of rights and of political power in the various colonies and states, form an interesting chapter in our history. They appear nowhere to have been ill-treated. In some portions of the country they met with prejudice and discrimina- tion, but on the whole they found America dur- ing the colonial period a paradise compared with what Europe had been. Maryland appears to have triumphed over prejudice with the greatest ♦Appendix: "Pioneers of Education." PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 77 difficulty. The struggle over religious liberty there continued long after the adoption of the Na- tional Constitution. One who did not first declare his belief in the Christian religion could not hold office or take oath in that state, and by one act it was prescribed "that if any person shall hereafter by writing or speaking blaspheme God, or deny our Savior to be the Son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity," the first offense shall be punished by boring through the tongue, a second offense by branding upon the forehead and for a third offense ''death without benefit of clergy." A bill to remove disability, known as the "J^w Bill," drafted by William Pinkney, said to be act- ing under the inspiration of Washington, was defeated session after session, and finally passed the House of Delegates in 1825 by one plurality with nearly half the members absent. It is refreshing to read the history of colonial Newport, and to witness the rich development that came from its human atmosphere and the responsiveness to its broad spirit of toleration. There were many ports as well or better situated, and yet the influence of its liberality is strikingly seen in the prosperity which it attained. Moses Lopez preceded his brother Aaron to Newport. New Netherland had become New York, and Moses Lopez was a citizen under British law. He and his brother established factories, built 78 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ships and conducted a wide range of industry. They did not forget the duties of citizenship in their pursuit of commerce. One of the brothers, in concert with Christians, founded a seminary, and Moses joined with another Hebrew, Jacob Josephs, in helping to estabHsh a community Hbrary. Jews flocked to Newport from every port. Some came from Spain, some from Portugal, others from Jamaica and they all found welcome there. As was de- clared by Governor Cozzens of Rhode Island in an historical review half a century or more ago, Newport by 1760 was attracting world-wide attention. "Hundreds of wealthy Israelites, dis- tinguished merchants," he said, "removed here and entered largely into business." In the sweep of their operations they conducted seventeen fac- tories, making sperm oil and candles, carried on many distilleries, then not under the ban, but in which they had fashionable competition in New England, sugar refineries, rope walks, and many large furniture factories, shipping most of the things they made out of the country. In 1770 seventeen West India ships entered the port on one day. Whaling was a leading pursuit. The prosperity of the port was such that it promised to become the foremost center of commerce in the country. It never attained that distinction, but it did achieve a fine success, PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 79 not merely in the prosperity that came, but in the reputation for sound business enterprise and in- tegrity that it established; and the Jews played ;a leading part in it all. One of the earliest Presidents of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, who had long been a minister of the church in Newport, said of them: "They are marvels for giving help.'' It is worth while re- pealling the tribute which Longfellow paid in his lines "In the Jewish cemetery at Newport:'' How strange it seems ! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down ! The very names recorded here are strange, Of foreign accent, and different climes; Alvares and Rivera interchange. With Abraham and Jacob of old times. .Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green. .How came they here? What burst of Christian hate What persecution, merciless and blind, Drove o'er the sea — that desert desolate — These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind? jPride and humiliation, hand in hand. Walked with them through the world where'er they^ went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand. And yet unshaken as the continent. IFor in the background figures vague and vast, Of patriarchs and prophets, rose sublime; ..^#xnd all the great traditions of the Past They saw reflected in the coming time ! 80 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Philadelphia as the seat of the revolutionary government was a social center and a most in- teresting town at that period. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell gives a delightful glimpse of the town in his "Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.'' Among his heroines is a witty young Jewess, and she is shown as one of the foremost of the young women in society there. She is described by Dr. Mitchell as ''the elder Miss Franks, who was rich and charming enough to have many men at her feet despite her Hebrew blood." How little her Hebrew blood operated as a handicap is shown by the way in which the author continually recurs to her. "As to Miss Franks, she hates to be called Becky," says another of the heroines; "when I say I hope to see Mr. Washington hanged she declares he is too fine a man, and she would only hang the ugly ones." And later a letter is introduced into the book, written by Miss Franks, giving an account of what is going on in the British headquarters in New York, for Miss Franks was a Loyalist, very naturally, be- cause her father was the financial representative of the King in the colonies, as had been his father before him. She was not regarded as a Tory, but as a foreign unfortunate and part of the English regime. Her name was taken by the author from real life. The members of her PIONEERS WHO OVERCAME PREJUDICE 81 family had long been well known and they gave strong support to the cause of the revolution. One of them, David Franks, was Aide de Camp to Benedict Arnold, and in an inquiry conducted by hard-headed Continental officers his loyalty was proven to their satisfaction. Another of the family, Colonel Isaac Franks, was upon Wash- ington's staff. They were brave men in battle. They were cousins of Rebecca Franks and cousins also to the wife of Haym Salomon, an- other Jew, who was one of the most interesting men of the Revolutionary period. Not less distinguished was the patriotic Gratz family, which had another Rebecca in the social life of Philadelphia. It was reported of her that Washington Irving came under her spell and that she dismissed his suit with the pathetic words : "Race and religion outlast youth, and life is better as a happy remembrance than a mourned reality." Whether it is true, as was said, that the Rebecca in Ivanhoe was this same Rebecca, selected by Scott as a tribute to his friend Irving, there is no doubt that in the later colonial period the Jews, though far from numerous, were as prominent in the social life of some of the colonies as they came to be in the fighting in the Revolution. They were not merely prominent in Newport and Philadelphia, but elsewhere, as in South Caro- 82 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW lina, where the city of Charleston boasted that of her 600 Jews not one was a Tory. The British by official proclamation declared one of the Jews of Georgia, Benjamin Sheftall, to be a "very great rebel," and when his mother died, the city of Savannah expressed its sympathy as a mark of appreciation of Sheftall by providing that a public street should be broad- ened so that the burial place of his mother might come within the city's care. CHAPTER VI Supporting the War for Independence At the time of the Revolution the Jews formed a relatively small portion of our population. They were almost negligible in the count and this small minority rendered service of great value. They contributed generously of their means, but, as President Cleveland said, "that feature of their service, splendid though it be, was not the greatest/' They gave valuable help and counsel in administration and also did effective fighting. The Jews were found in the contingents from nearly all the colonies and their records as soldiers were brilliant. The fundamental issues involved in the war of independence made an appeal to men of all classes and of all ages. Young men may have been stirred as in other great conflicts by the promptings of an innate martial disposition, but the man of years was found on the fighting line as well as the boy. A member of the family of Gomez, who was not quite sixty-nine, was told he was too old, and his reply was, "I can stop a bul- let just as well as any other man." Details con- cerning the history of the individual soldiers are far less available than in our modern wars, but records enough survive to show that the Jewish soldiers played a brave part in the Revolution. 83 84 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW The Jews were almost without exception loyal to the patriot cause; only a very few of them were Tories, and that chiefly on account of their offi- cial relations which at the time existed with England. This fidelity to the cause of the Col- onies was exceptional. It must be remembered that it was a time of loyalist hegiras. Some shiploads of Tories sailed from Boston for Halifax with Lord Howe and the swarm of royalists was augmented from other ports. Since there was no general classification of population which will enable us to determine with exactness what the different races did in the Revolution, we may make only inferences from the outstanding examples afforded by men of that race. Mordecai Sheftall of Georgia, spurning temp- tations to renounce the cause of the Revolution, became Commissary General at the South, when ammunition was hardly to be had at any price and when even food was scarce. The place he held was a most trying one. Sheftall, how- ever, did his work well, and in addition to being Commissary he took part in the fighting. He did heroic things at the siege of Savannah, was almost mortally wounded, and he put his salary at the disposal of the doctors in order that they might buy m.edicines for his comrades. SUPPORTING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 85 The names of Gratz, Franks, Sampson, Jacobs, Bush, Mordecai, Levy, Moses, Meyer, Phillips, Seixas and Hays, Mendes and De la Mott, Etting, Cohen and Benjamin barely suggest the list. Their service was most honorable. Manuel Mordecai Noah of North Carolina was a man of wealth. At the outset he was ready to take part in the fighting. He served upon the staff of General Marion in the brilliant cam- paigns of that officer. He afterwards served upon the staff of Washington. He was credited with a fortune of £20,000, and he turned it over to the use of the country. He held his fortune as well as his life at the disposal of the cause. When bills of credit were issued in 1776, from which the element of credit was greatly lacking, the names of Jews were conspicuous among the subscribers. Among them were Benjamin Levy of Philadelphia and Benjamin Jacobs of New York, and among subscribers of subsequent issues may be found the names of Samuel Lyon of New York, and Isaac Moses and Hyman Levy of Philadelphia. These bills made little ap- peal to one who desired solidity in his invest- ments, and they presented far less attraction to the speculator than opportunities in private busi- ness which existed at that time. But the money was needed to support the army of Washington 86 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW in the field and that was the controlling purpose which animated the giver. Haym Salomon was one of the most remark- able men of that period. Outside of the gov- erning circles of the country he was little known, even in the time of the Revolution, for he was modest and unassuming and what he did was brought to light by others. He easily ranked next to Robert Morris as the man who made it pos- sible to finance the war. Haym Salomon was a Polish Jew; his family were cultivated people ; he was liberally educated, had a command of several languages and was well trained for almost any administrative work. He preceded his famous fighting countrymen, Pulaski and Kosciusko, to this country and when the Revolution began, he showed that he had imbibed strongly the sentiment in favor of independence. He was captured by the British at the outbreak of the war and sentenced to pris- on. Regaining his liberty, he was soon after- wards arrested again on the suspicion that he was attempting to carry out a plan ascribed to Washington, to destroy the British ships and supplies in the harbor of New York. He was tried by a court martial and with little delay sen- tenced to be shot. In some way he made his escape, — it is said, by the very practical means of advancing ready money to the jailers — and he SUPPORTING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 87 soon found his way to Philadelphia. He at- tempted to secure a commission in the army, but his experience in war was not such as to over- come the objection which Washington and his staff had to foreign officers. He then applied to Robert Morris, who had become the financier of the Revolution, and there he had less difficulty, for he possessed the obvious qualification of a foreign acquaintance, was in possesssion of considerable means himself and was of a patent aptitude for finance. He was at once set to work by Morris to handle public funds and their negotiation. He was chosen as Pay- master General of the army and navy of France in America, and as the financial adviser to the French Minister and in many important financial transactions he acted as the agent of other Euro- pean governments. He took a foremost part in transferring the subsidies of France and Holland to this country; and since there was always a pressing demand for money, he negotiated advances upon these subsidies before they actually arrived. Refer- ences to Salomon like the following may be found in the Diary of Robert Morris : "I sent for Salomon and desired him to try in every way he could to raise money." And again: ^'Salomon, the broker, came, and I asked him to leave no stone unturned to find out money and the means 88 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW by which we can obtain it." It was learned after his death that for the very important service he rendered as Paymaster General of the French army and navy in America he would not accept any compensation, and that he also received no compensation for the support that he induced the Spanish sovereign to give, and indeed that serv- ice itself was a secret. But this was by no means all. The members of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia were many of them far from their homes and were unable to get remittances of money. They were upon the verge of starva- tion. James Madison wrote to Edmund Ran- dolph: "I have for some time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew Broker." Randolph knew Haym Salomon, as the record discloses that he himself had received assistance from him. The cynic, however, is apt to ask what interest was paid for the favors which Salomon bestowed. That soon appears; for Madison again writes to Randolph, "I am re- lapsing fast into distress. The case of my breth- ren" — evidently referring to the Continental Congress and Continental Army brethren — "is equally alarming. I am almost ashamed to ac- knowledge my wants so incessantly to you but they begin to be so urgent that it is impossible to suppress them. The kindness of our little friend SUPPORTING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 89 in Front Street, near the Coffee House, is a fund that will preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great mortification — as he absolutely rejects all recompense. The price of money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none of those who do not aim at speculations. To a necessitous dele- gate he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock." It was surely a noble company of statesmen and soldiers to whom Haym Salomon extended the helping hand in the time of their distress. Among them were not merely James Madison and Edmund Randolph but also Thomas Jeffer- son, Arthur Lee, Mifflin, Quaker President of the Congress, St. Clair, the first Governor of the North West Territory, General Steuben, In- structor General of the Continental forces, and, saddest of all to chronicle, the financier of the Revolution, worn-out Robert Morris, with his fortune consumed and himself with it in the public service. Haym Salomon himself died a poor man. It was through his very patriotism and the unstinted use of his own fortune that misfortune found the chance to crush him. He invested heavily in the securities of the Govern- ment, or what was called the Government, issued as they were under a great variety of names — "Loan Office Certificates," "Treasury Certifi- 90 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW cates," "Commission Certificates/' "Continental Certificates," "Virginia State Certificates," "Robert Morris Advances," "Special Loans," and the total of all of them rose above $650,000. The aggregate of Salomon's advances to the Government was probably greater than any for- tune in the country at that time. It is not diffi- cult to see what the public duty in such a situa- tion requires ; but the difference between the duty that is only seen and the duty that is discharged is often very great. Not one penny of the gigan- tic debt of honor which the country owed him has ever been paid. Congress has grown elo- quent over it. It has toasted the hero's memory and proposed a memorial medal but the debt re- mains unpaid to this day. Two Congressional Committees, a half century afterwards, made a full investigation of the subject and they for- mally declared that although Salomon "endorsed a great portion of those bills of exchange for the amount of the loans and subsidies our govern- ment obtained in Europe of which he negotiated the entire sums and the execution of which duty occupied a great portion of his valuable time, still there was charged scarcely a fractional per- centage to the United States." Shortly after the end of the war Salomon died suddenly with no near relatives in the country except very young children. He left no will and SUPPORTING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 91 his estate was administered by strangers. His heirs could find few traces of his property and they appHed to Congress two generations after- ward for payment of what was due his estate. The investigations to which I have referred were conducted by the Senate Committee on Claims of the Twenty-Ninth Congress and by a House Committee of the Thirtieth Congress. The reports of both of these committees agreed as to the valuable character of Salomon's serv- ice and his advances to the government, but the sums recommended were never paid. The Saturday Courier of Philadelphia of Octo- ber 30, 1847, contains a minutely detailed article entitled ''Financiers of the Revolution Number One" which quotes from *'a manuscript letter yet extant in the treasury department," in which the superintendent writing of conditions in the Revo- lution says: "The treasury was so much in ar- rears to the servants in the public offices that many of them could not without payment per- form their duties, but must have gone to jail for debts they had contracted to enable them to live." The article cites a document presented to a Com- mittee of Congress by the Bank of North Ameri- ca, the first and only bank chartered by the Revo- lutionary Congress. This document shows that funds from time to time were paid on Haym 92 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Salomon's account to the soldiers and statesmen whose names I have already given. Thus Salomon's good deeds, brought out long- after his death, convict him both of humanity and patriotism. One of the finest touches in the history of that heroic time is seen in the spectacle of this Jew extending without recompense the helping hand to the Revolutionary generals and statesmen in the time of their sore distress. Haym Salomon offsets the reproach of Shylock, with the difference that Haym Salomon was a Jew in the flesh while Shylock was a stage Jew, offspring of the imagination of a great poet. Nor were the services of Salomon by any means confined to private munificence, if private munifi- cence it can be called, which so vitally affected the means of living of the men who were direct- ing the Revolution. His account at the Bank of North America, which was far larger during that period than that of any other customer, shows that there was charged to him as paid to Robert Morris, the Public Financier, more than two hundred thousand dollars. The net indebted- ness of the country to Haym Salomon appears to have been about four hundred thousand dol- lars. Over a century afterwards it was pro- posed to found a national university in his honor, using for that purpose a part of the immense SUPPORTING THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE 93 amount of interest due upon his advances to the government. That proposal came to naught. If Haym Salomon were not a Jew who is there who would deny him the title of patriot? The services of this man make all of us today his debtors. It would be the better part to do justice to this Jew who came to us from Poland, than to be crying out for the persecution of his race. CHAPTER VII Leadership in Religious Freedom After the winning of the war of the revolu- tion there were many problems of the first mag- nitude bequeathed by it, as by all wars, which drew heavily upon the resources of the people; and there was no central government to deal with these problems. There was no central public opinion. Newspapers did not circulate beyond the borders of the state, and often not beyond the borders of the town, in which they were printed. There were few men who took a con- tinental point of view. Nearly all men were for their own localities and thought only of them, and had it not been for the influence of a man of the unequalled authority of Washington, a long period of chaos might have reigned and the separate states, even if their independence had been maintained, would have reached union only over a very thorny road. But Washington had the supreme regard of his countrymen. Congress recorded the preva- lent opinion in the vote by which it conveyed to him the assurance that he possessed the love and confidence of his fellow citizens, and that his fame would be transmitted to posterity and his virtues would animate remotest ages. However 94 LEADERSHIP IN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 95 laudatory the sentiment, this vote doubtless ex- pressed the sincere opinion of his countrymen. Washington was profoundly impressed with a sense of the necessity of union. He very clearly saw the impossibility of achieving important re- sults without union. "Illiberality, jealousy," he said, "and local policy mix too much in our coun- sels. A confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without substance. Our resources are ample and increasing; but while they are grudgingly applied, or not applied at all, we give a vital stab to public faith, and will sink, in the eye of Europe, into contempt." The difficult work of establishing the constitu- tion and the first amendments was finally accom- plished. Along with other signal things one thing emerged which was the outcome of the battle of the centuries which had been hotly waged about the Jew. Religious freedom was established. Dr. Max Nordau, an eminent Hebrew, avers that the freedom of the Jews in Europe resulted from the French Revolution, the logic of which de- manded freedom. "The men of 1 792 emancipated us/' he declared, "only for the sake of principle." Other writers of high authority, and upon bet- ter grounds, trace the emancipation to the Vir- ginia enactment of religious liberty, for that act, passed in 1785, after a bitter and long continued contest, antedated by years any possible result 96 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW from the French Revolution — and even Mirabeau pronounces this judgment. It may be readily comprehended how the Virginia Act exercised a perceptible influence upon France and through France upon European opinion broadly. Thomas Jefferson was then our minister to France and he would naturally have brought the Virginia Act to the attention of European statesmen. He says, indeed, in a letter written to James Madi- son in December, 1786: "The Virginia Act for Religious Freedom has been received with infinite approbation in Eu- rope and propagated with enthusiasm. I do not mean by governments but by the individuals which compose them. It has been translated into French and Italian, has been sent to most of the courts of Europe. It is inserted in the new En- cyclopedia and is appearing in most of the publi- cations respecting America. It is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinion." Virginia's act, thus happily presented to Eu- rope, was in consonance with developed sentiment beyond her own state borders, though it cannot be reckoned the origin of the principle it con- tained; yet a further happy circumstance it was that her spokesman was opportunely at the very center of European impressionability, and that LEADERSHIP IN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 97 Spokesman, one who in his last testament willed that in his lasting epitaph it should be inscribed, not that Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States, but "Author of The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom." Showing how close in heart on this one vital principle the leading colonies were, it is notable that eight years before Virginia's act was finally passed a similar provision had been inserted in the New York State constitution, while, as early as 1780, the constitution of Massachusetts estab- lished the principle of religious liberty beyond the power of any legislature to repeal. The Massachusetts declaration was: "No subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained in his person, liberty or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience." This declaration and similar ones, as those in the Virginia Act and in other states, culminated in the Constitution of the United States, which prohibited any religious test in any ojfficial oath, and the first amendment almost contempora- neous with it prescribed that : "Congress shall make no law respecting the establish- ment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise there- of." Thus whether it was Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Virginia or New York that blazed the trail, the United States clearly pointed the path- 98 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW way to Europe. Regardless of the calendar and even of her own authentic claims, it has always been agreeable to the New England disposition to exalt Virginia's noble progressiveness at that early period. Simeon E. Baldwin, a Connecticut publicist and a high authority, writes:"^ "Virginia, in 1786, in a statute drafted by Jefferson, proclaimed it 'to be a natural right of mankind that religious opinions shall never off- set civil capacities, and that no man can be com- pelled to support any religious worship.' This declaration was circulated widely in southern Europe. Madison had defended it in the legisla- ture with his accustomed vigor. "Next came the Ordinance of 1787, to lay the foundations of government for the vast territory out of which sprang the commonwealths sur- rounding the great lakes. It has not the ring, upon this point, of the statute of Virginia, but it does declare that no person shall ever be mo- lested on account of his mode of worship or reli- gious sentiments, so long as he keeps the public peace. "That same summer the convention that framed our Constitution was sitting with closed doors in Philadelphia. Its work was, no doubt, in the main, a rearrangement of existing mate- rials. It took American institutions and put ♦"Modern Political Institutions," Little, Brown & Co., publishers. LEADERSHIP IN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 99 them in a new order and combination. But it did more. Every delegate came from a state where some civil distinctions had always flowed from religious distinctions. There was probably not more than one who would not have consid- ered himself an adherent of the Christian faith. They found an unbroken current of authority in favor of uniting civil and religious institutions, to some extent in every government. And yet at the call of the youngest of them, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, fresh from his law studies in the Inner Temple, they were ready to take this great step forward, by forever prohibit- ing all religious tests for office or public trust, under the United States. He made the proposi- tion a month after the enactment of the ordi- nance of 1787. The committee of detail to which it was referred took no notice of the suggestion in their report; but Pinckney secured its adop- tion as an amendment, and it stands as the close of the last article but one. "In advocating the ratification of the Consti- tution in the South Carolina convention, a year later, he insisted on this feature as all important. There was, he said, but one great government in Europe which provided for the security of pri-^ vate rights, and that withheld from part of its subjects the equal enjoyment of their religious liberties. Avoiding this error, we were to 'be the 100 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW first perfectly free people the world has ever seen.' "The provision against religious tests for of- fice left Congress still free to set up a religious establishment. One may well fail without the other. Such has been the slow course of English history. New Hampshire, where Roman Catho- lics were debarred from office until 1877, was the first to propose a further guaranty of religious liberty as an amendment to the Constitution. Virginia and New York acted promptly in the same direction, and it was for want of this, among other provisions, that North Carolina re- fused to ratify the constitution at all. "At the first session of the first Congress, such an amendment wias proposed to the States. It was set third in a list of twelve, preceded by one to regulate the number of representatives in the lower house, and another to prevent Congress from increasing the pay of its members after their election. The States impatiently swept both of these away, and so put at the head of the ten which they ratified the provision against church establishments and church domination — fitly placed first, because the most important of all." The Jew took little part in the public discus- sions which led to the adoption of the Constitu- tion. He had not at that time made his appear- LEADERSHIP IN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 101 ance in the politics of any country, certainly not since the time of the Inquisition in Spain. But he was profoundly concerned in the great out- come, which secured for him the fruits of the long battle in behalf of religious liberty; and he was sensitive over the denial of political rights. There is a story of a visit made by a rabbi upon the Board of Censors of Pennsylvania, after the Revolution. One of the members of his Syna- gogue had been chosen by his Christian fellow citizens to some public office, and he was con- fronted with a law which prescribed a religious test in the oath of public officials. The rabbi de- clared that the test was unjust to a member of a race that had given loyal support to the Conti- nental army; some with the militia and others by contributing of their funds to maintain the cause. He was met by the scornful declaration of one of the officials : "There are enough white men to hold the public offices." The rabbi re- plied with the question : "Do you happen to have one here?" This rabbi, Gershom Mendes Seixas, was min- ister of Shearith Israel, first American Hebrew congregation, which long before had been estab- lished in New York. He was the friend of Washington. Among the many educated He- brews who had come to this country in the cen- tury preceding the Revolution, he was conspicu- 102 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ous. When Columbia College was chartered he was chosen one of its first Trustees, and his ad- vice was relied upon in its classical courses. He was of the mould of Moses Mendelssohn. When the British captured New York, loyalty to their cause was demanded, and the response of the rabbi was to close his Synagogue and move with his followers first to New England and then to Philadelphia, where, at the dedication of a new synagogue, he invoked "the blessing of Almighty God on the members of these States in Congress assembled, and on His Excellency George Wash- ington, Commanding General of these Colonies." When, at the end of the war, he returned to New York and to his first Congregation, he was one of the first American ministers to preach a Thanks- giving Day sermon, and was one of the clergy- men personally participating in the ceremony of the inauguration of General Washington as President of the United States. He instituted at his synagogue a prayer for the Government in English, previously read in Spanish — insisting that, as Americans, his Con- gregation could not tolerate the use of any tongue but the sublime one of Israel and that of their adopted country. Upon his tombstone is engraved : "The Patriot Minister of the Ameri- can Revolution," and "One of the Incorporators of Columbia College." CHAPTER VIII Meriting Washington's Approbation The protest of the Philadelphia rabbi against the exclusion of the Jew from office on account of religion, over a century ago, was a prelude to the admission of members of the race to politics. The service they had rendered in the army and in trade and industry had won for them the popu- lar regard, which flowered out in the conferring of office. An early illustration was furnished by the State of Georgia. There were relatively few Jews in Georgia at the close of the Revolution. They formed an extremely small percentage of the total population. Yet the public records show that a considerable number of them were given offices of public trust. They were promi- nent in revising the State Constitution, became County Justices and had membership in both houses of the Legislature. In March, 1801, when Thomas Jefferson first took oath as Presi- dent of the United States, Georgia inaugurated as Governor, David Emanuel who was a Jew. According to the reports he was a man of un- usual ability. He had been a soldier, a legislator and a judge. The Georgia Gazeteer summed up his merits in the phrase, "A man of fine capacity, inflexible integrity." This elevation of Emanuel 103 104 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW to the foremost office in the State was establish- ing a precedent for the rest of the world which it was slow to follow. It was a half century afterwards before England conferred any com- parable honor upon a Jew, London choosing David Salomons, a Jew, for Lord Mayor in 1855. Twenty years before that time the first Jewish juror had been accepted, a Liverpool silver-smith named Joseph Hess, who was sworn in on the Pentateuch in 1835. In 1837 Queen Victoria knighted Moses Montefiore as a reward for his noble beneficence, which had by no means been confined to his race. A Jew was indeed elected to parliament more than 80 years ago. He was a grandson of Anselm Rothschild but he could not qualify because the official oath was required "on the true faith of a Christian.'' Macaulay referred pungently to the denial of representation to an English constitu- ency because it chose a progressive citizen who was a Jew. "A congregation of sovereigns may be forced to summon a Jew to their assistance. The scrawl of a Jew on the back of a piece of paper may be worth more than the royal word of three kings or the national faith of three new Ameri- can republics.'' In America, however, the Jews had no deeply seated prejudice to overcome. The action of Georgia in making Emanuel governor at that MERITING Washington's approbation 105 early time showed that very little account was taken of race. The first Jew chosen to the United States Senate was David Yulee, born Levy. He was one of the first two senators chosen by Florida. In the period preceding the Civil War there were Jews from both the North and the South in Congress, Henry M. Phillips and Lewis Levin, of Pennsylvania, and Emanuel Hart, of New York, among them. At about the same time there appeared from Louisiana a very powerful character who was destined to play an important part not merely in the government at Washington but especially in the history of the southern Confederacy. Judah P. Benjamin was a close friend of Jefferson Davis, Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Ste- vens. He gained distinction at once by reason of his intellectual power, his independence of opinion and his force in expressing it. At an early age he became a member of the national Senate. When the Southern States set up their government, Benjamin was its first Attorney- General. Afterwards he became its Secretary of War and in the latter place he was by no means popular with the politicians and neither did he satisfy the staff officers of some of the generals, for he made short work of conventions and for- malities. It is said that Lee remarked of him 106 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW when opposition was made to a Benjamin order: "The trouble with him is that his first thought is not to be polite but right — and what he thinks at the start is usually what others think last." He afterwards became Secretary of State, thus hold- ing the three most important positions in the Confederate Cabinet. After the fall of Rich- mond and the overthrow of the Confederacy he went to London where he became a recognized leader of the bar, the professional income cre- dited to him passing $200,000 a year. Franklin Pierce had become acquainted with Benjamin when he was a student and the good opinion which he then formed was increased by what he saw of the. capacity of Benjamin in public office, and he urged him to accept appointment as a Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Thus Mr. Wilson had a precedent of half a cen- tury when he summoned a Jew, Louis D. Bran- deis, to this high judicial position. In diplomacy three Presidents have honored Oscar Straus. Henry Morgenthau was subse- quently called to the same foreign post as that held by Straus. Mr. Harding assigned to the ad- ministration of our National Mercantile Marine, with problems the most complex, Albert D. Las- ker. American nephew of the celebrated German Liberal leader who was able to stand against Bismarck; and for the rounding out of our War MERITING WASHINGTON S APPROBATION 107 Finance Board's stupendous program, and the perfecting of Federal Farm Loan policies he re- lied upon Eugene Meyer. So, too, it was that Jules S. Bache and Michael Friedsam have served the nation in confidential diplomacy abroad and that Paul Warburg resigned international bank- ing to perfect Federal Reserve Bank organization. During the trying period of war, and after- wards President Wilson called many Jewish citi- zens into close co-operation. Particularly close as counsellors were Dr. Emil Hirsch 'of Chicago, and Dr. Stephen S. Wise — the latter in the very earliest stages of the war a volunteer so ardent that he hurried even to take a work- man's full hours among shipyard laborers. Mr. Wilson's reliance upon Mr. Baruch, his con- fidence in Mr. Lehman and Mr. Rosenwald, his summons to the patriotism of Samuel Gompers are well known and make inspiring war chapters. The participation of the Jews in the politics of this country has steadily increased and at last discrimination against them has practically been banished, so that today they are probably rep- resented in political and judicial offices nearly in proportion to their numbers. But to return to the service of the Jew in war : what was called "Ji"^"^y Madison's war" was al- most wholly an outcome of international rival- ries in trade. American interests became a foot- 108 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ball in the contest between Napoleon and his enemies. The action of cabinets, the rulings in council and the various decrees of retaliation threatened to have the result of completely de- stroying American commerce. The substance of the European nations was being consumed in wars. Our country was at peace and, with the fullness of the resources of a great new country, it was fast developing into a powerful nation. It is not to be w'ondered at that we should have keenly resented the European policies, and, if Germany a few years ago made war upon us when she attacked our ships and neutral vessels on the high seas, having Americans aboard, cer- tainly England made war upon us when her war- ships stopped our merchantmen, and impressed in many instances native-born Americans from their decks, and compelled them to fight the bat- tles of England. Accordingly we went to war, and it is extra- ordinary that we emerged from it without hu- miliation, for we were almost wholly unprepared. The war came during a lull in the fighting in Europe, when the veteran armies of England and her ships of war had nothing else to do at the time except to conquer us. It is remarkable under the circumstances that we should have emerged from the war as well as we did so far as the fighting was concerned, for our vie- MERITING Washington's approbation io9 tories and defeats upon land and water did not come far from balancing each other. We at least succeeded in preserving our self-confidence, which, even if sometimes disagreeable, is an im- portant quality for a young nation to possess. The Jews taking part in this war especially distinguished themselves in privateering.* A pri- vateer was the instrument at that time by which we inflicted the greatest measure of damage upon the enemy. Perhaps the outstanding Jew in this war was Uriah Levy of Philadelphia. He was a mere boy but he secured control of a little schooner, upon the deck of which he fastened a huge naval gun. His comrades were not willing to tempt the seas upon such a frail craft. Levy, however, attacked the first ship he saw flying the British flag, and in his choice of the enemy he showed more enthusiasm than judgment, for he was quickly captured and taken in the ship's dun- geon to England. In London he was given a good deal of liberty and had an opportunity to gratify his sense of Americanism. One day a British acquaintance loudly denounced Andrew Jackson, who was one of Levy's heroes, and Levy's argument in reply was to knock the Briton down. Ultimately Levy found his way back to America again, secured another ship, selected *Vide Leon Hiihner, Curator, American-Jewish Historical Society. 110 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW with better judgment, and before the war was over he had distinguished himself. He captured enemy ships, made prizes, and won the recog- nition of the national navy.* With the return of peace there was a glut of naval officers compared with the number of places to be filled and Levy, without powerful backers, had his claims passed over, but later he was made a Captain and accorded the title of Commodore. He was then incautious enough to venture upon a reform. He was one of the first to challenge a sacred naval tradition. He denied that the Ship's Master should have the power to string up his sailors and lash them as he saw fit. He declared that flogging was barba- rous. He suffered the lot of many other re- formers, was caricatured and lampooned, and finally was ordered by superior authority to keep quiet. He refused obedience and was punished. But when Andrew Jackson became President, he had learned of the fight in which Levy had taken part when he himself had been denounced *Though he did not become a popular national figure as has Commodore Levy, one of the most daring and successful of American patriots on the sea in the war of 1812 was Captain John Ordroneaux, a French-Jew, privateer, of New York. Edgar Stanton Maclay, as a historian of the American Navy, devotes an entire chapter to Ordroneaux. He cruised the entire British coast, and in one month took nine valuable prizes in the British Channel. Chased, at various stages of his voyage, by seventeen men of war, he managed always to escape, while the goods he cap- tured and brought safe to port sold for three million dollars, beside which he secured large sums in specie. His greatest exploit was, in a ship of seventeen guns, engaging the British forty-four gun frigate Endymion which after having forty-nine killed and thirty-seven wounded asked for quarter and surrendered — officers and men binding themselves not again to serve against the United States. MERITING Washington's approbation in in London, and he became a strong partisan of Levy. He took up the cause for which Levy had been degraded and, as a result of his intervention, flogging was banished from the navy. It must be set down to the credit of the Jew and his readi- ness to fight, that the agitation against flogging secured headway and that it finally prevailed. Another Jewish name stands out in the war of 1812, although it gained national recognition some time afterwards and in connection with another event. The building of Bunker Hill Monument was a very ambitious undertaking in the times when it was reared, and the work lagged greatly. Nothing of such magnitude had ever before^ been attempted in the country. In our day, when government is exalted into a great paternal institution, the thing would be handled in more simple fashion. The public treasury is ex- pected to do everything. The people now are ac- customed to go to Congress and get an appropria- tion when they desire to gratify their patriotism by erecting a monument, but in 1820 public opin- ion was not so far advanced upon such lines. The people believed that they should commemo- rate the first great battle of the Revolution by a popular subscription in which each one directly gave his part ; and so they embarked upon raising what was then a very large sum of money. After twenty years of struggle the monument was still 112 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW uncompleted and twenty thousand dollars more were needed. At last Amos Lawrence, a leading merchant of Boston, offered to give ten thousand dollars if another would give an equal amount. This princely offer was received in cold silence in the financial sections of the neighborhoods such as Boston and New York, from which a favor- able response might have been expected. But there came a remittance of ten thousand dollars from a remote part of the country, from Judah Touro, a Jew, of New Orleans, and the completion of the monument was assured. The event was commemorated by a dinner in Faneuil Hall. Amid the eloquent speeches that were made, a toast was proposed in lines which recog- nized the generosity of the two patriots, but hardly recalls the literary glories of Boston's golden age : Amos and Judah, venerated names, Patriarch and Prophet press their equal claims ; Like generous coursers running neck and neck. Each aids the cause by giving it a check ; Christian and Jew, they carry out one plan — For though of different faith, each is in heart a man. Touro was born in New England. He mi- grated to Louisiana where as a merchant, an im- porter and exporter, he made a great fortune. When the war of 1812 moved from the sea and from the North to the Southern field, he was in the thick of General Jackson's fighting. In the battle of New Orleans he was almost mortally MERITING WASHINGTON S APPROBATION 113 wounded. Though Touro was wealthy and Hved in a slave state, he owned but a single slave, whom he educated and made free after giving him a home. He afterwards lived with a friend who owned slaves, and he made provision for the freedom of all of them. His philanthropies were country-wide. The Touro name from the earliest colony days was identified with the Roger Williams Newport foundation. Touro Street, site of the first Syna- gogue, preserves the name in honor of Isaac Touro, its first Minister. Incidentally, even in that primitive time there was lavish expenditure upon this house of worship, described by a contempo- rary Gentile writer as an "Edifice the most per- fect of the Temple kind perhaps in America.'' Its cemetery, endowed by a Judah Touro legacy, has been made famous by Longfellow's idealiza- tion. Washington, visiting Newport in 1790, was addressed by its congregation in a pathetic letter of welcome. "Deprived," the letter de- clared, "as we have heretofore been of invalu- able rights of free citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of all events behold a government created by the majesty of the people, a government which gives no sanction to bigotry and no assistance to per- secution, but generously affords to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship." Washington's reply is memorable. It set forth 114 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW America's formal answer upon a problem which had vexed the nations of the world for centuries. It stated with an authority unsurpassed among men the position of liberality to which we had then attained. "The citizens of the United States of America," said Washington, "have the right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike, liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherited natural rights; for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid." CHAPTER IX The Average and Quality of Patriotism The most definite and perhaps the most ancient charge against the Jew is that he lacks in capac- ity for patriotism towards anything except his own race. "He will serve France against the Germans, or the Germans against France, and he will do so indifferently as a resident in the country he benefits or the country he wounds * for he is in- different to either .... But it is clear that in all this there are examples of what in us would be treason. In him such actions are not treasons for he does not betray Israel. But they all have an atmosphere repellent to us. They are things which if we did them (or when we do them) degrade us. They do not degrade the Jew." The foregoing appears in a book that recently appeared from a well known writer* and serves to show that the ancient charge still persists and in a somewhat extreme form. If true, it lies against the fitness of the Jew for citizenship in a democratic republic like our own. With us the paramount duty of the citizen in peace or war is to the state and not to the particular race or class to which he belongs. Standing upon an *"The Jews," by Hilaire Belloc. Houghton, Miflain Co., publishers. 115 116 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW equal platform with all, his duty is towards all. If one man or class m.ay be absolved from a pri- mary duty to the whole, so must another be. Upon a basis of inequality of obligation, a state like ours cannot stand. You cannot have a com- monwealth without a common duty on the part of all its citizens. Undoubtedly we have had Jews who have subordinated the interest of our country to the interest of their race just as we have had citizens sprung from other races who have cast their ballots here with primary refer- ence to the interest of countries beyond the sea, but the thing has been done, in either case, in vio- lation of the fundamental obligation of Ameri- can citizenship. If it be admitted that the Jews may put Israel above the nation and assume an attitude towards the latter which in an ordinary man would be treason, then they cannot be treated as citizens, but must be segregated and dealt with as a separate and alien class. As applied to America Mr. Belloc's statement would amount to a very unreal assumption and as to Europe its correctness may be questioned. The remedy pro- posed by him is wholly theoretical and impractic- able in a modern State, or indeed even in the State which Mr. Belloc foresees — the "King," after the corrupt parliamentary system which he deplores shall have been swept away. He, says at page 96, "I may be told that to put an end to THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 117 this state of affairs is impossible so long as par- liamentary government, with its profound cor- ruption endures .... To which I answer that the parliamentary system will not last forever. It is already in active dissolution among ourselves and badly hit elsewhere. The King may not be so far off as people think him to be." And has the government of the absolute Kings been free from corruption? Was everything pure under the Czars? Are the friends of untainted gov- ernments to look back for their models to the rule of prostitutes and parasites under the arbitrary French kings? So far as the governmental fac- tor is concerned we must be permitted to consider proposed solutions of the Jewish question as sub- ject to the conditions imposed by the modern State, and who imagines that a modern State would consent to an arrangement under which the members of a race should have the privileges of trade, of ownership of property, the protection of the laws and the other rights of citizenship, and be free from its obligations and especially that highest obligation of fealty to the State ? If the thing were attempted, it would give rise to the most odious persecution. The solution may be dismissed as wholly chimerical. There is no likelihood that the law will consent to the estab- lishment of a privileged race on the one hand or a class of helots on the other. And as to the 118 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW idyllic autocrat without a parliament, whose com- ing is suggested, the submergence of the rights of the masses which would follow the appearance of that potentate would render of little relative importance the question whether the new order would be able to deal effectively with the Jews. Race psychology has been very much over- done, especially in the case of the Jews. They will be found to act very much as other men act under the pressure of the same circumstances. The only safe test for a generalization is to con- sider individual instances, and if that is done, very many of the wise conclusions drawn against the Jews will be found of little value. The ancient charge of incapacity for patriot- ism, in the common sense of the term, requires the consideration of a great deal of material that is pertinent to it, and what I shall consider will relate chiefly to the American Jew's capacity for patriotism as shown by his record. Much that will enable one to form an opinion upon this point I have already produced but there is much more at hand. Obviously patriotism may be shown in peace as well as in war, but the record of ser- vice of the American Jew will stand the test of either peace or war. "From the day of the founding of the Re- public," said Theodore Roosevelt, ''we have had no struggle, military or civil, in which there have THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 119 not been citizens of Jewish faith who played an eminent part for the honor and credit of the Nation." General Washington in the Revolution wel- comed their cooperation. General Jackson was a warm upholder of their fidelity, a witness to their loyalty in arms. General Winfield Scott, reviewing his Mexican campaign, declared that "From Vera Cruz to the capital of Mexico there was one jealous rivalry in heroic daring and brilliant achievement. All proved themselves the faithful sons of our be- loved country, and no spectator could fail to dis- miss any lingering prejudice he may have enter- tained as to the comparative merits of Americans by birth and Americans by adoption.'' President Cleveland in a public address said: "When with true American enthusiasm and pride we recall the story of the war for our independ- ence, and rejoice in the indomitable courage and fortitude of our Revolutionary heroes, we should not fail to remember how well the Jews of America performed their part in the struggle and how in every way they usefully and patrioti- cally supported the interests of their newly found home. Nor can we overlook, if we are decently just, the valuable aid cheerfully contributed by our Jewish fellow-countryman in every national emergency that has since overtaken us." 120 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW John Hay, intimate with every phase of American history from Lincoln to Roosevelt, speaking as Secretary of State, said: "Nobody can ever make the American think ill of the Jews as a class or as a race. We know them too well." Mark Twain had frequent merry inclinations toward the Jews. In an article entitled "Con- cerning the Jews," he said much of the prejudice would vanish if the Jew took part in the military affairs of the country. This was quoted exten- sively by those who were anti- Jewish ; but it was of a sudden disposed of by Mark Twain himself. In as public a way as was open to him, in the preface to a new volume ("The Man Who Cor- rupted Hadleyburg"), he made this recantation: "When I published my article," (in Harper's Monthly), the author writes, "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 in 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 population of the two sections. "This large fact means more than it seems to mean ; for it means that the Jew's patriotism was THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 121 not merely level with the Christians but over- passed 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 sacrified both that and his blood for the 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 anyone's. This is true of the Jewish private soldiers and the Jewish generals alike. "That slur upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in the 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 now to be pensioned off and retired from active service." During the Civil War in New York alone two thousand Jews entered the Union service. More than a thousand came from Illinois. The states that remained in the Union contributed six thousand men, which was at least as large as the percentage of the total Jewish population. One of them entering the Union Army as a private rose to the rank of brevet Major General. Another, beginning as a second lieutenant, at- tained the rank of Brigadier General and won high distinction in the battles of Chancellorsville 122 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW and Gettysburg. Others also attained high rank. When it is borne in mind that these men served in regiments and divisions not made up of Jews but chiefly of other races — and that they were exposed to racial prejudice, — it may be inferred that the merit of the achievements which led to their promotion was beyond any manner of ques- tion. And so also was it at the South, for the Jewish citizen of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Texas, and the other States was as devoted to his "State's Rights'' as any of his fellow-citizens there could be; and the records of Jewish con- tribution are notable in the Confederacy annals, exemplified by such examples as Simon Baruch, Surgeon General on the staff of General Lee, and Mayer Lehman, whose tested business wis- dom made him Alabama's Commissary General. Mayer Lehman it was who set Southern spindles going when war's outbreak found his state's cot- ton crop without market or mills to consume it. But of these eminent Confederates at the close of the war came North to new citizenship and broad national service. Of Dr. Baruch, in an address to the New York Academy of Medicine, no less eminent authority than Dr. A. J. Wyeth said: "The profession and humanity owe more to Dr. Baruch than to any other man for the development of the surgery of appendicitis. He put hydropathy upon a scientific basis." THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 123 In Other words, the Jews of the North and South were fighting against each other and act- ing much like the men of other races in their respective sections. In that tense time of Civil War, public opinion's sensitiveness was appealed to insistently by anti- Jewish partisans— a fact that has been set forth in some detail by Simon Wolf, former President of the outstanding fraternity of the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, and— still alert in his eighty-sixth year— distinguished in pubHc^ ser- vice at Washington from Lincoln's first inau- guration. Writing during the Civil War in a letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post he charged that "anti-Jewish propa- ganda was inspired in the public departments" at Washington. He naturally wrote with some sen- sitiveness that the members of his race should be singled out for attack at the same time that the race as a whole was rendering superb service.^ 'The war now raging has developed an in- sanity of abuse and an intensity of malice," de- clared Mr. Wolf, "that borders upon the darkest days of superstition and the Spanish Inquisition. Has the war been inaugurated or fostered by Jews exclusively? Is the late Democratic party composed entirely of Israelites? Are all the blockade-runners and refugees descendants of Abraham? Are there no native Americans en- 124 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW gaged in rebellion? No Christians running the blockade ? "I know, and I can produce the proofs, that some of the grandest acts of heroism performed during this war were by Jews — that more than a thousand commissioned and non-commissioned officers and thousands of privates are serving in the Union Army, whose faith is in God and their country. "There was Gen. Edward S. Solomon, who on the field of Gettysburg, when the guns of Lee thundered down on the plains, prior to the great charge of Pickett, had stood solitary and alone smoking his cigar, with a bravado that inspired the admiration of the whole army. There was Gen. Leopold Blumenberg, of Baltimore, who had lost one of his legs at the battle of Antietam, marching along with an elan worthy of a younger man. There was Capt. J. B. Greenhut, of the famous Eighty-second Illinois, whose brilliant record in the army is still the inspiration round the campfires of the Grand Army of the Republic. There was Leopold Karpeles, one of the medal- of-honor men, who snatched a rebel flag in the midst of the carnage and bore it triumphantly to the Union side, and who in turn became the ban- ner bearer of his own troop and stood valiantly in the midst of the most terrific fire, holding the THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 125 flag of his adopted country aloft as a symbol and an inspiration. "Who was it on the banks of Green River, in the spring of 1862, when a company of the Thirty-second Indiana Volunteers were attacked and surrounded by thousands of Texans, who stood single-handed against those fearful odds, scorning to surrender, killing and wounding eight of his assailants, and at last yielded his life a sac- rifice to duty, and thus saved his scattered regi- ment? Lieutenant Sachs, a Jew! But was this act of bravery chronicled as the deed of a Jew? No ; nor is that any more necessary than that the other should be done; only it marks the contrast/' Mr. Wolf himself was an object of attack by those who were pushing the anti- Jewish propa- ganda during and just after the Civil War. He was appointed by President Grant to an impor- tant Federal office which he had determined not to accept when he learned that a protest had been filed with the Senate committee against his con- firmation because he was a Jew. He thereupon changed his decision and entered into a contest against those who urged the race argument against him. The result was that his appoint- ment was unanimously confirmed. Mr. Wolf had an exceptional experience. He was an officer in the Spanish War and he was on friendly terms with Lincoln and with all the sub- 126 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW sequent Presidents. "I remember/' he wrote, "once General Howard mentioning to me the fact that two of his brigade commanders upon whom he had special reliance were Jews. In Santiago, when I was myself in the army, one of the best colonels among the regular regiments, and who fought beside me, was a Jew. One of the commanders of the ships which in the block- ade of the Cuban coast did so well was a Jew. In my own regiment I promoted five men from the ranks for valor and good conduct in battle. It happened by pure accident (for I knew nothing of the faith of any one of them) that these included two Protestants, two Catholics and one Jew ■ and that was not without its value as an illustration of the ethnic and religious makeup of our nation and of the fact that if a man is a good American, that is all we ask — without thinking of his creed or his birthplace." The World War began, or rather America's participation in it, with the American Jew's atti- tude clear cut. Before our flag was there, Ameri- can Jews were there. And when ultimately our national stand was taken, Jewish volunteers came rushing forward. There was ample in- spiration for the words of the Hebrew, Julius Kahn, chairman of the Military Affairs Com- mittee on the part of the House of Representa- THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 127 tives, a leader in framing the national conscrip- tion law. "I desire to congratulate my co-religionists on the splendid showing they are making in the matter of serving our country in this war," he said. "Many of the boys who go to the front will be wounded. Many of them will be killed. But Jews at all periods of the world's history have been ready to make the supreme sacrifice whenever the land that gives them shelter demands it. And it is fitting that we, as Ameri- can citizens, go forth gladly in defense of Ameri- can rights and the maintenance of American honor and prestige. When I drew the first draft number through the bowl on July 20, 1917, there passed through my mind the thought that this land of the free which has given the people of my creed absolute freedom of religious worship, which has placed opportunities untold within the reach of the humblest among us, was a country worth fighting for, and, if need be, dying for. I know that I voice the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the Jews in the United States when I say that we will do our share towards keeping 'Old Glory' floating proudly in the skies, so that it may continue to shelter under its fold the downtrodden and the oppressed of every land." Has the sentiment of Congressman Kahn been 128 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW maintained? "We will do our share/' he prom- ised. The record crystallizes into a significant table, and it shows that the promise was gener- ously kept. It discloses that while by propor- tion of population measurement the Jew of America's "share" was about three per cent., he contributed to the forces of the country a third beyond his "share," or four per cent. Incident- ally, as is well known, the selective service sys- tem operated more effectively in the North and East than in the South and in portions of the West, and in the urban than in the rural dis- tricts — that is, in the larger centers of popula- tion, which happen 'also to be the centers of Jewish population. Morever the number of in- dustrial exemptions was greatest in agriculture, mining and the metal industries, where Jews are least extensively employed. It was, therefore, an unavoidable feature of the draft system, that the Jewish elements of the population were drawn upon more heavily, in proportion to their num- bers, that the average of the other elements. But the principal reason for the high percent- age of Jews in the service seems to rest else- where, as is pointed out by Mr. Julian Leavitt, Director of the Board of Jewish War Records. It is to be found in the large number of Jewish volunteers. The record according to Mr. Lea- vitt, indicates that there were from 30,000 to THE AVERAGE AND QUALITY OF PATRIOTISM 129 40,000 Jewish volunteers in the service. In other words, the normal Jewish quota of three per cent seems to have been contributed through the draft, and the excess of the quota to have been supplied by volunteers. Compressed into paragraphs, this broad can- vass of the Jewish War Record Board shows some distinctive things in addition to those I have mentioned. It shows that honors conferred upon Jewish soldiers for valor in action included no less than 1,100 citations. Of these there were 723 con- ferred by the American command, 287 by the French, 33 by the British, and 46 by various other allied commands. Of the most valued Con- gressional Medal of Honor three were awarded to Jewish soldiers. The Distinguished Service Cross is worn by 150 American Jews, the rare French Medaille Militaire by four American Jews, and the Croix de Guerre by 174; and also it is shown that nearly 10,000 Jewish commis- sioned officers were in the several branches of the service. In the Army there were more than 100 colonels and lieutenant-colonels, more than 500 majors, 1,500 captains, and over 6,000 lieuten- ants. In the Navy there were over 900 Jewish commissioned officers, the highest rank reached being that of Rear- Admiral by Joseph Strauss. In the Marine Corps there were over 100 Jewish 130 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW commissioned officers, including one Brigadier- General, Charles H. Laucheimer. The total of Jewish casualties was from 13,000 to 14,000— including about 2,800 who made the supreme sacrifice. In view of this record of the Jews in the army and navy, it is clear that they did their full share for their country. They well deserve a place among their heroic comrades in arms. That is conclusive proof of their patriotism. CHAPTER X World War Valor and Sacrifice There were, as I have said, more than a thousand citations for valor displayed by Jews, among our American soldiers in the World War. All the principal Allied countries expressed ap- preciation of the service of the American Jews. There were doubtless many very brave men who earned decorations, but who never re- ceived them, for the reason that there were many things done as bravely by soldiers which escaped the eyes of those giving decora- tions, as were done by those accorded cita- tions. Among the men who were decorated, the splendid deeds of the members of one race may be paralleled from among the members of other races. I should not exalt the Jew above his fellow countrymen in our armies in the great war. All that I am claiming for him is that his record in the war justly entitles him to stand in the great fraternity of American sol- diers level with his comrades. So to stand is high honor. When the charge is made that the Jew is not patriotic and will not fight for his country, his heroic records may be invoked to silence the charge. The roll of honor upon the registry of the Jewish war record board gives instances like the following among the Jews cited for bravery. 131 132 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW The most effective, if not the only effective, way of disproving the airy assumption that the Jews are not brave or patriotic is to cite the records of individual Jews. They add warmth to statis- tics and make them more vital. The pages that contain the citations are of a piece with the whole record and they constitute conclusive evi- dence of the patriotism of the Jew. It cer- tainly will not be beneath the dignity of history to record these deeds and to recite the names of the Jews who performed them, even if they are unusual and unfamiliar. No matter how ob- scure the names may appear to be, the deeds make them resplendent. I shall recall some of these deeds with the names of the doers appear- ing upon the official registry. Clarence Baer, of Detroit, was the first American to receive the medal of the Recon- naisance Francaise; Joseph Berg and Abe Levinson, lookouts in Chateau Thierry wheat fields, regardless of heavy artillery fire, suc- ceeded in putting three machine gun crews out of commission, and Merrill Rosenfeld at Verdun met death leading a group that silenced a similar machine gun nest; Morris Silverberg, George Westenberg and Bernard Neitelbarren went into the open fields under constant shell fire to rescue wounded comrades. Sam Arnstein and Axel Bergman of the En- WORLD WAR VALOR AND SACRIFICE 133 gineers continued at their bridge building in the thick of concentrated attack; Lieutenant Peter Zion, bayonetted and with a slashed arm, scorned to have his wounds dressed until his pla- toon had gained its objective; Isaac Hirsch, Gil- bert Max and Louis Gerstein of Roxbury, vol- unteer stretcher bearers, were decorated for bringing wounded fellows through shell fire to the ambulances; Julius Goldstein piloted a lost company back to the lines at Chateau Diable; Samuel Block, after others had been shot down, carried messages through artillery barrage; Jacob Kaplan, crawling out in advance of the first line close to an enemy machine gun nest, sent signals that directed the destruction of German guns; Nathan Lieberman rushed a ma- chine gun nest, taking four prisoners; John Blohm from his shell hole — seeing a wounded comrade dragging himself through the grass, bleeding from wounds — quitted his protected place to rescue his unfortunate comrade, con- veyed him to a partial shelter behind a tree to bind his wounds, thence slipped into the water to swim with his unconscious fellow across the river, and then in his arms carried his burden over two hundred yards of open field — and all this in broad daylight and in the face of con- tinous machine gun fire. Jacques Swaab, Roy Manzer and Louis Bern- 134 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW heimer of the air service, attacked hostile planes, reconnoitered behind enemy lines, and assumed every high altitude and plunging risk, variously winning decorations for their disregard of their own personal safety; Sergeant Sydney G. Gum- perts earned the Congressional Medal of Honor and decoration by France for destroying a machine gun nest and capturing sixteen Ger- mans single handed; Julius Toelken surprised a gun crew and then turned the fire of their own guns upon the foe; William Shefrin, a cook, after both his own feet were torn away by a bursting shell, directed the work of rescuing wounded comrades till, his life blood ebbed away, he fell forward dead. And, by way of illustration of what in typical detail such official pronouncements say, here is the entry against the name of Julius Ochs Adler, a winner of America's Distinguished Service Cross and France's Croix de Guerre with palm, and Italy's War Cross, a civilian till war broke: "During the night the regiment in which Adler had risen to be a major," the citation pro- ceeds, "suddenly came under heavy shell fire of the enemy and the companies were ordered to dig in. He showed coolness, special devotion, and care of his men, calmly walking up and down in front of his command, preventing panic, and indicating to individual men where best to WORLD WAR VALOR AND SACRIFICE 135 seek shelter. During this critical time he gave little thought to personal danger, and his action undoubtedly greatly reduced the number of casualties. During the advance in the Argonne Forest, this officer showed marked leadership and efficiency, and exhibited great coolness, un- der fire, in leading his troops against the enemy, although time and time again superior forces of the enemy confronted him; and his company, although greatly depleted by casualties, inspired by his courage and example, was first to reach the objective at St. Juvin, capturing approxi- mately fifty prisoners. He was ever ready to go forward, however great the odds seemed against him." No exploit of the war was more thrilling than the adventure of the "Lost Battalion." Whit- tlesey, a Massachusetts Yankee major, and one of the noblest heroes of the war, was trapped deep within the jungles of the Argonne Forest. All trace of him and his devoted band was lost to his Seventy-seventh division — that division (com- posed largely of New York City's tenement dis- trict men) which General Bell at Camp Upton, wishing it God-speed into the war, had prophesied would make a name for itself in France. Somebody had blundered; an enemy army hemmed the battalion within close firing lines. Hideous conditions had not one relieving feature. 136 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Food was gone ; water could be obtained only by crawling at night to a valley brook commanded by the fire of the enemy; the wounded, hourly increasing, could have only scantiest attention. Only two of the medical detachment lived through the first two days of slaughter. Hunger, thirst and fever were all fighting on the enemy's side. It is not over-statement that one finds in the Seventy-seventh Regiment's official history which declares that the few survivors could look into one another's eyes and have only the thought that, "There is nothing before us but death." "Surrender or die," was the message that Ger- man Headquarters, conveyed by a captured American prisoner, sent blindfolded across the lines. "You are surrounded on all sides. In the name of humanity yield. A white flag will tell us you .surrender." That was the summons. The defiant response of Whittlesey left no room for doubt. There would be no surrender. One representative of that battalion, one that General Pershing in a formal order presented, was a Jew stripling from a crowded tenement of New York. Less hopeful hero material is hardly imaginable ; yet what that lad dared and did was enough to arouse the enthusiasm of all America when the censor let the record pass. "Courage in emergencies is heroism, and for extraordinary heroism the Distinguished Ser- WORLD WAR VALOR AND SACRIFICE 137 vice Cross is awarded by the United States Government," wrote a stirred chronicler in the New York Times.* "A humble recipient of it is Abraham Kroto- shinsky, an infantry private of the Bronx. He volunteered for a service which seemed certain death, for other men had fallen wounded, or had been killed, or were accounted 'missing' in at- tempting the duty which the youngster from New York sprang to perform with no illusions about its perils. "The place was the Argonne Forest, full of 'Bloody Angles.' Krotoshinsky belonged to the 'Lost Battalion.' Surrounded by the enemy and cut off from the rest of the American Army, it had decided to die rather than surrender. Run- ner after runner was sent out. They were all volunteers, to quote from the first despatch, 'to get through the enemy's lines and bring relief.' Every man was a target as soon as he went 'over the top.' It was the valor of cold blood that made him run the risk. No man had gone through, for there was no cheer of relieving troops, no signal of aid coming. When the call for a volunteer was made again, Krotoshinsky spoke first, stepped up to the ordeal, went over in full view of the enemy, and was off to save the 'Lost Battalion.' ♦Editorial, October 18, 1918. 138 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "One cannot imagine the Germans cheering the private from the Bronx as he faced their fire, now stumbHng, now up again, always going for- ward undaunted to save the battahon, but if ever a fighting man deserved to be cheered by a gen- erous enemy it was this courier who was 'captain of his sour and dared all for love of his comrades. Colonel Roosevelt extolled two of his Rough Riders, one of whom survived, for making a run through the fire of the Spaniards in Cuba, but what a sprinkling of bullets it was compared with the inferno of crater making shells and ma- chine gun volleys in the great war ! "About the stock and names of the heroes to be you can never tell," the chronicle continues, "especially when fifty nationalities leap from the melting pot at the American call to arms. "If the great war has proved anything, it is that men of all races and from all climes are brave to a fault, and that heroes may wear un- familiar names — the name of Abraham Kroto- shinsky, for instance." Unwillingly, the Jewish boy himself told his own story modestly to his regiment's historian. "The morning of the fifth day of our trouble," he said, answering inquiries, "they called for vol- unteers for courier. I volunteered and was ac- cepted. I went because, — just because I thought I ought to. WORLD WAR VALOR AND SACRIFICE 139 "I was lucky enough not to be wounded. And after five days of starving, I was stronger than many of my friends who were twice my size. You know a Jew finds strength to suffer. "I got my orders and started. It was five o'clock in the morning on October seventh. I had to run about thirty feet in plain view of the Germans before I got into the forest. They saw me when I got up and fired everything they had at me. I could feel the bullets whistle all around me but I didn't get hit once. I guess it wasn't ^beshert' that I should get killed by the Germans. Then I had to crawl right through their lines. They knew I was there and they were looking for me everywhere. I just moved along on my stomach, in the direction I was told, straining my eyes open for them. The brush was six feet high and often that saved me. Once a squad of Germans passed right by my hiding place jab- bing their bayonets into the thicket and swear- ing. One big fellow nearly stepped on my hand. He looked right into my eye. I thought it was my finish that time but he never saw me. It was almost six o'clock that night when I saw the American lines. "All that day I had been crawling or running doubled up after five days and nights without food and practically nothing to drink. Then my real trouble began. I was coming from the 140 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW direction of the German lines and my English is none too good. I was afraid our own troops would shoot me for a German before I could ex- plain who I was. I thought and thought and finally I decided that if I called 'Hello!' they would know I am an American soldier, as 'Jerry' never has used that expression when he tried to talk English. I called 'Hello!' until the tears came to my eyes, I was so weak, before a voice called out, 'Who are you and what do you want?' Pretty soon I was on my way to Head- quarters, and they asked me whether I could lead them back to the battalion, and we started. "I will never forget the scene when the relief came. The men were like crazy with joy. "But not many were left. Of six hundred and seventy-nine who had entered the pocket only two hundred and fifty-two were alive and of those only one hundred and fifty were able to walk without help." To the story of the hero the military historian adds the postcript : "Abraham Krotoshinsky is a small, shy emaciated youth, with large limpid blue eyes set far apart in a face which suffering and privation have pinched very close to the con- tour of his skull. He has been for six years in the United States which include the service of Uncle Sam. Although he wears on the lapel of his coat the red and blue bar of the Distinguished WORLD WAR VALOR AND SACRIFICE 141 Service Cross, he is not yet a citizen. 'Everybody is good to me/ he keeps saying. When General Pershing himself gave me my Cross he told me I should try to be a good citizen — that that was as much as to be a good soldier. And now, — (this his insistent interruption as others would have him more elaborate the story of daring and glory) — 'now, won't you please tell me how I can, quick, get my citizen papers !' " Major General Alexander, declaring how great he esteemed the honor of being the commander of the Seventy-seventh division, has written: "It contained in its ranks representatives of all who have here sought freedom and citizenship under the flag. Fully represented was the Jewish race. My heart swells with pride that I was their commander. I am thrilled to think of the fact that the principles of Americanism and the principles of loyalty to our country can so ani- mate human nature as to carry on through their trials and their dangers and their decimation.'' One who charges the Jew of America with lack of patriotism and courage has given little study to his history. CHAPTER XI Service Untrammelled by Sectarianism The Jews did not win glory in the World War only upon the fighting line. What their organi- zations did in army and navy welfare work en- titled them to rank with the best of the other noble organizations working in the same field. At the beginning of the war, the general desire to minister to the soldiers led to the formation of a large number of agencies, all earnest in their purpose, but proceeding upon their own lines. It soon became apparent that co-operation was necessary and that much more good could be accomplished by working under some central au- thority. The Jewish Welfare Board was or- ganized at the outbreak of the war, with a New England man of affairs. Colonel Cutler, as its head, and it soon became a most efficient order. Sufficient funds were raised without difficulty. Its service was like that of the Young Men's Christian Association, the Knights of Colum- bus, the Red Cross and similar organizations. Its work began the very week when the existence of a state of war was declared. Many who were leaders in business threw their energies behind the organization. Great sums of money were contributed. Mortimer L. Schiff was the Finance 142 SERVICE UNTRAMMELLED BY SECTARIANISM 143 Chairman, and the supply of funds was so liberal that the most ample provision was made for all Jews who were in the service. But it soon became evident that the great in- struments of helpfulness should be operated in concert with each other, and in response to an appeal of President Wilson complete co-operation was secured, and the work thereafter showed a symmetry and effectiveness, which made it un- matched in warfare. "It was evident from the first'' the President de- clared, "and has become increasingly evident that the service rendered by these agencies to our army and our Allies, are essentially one and all of a kind, and must of necessity, if well rendered, be ren- dered in the closest co-operation. Through their agencies the moral and spiritual resources of the nation have been mobolized behind our forces and used in the finest way, and they are contributing directly and effectively to the winning of the war." The Jewish Welfare Board was most willing to adopt the suggestion of the President and blend its activities with those of other organiza- tions. Indeed, it had previously acted upon the principle of co-operation and put on record its appreciation of the help it had received from the other workers. "Not only have we co-ordinated Jewish activities," it declared, "but we have co- operated extensively with the non- Jewish agen- 144 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW cies, with the Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association, Knights of Columbus, American Red Cross, American Library Association, and the War Camp Com- munity Service. We have exchanged kindnesses Hberally. We have received much and we have in turn striven to give in accordance with our capacity and substance, without foregoing a jot of our individual character, indeed rather con- serving and developing it. We have drawn closer and closer to one another in the bonds of mutual sympathy and self-respect." The chairman of the Training Camp activities, Mr. Raymond D. Fosdick, wrote of the work of the Jews and of the other organizations: "In 1916," he said, "I made an inspection report upon conditions among our troops on the Mexican bor- der, and it seems incredible that within two years thereafter so great a change to the good could take place. In that report I said to the Secre- tary of War that our army was demoralized; that their morals were shot to pieces ; that vicious influences had been allowed to surround them and that the boys were coming back home with scars not won in honorable conflict. In 1917, entering this war, it was resolved that those bad conditions were not again to be permitted. Hence the creation of the Commission of Train- ing Camp Activities, the Government undertaking SERVICE UNTRAMMELLED BY SECTARIANISM 145 to initiate wholesome agencies ; and so came about the Jewish Welfare, the Young Men's Christian Association, The National Catholic War Council, camp and cantonment operations. Three great branches they have been in humanity work. "The sectarian lines have vanished, and this work that has been carried on has not been carried on as Jewish work, or Protestant work, or Catholic work; it has been fundamentally an American work, carried on for all the troops in the camps without regard to faith." And, in addition to this, the Rev. John J. Burke, who in the interdenominational army wel- fare work was the representative of the Catholic War Council, in a public statement said: "In the work of this war, in touch with the larger wel- fare work and religious work, in touch with all the religious denominations of the country, in touch with the Government, there is no organiza- tion that has shown itself more American, more fair, better organized, with its own powers and its own strength, to help the cause of our Govern- ment, to help the victory of America and to put the accent on the word Democracy, than the Jew- ish Welfare Board. I speak as one who has been intimately connected with the welfare work and religious work through all the time of this war. We have proved to the world that we can and do govern ourselves, that we live together with 146 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW mutual sympathy and understanding and justice and that our American flag is the safeguard of all three — of Protestant and Catholic and Jew."* "I tender to the Jewish Welfare Board my thanks in the name of the Allied Armies/' Mar- shal Foch wrote; and this was written by Gen- eral Pershing: "The American Expeditionary Forces thank the Jewish Welfare Board." Jacob H. Schiff , who from the start was the ani- mating genius of this great goodwill adventure, had his life's end cheered by testimony like this. At one of his last public appearances Mr. Schiff said: "The fact that the Welfare Board under- stood what to do, in camp and cantonment, for the Jewish soldier was no doubt a good deal re- sponsible for the enthusiam of our young men when they arrived at the battle front. They were proud of being Jews, they were proud of being able to say, 'Provision has been made for us by our own people as provision has been made by other denominations for their own men.' That is what the Jewish Welfare Board has done, and *"We are not all of the same faith, but we are co-workers and brothers in the same sacred cause. We find no difficulty in according mutual re- spect to the religious observances of each other, regardless of how they may differ in themselves. We are making history today, when Jew and Gentile meet in mutual respect to assist in a religious ceremony which is of great importance to worshippers of the Hebrew faith. It is not neces- sary that we should entertain the same view in essentials of religious faith in order to justify our participation in this ceremony. It is only necessary that we should have an earnest desire to be liberal-minded and to show kindly consideration for the convictions of others, regardless of their difference from our own, to drop any feeling of prejudice and be animated by but one desire: to promote the sacred interests of our be- loved country." — Major General J . Franklin Bell, at the dedication of the Jewish Ark at Camp Upton, July 14, 1918. SERVICE UNTRAMMELLED BY SECTARIANISM 147 that is what we must be grateful for." "The United War Work campaign — Catholic, Protestant, Jew, in heart and hand alliance for the good that they could do, — was a great grati- fication," officially records Mortimer Schiff. It was a monument, indeed, to his father's memory. "It provided generously for soldiers and sailors of all faiths," said Woodrow Wilson. "Its facili- ties," said Raymond Fosdick, "were employed by Gentile and Jew alike." And James K. Kelly, Knights of Columbus Secretary, adds: "I have been intimate with Catholic War Work and Jewish War Work alike — and the Jews certainly are broad minded, they were good to everybody." "The first fruits of the great struggle for world freedom," Louis Marshall has denominated the United War Work campaign. Here, again, as well as upon the field of battle, the Jew showed himself patriotic and broadly American. Any comprehensive review of the part taken by the Jews in the World War is conclusive upon the question of their patriotism. The number who en- tered the service, the bravery of the soldiers and the superb contribution which they made in the Wel- fare Work of the War give ground for pride to all f airminded Americans. They kept in step with the great mass of their countrymen, and nobly earned the right to be trusted by them without prejudice. CHAPTER XII Pride in American Citizenship It is charged that the Jews have so great a number of organizations within the Hnes of their race, that their attention is diverted from those broad things that concern the whole country to the things that concern only their race. But there is ample reason for these organizations,* as will readily appear from the work they have to do. In the first place, there are the natural orders that spring up among different races; then the Jews have a religious creed of their own and so, coinciding with the lines of race, would be the or- ganizations growing out of their church. When they first came to this country, they established charities and sheltering guardian associations to do that very thing. In New York, for example, they were commanded to take care of their own poor. And then in some countries in Europe the members of the race were subjected to cruel persecutions, and the energies of the Jews in this country needed to be directed to giving relief to their fellow Jews abroad, which they would otherwise not have received. ♦Appendix: "Service and Fraternity." 148 PRIDE IN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 149 It will be well to consider more in detail the work of some of the more important of these or- ganizations. About the middle of the last century there was formed in New York a Jewish frater- nity, Bundes Sohne, or Sons of the Covenant, the equivalent of which is found in the Hebrew title of B'nai B'rith, and it may be treated as a broadly representative Jewish organization. Its work has been to support charities, to promote educa- tion and, wherever in the world Jews were op- pressed because they were Jews, to extend to them a helping hand. It was the dream of a me- chanic at the outset, and its operations now ex- tend over the whole world. During the Civil War it was charged that the order, having a considerable membership in the Confederacy, made its own special purposes para- mount to the good of the Union, and the head of the National Secret Service pronounced it "a dis- loyal organization, supporting traitors." The Order demanded an investigation. And it was found that there was no merit in the accusation, but that the fraternity was concerned in work which both President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton approved. The membership of the order multiplied. Its president visited Europe and extended the program of helpfulness to the race all over the world. Its work became most aggressive under Leo N. Levi, who was a 150 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW distinguished lawyer of the South, and a graduate of the University of Virginia. The charitable side of the work and its help to the unfortunate was expanded, but that was not the great work done by the Society under Mr. Levi. Through him it rendered a memorable service to the cause of religious liberty throughout the world. He was a young man, full of energy and ambi- tion, and when there came the news of the ter- rible slaughter at Kishineff, he subordinated all other considerations in his strivings against a system under which such an atrocity was pos- sible. He prepared a petition addressed to the Czar himself, secured a great number of sig- natures to it, and he asked President Roosevelt to convey this message directly to our diplomatic representative at St. Petersburg, for presenta- tion to the Czar. It was a dignified message and there never was a nobler appeal made in behalf of religious freedom. These quotations will show its quality: "The cruel outrages perpetrated at Kishineff during Easter of 1903 have excited horror and reprobation throughout the world. Until your Majesty gave special and personal directions, the local authorities failed to maintain order or sup- press the rioting. The victims were Jews, and the assault was the result of race and religious PRIDE IN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 151 prejudice. The rioters violated the laws of Russia. "The westward migration of Russian Jews which has proceeded for over twenty years, is being stimulated by these fears, and already that movement has become so great as to overshadow in magnitude the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and to rank with the exodus of Egypt. "Religious persecution is more sinful and more fatuous than war. War is sometimes necessary, honorable and just; religious persecution is never defensible. "The sinfulness and folly which give impulse to unnecessary war received their greatest check when your Majesty's initiative resulted in an in- ternational court of peace. "With such an example before it, the civilized world cherishes the hope that upon the same ini- tiative there shall be fixed in the early days of the twentieth century the enduring principles of re- ligious liberty ; that by a gracious and convincing expression your Majesty will proclaim, not only for the government of your own subjects, but also for the guidance of all civilized men, that none shall suffer in person, property, liberty, honor or life because of his religious belief; that the humblest subject or citizen may worship ac- cording to the dictates of his own conscience, and that government, whatever its former agencies. 152 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW must safeguard these rights and immunities by the exercise of all its powers. "Far removed from your Majesty's dominions, living under different conditions and owing alle- giance to another Government, your petitioners yet venture, in the name of civilization, to plead for religious liberty and tolerance; to plead that he who led his own people and all others to the shrine of peace will add new lustre to his reign and fame by leading a new movement that shall commit the whole world in opposition to religious persecution." On July 14th, 1903, this impressive document was, by the order of President Roosevelt, cabled to the American Charge d' Affaires at St. Peters- burg, with a letter of introduction signed by Sec- retary Hay. It made no impression in the cold atmosphere of St. Petersburg. The Czar's gov- ernment refused to consider or even receive it. The original petition with its thousands of signatures was bound in a suitable volume, and transmitted to Secretary Hay, who in official ac- knowledgment wrote: "It gives me pleasure to accept the charge of this important and significant document, and assign it a place in the archives of the Depart- ment of State. "Although this copy of your petition did not reach the high destination for which it was in- PRIDE IN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 153 tended, its words have attained a world-wide publicity, and have found a lodgment in many thousands of minds. This petition will be always memorable, not only for what it contains, but also for the number and weight of the signatures attached to it, embracing some of the most emi- nent names of our generation, of men renowned for intelligence, philanthropy and public spirit. In future, when the students of history come to peruse this document, they will wonder how the petitioners, moved to profound indignation by in- tolerable wrongs perpetrated on the innocent and helpless, should have expressed themselves in language so earnest and eloquent and yet so dig- nified, so moderate and decorous. It is a valu- able addition to public literature, and it will be sacredly cherished among the treasures of this Department." This appeal undoubtedly affected the public opinion of the world, and constitutes a landmark in the long history of Jewish persecution. It was characteristic of the leadership of Leo Levi who administered his order broadly and did nothing more narrow than to assert the right of the members of his race to liberty. His appeals were liberal enough to include at the same time the same rights for all men. The spirit of Levi still animates his order. His successor, Adolf Kraus, Chicago jurist, displays 154 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW the same vigor for the same ideals. At a recent convention of the order Mr. Kraus presented with great force the attitude of his order. "American citizenship," he said, "is too pre- cious a boon to be forced or thrust upon anyone. It is an honor that ought to be conferred upon him only who understands what it means, appre- ciates its worth, earnestly desires it, and has proven himself worthy to receive it. That which is easily attained is little appreciated. No alien should be admitted to American citizenship who has not during his probationary period brought himself to an understanding of the benefits and obligations of such citizenship, and by his life and conduct shown his appreciation of it, his de- sire for it, and his fitness to achieve it. For the welfare of America, for the welfare of Judaism, we as Jews should see to it that no Jew is ad- mitted to American citizenship who is not worthy of that honor, and that everyone who comes to this country and proves himself unworthy to re- main in it, is ferreted out and sent back to the country from whence he came. Let every alien Jew who seeks to remain in America understand that hatred for American institutions and affilia- tion with those elements which seek their de- struction, are inconsistent with further residence in America, not only in the opinion of the United States Government, but also in the opinion of the PRIDE IN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 155 great body of Jews who are proud of their American citizenship and who will tolerate no assault upon it by anyone whose act might call into question their appreciation of it." This lofty ideal of citizenship cannot be im- pressed too often upon all immigrants into our country of whatever creed, and it is a most hope- ful sign that this widespread Jewish organization should be engaged in the work of putting this ideal in practice. Even if no reference is made to the valuable work of the order in other fields, what it has done in behalf of religious liberty and to maintain a high standard of our citizen- ship amply justifies its existence. The difficulties which have been imposed upon the Jews by reason of the sudden increase in im- migration caused by the persecutions in south- eastern Europe cannot be exaggerated. Our Jewish population more than doubled in twenty years and there was a very heavy burden per capita imposed upon the Jews of this country when this sudden immigration set in. The Jew- ish immigrants did not come for the reason ani- mating the recent immigration of the other races. Men would come from Italy or Germany or Eng- land to better their conditions individually but the Jews came fleeing from persecution. They espe- cially needed help and, unless they were to be- 156 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW come public charges, that help would need to come from the members of their own race. Thus, as a result of the persecutions in Eastern Europe, great numbers of destitute Jews came scurrying to this country and many of them were likely to become public charges and undoubtedly would have done so had they not received im- mediate help from their own kind. Our Jewish population then was relatively small compared with the inundation of the race which came from abroad and a great burden was put upon them adequately to care for the incomers. But they responded most effectively to the de- mand. There has been no better work done in caring for incoming immigrants and in train- ing them for American citizenship than has been done by the American Jews during the last twenty years, and it is unquestionable that the in- fluence of leading Jews like Dr. Cyrus Adler, Adolph Lewisohn, Louis Marshall, Jacob H. Schiff, the Strauses, the Seligmans, the Lehmans, the venerable Pereira and F. de Sola Mendes, Julius Rosenwald, Mayer S. Isaacs, Edward Lauterbach, Nathan Bijur, Julian W. Mack and Mayer Sulzberger, has been efficiently exerted. When these fugitives from Russian and Roumanian oppression reached our shores, they were pitiable objects, destitute in almost every PRIDE IN AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP 157 particular, yet already large numbers of them have achieved success in our country. The Jews have also established a Jewish Pub- lication Society which has greatly developed scholarship among the members of the race. Among the things it has accomplished is the translation of the Jewish Scriptures which is pro- nounced by scholars, a literary masterpiece. His- tories, essays and almost every other form of literature from Jewish scholars have also been given to the public. The Jewish Publication Society takes its place with the American Bible Society, the Methodist Book Concern and other similar organizations. Closely related to the Pub- lication Society is the work of the American Jew- ish Historical Society, an institution alive with enthusiasm and the devotion of patriotic scholar- ship.''' For more than two score years Dr. Cyrus Adler, who with Judge Mayer Sulzberger was foremost in its foundation, has served in its presi- dency — just succeeded by Dr. A. S. W. Rosen- bach, whose prominence and authority in the world of rare books, is international. The American Jewish Committee, at the head of which stands Mr. Marshall, is the supervising force for most of the organized work done among the Jews. One of the enterprises of this com- *Appendix: "American Historical Research." 158 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW mittee is the establishment of a Bureau of Jewish Social Research and Statistics. It is well worth while scanning this adventure in human helpful- ness. One survey made by this Bureau concerns the Care of Dependent Children, another Recre- ation Facilities, and another the Study of Philan- thropic Operations. Sociological interest attends each one of these inquiries. What more helpful service could be rendered than to solve the problem of Child Dependency? This Bureau has created a welfare bureau to sup- plement child-caring institutions. The result of their scientific work will have a world-wide effect and is likely to furnish excellent examples for similar organizations to follow. I think it may be said generally of the Jewish organizations that they have been such as were responsive to the peculiar conditions of the race, and the work they have done as a whole has been consist- ent with the highest duties of citizenship and has proved beneficial to the whole country. CHAPTER XIII Intolerance's Basis of Falsehood The brief review of the record of the Jew in America and especially in its wars leaves nothing whatever of the accusation that he is unpatriotic. The charge never had any basis in reason. There is no more ground for the belief that the Jew can- not today be true to any country of which he is permitted genuinely to become a part, with the same rights as those of the other inhabitants, than there is to believe that the Saxons or the Normans cannot be true to England, or that there can be no patriotism in America because the descendants of the different races will hold their first allegiance to the lands from which they sprang. It is claimed that the Jews are different from other sections of our population because they have no race home and that, if Palestine should be reclaimed for them, some features of the so- called "Jewish problem" would disappear. On the question of reclamation there appears to be much difference of opinion among the Jews themselves; but whatever might be its advan- tages, it is difficult to believe that the solution of the world-wide Jewish problem would be one of them. That problem must be settled by the dif- 159 160 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ferent nations among which the great mass of the Jews will continue to live and must be settled by them on the lines of justice, of which America has furnished an example. It must be the care of America not to break with her noble past. There are among the members of other race stocks in our country some who are charged with putting the interests of their motherlands above that of their adopted country. But in the nature of things the Jew can have no hyphenated citi- zenship because he has no motherland except that in which he lives, and the Canaan which might be reclaimed is still in the future and would form too narrow a basis for a state which should com- prehend all the members of the Jewish race. If it were true that for many centuries and until recent times the Jews displayed little attachment to some of the countries in which they lived, why, it may pertinently be asked, should they have been consumed with love for lands in which they were in constant danger of being plundered, in which they were segregated and hunted like wild beasts, in which they were branded and liable to be beaten and torn limb from limb, or burned at the stake? A country which accepts support from a race must in honor accord it protection. A society which steadily frowns upon a race can hardly expect its love in return. That country will command the homage of any normal human intolerance's basis of falsehood 161 being which receives him as one of its own, which confers benefits upon him and treats him as if he were a man. And because he is a man he is Hkely to have Httle love for a land which accords him worse treatment than a beast of burden should receive. It is charged that the Jew is a revolutionist. Men take part in revolutions against govern- ments because of oppression. The Jews in that respect do not differ from other men unless on the side of conservatism. That is shown by the French Revolution, as it is shown by the revolu- tion in Russia. The Jews were not the leaders in the French Revolution, although they took part in it, as did other men, but many of them were its victims. In Russia they suffered under the same abso- lutism which crushed the masses of the people, and in addition they suffered under a peculiar oppression directed towards them as the mem- bers of a race. Why should they not have joined in the revolt? The collapse of Russian absolut- ism in the throes of the World's War was practi- cally inevitable. The assertion of the rights of the people at large in the uprising led by Keren- sky was probably supported by the mass of the Russian people, including the Russian Jews, but it is a glaring error to deduce from this revolu- tionary identification the sympathy of the Jews 162 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW with Bolshevism. On this point Kerensky him- self, foremost foe and victim of Bolshevism, and who is not a Jew, has spoken explicitly. In a statement contributed to the Jewish Chronicle of London, in November, 1918, he said: "When in the first days of the Revolution I was Minister of Justice, I decreed the full eman- cipation of the Jews, thus granting to them the same rights as to all other citizens. Ninety-nine per cent, of the Russian Jews are against the Bolshevists, and during the whole of the Revolu- tion, the Jewish intellectuals and the Jewish mass, were, of all non-Russian races, the most faithful supporters of the Revolution with which they were closely linked as well as with the gen- eral interests of the country. And although nu- merous Jews are to be found among the Bolshe- vik leaders they are renegades most of whom had emigrated and lost every contact with Russia and were no longer representative of Russian Jewry. "During the Revolution the Jews everywhere worked together with the parties who had co- alesced to organize and support the Provisional Government. The Jewish bankers, firms, work- ers' unions, the bank — they were all for na- tional defense and for cooperation with the mod- erate 'bourgeois' elements in the upbuilding of the new State." intolerance's basis of falsehood 163 It is significant of the position of the mass of the Jews, as Kerensky remarks, that Anti-Semi- tism was fomented with the rise of Bolshevism to power and he aptly characterizes this move- ment as a criminal act of the Bolsheviks. How the Jewish communities in Russia have fared under the Bolshevist regime is succinctly told by Dr. D. Pazmanik, a delegate from the Crimea to the Peace Conference, in the Jewish Chronicle of London, September 5, 1919. "I estimate," said Dr. Pazmanik, "that there are about 2,000,- 000 Jews in Bolshevist Russia, and as they be- long in the main to the so-called Bourgeois classes, they have been completely impoverished and economically annihilated. Many communi- ties as such, have been destroyed. Hebrew schools and the Hebrew press are prohibited and Zionism is forbidden. The Bolsheviks refused to allow money to be subscribed for the mainte- nance of the synagogues, with the result that the Rabbis and synagogue officials are without salaries." Mr. Israel Cohen, who contributed exact statis- tical reports to the Jewish Chronicle of December 12, 1919, in substantial confirmation of the evi- dence given by Kerensky and others, explains pithily that "the unpopularity of Bolshevism among the Jews is due not only to its politics but to its predatory economics. For the establishment 164 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW of the communist regime was aimed essentially at the propertied class, the bourgeoisie ; it struck principally at the existence of the merchants, the manufacturers and the members of the liberal professions who were most largely recruited from the Jewish community." If the Jews bore a significant or an im- portant part in Bolshevism, evidence of it would be found in the personnel of the leaders of the Soviet Government. The "council of the people's commissars" is made up of the heads of the great departments of the Government including the President, Lenin, and numbers 17 mem- bers. Of these 17 members only one, Trotzky, is a Jew. Numerous lists of subordinate officials containing Jewish names have been produced. Mr. John Spargo effectually punctures these lists by showing they are little better than pure fabri- cations.* It is further pointed out by Israel Zangwill that the question of Jewish participation in the brutal execution of the Czar and his family is definitely determined. "Even the Minister of Justice under Koltchak's Government has certi- fied that among the number of persons proved by the date of the preliminary inquiry to have been guilty of the assassination of the late Em- peror Nicholas II and his family, there was not *"The Jew and American Ideals" — John Spargo. Harper & Brothers. INTOLERANCES BASIS OF FALSEHOOD 165 any person of Jewish descent." The Russian Jew showed himself in favor of a just govern- ment, but equally against disorder. The approved formula of American anti- Semitism is simple. Accuse the Jews of every- thing wrong in the body politic from crooked business to crooked base-ball and crooked Tam- many with its long line of Jewish leaders like Croker and Murphy, and let the accusations flower out in the two stupendous lies : "The Jews are the architects of Bolshevism in Russia," and "The Jews brought on the World War." The case against the Jews is largely based upon false or exaggerated premises. They are accused of financial or industrial monopoly where precisely the same charge may be levelled with equal if not greater proof, against men of other races. If the name of a Jew is uncovered in any wide- spread swindle, at once the name of the other guilty persons, who are of other races, are ig- nored and he is made the scapegoat to bear the burdens of the crimes of all. Mr. Belloc assigns the Panama Canal scandal as a reason for an- tagonism to the Jew, but what shall be said of the French for some very good Gallic names in that swindle loomed large across the Atlantic? The Dreyfus case Mr. Belloc assigns as another basis for agitation against him. But the Drey- fus case was as infamous a conspiracy to destroy 166 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW an innocent man on account of his race as was ever known. It was so outrageous as to cause the very stones to cry out for justice. Those who in that time at the risk of their free- dom and their Hves championed Dreyfus ren- dered an inestimable service to France by eras- ing in part at least a foul blot upon her fair name. It should destroy anti- Jewish prejudice instead of fomenting it. As to the South African war, we may be permitted to question Jewish respon- sibility for it as well as its responsibility for the great World War. If there were here and there a Jew involved, there were also great numbers of other races. The Jewish responsibility in each case seems to be established by assertion rather than by proof. If we may judge from the one country in the world which has treated the Jew as a man and a self-governing citizen, he has shown that he is capable of exalted patriotism, and that he rever- ences his citizenship in such a country. CHAPTER XIV Rise to Eminence in World Finance The Jews have always been conspicuous for administrative talent and those qualities that fit men for what is comprehended under the term business. In ancient times, indeed until times that may fairly be called modern, most kinds of business were held in disrepute. The lending of money was an unpopular occupation in the time of Rome. The wages of working men were, ac- cording to Cicero, the mere badges of their servi- tude. Retailers of goods were held in disrepute because, according to the same authority, if they were to succeed it was necessary that they should lie. Wholesale commerce even was to an extent disreputable although it was better than retail trade.* To raise and sell food seemed the only business becoming in a gentleman. We might fairly infer that Roman ideals would not sanction gaining money on a large scale un- less by plundering provinces or stealing the public lands by laws passed through the Senate for the benefit of its members. But in the Dark and Middle Ages, when the Jew was under the ban, he was prohibited from even entering upon many of those common and neces- *Vide, "Story of the Jews"— James K. Hosmer. 167 , 168 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW sary pursuits which were held in scorn by para- sitic aristocracies and only the most odious call- ings were open to him. The most odious pursuit of all was almost forced upon him — the lending of money upon interest, which was not only in bad repute but was prohibited by the church as contrary to the precepts of Christianity. It was heresy for a Christian to take interest. The world, however, was not wholly stagnant even in the dark times, and to the extent to which there was commerce, it was a borrowing and a lending world. The Jew was forced to meet the want in society and to become the money lender. The risks of the business, its disrepute and the scarcity of coin, conspired to make even justi- fiable rates of interest high. But laws against usury were lax and were loosely enforced. In Aragon the lender was permitted to charge a rate of twenty per cent and in Castile as much as thirty-three and one-third; and even these limiting laws were not respected and money lend- ing justly became the most hateful of all callings, and Jews who engaged in it augmented the hos- tility to their race. It is urged against the Jew that his religion authorized a discrimination against the non- Jew; and a passage from Deuteronomy is often cited, "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 169 upon usury." Dr. Adler, a distinguished Chief Rabbi of London, pointed out that the correct translation of the Hebrew would be "interest'' and not "usury," and that while a Jew might lend upon interest to a stranger he was prohibited from taking interest from another Jew ; and that the purpose of this law was to prevent the cen- tralization of the ownership of land in Palestine in a few hands, as afterwards happened in Italy. In Palestine every fiftieth year was called The Year of Jubilee, because all burdens upon land were cancelled every fifty years (Lev. XXV) and land which was encumbered or had been lost to the original owner reverted to him or his heirs. It was the purpose of this statesmanlike policy of Moses to prevent a few men from owning the whole of Palestine. But it was different with regard to foreign commerce of which the trade routes of three continents passed through the country. If an Israelite possessed capital which he could not utilize in his own country, he had a right to demand from a member of a foreign state some consideration for the use of the money or capital lent to him, and if the foreigner applied the capital to gainful enterprise, no Mosaic prin- ciples were infringed by charging him interest. This permission only applied to sums borrowed for money-making purposes. When the Gentile needed the loan of money not for commerce but 170 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW for his subsistence, the Mosaic law made no dif- ference between the stranger and the Jew — it being written : "And if thy brother be waxen poor and his hand f aileth with thee, then thou shalt re- Heve him. Yea though he be a stranger and a sojourner ; that he may Hve with thee. Take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." This was in effect the position of Haym Salo- mon, as set forth in the personal letters of Madi- son, when the former was out of his own re- sources helping to keep alive the members of the Continental Congress and refusing to take inter- est for his loans. Dr. Adler, of London, whom I have quoted, holds that the Mosaic law "did not allow the Jew to make any distinction between the Jew and the Gentile in the exercise of philan- thropy. He was bidden to visit the sick among the non-Israelites, to relieve the poor and to bury the dead even as those of his own people." The highest authorities in Christian churches could be ranged against the charge that the Jew- ish law was based on race selfishness. Dean Stanley gave weighty expression to the opposite view when he said : "They," the Commandments, "represent to us both in fact and idea, the gran- ite foundation, the immovable mountain, on which the world is built up, without which all theories of religion are but as shifting and fleeting clouds ; they give us the two homely fundamental laws. RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 171 which all subsequent religion has but confirmed and sanctioned — the law of our duty towards God and the law of our duty towards our neigh- bor." It seems too clear to require argument that the Jews of the Middle Ages were not only driven to lending money because the business was prohibited to others, but they were driven to it by having other callings closed against them. A great Catholic Bishop declared : "O, Nations, if you recall the past faults of the Jews and their corruptions, let it be to deplore your own work." And Martin Luther said in a pamphlet published in 1523 : "If we prohibit the Jews from following trades and civil occupations, we compel them to become usurers." Though the lending of money was forced upon the Jew during the Middle Ages by the neces- sities of society and of himself, none the less the occupation won his race the ill-will of the public generally and especially of those who borrowed. "Hold, Father," said Isaac in Ivanhoe, re- sponding to the angry friar, "mitigate and as- suage your choler. I pray for your Reverence to remember that I force my monies upon no one. But when churchman and layman, prince and prior, knight and priest, come knocking to Isaac's door, they borrow not his shekels with these uncivil terms. It is then 'Friend Isaac, will 172 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW you pleasure us in this matter, and our day shall be truly kept or God sa'me.' And 'Kind Isaac, if ever you served man, show yourself a friend in this need!' And when the day comes and I ask my own, then what hear I but 'Damned Jew!' and 'The curse of Egypt on your tribe !', and all that can stir up the rude and uncivil populace against poor strangers." The unregulated business of lending money by individuals illustrates the most atrocious abuses whether conducted by Jew or Gentile, and the monopoly of abuse cannot be ascribed to any race. The one, no more than the other, was above taking interest. The Tharaud brothers, who break away from the prevailing French anti-Semitism long enough to idealize the Jew,* yet credit him with having "ten fingers with which to grasp and to argue." And yet there have been found among other races certainly sig- nal instances of avarice. The Jewish money len- der usually showed himself more adventurous than competitors and was willing to stake his money not simply on the narrow values of the security given but upon the chance happenings of future events. Charles James Fox, against whom bets were laid at Brookes' at the most tremendous odds that he would never be rich, *Vide London Mercury, June, 1922. "That piety which has supported them through the sufferings of cen- turies and that passion for the spiritual so strangely blended in them with a keen interest in material things." RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 173 was able to borrow great sums of money from the Jews. They were wilHng to put their money on the chance that his elder brother would die without male issue, and that he would inherit the title and estate of his father. He used gaily to call his ante-chamber "Jerusalem/' because it was usually thronged with Jewish money lenders. And when finally an heir was born to his brother, an atmosphere of gloom hung over the locality which did not, however, extend to the generous Fox or cloud his spirits. "My brother Ste's son" he said, "is a second Messiah, born for the destruction of the Jews." It turned out, however, that Fox's father recognized the claims of his son's creditors and their predicted destruction was averted. When modern banking was established as a science, and all classes of society which were able to engage in it were permitted to do so, the preju- dice against money lending steadily disappeared, and in time it even became a fashionable occupa- tion. As this stage approached, the accumulated experience of the Jew and his command of the laws of finance enabled him to take and to hold for a long time the primacy in the business. The widespread dispersion of the Jews, with their close family and racial connections, facili- tated their commercial transactions in general and especially the movement of bullion to settle 174 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW trade balances. It has been calculated for ex- ample, that Ferdinand Carvajal brought annu- ally to London in the time of Cromwell £100,000 worth of bullion, equal then to a twelfth of the national income, and this was urged as one of the reasons for admitting the Jews into England. By a natural drift, the bullion broking of Europe came almost wholly into the hands of the Jews. Hallam apparently credits the origin of the mod- ern check and bill of exchange to Jewish initia- tion. In a foot note in his "Europe During the Middle Ages" he observes : "Orders to pay money to a particular person were introduced by the Jews about 1183." The decline of the Jewish in- fluence in Italy was attributed "to the transfer of their trade in money to other hands. In the early part of the thirteenth century the merchants of Lombardy took up the business of remitting money by bills of exchange." A painstaking investigator, Joseph Jacobs, has pointed out, that beyond this very important con- tribution to the machinery of modern exchange, the Jew cannot be credited or reproached for the organization of war financing, the bourse or stock exchange or the great instruments for developing and monopolizing commerce. Ehrenberg in his "Das Zeitalter der Fugger" attributes the begin- ning of the modern credit system and thus of modern capitalist in Europe to the meed of RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 175 money payments to mercenary soldiers in the wars between Charles the Fifth and Francis I from 1520 onward. Here for the first time in European finance large sums were lent to govern- ments by individual firms, on the security of the taxes, the Fuggers in Augsburg, financing Charles V; the Strozzi being the main backers of Francis I. While both these leading capitalists enlisted the resources of many other German and Italian firms, there is no evidence, as Mr. Jacobs affirms, of any Jewish capitalists being concerned in the first great attempt to finance modern states as military organizations. There is, further, no original connection of the Jews with the exchanges in which these large credit transac- tions were consumated. The first systematic daily exchange has been traced to Bruges where a special building was named the "Bursa," from a family of Bruges, Van der Burse, which had a purse on its coat of arms. Both name and cus- tom were transferred to Antwerp where the model of all European bourses was built in 1531. In this establishment Mr. Jacobs has been unable to trace any Jewish participation, or in the found- ing of the Royal Exchange in London by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1572, in imitation of the Antwerp Exchange at a time when there were practically no Jews in London. Very slight, if any, connection of the Jew, 176 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW also, appears in the formation of the great trad- ing companies in which the shares had a face value endorsed to bearer and could be dealt with as negotiable property. The beginning of recog- nized joint stock trading dates from the forma- tion of the Dutch East India Company in 1602. The historian Wat j en ascertained from an ex- amination of the books of this company that of the first subscription of six and a half million florins the Jewish contribution consisted of 4,800 florins or less than one-tenth of one per cent. Wat j en further shows that no Jew was allowed to be- come a higher official of this company and not even a director. Similarly in England Jews were excluded from all the "regulated companies'' headed by the English East India Company. Yet no restrictions or exclusions availed to "repress the push of the Jews for participation in trade. In fact trade seemed to revolve around them. The entry obtained in the Dutch West India Company principally by Brazilian Jews who had been driven out of Brazil by persecution, was largely instrumental in transferring the bulk of sugar planting and trade from Brazil to the West Indies, and before the end of the seventeenth cen- tury the Jews were distinguished for activity and success in every sea port which gave them a lodg- ment, and they brought prosperity to the port as well. RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 177 Joseph Addison's connection with the British State Department gave him a comprehensive view of international trade probably unexcelled by any observer of his time. He remarks in an essay in "The Spectator" that the Jews "are, in- deed, so disseminated throughout all the trading- parts of the world that they are become the in- struments by which the most distant nations con- verse with one another and by which mankind are knit together in a general correspondence. They are like the pegs and nails in a great build- ing, which though they are but little valued in themselves are absolutely necessary to keep the whole frame together." They were a species of international cement, binding nations together. It does not appear that the bogy of monopoly had risen before Addison's eye, and the spread of competition soon made it impossible to stir up an alarm to the prejudice of the Jews. Previous to the beginning of the nineteenth century the part played by the Jew in finance had been chiefly that of private money lender and bullion broker and he attained no position of con- spicuous dignity at least in international finance until the rise of the house of Rothschilds, based on extraordinary service to the landgrave ,of Hesse, who made Rothschild his chosen agent for the investment of his great private fortune largely in Frankfort loans and the Danish State 178 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW debt. Nathan Rothschild, one of five sons, went to England about 1805, and had a successful ca- reer as a manufacturer and bullion broker; and through him the money of the Grand Duke was applied to the purchase of bullion for Lord Wel- lesley, just entering upon his Spanish campaigns. Upon the death of Sir Francis Baring in 1810 Nathan Rothschild became the unquestioned master of the London bullion market and pay- ments on the continent by England in the wars with Napoleon from 1808 were made by him, reckoned to amount to £15,000,000. A story throwing light upon the rise of the Rothschild firm, has been so often told that it will bear an- other repetition. In 1815 Nathan repaired to Belgium, that battleground of Europe and inhabited by a war- like race from the time of Caesar. Napoleon had thrown his armies across northern France to strike the decisive blow. From a high point Na- than Rothschild witnessed the battle of Waterloo and saw all the varying fortunes of that dramatic day. After the coming of the Prussians had brought about the decisive defeat of the French, he set out for England first upon a fast horse, then across the stormy sea in a fisherman's boat, and then again in saddle, until he reached Lon- don on the morning of the second day. Everywhere he found men apprehensive and RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 179 fearful over the result of the impending battle which the invincible Napoleon was to give. For two days he alone knew the result and he bought securities from the frightened holders to the full limit of his ability to buy. When the news finally reached the public what he had bought went up in value quickly. It was estimated that he had made $10,000,000 on the rise. It has been urged that the Jew was betting upon a sure thing and that his conduct was not ethical. However that may be, he was at no dis- advantage with speculators since his day, who were not Jews, who have taken advantage of knowledge they had obtained as members of boards of directors or have even secured advance knowledge of the decisions of courts or govern- ments by methods akin to bribery, or have dis- seminated false reports in order to influence mar- kets. He was using knowledge which he had gained with great foresight and even at the risk of his life. He was at least upon as high a plane as the speculators' code. Yet if he had taken the broader view, and relieved the anxiety of thousands of mothers who had sons in the battle and the suspense of the many millions of the people of England when the fortunes of their country were at stake, he would have shown him- self a better citizen ; and, indeed, from the narrow 180 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Standpoint of his own fortunes he would have established his house more solidly in public opin- ion than anything it could gain from the millions made in the speculation. It is only fair to add that the extreme charge that he withheld his in- formation from the British government as well as from the public is denied by some of the more recent investigators. After Waterloo the great Jewish house became the banker for kings and through the power of money very nearly attained control of the desti- nies of nations. The Rothschilds were conscious of their power and sometimes ruled sovereigns and statesmen with a rod of iron. The five brothers Rothschild with establish- ments in Paris, Vienna and Naples, as well as in Berlin and London, from 1818 onward were the chief medium through which the Governments of Europe issued their loans for thirty years, but with the introduction of the joint stock prin- ciple into banks and institutions like the credit mobilier, their predominance was considerably decreased, while the general influence of the Jews in finance was extended, for combinations of Jew- ish firms were prominent in the new organiza- tions ; and such firms did not act together. Heine refers to Rothschild and Fould as "two rabbis of finance who were as much opposed to one an- other as Hillel and Shammai," and in later days RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 181 the conflict of Montagu with Rothschild was equally marked in London. The Sterns obtained the Portuguese loans in opposition to the Roths- childs and the Pereires were successful competi- tors for the concession for the South Russian railways. Although the misfortune of the Barings in 1890 left the firm of Rothschild predominant for the time in the financial world, it would be mis- leading to regard the Jewish element in inter- national finance as increasing in importance dur- ing the whole of the nineteenth century. On the contrary it reached its peak, in 1848, when the third French Revolution reduced the importance of Baron James de Rothschild, and at the same time introduced the principle of state loans. Since that time, other organizations English, French and German not of the Jewish race, have estab- lished branches in the different capitals of Europe as well as in North and South America. The de- velopment of America brought great houses into existence which were able to dispute the primacy and the Rothschilds no longer wielded the finan- cial sceptre. Very much was taken from the im- portance of private bankers when the public funds were subscribed for directly by'the people. This practice which was inaugurated on a large scale in 1848 culminated in 1917 and 1918 when more than $20,000,000,000 of bonds were bought 182 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW directly from the Government by the American people. The multiplication of incorporated banks and trust companies also cut very deeply into the business of the private banker. A favorite method of juggling with "the "Protocols'' is to assert that subsequent events prove their genuineness. For instance the "elders" confess that it is the purpose of the Jews as a race to secure control of the finances of the world. "Is that not," we are asked, "the very thing they are doing? They are governing the nations through their power over money." The same wicked conspiracy could have been charged a century ago with greater plausibility and the rise of the Rothschilds would have been pointed to as fulfillment, as if the Rothschilds would not have attempted to do what they did if they had been Hottentots. The same charge can be levelled against any other race and can be justified by the same kind of proof. An eminent member of the Scotch clan piles up a greater amount of money than any Jew ever possessed, and he in turn is over-topped by men who deal in oil, each of whom has amassed an even greater fortune; or a gentleman who cer- tainly cannot be charged with any Jewish affilia- tion rolls up in a few years in the automobile business a greater fortune than any one of the Rothschilds ever could claim; or an American RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 183 banking firm conducts financial operations for nations in the great world war of a magnitude that eclipses all the exploits of banking since the beginning of time. What is to be said of these gentlemen? What, for instance of the great house of Morgan which is a power in every capi- tal? If these particular things had been done by- Jews what a godsend it would be to those who are riding the hobby that the Jews seek to control the money of Christendom for the glory of their race and in furtherance of a conspiracy for it to rule the world. They are even accused of establish- ing the lines of the Federal Reserve Act. But if they have committed no greater crime than that their forgiveness would not seem to be beyond hope. One hears nothing of the race stock of a Rockefeller or a Morgan, but if he were a Jew one would hear nothing else. Undoubtedly the Jew is clever in banking as in general business, but so are other men and all of them are willing to do all the profitable busi- ness they are capable of doing. It is pure assump- tion to say that a man is in business as a Jew any more than as an Englishman or as a member of any other race, and it is an assumption also to ascribe the strivings of any of them merely to the spur of race. Even more transparent is it to point to the success of individuals, in winning; 184 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW what nearly all men are striving for, as evidence of a racial conspiracy. The charge is made that in fulfillment of the protocols Jewish conspirators have secured con- trol of the vital industries of the country. The question that directs attention to our common knowledge is an effective answer. Do they con- trol in lumber, coal, iron and steel, oil, grain, cotton and wool, the great banking institutions, insurance companies, the motor industry, meats, railroads, or in any of the great so-called trusts ? It is charged that the Jew is securing control of the newspapers. One who is reasonably well informed has only to run over in his mind the names of the different journals and their owners to conclude that the vast majority of them are con- trolled by others than Jews. It is true that here and there some moribund newspaper with an honorable past has been saved from bankruptcy by Jews and has become a prosperous organ and great in every aspect of journalism. One who came to this country, a penniless immigrant from Austria, reestablished the World and trans- formed it into a newspaper of great power. Cer- tainly the acquisition of the World by Joseph Pulitzer or of the New York Times by Adolph Ochs constituted anything but a menace to the country or to civilization. In private finance, where the control of the RISE TO EMINENCE IN WORLD FINANCE 185 Jew is reputed to be the strongest, the mem- bership of the New York Stock Exchange would be to an extent indicative. It is said Jews form less than one-eighth of its membership although more than one-fourth of the population of the city. Does such success as the Jew has attained among us show in the slightest degree a con- spiracy against the other races? Or does it show that any of the other great imperial races of the modern world stands in need of protection against the Jew by proscription and a return to medievalism ? CHAPTER XV In the Stress of Wall Street Conflict The controversy about the Jew centers most fiercely upon his relations to finance and business. The summary already given of the development of the Jews' part in finance shows that most of the occupations by which he might make a living were for a long period closed to him, except that of money lender, and it is as money lender that the literature of the world has been chiefly con- cerned with him. Shakespeare has immortalized the financial Jew in Shylock and that character has been a favorite with so many poets that his real pater- nity has long been in dispute. But Shylock is only Shylock, who may or may not ever have had an existence as an individual. He certainly does not exist as a type or representative of the ancient or modern Jew. Willingness to lose his money, and to take life instead, because it was nominated in the bond, is as far as possible from the char- acteristics of the Jew. The steady success of the Jew in business is of itself sufficient to dispel the idea that business dishonor or the spirit of revenge are his animating characteristics. As to the basis for Jewish success in business, a no- table man of their own has recently written upon 186 IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 187 the subject with such point and brevity that what he says is well worth quoting: "According to the Scriptures," writes Mr. Adolph Lewisohn, "in the early stages most Jews were engaged as farmers in tilling the land and at that time distinguished themselves in this vocation. Later on, when the opportunity to work on the land was denied to the Jews in most of the countries, they turned their energies to commerce and industry, and they have been most successful in that direction. The main reason for the success of the Jews as bankers and in trade has been their integrity and dependability, which earned for them the confidence of the com- munity. During the Napoleonic wars, when the German Grand Duke of Hesse left for the front and wanted to safeguard his possessions during his absence he did not deposit his property with any large bank or bankers publicly known in the large centres, but instead chose a small banker of his country with whom he deposited his wealth without any security. On the Grand Duke's re- turn from the war this small country banker, whose name was Rothschild, handed him back his possessions with interest added. That was the foundation of the great wealth and standing of the Rothschild family, based on honesty and trustworthiness. I am confident that the main reason for the great success of the Jews all over 188 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW the world as bankers and in industry and trade is the confidence which the Jew justly inspires." The idea presented by Mr. Lewisohn is that the Jew succeeds in business and trade because he can be relied upon, and he illustrates his idea by the founding of the house of Rothschild, which was based upon his rigid observance of the trust which had been reposed in him in peril- ous times. Having received the fortune of an- other, he preserved it, not hidden in a napkin but in service, and he faithfully returned the for- tune itself and what he had made it yield. This summary derives force from the name of the writer, Adolph Lewisohn, who represents fine achievements in business, in the way he has performed the duties of citizenship and in philanthropy. His great fortune has not been made greater by means of crooked flotations palmed ofif upon many small investors, but he has brought prosperity to those who have been associated with him. He has given princely sums to educa- tion and to public service and he has confined his giving by no means to the institutions of his race, but has generously aided the work of those which have aimed to serve society at large. No man of America has rendered more important aid than he to improve the condition of unfor- tunates in prison and secure employment for them after regaining their freedom, indeed to do away IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 189 with prisons altogether. Chief Justice Taft once said of him "The country is the better for Adolph Lewisohn's coming/' Wall Street is the term that is generally used in speaking of high finance, and cynical critics choose often to associate it with crooked finance. From the establishment of Wall Street as an in- stitution the Jew has played a part there, though varying from time to time in importance. But at no time has he played a greater part according to his proportion of the population than have other sections of the people. He took part with others in the formation of the Exchange. A Jew was its Secretary in the early days and members of that race have often served upon the highest governing committees of the Exchange. In the history of Wall Street there have been repudiations of contracts on a large scale, and by men who were conspicuous in their time, but Jews have cut little or no figure in these repudiations. Nor in the great historic financial scandals which we have had in the country, has the Jew been at all conspicuous. When Andrew Jackson joined battle with Nicholas Biddle and destroyed the United States Bank there were many charges of fraud and financial corruption. A quarter of a cen- tury later there were great contract iniquities brought to light in the civil war, and in the Credit 190 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Mobilier and other scandals the names of finan- ciers and statesmen were brought to shame. Sensational frauds were committed under our tariff laws. B'ut in all this the Jew was not conspicuous, even if he was seen at all. And then from time to time there have been public investigations, which have revealed much evil in the conduct of corporate and other organiza- tions, including great trusts. There is, indeed, one Jew name notably con- nected with these depravities, but it is that of one who has brought them to light. Samuel Untermyer, has become nationally known for the wholesome crusading part he has played in these investigations, even as Charles Evans Hughes won his earliest distinction in the in- surance investigation. But neither in the Ship- building Trust that Untermyer exposed, nor in the insurance situation that Hughes purged was there Jewish responsibility disclosed. Wall Street has had more than one black day in its history and the day that stands out con- spicuously among them is known as "Black Friday.'* The date was September 23rd, 1869, and Friday, the 23rd, might seem ominous to those inclined to superstition. The business of the country was upon an inflated paper basis, but the Government paid its interest in gold, and merchants were compelled to buy gold in IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 191 order to pay their duties at the custom house. That metal therefore became a prime article of speculation. Like wheat and cotton and other things dealt in speculatively, much of the sub- stance of gold departed and it became largely atmospheric. An attempt was made to "corner'' gold. There was a determined effort engineered by men of great ability and financial strength to push up the price, and plots seemed shamelessly to proceed even to the very doors of the White House, but they were foiled at last by the honest soldier there. James Fisk and Jay Gould were the promoters of the attempted corner. The time selected was when the farmers were selling their crops, and the argument that had been impressed upon the officers of the government, in order that it might remain indifferent to the price of gold, was that wheat and other produce of the farmer would bring a higher price in cur- rency if the price of gold was high. Upon the morning of that black day gold was selling at about 130. Orders to buy enor- mous quantities were thrown upon the market designed to exhaust all selling orders and to leave no limit to the price that would be reached. The quotation was quickly flung up 30 points and 30 more were threatened. The meaning of this was that one dollar in gold would cost those 192 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW who must have it a dollar and a half and per- haps two dollars or three dollars in the current money of the people, dependent upon the heights to which the metal could be made to soar. In- dustry and commerce were alarmed. The sol- vency of great merchants and banks was in danger. The market had never before wit- nessed such an audacious drive. Wall Street's Gold Room and all the streets about it were in swirls of delirium. Up and up the quotations were remorselessly lifted. There seemed nothing that might be able to thwart the designs of the conspirators. But there was one man who stood resolutely in the way. James Brown, stalwart in the quality which has kept for generations in the name of Brown Brothers the hallmark of honor, was the market leader of those who would be the victims of the success of the wild speculation. Albert Speyers, broker for the Gould-Fisk combination, bid ISO for $1,000,000 gold. James Brown sold it to him. For another million Speyers bid 155 and for two millions he bid 160, Brown supplying both amounts. This did not check the market. "One hundred and sixty for $5,000,000!'' cried Speyers and Brown at once sold it to him. It was a trans- action which astounded the speculators, both by the audacity of the bid and the courage with which it was met. The Gold Room could only IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 193 be described as the scene of a riot. Excited wit- nesses, after the Wall Street fashion, shouted out that the Government was coming to the res- cue, that the treasury was baffling the designs of the corner conspirators by throwing on the market its accumulated pile of gold, and that Brown Brothers already had the selling orders. Brown said nothing, not even to Fisk who bawled into the frenzied crowd, "Don't you worry about Washington. Washington is fixed! The old man Corbin," (Colonel Corbin was brother-in- law to President Grant) "the old man Corbin is my partner." After Brown had filled Speyers' bid for the five millions which the corner manipulators ex- pected would be the beginning of a panic stam- pede of sellers and a consequent flight of the price to disastrous heights, Brown, with a great hoard of gold to offer, took the aggressive and threw amounts on the market at steadilv lower prices and the plot soon became a thing of his- tory. The bull panic changed to a bear panic, with the price crashing with each sale until gold was offered even below the price at which it had opened in the morning. To understand the con- sternation of the conspirators one has but to estimate their loss on the single five million dol- lar lot which they had bought at 160, with its $1,500,000 shrinkage on this single transactfon. 194 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Panic prevailed and no man there knew, if in- deed he cared to know, what the actual price might be, and least of all he who was first to lift the figure to its top, for Albert Speyers had col- lapsed and fallen in exhaustion, still maintaining his loud-lunged shout, "For five millions, or any part, a hundred and sixty !" Edmund Clarence Stedman — ^known as the Banker-Poet later — was a Wall Street news- paper man at that time; and in his column in the Tribune appeared the following: High over all, and even higher, Was heard the voice of Israel Freyer — A doleful knell in the storm swept mart — "Five millions more! and for any part I'll give one hundred and sixty!" Israel Freyer — the Government Jew — Good as the best — soaked through and through With credit gained in the year he sold Our treasury's precious hoard of gold, Now through his thankless mouth rings out The leaguer's last and crudest shout — "Five millions more! — for any part! (If it breaks your firm, if it cracks your heart) I'll give one hundred and sixty!" . . . but listen ! hold ! In screwing upward the price of gold To that dangerous, last, particular peg. They had killed their goose with the golden egg ! Just then the metal came pouring out All ways at once like a water-spout, Of a rushing, gushing, yellow flood, IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 195 That drenched the bulls wherever they stood! It came by runners, it came by wire, To answer the bid of Israel Freyer, It poured in millions from every side, And almost strangled him as he cried — "I'll give one hundred and sixty!" Down, down, down, the premium fell. Faster than this rude rhyme can tell ! Thirty per cent the index slid Yet Freyer still kept making his bid "One hundred and sixty for any part." The sudden ruin had crazed his heart. Shattered his senses, cracked his brain. And left him crying again and again — Still making his bid at the market's top, (Like the Dutchman's leg that never would stop) "One hundred and sixty — five millions more!" Till they dragged him howling from the floor. Mr. Stedman speaks of Speyers as "the Gov- ernment Jew." It has been affirmed and on good authority it has been denied, that Speyers was a Jew, but let the contention of those, who claim that he was a Jew, be admitted. As has appeared in the earlier parts of this work, in every great crisis of the United States the Jew was in the front of the Nation's and humanity's righteous ranks, and concede for the argument that here on Black Friday, as black an adventure as buccaneering ever under- took, was a Jew. Albert Speyers was one of the old men of the Gold room ; his discretion was axiomatic ; though many interests might at differ- 196 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ent times employ his services, his loyalty to no indi- ' vidual was questionable; over and over, difficult tasks had been committed to him by Daniel Drew and Jay Gould and Commodore Vanderbilt, and all, however complicated their transactions may have been, had uniformly found him dependable. Often the U. S. Treasury itself had employed him, until he had come to be known as the "Gov- ernment Jew" as he is called in the verses of Stedman. In their carefully engineered cam- paign, the Fiske combination had taken care to employ a broker of the highest repute. One need not be concerned to defend Albert Speyers; al- though it may be said with entire safety that he was at no disadvantage with the Christians, or rather with the Gentiles with whom he was asso- ciated on that fateful day. It may be admitted that among the many bad men who have from time to time appeared in finance, here was one bad Jew. But that would not be wholly just to Speyers. His whole life had been devoted to the duty of buying and selling upon a commission for other traders as he was ordered. He was not a prin- cipal but a broker, buying for clients upon orders, and those clients were in this instance masters in Wall Street; and just as firmly as the fif- teenth century Jew walked to the stake, he stood by the obligations of his employment and insisted on his employers keeping the contracts they had IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 197 ordered him to make. And when the orders kept pouring in to buy, he went straight forward call- ing out "one hundred and sixty for five million or any part" until the "corner" was hopelessly broken. Speyers entered the contest that morning a fairly rich man, for he had been successful as a commission broker, but he emerged from it a poor man, for Fisk loftily repudiated his account, and the broker became personally liable for all his transactions. And he did not attempt to evade them. Instead of that he stood by each purchase that he had made, and went with James Brown into the presence of Fisk and verified them all. Fisk appealed to the broker's interest. "Speyers," he said, as reported by Mr. Sted- man, "you can ask anything of us, money, capital or service. What do you care about these brokers? You have a family of children, the brokers are rascals." But Speyers' reply was "I took your orders and I executed them. You have got to keep your contracts." It is said that they offered him two hundred thousand dollars, but he spurned it. A congressional investigation was ordered with Garfield at its head. Speyers could not be kept away by persuasion or threat or inducement of any sort, and the truth was brought to light. He refused to take part in any settlement and he died a poor man. 198 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW There had been in this country achievements of high finance on a large scale, of which Wall Street was not the theater. When Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson to the Presi- dency in 1837 the country had a genuine panic. Jackson had smashed the United States Bank and there had been hot-housed into existence some six hundred banks, each of them printing currency notes, lending at high rates, stimu- lating, by the glut of currency and credits, business of all sorts and especially of the specu- lative kind. These banks had nearly three hun- dred millions of capital, about two hundred and fifty millions of currency notes against it, and outstanding loans of more than five hundred millions. This was a somewhat ambitious finan- cial program. In the last months of Jackson's administration it was announced that there would be money distributed from the national Treasury among the States. Nearly forty millions coming from the sale of public lands had been set aside for this purpose and one-fourth of it would be distributed forthwith. This generous distribu- tion augmented even the popularity of Jackson. It was to be paid to the States in coin. But there was a firm of Jewish bankers in Wall Street, J. L. and S. Josephs, who were representatives of the Rothschilds. They ventured to protest against the distribution. The cost had not been IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 199 counted. Where were the ten milHons of specie to come from? There was danger in the poHcy. But they were swept aside. The sneer that they were Jews seemed sufficient to put the stamp of disapproval upon their counsels of conservatism. They should be segregated in a ghetto and not consorting with Christians. The distribution went on. One bank failed and then another. And finally the entire bank- ing system of the country went to pieces. For- tunes were destroyed. State governments were crippled. Among those who failed was the Jewish firm of Josephs. They had protested against the policy, but they were a part of the financial sys- tem of the country and the innocent and guilty suffered alike. They would not repudiate the commitments coming to them from clients and correspondents, whose transactions were based upon a financial system which suddenly had col- lapsed. In their report to the European House of Rothschild they did not indulge in complaints ; they showed their optimism. "America is hurt,*' they said, "but only for a while. We must suffer, but we hope. Prudence has been absent in the public places. There have been no Jews per- mitted in Government oversight of banking.'' The most conspicuous Jewish banker in America began his career at about that period. August Belmont was born in Germany. He was 200 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW made the American representative of the Roths- childs. In the New York of that time there do not appear to have been any Jews of great wealth, and in a published list of the richest hundred citi- zens there were few millionaires — Lenox, Astor, Stuyvesant, Morris, Phelps, Harper Brothers, the two Lorillards, and Stephen Whitney with ten milllions, which was the greatest fortune of all. Belmont was credited with having a hun- dred thousand dollars and he was the only Jew upon the list. He was personally popular. His house become a social center. He had a notable fine arts collection. His wife was of the family of Commodore Perry. He entertained widely and he was successful, not merely in his business, but in politics in which he took a hand. He became the head of the democratic organization, and in fact controlled it. He opposed the reconstruction policy of the Government, and was a staunch friend of Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, who was later made by President Cleveland our first foreign Ambassador. He threw his influence for Bayard's nomination in 1872 at Cincinnati and might have succeeded, but for the infatuation which led the democrats into making a bid for support in the republican party rather than in their own, by the nomination of Horace Greeley. Belmont survived the panic of 1857, when every bank in New York but one suspended pay- IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 201 ment and when there was general distress throughout the country. At that time the Roths- childs were the great banking firm of the world without a near rival, and connection with them meant much to Belmont. He was an upholder of the Union, although his personal friend, Judah P. Benjamin, besought him at least to take no part. He was frequently consulted by the Secretary of the Treasury, and Jay Cooke, who was foremost as a Government financier in those days, steadily conferred with him and wrote in warm appreciation of the readi- ness of the Rothschilds to assist in the funding plans of the Government. "The great American fortunes of this time," wrote Jay Cooke, "had not been made, and the wealth of this European banking house made an impression upon the minds of the people of which today we can scarcely conceive." Other Jews than the Rothschilds took part in sup- porting the Government in its financial opera- tions. Mr, Cooke organized two syndicates, one American and one European, to carry through a two hundred million dollar operation. He wrote that the American subscriptions were concluded "in a few days" and the European part was "60 per cent oversubscribed the first day." The names attached to the foreign subscription made up a roll of Jews, — Raphael, Cohen, Seligman, 202 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Speyer, Oppenheimer and others were upon the list. The Seligmans were Jewish bankers who rendered great assistance to the government dur- ing the Civil War. Matthew Hale Smith is authority for the statement that Joseph Seligman visited Europe at the outbreak of the war and did more probably than any other man to inspire confidence in our government ; and that the Ger- mans especially made large investments early in the war through the influence of the Seligmans. Having occasion to talk with a veteran ob- server in Wall Street, who can fairly survey the activities of the Jews engaged in finance, he gave me informally his conclusions, which are well worth quoting. They rounded into a summary as follows : "Around the year 1900 there was marked in- crease of the Jew proportion in Stock Exchange affairs. The widespread incorporation of private business and the public distribution of the result- ing securities was an influential factor. Copper and Smelting Trusts, one with $175,000,000 capi- tal and the other over $200,000,000 had been floated in 1899, and the Tobacco and Shipping Trusts, right afterwards, added $670,000,000, while during 1901 United States Steel loomed large with over a billion and a quarter. Thus more than $2,500,000,000 new securities were IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 203 put Upon the market by five companies within a couple of years. "Those were the big ones, only the big ones — all told, the hundred million kind and the five and ten million kinds, made Stock Exchange figures over twenty billions — do you, can you com- prehend it— $20,000,000,000? The man of vision was commandeered. Famous new fortunes were being every day bulletined. It required courage to withstand such a summons. The country went Wall Street mad. Mr. Morgan and Mr. Gates and Mr. Keene and Mr. Rockefeller — every big financier, every important interest, seemed all banded fraternally on one side. The market soared. Everybody could make money. Each morning the newspapers were able to fore- cast winning favorites for the day. And, of course, the natural popular feeling was that the closer to the game the surer, the quicker and the larger the profit. Moreover, many men of affairs had at the time large sums of new capital avail- able by reason of the fact that their own business had been absorbed into new gigantic corpora- tions whose securities were featuring this great market. "Stock Exchange seats were in unprecedented request; commission earnings reached magni- tudes of which old time brokers had never pre- sumed to dream. Jews able to make the invest- 204 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ment joined the Board; and this fresh element among the brokers brought contingents of fol- lowers from quarters that till that time had known nothing, cared nothing, for Wall Street or any of its works. "And among the larger interests it was soon found that in virtually every group there was some especial and distinctive affiliation or clien- telle. It is easy to discern, for instance, why this was so in the smelting and copper trusts, for multi-millionaire Jewish operators were at the very forefront there; and only in degree, as a rule, was it different elsewhere insofar as con- cerned the chief industrials. When John Gates and his horde of westerners arrived it was one of Wall Street's witticisms to quote Mr. Gates' own slogan about them — '^Christian gentlemen every one." Yet in the Gates battalions one of the most important figures of all was a Jew, their lawyer. Max Pam. But he had little to do with the wild market performances that proceeded. While conferees breezed away boisterously at tickers and card tables and race tracks, he found time to draw a deed of trust by which he devoted a large part of his earnings to founding scholar- ships for the help of ambitious poor boys; and, moreover, those scholarships he placed under the control of one not of his own race or religion — IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 205 Cardinal Gibbons.* *Just a little bit of human ambition, that's all/ was Max Pam's only expla- nation/' This incident forms one of many evidences that enmity between the Catholic and the Jew has vanished, and that the beneficence of the Jew is not limited to his own race. But my friend proceeded : "To one at all intimately familiar with what goes on in the higher levels of Wall Street, in- stances of good will transmuted into cash cur- rent are not rare enough to be noteworthy, and in doing generous things there is nothing un- usual for Christian and Jew to pool issues; I happen to know the senior member of one Stock Exchange firm who being almost professionally on the outlook for some poor fellow to help has a regular list of down-town associates to whom he telephones continually for contributions, and over half the names of his roll call are Jewish names. "Giving money, though does not seem to me to be half the test that giving time is. I know men of large affairs, Jews of the millionaire class, who do this time-giving as a regular habit. Thirty years ago I first had familiarity with the custom. There were often days when you could not make a business appointment with Mayer or Eman uel Lehman, Jesse Seligman, Edward Lau- *Appendix: "The Benefaction a Cardinal Welcomed." 206 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW terbach, or Jacob Schiff. They had stated meet- ings at Mount Sinai Hospital or at some other philanthropic function with which nothing could interfere; and I recall that in the very midst of speculation as mad as Wall Street ever sees, when McLeod, the Philadelphia wizard, was con- trolling the Reading Railroad, and on the verge of annexing the New York and New England, the finance committee, prepared to execute con- tracts, was obliged to adjourn because Mr. Mc- Leod's mentor, Isaac L. Rice, 'had to' preside at an orphan asylum meeting. "Take the case of Otto Kahn. Certainly he has enough to keep a mind engaged in the prob- lems of big business as they play in and out of Kuhn-Loeb's international hive, millions and tens of millions the ordinary routine there. But is Kahn absorbed? Rather, the effect is that over work on those intricacies only drives him for re- lief to more work, differing work. From a fi- nancing Board of Directors he turns to a con- ference on art, from a railway reorganization committee he breaks away to arrange an opera program, and in the middle of a session with ac- coimtants skeletonizing an appealing corpora- tion's assets and liabilities he can turn to dictate to a stenographer the text of a public address that has to do with some public service idea at- tracting him. He himself calls it recreation. IN THE STRESS OF WALL STREET CONFLICT 207 "Another phase of the Jew in finance has to do with the relation of broker and client. In the list of great traders you will find that many have chosen Jews for their confidential work. James R. Keene's personal telephone ran into Edward Wasserman's office; Edwin's Hawley's share in the coup with John W. Gates in Baltimore and Ohio was committed to B. M. Baruch, following Thomas F. Ryan's quarter of a million commis- sion to Baruch in Tobacco Trust negotiations, the first big money Baruch made. E. H. Harri- man placed his entire Union Pacific acquisition plan and ambition in the hands of Jacob Schiff and then sat tight; and J. Pierpont Morgan, arch-Episcopalian, if interested in the immediate course of the 'market, kept ^Arthur Housman close within call. Reason ? Do your own guess- ing — I only state the facts." As may be inferred from this enlivening talk, money knows not creed nor race. ''Big money" will associate and consort with other "big money" whether it is possessed by Christian or Jew. It sweeps both along upon its mighty current. If one wishes to know what language it uses he will find it does not speak Hebrew or any of the com- mon tongues. Its vernacular is just, "Money talks," and it is understood by traders in the marts of London and New York and by the Hindoo peasants on the slopes of the Himalayas. 208 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW There is another speech antagonistic to this one, quieter but not less universally understood. Which is to be the more potent is the great problem before civilization ? CHAPTER XVI Unique in the World's Philanthropy "They shall have permission to sail to and trade in New Netherland and to live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden/' Thus ran the official order that Peter Stuyvesant, against all his protests, was obliged to obey, the order which gave entry to Jewish pioneers into what is now New York. "The poor among them shall not become a burden." That is the basic condition. And how has that rule — and the pledge then given — been kept ? The answering record sheds a proud light upon Jewish philanthropy. It is interesting to read the official ruling of the West India Company in its fullness — not a carelessly executed grant, but the outcome of "many consultations" ; not a philanthropic declar- ation but just a square deal on a business basis. This was the text of it — addressed to Stuyvesant : "26th of April, 1655. "We would have liked to agree to your wishes and request that the new territories should not be further invaded by people of the Jewish race, for we foresee from such immigration the same difficulties which you fear, but after having further weighed and con- sidered the matter, we observe that it would be un- reasonable and unfair, especially because of the con- siderable loss sustained by the Jews in the taking of 209 210 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Brazil, and also because of the large amount of capi- tal which they have invested in shares of this com- pany. After many consultations we have decided and resolved upon a certain petition made by said Portuguese Jews, that they shall have permission to sail to and trade in New Netherland and to live and remain there, provided the poor among them shall not become a burden to the company or to the com- munity, but be supported by their own nation. You will govern yourself accordingly." It can be said on good authority that over two thousand Jewish charitable organizations are actively, continuously at work — many of them with widespread branches, lodges and agencies; and this computation does not include purely local friendly functioning associations found in nearly every community. So vast is this largesse, that there have long been difH- culties and embarrassments in its proper dispo- sition. The bounty is so generous and the givers so numerous that, obviously, there must be over- lapping, duplication and confusion in the pro- cesses of distribution. To attain the utmost of good, systemization was necessary. Union, not so much in giving as in relieving, was essential. Distinctive, local, in- dividual charity needed to be centralized, com- pacted, to gain the objective of maximum service. So came about the Federation of Charities — one of the greatest achievements of the American Jews. The loud calls for help that the World War UNIQUE IN THE WORLD's PHILANTHROPY 211 precipitated hastened the rounding out of this comprehensive clearing house for benevolence. Its accomplishments constitute a record which it will be difficult to parallel in the way of co-oper- ative charity. True hearted men and women have put self-consideration aside in devotion to its purposes. It would be tedious to recount the list of gifts and givers, and in many instances publicity would do violence to the purpose of the donors who gave secretly and whose generosity was re- vealed only after they had died. But it is well to make note of the nature rather than the mag- nitude of the gifts. They were much broader than the limits of the race. Most of the important col- leges of America and many lesser ones were richly helped; the International School at Wil- liams, of which James Bryce was the leading fig- ure, was financed by Bernard M. Baruch, and Julius Rosenwald, a Jew, gave practically with- out limit to maintain the Young Men's Christian Association among the colored people of the South. Hospitals, schools for orphans and de- pendent children were established or given help and there was a generous response to the appeal made from almost every part of our complex social structure. There was scarcely a limit to the range of Jew giving. These gifts have not come from swollen fortunes so large as to be an 212 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW embarrassment to their possessors, but largely from the moderately rich and well-to-do. In- stead of the slogan of wartimes, "Give till it hurts," the motto proposed by Nathan Straus was substituted, "Give till it feels good." As a result within a few years vast sums in the ag- gregate have been contributed by Jews to the uplifting and charitable uses of society. And in addition they have followed the early injunc- tion of the Dutch government of New York and have taken care that "the poor among them shall not become a burden." The gifts have been sup- plemented and sanctified in very many cases by the personal services of those who made them, showing their sense of the truth that "The gift without the giver is bare." Yet the records of philanthropies of outstand- ing character are so abundant and have cut so potential a figure that I am led to quote here from the statement of a friend whose knowledge is at first hand — as, in a preceding chapter, I have quoted from one personally fimiliar with what concerned finance. He spoke as follows: "Jacob H. Schiff — long years, among the Jews of America, the outstanding personification of stintless philanthropy — joined in perfecting dis- tribution plans, under the leadership of his rela- tive and business partner, Felix M. Warburg, to whose administrative capacity Federation UNIQUE IN THE WORLD S PHILANTHROPY 213 achievements chiefly owe their vast scope and successes. What Mr. Schiff upon his own in- dividual initiative did for charity's sake makes a life-time record of almost matchless magna- nimity. In the business world his career was co- incident with J. P. Morgan's, and he won similiar distinction — the friend and counsellor of James J. Hill, financier of E. H. Harriman, banking inti- mate of the Rockefellers, the underwriter of pre- mier corporation enterprise, an establisher of credit for foreign nations. Applause that the world gave to financial activities, though, gratified less than the joy found in the simple round that the man's heart led through even his busiest days. Of the millions he gave, some were registered in great sums to Harvard, and Yale, to Columbia and Cornell, and to other institutions of learning, with noble allotments to asylums, to hospitals and varying welfare agencies that public good might be served. It was in giving far away from the public eye that Jacob H. Schiff gave most and most happily. Such charities, rarely re- vealed even to close associates, were broadcast. "What particularly is pleasing in such a chron- icle as this that comes from authority is the at- tending assurance, from the same trusted source, that in spontaneous generosity, as in lack of os- tentation, Jacob Schiff was typical of the Ameri- can Jew in general where fortune vouchsafes the 214 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW power to give largely. Particularly does the cause of education attract. "Rarely is a Jewish will recorded without its provision for charity, and often for objects out- side of the testator's race and religious faith. In Baltimore Cardinal Gibbons was bequeathed $15,- 000 by a Jew 'just to help those who need it.' In St. Louis a Jew is, after his death, discovered having done so many charitable deeds that a pub- lic school is named in his honor. In Portland Ben Selling is glad his seventieth birthday comes just in time to provide an excuse for sending an extra check for $10,000 to the Oregon State war relief fund. The relief fund is objected to in Maryland by Jacob Epstein unless he is per- mitted to contribute personally ten per cent, of every dollar that is raised in the State — this same citizen having had traced to him thitherto chari- ties that he himself never acknowledges, sur- passing, it is said, a million. Charles Rubens, of Chicago, stirred by the foreign chapter of horrors, impatient for action, calls for speedy action in the national relief campaign, or he will start Illinois off alone on his own account, at his own expense; and when the campaign does get under way he is an animating leader in ten states. "It is difficult to select examples for quotation, so long and varied the list certified by authori- UNIQUE IN THE WORLD'S PHILANTHROPY 215 ties I trust. J. Walter Freiberg, President of the Union of Hebrew Congregations, dies re- gretting that life has been too short to accomplish all he hoped for in communal and religious work — and, forthwith, a fund of a quarter of a million of dollars is raised by widespread subscription that *a vision of good will' shall not fade. Dr. Cyrus Adler indicates the needs of the library of the Jewish Theological Semniary — and imme- diately from Mortimer L. Schiff volumes, many of priceless value, come in steady stream. Plans are made public of an engineering project — *har- nessing the Jordan' — by which industry is to be advanced in Palestine by railways, power, light and irrigation development, the initial venture calling for $5,000,000, and Americans, who care less for dividends than to be helpful, hasten to subscribe, led by a $25,000 investment by Justice Brandeis, Judge Julian W. Mack being Presi- dent of the Development Council. The Palestine Foundation Fund, concerning which President Harding has especially written recommendation, reclaiming lands, promoting agriculture, estab- lishing homes and maintaining schools, finds similar response, its appeal being for $9,000,000. "Nathan Straus broadly typifies the philan- thropist practical and persistent. For a quarter of a century he has been a personal crusader for disease prevention — ^particularly that children 216 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW should not be sacrificed. Critics have called his milk pasteurization campaigns a hobby; they satirized his expenditure of fortunes in care for infantile life; any ordinary devotee of any fad would have been distracted. But year after year he expanded the distinctive work, carrying it from New York to other cities of America and then on to Europe, where at Brussels this year an international convention exalts him as almost premier in child protective charity — quoted statis- tics showing that when he began his pasteuriza- tion work in 1892 the death rate of New York children under five years of age was over 96 per thousand, and had steadily decreased to much less than a third of that rate today. "In industrial welfare work Jewish interest and activities stand out conspicuously. Oversight of much of such service is exercised by one of our national civic organizations. It includes in its surveys, many of the country's foremost cor- porations. Its recent report, condensed, declared that, "one of the most generous, most compre- hensive, most efficient welfare departments of the entire list under our scrutiny is that of a cloak and suit company all of whose owners and officers and most of whose employes are Jews.' "Apropos of endeavor toward maximum wel- fare service, there was significance in official ac- tion taken by Will Hays close following his tak- UNIQUE IN THE WORLD S PHILANTHROPY 217 ing office as Postmaster General. He found dis- organization at Washington headquarters ; inter- est and efficiency were lacking; it was essential that official personnel should be vivified. 'I want the help of the best specialist in the land/ he broadcasted. And advisers of experience in chorus directed him to Dr. Lee K. Frankel of the Metro- politan Life Insurance Company. "While Theodore Roosevelt was Governor of New York a vacancy occurred in the State Board of Charities. 'When you want a man of char- ity go where charity has its abiding place/ he commented, *go to the Jews' — and Simon W. Rosendale, who had been Attorney General of New York, now an octogenarian and full of honors, was drafted for the post. "Most Jewish gifts are made thoughtfully. For example, Mrs. Mayer Lehman bequeaths to Mount Sinai Hospital a large sum to establish a chair of preventive medicine — anticipating by a couple of years a benefaction with precisely the same purpose for which England has acclaimed the memory of Sir Samuel Lister. Mount Sinai Hospital is typical of practical benevolence at its highest mark. All that is humanly possible for relief of suffering, for the saving of life, is opera- tive there. Millions on millions invested — and more millions in constant onward flow for good works' sake — monumental Jewish Great Hearted- 218 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ness welcoming equally the Christian with the Jew! And as at Mount Sinai, in New York — just so it is all America over. How curious now sounds that seventeenth century edict under whose conditions those first comers here were granted admission to our shores : 'Provided that the poor among them shall not become a burden.' " The breadth and extent of the philanthropy of the Jew prove this eagerness to perform his share in one of the most necessary works of society and thus bear testimony to his patriotism. CHAPTER XVII Foreign Desolation's Urgent Appeal Problems relating to emigration and the prep- aration of emigrants for the duties of citizen- ship have very vitally concerned the Jews. The policy of the United States has been fluctuating and has not been determined upon a scientific basis. We have had many proposals of laws and congressional committees have investigated the subject here and in Europe; but it has not yet been satisfactorily settled. The questions grow- ing out of the World War make the problem more difficult. Desolation abroad brings louder knocking on our door, and our policy seems to be to close the door more tightly. The Ghetto of New York has presented a difficult problem in the Americanization of new emigrants. A no- table picture of that condition was given by Leo N. Levi before a convention of Jews"^ made up of delegates from all parts of the country. "The statistics show/' he pointed out, "that of a million who came to this country in 20 years, probably 90 per cent came into the port of New York. The statistics also show that over 60 per cent of those who arrive remain in New York, certainly in the first instance. *Contemplating conditions twenty years agro. 219 220 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "The so-called Ghetto of New York, bounded on the north by Houston Street, on the west by the Bowery, and running southward and east- ward to the river, contains as many Jews as De- troit now (1902) contains people. The whole city of Detroit, if crowded into that little section, would displace a similar number of Jews who have come to this country from Southeastern Europe in the last 20 years, and their descend- ants. And that is a very small territory. There are thousands, yea, tens of thousands of citizens in the city of New York, a good many of them Jews, who have never set foot in that territory. "In that region the language that is spoken is the "^ Yiddish of the Jews. In the stores, the articles they were accustomed to purchase in the land of their nativity are offered for sale. The signs are written in their own language in the Hebrew character. The cafes and places of amusement, the theater hall, the dance hall, everything is there which they were accustomed to, and whatever their tastes, whether good or evil, demand, is purveyed for their gratification. They think in their own language ; they can wor- ship there according to the rituals they are accus- tomed to; the atmosphere is one which they are *"Yiddish" is a jargon used only by the Russian, Polish, and Roumanian Jews. It is a mixture of old German with Russian, Polish, and other tongues. It is unknown to the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and is not used in Germany, England, or France. It is, therefore, unwarranted to generalize as to its use. FOREIGN desolation's URGENT APPEAL 221 acquainted with, and all other atmospheres are foreign to them. "Now if you take any one of this audience and suddenly transport him to a foreign land, if there be a group of Americans in any one portion of that foreign country, it would be perfectly nat- ural for you and me to gravitate to that little colony. And we would not like to get out into the interior of the country where we did not know the language of the country, the geography of the country, the habits of the people; where no one could understand us, and we could under- stand no one. A feeling of homesickness would overcome us, our hearts would become terrified, and if that would be true of us who are presumed to have at least some understanding of the con- figuration of this globe and of the difference in nationalities and habits and customs of peoples, how much more so must that be true of a class of people whose whole world had no larger ho- rizon than the little town in which they were born and raised in some obscure part of Southeastern Europe ? "For them to come to America means for them to come to New York. They have an idea that what lies beyond the limits of New York is a wil- derness ; that once they get away from the Ghetto they lose the friends they were accustomed to; 222 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW that if sickness, trouble or death comes they have no one to turn to. "If they are reHgiously inclined — and the Rus- sian Jews are — they have no place in which they can worship in harmony outside of the Ghetto. And so they cling there tenaciously, even to the brink of starvation, rather than go out into a wil- derness or to give up that which is so precious to them. "But the limit has been reached. It was reached long ago. You have heard papers here on the subject of tuberculosis, mentioned by President Roosevelt in his message also. No man, however intelligent or industrious in his reading and his research, can form the remotest idea of the conditions prevailing in the lower por- tion of New York, unless he goes there and makes personal inspection. "They must be educated to a better under- standing of the conditions that prevail in the in- terior of this country, of opportunities offered everywhere for men able to work, to lift them- selves and their families. That is an educational campaign which is proceeding systematically, te- diously and painfully slow in the lower east side of New York. "When I took a visitor through the Educa- tional Alliance building in New York, and told him the average attendance there was 7,000 a day FOREIGN DESOLATION S URGENT APPEAL 223 year in and year out, he was amazed, as almost any one unfamiliar with the situation would be, that it does not make a greater impression upon the tone and the civilization that obtain here, and the answer to it is : That if we had 20 insti- tutions located at proper places in the lower east side of New York, each a duplicate of the Educa- tional Alliance, each one would have a like daily attendance, so stupendous is that problem there. "We must deal with this question in a catholic spirit. We must remember a man can not get to the top unless he climbs from the bottom. We must remember those who came to this country 50 years ago had to climb from the bottom to the top, and we ought to be manly enough to know there is nothing more cowardly and disgraceful than to climb to the top of a wall by a ladder and then kick the ladder away so that nobody can climb up afterwards." In presenting this striking picture of the New York Ghetto — as it confronted him twenty years ago* — Mr. Levi threw a clear light upon our entire emigration problem. We can understand the magnitude of the burden thrust upon 1,000,- 000 Jews to find immigration doubling the number of their race in 20 years. Although the Jewish isolation in New York is extreme, it is approached by some of the other races. Very *Appendix: "Americanism's Forward March." 224 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW much of the emigration of the last three decades has resisted amalgamation. Large groups have tenaciously clung to the language and customs and methods of thinking which they knew in their native land and as to some of these groups, intelligent effort has been sadly lacking. The process of converting much of this material into American citizens has been discouragingly slow. But the Jews at great cost have carried on an aggressive work in order to transform the Jew- ish immigrant into a useful and law-abiding member of the American Commonwealth. The Ghetto that Leo N. Levi lamented is steadily dis- appearing. The problem of immigration has been more acute in connection with the Jews than with any other race. The inundation of these people who came to us resulted from religious and race persecution. In the greater number of instances they did not come as a result of the individual volition exercised by most incomers. They were driven from the lands of their na- tivity. They were inheritors of the poverty and ignorance of generations of ancestors. The ef- fort that the American Jews have made to trans- form these people and put them in the way of becoming good American citizens is wholly ad- mirable and is unsurpassed by any work done in Americanization. My expression of definite views on the sub- FOREIGN DESOLATION S URGENT APPEAL 225 ject of the composite character of our citizenship, and the dangers that may accentuate or kindle antagonisms of race or sect, and produce a dis- cord deplorable to be witnessed in our democ- racy, has never been mistakable. One cannot lend weight to one's views by quotations from himself but, I am unable to give better expression of them upon the phase of the subject I am consider- ing than appears in some lectures of mine at Yale University in 1915.* "If considerations of race or creed are to enter into our politics," I then said, "the State will be deprived of the judgment of large sections of its citizens upon public questions which should alone be considered by them and our politics will be- come the arena of struggles between races and sects, our statute books defaced by class laws and men proscribed from public office or put into it for no better reason than one based upon their creed or race. The men who controlled our country down to the time when our Constitution was formed were animated by a sincere love of liberty. They were filled with the fear of the unrestrained forms of government from which they had suffered persecution and which had driven them into exile. "The most important element in establishing the greatness of America may be traced to the *"The Liberty of Citizenship" (Dodge Course) Yale University Press, 1915. 226 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW character of the earHer emigrants. Those emi- grants were of the soundest and strongest men that could be found in the countries of northern and western Europe. Mr. Darwin has pointed to our nation as illustrating his theory of natural selection. The danger of crossing the ocean in the little ships of that time was very great, and the dangers which the imagination portrayed were even greater. The perils of a wilderness infested by savages and wild beasts were suffi- ciently formidable in reality but they seemed even more alarming when they were looked upon from the eastern shores of the Atlantic. Such forbidding dangers could make no appeal to weaklings and cowards. They beckoned strong and brave men to meet them, and strong and brave men responded. All along the Atlantic, settlements were established by a hardy stock and the sterling seed was sown from which a great nation was destined to spring. "It came about that not merely during the pe- riod before the Revolution, but for a half-century or more afterwards, this process of natural se- lection went on, and we see America in its mak- ing taking unto itself a virile, enterprising and daring body of citizens. The institutions adopted by people of such a character could not be other- wise than free. The atmosphere was charged with democracy and equality. Each man was in FOREIGN desolation's URGENT APPEAL 227 the eye of the law and of pubHc opinion as good as every other and endowed with the same oppor- tunity. "But the dangers and hardships of immigra- tion gradually melted away. It became as safe to cross the sea in modern ships as to remain at home. The savages and wild beasts had disap- peared and the wilderness had given place to fields of wheat and corn. Men came over from the same motives that would lead them to move from one city or town to another in the same country. There is nothing in immigration today especially marked by dangers that call for heroes to meet them. Ideas cross the ocean with the same freedom as men and much more quickly. We have at last struck the broad level of the world, and everything political, social, or human finds its way to America. Just as every physical disease that afflicted the bodies of men in Europe has appeared on this side of the ocean, so all the problems that attacked their minds were sure to appear also. They have already arrived and we are exempt from nothing that is human and can waive nothing away by calling it un-Ameri- can. We possessed at the beginning a clean slate which committed us to nothing, and we re- ceived the development coming from our free in- stitutions and our splendid stock. Such was the foundation and it was indeed sound. 228 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW "And what of the superstructure? Our free- dom of access, our hospitaHty, our appealing opportunity, have brought to us each decade mil- Hons of people of stocks alien to that by which our institutions were established. We have been put under an extraordinary strain. And just as England and other nations have in the past shown their colonizing energy by sending out offshoots, planting them upon distant and empty territories and building up new nations in their own image, so we are displaying at least an equal colonizing energy in the way in which we have received these vast numbers and are assimilating them and making them over essentially into our image. "I do not mean that the nation has in no re- spect been changed or modified in the process. The developments from these recent additions to our population have not yet clearly appeared, but we already can see enough to permit us to be- lieve that as a result the nation will have not only a more cosmopolitan but a richer and a more versatile citizenship, that our free institutions will essentially remain intact and the spirit of our democracy be broadened. "The influence which the mixture of races is likely to exert upon our institutions and civiliza- tion is certainly not less important than the char- acter of the race type ultimately to be evolved. FOREIGN DESOLATION S URGENT APPEAL 229 We have seen little as yet of the operation of the commonly accepted idea of the 'melting pot' and have witnessed little change in the individual type, but if America is to be such a melting pot, the same thing is likely to be true of the whole earth, which is becoming through the marvels of transportation a very small affair. And just as all races descended from Adam, so this tendency of the movement of peoples to break down boun- daries of race would be to lead the procession of the divergent species back to Adam again and give us a single and restored race of the original consistency. But the process will surely be slow. Indeed I am skeptical enough to doubt that this standardized world citizen or American citizen is destined to appear in a future which is not very distant. I fancy the world for mundane purposes will be as well off without either and that to in- crease the monotony of its citizens will not con- tribute to the interest of the world. The race land- scape, if that term is permissible, will be no less in- teresting if it shall maintain its present general features even though the divisions between the fields may not be so abrupt but may blend into each other. The strong tendency is toward the preservation of the integrity of the race stocks. "But there is a practical truth in the melting pot notion likely to be seen in times which are not remote. The fusion is more likely to be wit- 230 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW nessed in our general achievement and in the sum of our civiHzation. If we shall prove rea- sonably homogeneous in one respect and remain devoted to democracy and the maintenance of free institutions, then, under the stimulus of our freedom, we may hope to witness in our country the noblest achievements, the fairest fruitage of the different races in our population. "We shall have a melting pot worth while, if out of it shall come a fusion and blending of the best works of all races and a more many sided and a fairer civilization. Thus we may also await with complacency the far away time when we shall have all racial traits blended in each individual, with possibly the worst traits exag- gerated and the best ones neutralizing each other. It will perhaps be as safe to take our chances with the old races, modified as they will doubtless be, but not merged into each other, nor with the identity of the original stocks destroyed. "Projects for the restriction of immigration I will say in passing should be very cautiously un- dertaken. So far as they shall operate to exclude defective classes they are good. "But one who has been denied opportunities of education cannot be considered a defective, and he may possess the best elements of citizen- ship. The illiteracy line furnishes a test of ex- clusion simply and not a test of fitness. FOREIGN DESOLATION S URGENT APPEAL 231 "If we aimed at shutting out anarchists, we could more certainly accomplish our purpose by denying admission to all who could read and write than by excluding those could do neither." I see no reason to modify the views I then ex- pressed. As to the Jewish immigrants who have been coming to us in the last two decades, it may fairly be said that they are no more poor and helpless than were the first company that landed in the realm of Peter Stuyvesant. After one or two generations of development they or their descendants are likely to repeat what we have al- ready seen and add another illustration to those already afforded of the value of the Jew and his works in America. We have witnessed wonderful things done in the transformation of alien and difficult peoples, after two or three generations of the play of American life and institutions upon them. Cer- tainly the Jews do not present the most dis- couraging features of the problem. Their deep poverty and the great numbers of them driven in a brief time to seek a refuge may for a time demand excessive labor and care; but these have been supplied by the fellow members of their race. They do not come to us like so many im- migrants who migrate like the birds only to re- turn again to their country. The Jews have no temptation to go back to Poland or Russia. They 232 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW soon adjust themselves to the conditions of American Hfe. They work, they enter trade, they gradually become a part of our social order and however untrained and even hopeless they may seem in the beginning, they steadily improve. CHAPTER XVIII America's Noblest History at Stake Mr. G. K. Chesterton, who has written enter- tainingly about Jerusalem and the Jew, avows he has no prejudice against him and that he is will- ing a Jew should be an Archbishop or sit upon the Woolsack; but something should be done to mark the fact that he is a Jew or, at least, that he is not an Englishman. This, it seems, could be done in a way similar to that in vogue in the Middle Ages. It could be done by the costume. If he did not wear the ancient Jew Cap he might at least, like the good Asiatic that he is, wear the turban. So much seems to be demanded by the ethnological or historical proprieties. This idea of Mr. Chesterton's is an interesting one and its complete application would add greatly to the picturesqueness of England. Have the different subjects of the King array themselves in the costumes of the countries of their sup- posed origin. The kilted Scotchman with Ihis bare legs and cow hair, the African subject with a still more tropical display and those of Ameri- can descent dressed in feathers and war paint in deference to the fashions of the aborigines, would make a many-hued England, even if it did not de- 233 234 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW liver her from all the dangers of her race prob- lems. The real difficulty is that this solution, admir- able and artistic as it is, does not go quite deep enough. What should the Englishman wear and who is the Englishman ethnologically ? Is he not himself an imported article and indeed no more recent than the Jew ? The Jew crossed the chan- nel with the legions of Caesar, when Mr. Chester- ton's forbears were disporting themselves in their savage pursuits in the forests of Northern Europe or were skirting the shores of Denmark, pursuing the fish or more human prey. It is true that the so-called English drove out the Jew as a preliminary to rescuing the Holy Sepulchre, but a happening like that should not have influence upon such an important question as costume, when we are seeking to recognize historical pro- prieties. Why not at once go to the very bottom of the problem and frankly recognize that we all swarmed from the Asiatic hive, Mr. Chesterton with the rest of us, and that we should all take to the turban ; that the most of us belong to wan- dering nations like the Jews, and do not strike our roots deeply into the soils on which we now hap- pen to live. The whole earth is the abode of man. We are all at home wherever we be. But the Jew alone of all nationalities can, it seems, ac- America's noblest history at stake 235 quire no prior rights by settlement, and indeed no rights at all. The Englishman or the German becomes a proprietor, but the Jew, who preceded him, is only an alien and if not put in a ghetto or a cage must be branded in some appropriate fashion that society may be warned. But amiable ridicule kills nobody and is an in- nocuous survival of the practices of an expiring order. That it is, however, upon a dangerous sub- ject is shown by agitations that have taken place well within our time when in every country ex- cept Russia and Roumania toleration is supposed to have arrived. There is the case of Dreyfus, so recent as the last decade of the nineteenth century. He was tried by court martial and convicted of furnishing Germany with French military secrets, and he received a sentence little short of barbarous. A great furore was aroused and the hatred towards the Jews was kindled again. Some circumstances pointing to in- justice appeared, and a review was demanded by Zola and others and fought for most bravely. The agitation against the Jews was heightened, the more deeply the affair was probed, until Zola was compelled to fly from France and an attempt was made to assassinate Labori, the eloquent counsel of Dreyfus. But at last the truth was dragged to the light before the high Court of 236 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW France ; and it was revealed that French military secrets had indeed been sold to Germany, but that Dreyfus was wholly innocent and had been convicted by forged and perjured evidence, in order to shield non- Jewish officers of the staff who had done the deed and received the money and who found it convenient to play upon the preju- dice against the Jew in order to escape with their lives and loot. If such a thing could be done in a chivalrous and highly civilized state like France, what may not be expected elsewhere? A similar thing was witnessed about the same time in Austria. Charges against a Jew were fabricated so shocking that a general persecution of the race followed. But in the trial before a court so prejudiced that conviction seemed a cer- tainty, the cross-examination by able counsel ut- terly destroyed the case and acquittal could not be avoided. A few years previously a formidable attempt to revive proscription had been made in Germany and it required all the strength of Bismarck and of the liberal sentiment to thwart it. Race perse- cution and especially persecution of a race so long hunted as the Jews is a fire easy to be kindled and hard to be put out. There probably never was a time more favorable for doing away with it alto- gether than in this period following the World War. The Jews were loyal to the flag of every America's noblest history at stake 237 country in which they lived, unless of those East Europe countries whose governments were con- spiracies against their own freedom. Loyalty is a phrase with a depth and sweep that make its use most unfitting to express the relation which one would hold toward an admitted tyranny. In the many fields of our complex civilization, in science, art, literature, finance, business, and those good works which flower out into a noble philanthropy not limited by race lines, he is do- ing his full part and is in generous rivalry with the members of every other race. What good ground can be imagined for continuing to bait the Jew? Each one of the race should obviously be judged on his own merits and should receive neither immunity nor condemnation because he is a Jew. If a Jew goes wrong it is because he is a Jew, but if a Christian does the same thing it is because he is dishonest. If the fault were charged against the individual instead of the race then a Jew might be appraised at his own merit as are other members of the community. It is undeniable that the Jews have shown a high order of political talent during the short pe- riod of time in which it has been possible for them to take part in politics. The career of Disraeli furnishes the most striking illustration. Although he was pitted against Gladstone who was the foremost Englishman of his century, he 238 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW showed himself in spite of the fiercest prejudice a successful party leader, and rose to the chief place in the government of the British Empire. At the same time Lasker, another Jew, was the leader of the liberal party in Germany and Gambetta, a part Jew, was showing himself the most brilliant parliamentary orator of France. And among the Jews who have become con- spicuous in their relation to the administration of governments, one must not overlook Walter Rathenau who had become the rising hope of Germany, and, indeed, of Europe, when his light was quenched by an infamous assassination. They have also attained eminence in the law, and may be found upon the highest courts in Europe and America and among the foremost lawyers of different countries. Lord Reading as Chief Justice, Ambassador and Viceroy illus- trates the extraordinary ascent of his race in Great Britain from the time when the first Jew was accepted as a juryman in 1835. I have already referred to Judah P. Benjamin, who attained high distinction in America, and afterwards went to England, and became one of the leaders of the English bar. One can understand how such a race might be suppressed in law and politics through envy, but not through a patriotic desire to conserve valuable elements of citizenship. Members of America's noblest history at stake 239 other races can compete with them on terms of equality, but in order to do that they will need to display industry and use their talents to the best advantage. The Jews serve to put their Christian fellow citizens upon their metal and summon their strongest qualities into action. The Jew has in a high degree the spirit of ad- venture in all practical affairs. He will gaily put his stake upon his judgment and if losses come he will accept them with serenity and adventure again. He is sleepless in his enterprise and in- dustry. How he made practical use of his tal- ents during the middle ages, in a way that ad- vanced civilization, has been portrayed by a great historian, W. E. H. Lecky: "Whilst those around them were grovelling in the darkness of besotted ignorance, while jug- gling miracles and lying relics were themes on which almost all Europe was expatiating, while the intellect of Christendom, enthralled by count- less persecutions, had sunk into a deadly torpor in which all love of inquiry and all search of truth were abandoned, the Jews were still pur- suing the path of knowledge, amassing learning and stimulating progress, with the same un- flinching constancy that they manifested in their faith. They were the most skillful physicians, and ablest financiers and among the most pro- found philosophers. While they were only sec- 240 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ond to the moderns in the cultivation of natural science, they were also the chief interpreters to Western Europe of Arabian learning." An accusation commonly made against the Jew is that he is dishonest in trade and will take un- fair advantage of those less skillful than himself. But surely the Jew does not possess a monopoly of dishonest practices. The line between honesty and dishonesty by no means coincides with the lines between races. Very good English names for instance are associated even at this day with the infamous practice of peonage by which in some states of the American Union ignorant black men are cheated of their labor which is all they possess. The most shady things that were ever charged against the Jew in finance and trade can be matched by the doings of so- called Christians. While there is room for im- provement in the character of business dealings between men, they have improved greatly over what they once were. It is an assumption to say that Jews generally employ standards of business lower than those of other men. But each Jew should be judged upon his own merits, and not upon what some other Jew has done. It would be easy to discredit any element in our citizenship if its black sheep were to be selected and held out as typical. If a Jew shows himself to be dis- honest, pushing, arrogant, regardless of the America's noblest history at stake 241 rights of other men, he will be held fully respon- sible to the opinion of those about him. Society may be trusted to deal with him, but there should be only condemnation for the practice of judging a man because of prejudice against his race or of judging an entire race by what some member of it has done. In considering what is called the Jewish prob- lem, one finds it a fluctuating rather than a fixed problem, because of a variance of opinion as to what constitutes a Jew. To some he is an ethno- logical and to others a merely theological being. Some look no deeper than the name which long since ceased to be an unerring guide. It might indicate those who are frankly Jews and who, fike Jacob Schiff , are proud of their lineage, but by no means those who, for one reason or another, have taken themselves from the fold and have become what Mr. Thomas W. Lawson has termed "Gentile-plated Jews." It seems certain that the numbers of the race must be reduced if only those are to be reckoned as Jews who, after long periods of race slavery and a dispersion over the world for sixty genera- tions, still possess the unadulterated blood of Abraham. There are said to be Mongolian Jews in Russia. There are those who are called Jews in Poland who possess none of the ordinary phy- sical characteristics of the race. But the persist- 242 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW ence of their religious faith, the comparative segregation of the race, brought about by its own customs, as well as by the long-continued perse- cution visited upon it, and its own remarkable vitality, have preserved unimpaired among a large number the ancient Hebrew tradition and the general physical and mental characteristics of the race. It is to that large remnant that the Jewish problem essentially relates. The Hebrew commonwealth in ancient Pales- tine was republican in character. It was demo- cratic and progressive, compared with other nations in the times when it existed. While slavery was universal, especially among oriental nations, the code of the Jews secured the slave humane treatment and at stated intervals pro- vided for his emancipation. There was also at regular times a remission of debts, and, as I have said, the law contained a prohibition of interest and a return of the titles of land to the families under whom they had become encumbered, so that a few men could not secure the ownership of the earth. The treatment of women was far better than was accorded them in the neighbor- ing nations. That the modern Jew retains the quality shown by him in the very ancient times, and is able to move forward, is amply proven by his deeds. When the monarchy was established, it is America's noblest history at stake 243 doubtless true that some of the Jewish kings showed themselves as despotic and as wicked as other kings, but they did violence to the genius of the people as shown in their laws and in the general trend of their history. There is no Bourbon solidarity in the race; but its members divide much as other races divide, although many of its leaders incline strongly to- wards really progressive policies. A good illus- tration of their attitude upon such questions may be seen in the American slavery abolition move- ment. There were notable instances of heroism among the Jews in the battle against slavery. Some of the members of the race, as of other races, accepted it as an established institution under the protection of the law and feared that agitation might destroy the Union. But others vehemently denounced it; and not alone in the safe precincts of Boston and New York, but where slavery actually existed. Among those outspoken against it was Dr. David Einhorn, a rabbi of Baltimore. Commenting upon the formation of the Republican party, he declared in October, 1856, that he could not share the fears of those who thought the formation of that party would lead to the dissolution of the Union, "if only for the reason that if the Union in fact rests on such a thoroughly immoral basis it would appear to be neither capable of 244 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW surviving nor fit to survive." He kept up the fight until, just before the outbreak of the war it was found necessary to protect him by a vol- unteer guard composed of young men of his own congregation, and finally he sought shelter with his family in Philadelphia. Here subse- quently he was elected an honorary member of the Union League with another rabbi. Dr. Sa- bato Morais, who had eloquently denounced slavery. A list of remarkable names may be made from those who are partly Jewish in origin. Among them are Sir John Herschel, Robert Browning, Bret Harte, Sir John Millais, Charles Kingsley, Edwin Booth, Leon Gambetta, Sir Arthur Sulli- van, Francis Turner Palgrave, Marshall Mas- sena, General William Booth, John Howard Payne and James R. Mann who for years was Republican leader in Congress. The list might easily be prolonged. There are special fields to which I have scarcely referred, in which we may expect from our Jewish people notable contributions. The stage, as a distinctive example, has everything to hope from a race which has given it Rachel and Sarah Bernhardt and Von Sonnenthal and the father of Edwin Booth. "^ When we shall develop an American atmosphere for music, who are more •Appendix: "A Close-Up Appraisal." AMERICA S NOBLEST HISTORY AT STAKE 245 likely than the Jews — with Felix Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Halevy, Rubenstein, and Offenbach — to give us a place in that art in which we have been a laggard? We may look for very much from them in literature, not merely on account of the brilliant past but because of what Jew writers are already doing in America. What may we not expect from a race that can claim in the list of its writers and thinkers such shining names, as Heine and Spinoza? Jewish writers in our coun- try are showing form, imagination, strength, sanity and the capacity to hold attention. I am not now referring to the unparalleled contributions which the Jews made in ancient times and which entitle them to general homage. But a reference to these contributions must not be omitted for they put the whole world under tribute. President Eliot said on the occasion of the presentation by Jacob H. Schiff of the "Se- mitic Museum" to Harvard University in 1903: "Mr. Oscar S. Straus, in his book on the 'Origin of Republican Government,' has clearly shown how the Puritan Commonwealth was modelled on the Jewish Commonwealth under the Judges, and Professor Charles Eliot Norton has just said that we owe to the Semitic race the conception of righteousness as a national ideal embodied in law. This ideal characterizes the 246 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW Old Testament and indeed both Testaments. There is another infinitely precious conception which we owe to the same race, a conception ex- pressed more fully in the New Testament, though not lacking in the Old, the purest and loftiest conception mankind has ever won of domestic love and joy. Therefore, I say we owe to these Semitic peoples, the peoples from which come the three greatest religions of the modern world or of any age of the world, the greatest spiritual conceptions of all times." With reference to the conception of the deity which came from the Jewish race, or through it as an inspiration, John Fiske says: "The con- ception of Jehovah set forth in the writings of the prophets was the loftiest conception of deity anywhere attained before the time of Christ. In ethical value it immeasurably surpassed any- thing to be found in the pantheon of the Greeks and Romans." If there is one particular in which the course of the American Commonwealth is clear it is that it should strive to incorporate into one harmoni- ous whole the various races of which it is com- posed and that it should not tolerate the creation of a variety of social and political ghettos which shall enclose the different race groups. To do America's noblest history at stake 247 that would be to contrive against our own great- ness and permanence as a state. We have grave problems enough already with- out making our country the theatre of any new race contentions. We should strive to allay the strife between the Saxon and the Celt, the Teuton and the Slav, the Gentile and the Jew, in order that we may really become one people, instead of lighting again the fire of Jewish proscription, and adding that to the other race contentions that distract us. Those statesmen at Versailles who presumed to lay the foundations of a new world, in one respect took a long leap backward into the past. They atternpted to reconstruct the universe upon eth- nological lines, and disregarded the long exercise of the forces of political gravitation and the slow historical evolution which had built up great states upon the ruins of the Roman Empire. At the same time that they impaired the cosmopoli- tan structure of nations, and aimed to make the lines of nations and races coincide with each other, they intensified the effect of political divi- sions among men and augmented the sharpness of the future clashings of nations by adding the antagonism of race. This policy portends a future of national rival- ries and race feuds leading to war. We must 248 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW see to it that the American stage is set for no such a drama. The founding of this nation was a long step taken towards amity between races and the gov- ernment of men not by prejudice and persecution but by equal laws. In view of the signal result attained, has the time come for America to re- nounce her mission? Let her adhere to it and the "Jewish problem" will work itself out. Let each man come individually in contact with our institutions and stand or fall on his own merits and not as a member of some group or race. Only thus shall we have the kind of society that is in keeping with American institutions. Our government should treat men as men and not as members of a race. It is not easy of belief that an organized move- ment should have been undertaken in America to stir up race hatred against the Jewish people. But in the reaction from high ideals that has set in since the world war almost anything is credi- ble, although the essential American standards of the past have not changed, and they may be trusted to assert themselves again. The question of Americanism is by no means settled by the so simple a formula as that is con- tained in the boast that one is "100 per cent. American." One needs not ask whether there were any Americans in that mob in Illinois which America's noblest history at stake 249 during the war seized an innocent and unarmed German and took his Hfe. It was only a pack of commonplace cowards, who shamed our soldiers in the field and tarnished the name of America. Neither have those any trace of Americanism about them who as members of a secret society of outlaws will drag men from their homes at. night and atrociously treat them. There is no difficulty in denying the claim of Americanism to those who stir up hatred against any class of their fellow citizens by the publica- tion of falsehoods and who resort to the polluted and corrupt tactics of revolutionary Russia. So far as the Jews are concerned they played a most important part in the discovery of this continent. They were honorably associated with our colonial development. Although few in number, they helped mightily to finance the Revolution; and they bore a brave part under Washington in arms. They have gained honor- able distinction in every war in which the country has been engaged. In the war just ended they made a noble record, and established beyond all question their title to be known as patriotic Americans. They have been commended by our Presidents from Washington to Harding. They have formed a vital element in our country in peaceful times, and, in view of what they are and what they have been, we may expect from 250 PATRIOTISM OF THE AMERICAN JEW them in the future large contributions to our civilization. The United States is the great nation of modern times which has established itself on the basis of equality. It has especially pointed the way to Europe for the emancipation of the Jews, and its influence has been world-wide. The man today who attempts to restore the old order and to arouse a race hatred runs counter to the fundamental principles of our gov- ernment. America is the last place in which to carry on such a work, for its prosecution involves a declaration of war against the vital parts of our institutions and what is noblest in our history. Appendix APPENDIX 253 Americanism We fail lamentably where we do not preach effectively tolerance as well as justice and security and respect for the rights of others as much as liberty. And while I hold these views as to all peoples, irrespective of race or creed or condition, I am especially earnest in my protests against the frequent reversions to barbarity in the treat- ment of the Jewish citizens of many lands, a people who have commanded always my admiration by their genius, industry, endurance, patience and persistence, the virtue and devotion of their domestic lives, their broad charity and philanthropy and their obedience to the laws under which they live. Warren G. Harding. My attention has been brought to what would appear to be an organized campaign against the Jews in America. Such a campaign is entirely at variance with America's best traditions and ideals, and its only effect can be the introduction of religious tests to determine citizenship and a reign of prejudice and race hatred wholly incom- patible with loyal and intelligent American citizenship. To discriminate against any race or religion is utterly un-American; and I, therefore wish to register my pro- test against any campaign against the Jews or any other religious groups constituting the great citizenship of this country. William Cardinal O'Connell. 254 APPENDIX "Loyal and Intelligent Citizenship'' Realizing that "a new and dangerous spirit" is being in- troduced into our national political life, there issued an epochal address to America, in 1921, signed by more than a hundred notable "citizens of Gentile birth and Christian faith," setting forth their condemnation as well as their patriotic anxieties over the campaign at that time beginning to assert energy in vindictiveness — "de- signed to foster distrust and suspicion of our fellow citi- zens of Jewish ancestry and faith^ — distrust and suspicion of their loyalty and their patriotism." John Spargo, author, publicist, non-Jew, was the pro- ject's initiator; and it was disclosed that "neither di- rectly nor indirectly did any person of Jewish ancestry or faith, or any Jewish organization have anything to do with its preparation or publication." Outstanding names were on the roll — ^the foremost of the Nation — led by Woodrow Wilson, on the eve of re- tiring from the Presidency of the United States, former President Taft, William J. Bryan and Cardinal O'Con- nell, such a roster as induced a newspaper commentator to say : "Probably no similar document ever bore such a distinguished array of signatures."* Herewith is the document's full text and its signers: The undersigned, citizens of Gentile birth and Chris- tian faith, view with profound regret and disapproval the appearance in this country of what is apparently an or- ganized campaign of anti-Semitism, conducted in close conformity to and co-operation with similar campaigns in Europe. We regret exceedingly the publication of a number of books, pamphlets and newspaper articles de- signed to foster distrust and suspicion of our fellow- citizens of Jewish ancestry and faith — distrust and sus- picion of their loyalty and their patriotism. These publications, to which wide circulation is being given, are thus introducing into our national political life a new and dangerous spirit, one that is wholly at variance with our traditions and ideals and subversive *New York Times, January 17, 1921. APPENDIX 255 of our system of government. American citizenship and American democracy are thus challenged and menaced. We protest against this organized campaign of prejudice and hatred, not only because of its manifest injustice to those against whom it is directed, but also, and especially, because we are convinced that it is wholly incompatible with loyal and intelligent American citizenship. The logical outcome of the success of such a campaign must necessarily be the division of our citizens along racial and religious lines, and, ultimately, the introduction of religious tests and qualifications to determine citizenship. The loyalty and patriotism of our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith is equal to that of any part of our people, and requires no defense at our hands. From the foundation of this Republic down to the recent World War, men and women of Jewish ancestry and faith have taken an honorable part in building up this great nation , and maintaining its prestige and honor among the nations of the world. There is not the slightest justification, therefore, for a campaign of anti-Semitism in this country. Anti-Semitism is almost invariably associated with lawlessness and with brutality and injustice. It is also invariably found closely intertwined with other sinister forces, particularly those which are corrupt, reactionary and oppressive. We believe it should not be left to men and women of Jewish faith to fight this evil, but that it is in a very special sense the duty of citizens who are not Jews by ancestry or faith. We therefore make earnest protest against this vicious propaganda, and call upon our fellow citizens of Gentile birth and Christian faith to unite their efforts to ours, to the end that it may be crushed. In particular, we call upon all those who are molders of public opinion — ^the clergy and ministers of all Chris- tian churches, publicists, teachers, editors and states- men — ^to strike at this un-American and un-Christian agitation. 256 APPENDIX Woodrow Wilson William Howard Taft William Cardinal O'Connell Lyman Abbott Jane Addams John G. Agar Newton D. Baker Ray Stannard Baker Charles A. Beard James M. Beck Bernard I. Bell Arthur E. Bestor Albert J. Beveridge Mabel T. Boardman Evangeline Booth Benjamin Brewster Chauncey B. Brewster Jeffrey R. Brackett Horace J. Bridges Henry Bruere William Jennings Bryan Nicholas Murray Butler Bainbridge Colby Alice B. Coleman George W. Coleman Paul D. Cravath George Creel Samuel McChord Crothers R. Fulton Cutting Olive Tilford Dargan Clarence Darrow James R. Day Henry S. Dennison W. E. B. Dubois James Duncan Robert Erskine Ely Charles P. Fagnani W. H. P. Faunce Dorothy Canfield Fisher Irving Fisher John Ford Raymond B. Fosdick Robert Frost H. A. Garfield James R. Garfield Lindley M. Garrison John Palmer Gavit Herbert Adams Gibbons Charles Dana Gibson Franklin H. Giddings Martin H. Glynn George Gray Edward Everett Hale James Hartness Patrick J. Hayes John Grier Hibben Jesse H. Holmes John Haynes Holmes Hamilton Holt Ernest Martin Hopkins Frederic C. Howe Henry C. Ide Inez Haynes Irwin Will Irwin George R. James David Starr Jordan William W. Keen Paul U. Kellogg William Sergeant Kendall George Kennan Henry Churchill King Darwin P. Kingsley W. P. Ladd Ira Landrith Franklin K. Lane Robert Lansing Julia C. Lathrop Ben B. Lindsley Charles H. Levermore Frederick Lynch Edwin Markham Mrs. Edwin Markham APPENDIX 257 Daniel Gregory Mason Joseph Ernest McAfee J. F. McElwain Raymond McFarland E. T. Meredith Alexander R. Merriam James F. Minturn John Moody William Fellowes Morgan Charles Clayton Morrison Philip Stafford Moxom Joseph Fort Newton D. J. O'Connell Mary Boyle O'Reilly George Wharton Pepper Louis F. Post Theodore Roosevelt Charles Edward Russell Jacob Gould Schurman Vida D. Scudder Samuel Seabury Thomas J. Shahan Charles M. Sheldon Edwin E. Slosson Preston Slosson Robert E. Speer Charles Stelzle Paul Moore Strayer Marion Talbot Ida M. Tarbell Harry F. Ward Everett P. Wheeler Gaylord S. White George W. Wickersham Charles David Williams Charles Zueblin John Sparge 258 APPENDIX The Jew Who Established Columbus From the narrative of the son of Columbus, signing himself, Fernando Colombo, the great discoverer's bio- grapher: At the court at Cordova the Admiral "made friends fitted to persuade the king." Thus the son's chronicle, which continues : "Among these was Luis de Santangel,* an Aragonian gentleman, clerk of the allowances in the king's household, a man of great prudence and reputa- tion," and through this connection a conclave of learned men, including eminent cosmographers made report upon the project. The result was not encouraging, for the wise men fell far apart, a majority certain that only Spain's hemisphere contained land that was inhabited, that all the rest was sea. "In short," records Fernando Colombo, "all of these men were governed by the Span- ish saying, 'St. Augustine doubts it,' and therefore it did not become the state and dignity of great sovereigns to be misled." Chagrined, Columbus determined to apply to the king of France and was on his way when fate inter- fered, via the "Aragonian gentleman." Here are the words of the son of Columbus : "It was in the month of January, in the year 1492, when the Admiral departed from the camp of Santa Fe. On that same day also Luis de Santangel, who did not approve of his going away, but was very desirous to prevent it, went to the queen, and using such words as his thoughts suggested to persuade and enlighten her, said he was surprised that her highness, who had always a great fondness for all matters of moment and conse- quence should now be timid in favoring this undertaking, where so little was hazarded, that might contribute in many ways to the glory of God. * * * The queen, know- ing the sincerity of Santangel's words, answered, thank- ing him for his good advice and saying she was willing to accept the proposals upon the condition that the under- taking should be delayed until she had more leisure after *"Luis de Santangel . . . one of those antique Jews who have so greatly helped to enlighten the Christian world." — Emilio Castelar's Life of Columbus. APPENDIX 259 the war, and yet, if he thought differently, she was satis- fied that as much money as was required to fit out a fleet, should be borrowed on her jewels. '*But Santangel, perceiving that the queen had con- descended upon his advice to do what she had refused all other persons, replied that there was no need of pawn- ing her jewels, for he would do her highness that small service by lending his money. Thereupon the queen at once sent an officer post haste to bring the Admiral back, who found him upon the bridge of Pinos, two leagues from Granada. Although the Admiral was much dis- heartened by the disappointments and delays he had met with in his undertaking, nevertheless, being informed of the queen's wish and intention, he returned to the camp of Santa Fe, where he was graciously entertained by their Catholic Majesties, and his commission and stipulations were intrusted to their secretary, Juan de Coloma, who, by the command of their highnesses, under their hand and seal, granted him all the conditions and provisions he had demanded, without altering or substracting any- thing of them." 260 APPENDIX Pioneers of Education As recorded by Mr. McCall, Dr. Gershom Mendes Seixas, Patriot Minister of the Revolution, was one of its founders and first trustees when Columbia College, as a distinctively American institution, succeeded King's College, which had a long time flourished under royal patronage. All told, there were no more than about twenty-five colleges in the country prior to the begin- ning of the Nineteenth Century, and of these nine or ten only antedated the Revolution. Most of them suspended during the war. Leon Hiihner, the historian, devoting much research to the educational phases of that period in American history, brings interesting chapters to light. He finds, for example, that nearly all early educational enterprise had for object the training of the clergy, and was under strict religious discipline, therefore hardly appealing to Jews. "In fact," chronicles Mr. Hiihner, '*it is doubtful whether Jews would have been admitted to some of these institutions in those early days, even had they applied. It must be remembered that none of the colleges at this time had more than a mere handful of students at any time. The first class at Yale had but a single graduate and for years afterward her classes rarely exceeded four or five. Williams College, in intellectual Massachusetts, graduated a class of four as late as 1795. John Jay's class at Columbia in 1764, ten years after the college was founded, consisted of but two. Even Harvard and Yale, prior to 1800, rarely graduated more than twenty- five in any one year. "As for the professions that might require a collegiate education, the legal profession was in most states closed to Jews until after the Revolution while two colleges only, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, main- tained medical schools prior to the Revolution. Harvard and Dartmouth were added prior to 1800 and the total number of medical graduates of these four institutions was less than a hundred for the entire period. "As late as 1818 Major Noah estimated the number of Jews in the United States at about 3,000. Prior to the APPENDIX 261 Nineteenth Century, and certainly during the Colonial period, about half of this population was centered in South Carolina and Georgia, in neither of which states was there then any college or professional school to speak of. The rest of the Jewish population was scattered throughout New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, each of which had but a single college — Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Brown. "The only ones of the early American colleges that have any Jewish associations at all are Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin College in Pennsylvania and Columbia in New York. "The conclusion must not be drawn however," points out Mr. Hiihner, "that the Jews scattered through the colonies were men of little or no education. On the con- trary, most of them were fairly well educated and gen- erally better equipped, than their surrounding neighbors. Some, like Francis Salvador, had been educated abroad; the more prosperous settlers had their children educated by special tutors and in private schools. Occasionally young men were sent abroad to study; and wherever Jews lived in sufficient numbers to have a synagogue, there was generally a school of some kind connected with the congregation and its teachers were generally required to be competent to teach not only Hebrew, but English, Dutch and Spanish as well. "At Harvard not a single Jew was graduated from any of her schools during the entire period from 1637 to 1800. From the start however the study of Hebrew was considered of the utmost importance and a Hebrew ora- tion was a regular feature at Harvard commencements from the beginning down to 1817. The only Jew con- nected with Harvard during the entire period was Judah Monis, an instructor of Hebrew for about forty years. Mr. Monis was an Italian Jew, born in 1683, who came to America at a very early age. He received the honor- ary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College as early as 1720 and became an instructor there in 1722. He prepared a Hebrew grammar for Harvard, which was published in 1735, that being generally considered the first work of the kind in America. 262 APPENDIX "Among- Yale's earliest graduates were several of the Isaacs family, all of Norwalk, Conn., who though not Jews themselves are constantly referred to as of Jewish origin. The most prominent Jewish graduates of Yale were the Pinto Brothers of New Haven, Abraham, Solo- mon and William, all of whom were ardent patriots and served as soldiers throughout the entire War of the Revo- lution. Solomon and William Pinto were both graduated in the class of 1777; Abraham did not graduate, possibly because he was wounded at the time New Haven was in- vaded by Tryon. Solomon Pinto retired from the ser- vice at the end of the war with the general disbandment of the army, and has the distinction of being one of the founders of the Society of the Cincinnati in Connecticut. "The only Jewish graduate of Columbia, prior to the Revolution was Isaac Abrahams, A. B., of the class of 1774, and at graduation he delivered a Latin oration 'On Concord' — ^the institution being still known as King's College. It was ten years later — in 1784 — ^that a board of regents was created by the State of New York, and Ger- shom Mendes Seixas, the Patriot Minister of the Span- ish and Portuguese Congregation of New York, made a member of that body. The name was changed to Colum- bia, and Mr. Seixas was also named and continued as trustee of the college down to 1815, being the only Jew ever thus honored." APPENDIX 263 American Historical Research "One of the literary features of New York especially impressive," records an observer having exceptional op- portunities in the writing and publishing world,* "is the devotion of Jewish scholars to historical study. It seems almost a part of their religion with some of them ; they are continually at it, not only assiduously but in- tensively. At the Central Public Library of this city there is a Semitic Department. It is always a busy hive. Throughout every open hour its archives are under draft. The scholar in charge of it has his quality as specialist under constant test. Copius and comprehen- sive supplies are there of volumes related, it would seem, to every possible phase of Jewish literature and Hebraic history, classical authorities supplemented by current publications; but even this great mass of ma- terial falls short of research demands ; and there is, I have learned, such an earnestness and enthusiasm in the quest for facts — for historic proofs — as overflows into competitive searching? out of documentary data. This development is in many of its aspects significant." The same observer writes further: "Curiously, the in- spiration of this American historical research by Jewish students may be traceable to an example set by a non- Jew — Judge Joseph P. Daly whose work, 'The Settle- ment of the Jews in North America,' originally pre- pared as a paper presented merely for its local history bearings, has become actually foundational (developed under the editorship of Max D. Kohler) of a distinctive American Jewish history movement. Dr. Kohler has eminence in scholarship won otherwise than in the elabo- ration and elucidation of Judge Daly's study; but this one contribution has far-reaching influence. "Another devotee to this delving into American history, and thereby bringing into authentication the patriotic part of the Jew in the making and the maintaining of our Nation, is Leon Huhner, lawyer colleague of Mr. Kohler and curator of the American Jewish Historical *Charlson Henry, Patria Press. 264 APPENDIX Society. His researches have been broad, and they have been fruitful. "Particularly notable in the development is a spirit that animates the work. It might be presupposed that the task the Jewish history student would set him- self would be to find what was always favorable to him- self, to his race and religion. That would be merest human nature. But the fact is different. It is the boast of one community, for example, that among all its Jew- ish inhabitants — some hundreds — during the War of the Revolution, not one was a Tory; but an investigating Jewish scholar by months of persistent application to scattered Eighteenth Century documents discovers this to be too high a claim, puts the disproval on record, and is thanked by conferees for service. Such highminded- ness will be found the rule." George Alexander Kohut ranks among the foremost of Jewish American historians, one of his contributions being a critical study of colonial American Jewry, en- titled "Ezra Stiles and the Jews," originally published in the scholarly "American Hebrew'' ; in elaborated book form it is one of our most worthwhile history compends. A feature distinctive in the works of Kohler, Hiihner, Kohut, and others of their quality, is the specific way in which authorities are registered — for every statement, sponsorship, attestation of painstaking labor, accuracy a matter of conscience. To catalogue even those who lead among working historians is not here feasible — ^the list long and merit widely distributed. Isaac Leeser and Isaac M. Wise were pioneers. F. De Sola Mendes, Louis Ginzberg, Richard Gottheil, S. Solis Cohen, Israel Friedlander, Hy- man G. Enelow, Max L. Margolis, Israel Abrahams, Al- bert M. Friedenberg, Harry Schneiderman, Henrietta Szold, Kaufman Kohler, Cyrus Adler — such are a rep- resentative few of those eminently notable. Enthusiastic authorship has the support of an efficient publication organization, directed by energies like those of Simon Miller, Abram I. Elkus, Murray Seasongood, Seligman Strauss, A. Leo Weil, Julius Rosenwald, Louis Marshall and Julian W. Mack. It is not a thanks- APPENDIX 265 giving that can be confined to Jewry that "The Jewish Press is happily an accepted fact." A monumental work, attesting the character and cali- ber of American Jewish scholarship is the Jewish En- cyclopedia, its many volumes approximatinng 9,000 pages with signed articles from over 600 contributors, including virtually every name nationally authoritative in Jewish theology, literature and historical research. So great was the expenditure in perfecting a work so comprehen- sive that at one time it was apprehended that the publish- ers might be obliged to contract its scope, whereupon a group of earnest men, in personal devotion to the proj- ect's high aim, underwrote all its requirements — in that list being Supreme Court Justice Nathan Bijur, Charles S. Henry, Philip S. Henry, L. N. Hershfield, Adolph Lewisohn, Leonard Lewisohn, Louis Marshall, M. War- ley Platzek, Jacob H. Schiff, James Speyer, Leopold Stem, Louis Stern, Isador Straus, C. L. Sulzberger, Mayer Sulzberger, and Felix M. ^A/arburg. In periodical literature, and journalistically, the Jewish people are well served. Publications of the type of the Jewish Tribune and the American Hebrew, wherein historical review and discussion have broad scope, are supplemented by a news press that is patriotically pro- gressive. 266 APPENDIX Americanization's Forward March Were it possible that the crusading Leo N. Levi could come now to survey what in his day were the deplorable Ghetto conditions of lower East Side New York, marked changes — wholesome revolution — would confront, sur- prise and cheer him. Outstanding features depressing him two decades ago have largely passed; what he hoped for, called for, develops. "No man," he lamented, could "form the remotest idea of the conditions prevailing" unless he made personal inspection.* Betterment's cam- paign has proceeded "tediously and painfully slow," as he accentuated necessity would require; but systematic campaigning has been effective. "There is," as Joseph Levenson epitomizes it — himself a leader potent in this campaigning — "there is a new East Side." It is in com- prehension of this manifest progress that Mr. McCall (page 224) writes: "The effort that the American Jews have made to transform Jewish immigrants and put them in the way of becoming good American citizens is wholly admirable, and is unsurpassed by any work done in Americanization." There was a time and a fashion that made New York's East Side typical of ignorance and of crime. It suited an industriously inventive school in journalistic literature to build its high lights on the distresses and delinquencies of the Bowery and its environs — the Jewish figure made conspicuous in offensive exaggerations. But the vogue has disappeared. Go to the Metropolitan Board of Edu- cation today with the inquiry: Where is a distinctive educational center; and the official answer will direct you to where Leo N. Levi's "stupendous problem" used to be. In the legion of local fraternal organizations active in New York, one vibrant with enthusiasm is incorporated as "The Grand Street Boys," devoted "To Good Fellow- ship and Good Deeds." It is the very mirror of Mr. Levenson's "New East Side." In a recent celebration more than three thousand members joined — and in large proportion the membership is Jewish. Judge Max E. ♦Chapter XVII — "Foreign Desolation's Urgent Appeal.' APPENDIX 267 Levine is its president and Judge Otto A. Rosalsky chairman of its directors. Within its local precincts have risen hosts who today are prominent in the world's activities. Former Governor Alfred E. Smith was an East Side boy, there George B. Cortelyou had his busi- ness apprenticeship; both of the citys' present political leaders, Samuel Koenig, Republican, and Charles F. Murphy, Tammany, are of the coterie, as likewise Jus- tices Neuberger, Mulqueen and Giegerich of the Su- preme Court. Jacob Epstein, the sculptor, and Mme. Gluck, the prima donna, are on the East Side list. Every day has been a day of forward-march from the Leo N. Weil outlook of years ago when "no man could form the remotest idea of the conditions prevailing" — every day the forward-march of Americanism. "The present example of men and women who lived their early days in the environment of the East Side," comments a local historian, "can proudly be held up to coming generations as an indication of the possibilities of our blessed land. How many who ridicule and condemn, are aware that within the East Side's territory there is a population of five hundred thousand souls? What population of half a million, anywhere in the world, is immune from some wrong doing and want and misery? An investigation of statistics shows that the percentage of crime is less in this part of the metropolis than in any other community of similar numbers. The facts are that these half million residents worthily perform their daily tasks, striving to make their way in the world, contributing their share tO' the general success of the community — and how little said in their praise! Sinners among them are pictured and featured in the public eye as sinners of no other neighborhood on earth are painted, but yet the truth that is obvious, and the truth that persists against all cynicism, is that by nobody and nowhere is excelled this community's loyalty to idealism, concentration upon education, devotion to home and to country." 268 APPENDIX A Benefaction a Cardinal Welcomed Reference is made in Chapter XVI to the distinctive generosity of Dr. Max Pam, the corporation lawyer, whose gift — founding scholarships in the Catholic Uni- versity at Washington for study of the Social Sciences — is cited by Governor McCall as evidencing that "the bene- licience of the Jew is not limited to his own race." So striking is this example that there is warrant for present- ing here the letter with which the donation was ac- companied : New York, June 1, 1912. Your Eminence: It gives me pleasure to hand you herewith check cover- ing the first of five scholarships, each being in the sum of Five Thousand Dollars, established by arrangement with Your Eminence in the Catholic University of America, for the purposes hereinafter indicated. The reasons and motives impelling me to found these scholarships are as follows: The spirit of "live and let live" has been the dominant characteristic of our people up to the present time. From a material standpoint we have been very fortunate. A land of boundless resources and manifold opportunities, the struggle for existence has been deprived of the hard features which characterize it in most other countries. But conditions are rapidly changing. A phenomenal in- crease in population is straining our resources more and more each year, and opportunities are proportionately decreased. As a result of these changed conditions the spirit of 'live and let live' must sooner or later yield to that individual selfishness begotten of a more intense struggle for existence unless another and higher spirit, the spirit of live and help live, comes to its aid. We are not and should not be, in any state, individual units, seeking our own selfish ends, and concerned only with what affects our own personal welfare. Live and help live should be the true patriot's motto. Rich and poor have fought side by side to save this country and to give it freedom. , They have worked to- APPENDIX 269 gether to upbuild it. The rich of today are the poor of yesterday. There is no dividing line of blood between them and none of the artificial distinctions of caste and class which are to be found in older civilizations. And I do believe there is less class hatred in America today than in any country under the sun. Our men of wealth, as a class, have shown themselves to be unselfish and patriotic, and American philanthrophy is a world's won- der at the present moment. Every European country today is face to face with grave economic problems. Our turn is coming; in fact, it is a grave question if it be not already here. We hear advanced, from time to time, new and strange theories of government. There are some who claim even at the present hour, that the Constitution has outlived its use- fulness. In spite of assertions to the contrary, I am strongly convinced that the spirit of our people is sane, conservative and just. There is plenty of respect for law and order, consideration for the rights of others and a general realization that the millennium promised by political visionaries will not arrive in a week or a year. The people at bottom are right, but they need wise and honesj leadership. To avert this latter danger we must have men who are qualified by training and integrity to meet and op- pose it whenever and wherever it appears. It is my con- viction that it is the people themselves who must supply this leadership. In my humble -way I want to help talented young men to fit and qualify themselves for this work and therefore it is with great pleasure that I am, with your consent, establishing these five scholarships with the understanding that the young men who will be chosen for these scholarships will make a special study of social and economic problems. These problems, as I conceive it, will center round man's relation to man, man's relation to government, and man's relation to property. The Catholic Church holds to the traditions of the past ; it is conservative; it stands for authority, for govern- ment, for the rights of the individual and for the rights of property, and these to my mind are the chief elements 270 APPENDIX that enter into individual and national happiness; it has the largest number of communicants of any religious institution in the country; it has the opportunity of moulding character, developing the intelligence and creating a proper sense of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, not only amongst those who are citizens at the present moment, but amongst the millions who will come from other lands, seeking better opportunities and more favorable conditions of life. I do not believe in helpfulness which leads to lack of self-reliance, destroys individual ambition and makes drones instead of producers. I believe that all right- thinking people are as opposed to predatory poverty as they are to predatory wealth. I believe in religious edu- cation which quickens the conscience to a sense of its responsibilities. I believe in the country's future and have faith that the people properly educated and wisely led will solve their problems as they arise; and with the spirit of religion finding permanent place in thought and conduct, both in private and public life, the liberties and happiness of the people are secure. In conclusion, Your Eminence, permit me to express the hope that the young men who will receive a higher education as a result of this foundation will reflect credit upon their Alma Mater and will, under your care, de- velop that type of character which makes for all that is best in the Nation's life. Faithfully yours, Max Pam. To His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons. APPENDIX 271 The Tested Capacity of Great Heartedness American Jewry at the beginning of 1917 was gravely agitated Chronicled horrors from the East grew ghastlier and ghastlier. Such philanthropy was determined upon as never before had comparable magnitude. Jacob Billikopf, a young man with notable civic achievements to his credit, had been called from Kansas City to be the fund raising director; and the elders of the Jewish Committee had approved his plan of campaign which included the thought that great good would be wrought if some one eminent representative of the people should lead off with a contribution so splendid in its size as to be impres- sively challenging to sympathizers everywhere. Spontaneously, all minds went directly to the name of Julius Rosenwald — rich, not in money merely, rich in philanthropies that throughout his life had flown unin- terruptedly. "See Mr. Rosenwald," was prescribed for Mr. Billikopf. There were optimists who thought that perhaps Mr. Rosenwald might lead with the gift of as much as a hundred thousand dollars. He was capable of even that. And here is the sequel as graphically told by Mr. Billikopf himself in a volume issued by the publishing house of Alfred A. Knopf, under the title of, "The Jew Pays," by M. E. Ravage: "It was the night of the 3rd of March, 1917. On the morrow President Wilson was to be reinaugurated. If only my quarry had been in his customary haunts, so that the familiar scene might restore my ease and com- posure. But he, too, was at the seat of Government. It would be a crowded day for him. I had grave ques- tionings in my heart as to whether I could even catch a glimpse of him. Affairs in New York were so situated that I must return by the midnight train on the day fol- lowing. Mr. Rosenwald was not only one of the busiest members of the Council of National Defense, he was personally close to the President, and to-morrow was a great day in official Washington. "But the fate of six millions of people in the sham- bles of the Eastern war-zone depended on the success of 272 APPENDIX my mission. My first campaign was doom.ed in advance unless I brought back what I had been sent for. There was no other way. Mr. Rosenwald was the reliance of the Committee. If I allowed my discouragement to af- fect me and he failed us, our plans might be headed for the rocks. "I had my task cut out for me in pacing the lobbies of Mr. Rosenwald's hotel. It grew late at night and I dared not leave my post lest he should appear while I was gone and retire to his suite before I returned. And in the meantime the hour for the last train to New York was drawing nearer and nearer, and far from having achieved the object of my expedition I had not as much as met the enemy. "At 11 o'clock, however, Mr. Rosenwald appeared in the company of two Senators, and he proceeded to intro- duce me and to tell them my life history. But all the while I was rehearsing anew what I was about to say to the man I had been shadowing an entire day, assum- ing that I could get him alone before train time. I squeezed Mr. Rosenwald's arm significantly and whispered in his ear that I had something of importance to convey to him. *Ts it very, very important?" he asked lightly, and before I could give him my emphatic reply he bade our friends good-night and drew me off to a sofa in a corner of the lobby. " 'Well, tell me all about it,' he said as soon as we sat down. I glanced up at him and my entire harangue, on which I had spent so much arduous toil and thought, evaporated; and I heard myself, to my own great sur- prise, ^ telling him in the very simplest and most un- adorned style that a campaign for ten million dollars was about to be launched, that it needed some powerful dramatic stimulus to start it off effectively and to end it successfully; that the Committee had determined that nothing but a great single gift would serve — and that he, transcendently, was the man to make that gift. "I dwelt hardly at all on the state of things abroad, merely indicating in a matter of fact way what he was well aware of, that the condition of the European Jews was growing increasingly worse and that a renewed ef- APPENDIX 273 fort on a much greater scale than had ever been tried must be initiated. He listened without comment while my appeal was gathering momentum and climbing from argument to argument to its climax. "I had had hundreds of conversations with Mr. Rosen- wald but I had never before asked him for contributions of any sort ; and never before had I seen a face so trans- parent and serene and yet so profoundly thoughtful. I kept praying, as I talked along, that he might not break in. We seemed both under the spell of a common great purpose, and I knew that as long as the spell was not broken the future of the undertaking was assured. As I concluded with my specific request — request for a round million — ^the earnestness of his expression deep- ened. He said merely: " 'Do you think it will do any good ?' "I nodded and was about to proceed with a highly colored forecast of the results of such a contribution, when he rose. " 'Very well, I will do it,' he said, with a gentle kind- liness. 'You may go back to New York and tell them that I'll do it.' " This telegram was sequel: The White House, Washington. To Julius Rosenwald, Chicago. Your contribution of one million dollars to the Ten Million Dollar fund for the Relief of Jewish War Suf- ferers serves democracy as well as humanity. The Russian Revolution has opened the door of free- dom to an oppressed people; but unless they are given life and strength and courage, the opportunity of cen- turies will avail them little. It is to America ^hat these starving millions look for aid; and out of our pros- perity, fruit of free institutions, should spring a vast and ennobling generosity. Your gift lays an obligation even while it furnishes inspiration. WooDRow Wilson. 274 APPENDIX "The American People as a Whole'' By M. E. Ravage* From its very inception, the movement (during the World- War) for saving the Jewish people in the war- torn countries from annihilation assumed something vastly broader than a racial or sectarian character. It will be remembered that President Wilson, gave the movement his blessing and support before it had scarcely begun. The American people, as a whole, seem to have real- ized from the first that when men and women and children are hungry and suffering, their origin and their faith and their local habitation are the least important things about them. And this disposition of Americans is, I assume, a demonstration of the international char- acter of American thinking and sympathy, and reminds one very vividly how keenly alive the American people are to their own international origin. Whether it was a too sensitive Jewish pride or a fidel- ity to its record for independence in benevolence, there was for a long time a reluctance on the part of the lead- ers to accept contributions from non-Jews. But despite the proud reticence of the American Jew himself, the generous non-Jew simply insisted that he should not be excluded from participation. Primarily, the American Gentile looked upon the relief of Jews in Europe as a purely human task. They declined tO' rationalize the mat- ter. People were in want, and that was enough. As Mr. George D. Armistead, the postmaster of San An- tonio, in declining to accept thanks for his share in the campaign conducted in his city, expressed it: *T did what I could in this noble work and I should count my- self undeserving of the respect of my fellow Americans if I ever thought of allowing race, creed or color to stand 1>etween me and the duties of a real man wh.£n confronted anywhere in the world by starvation and distress." At the North and at the South, on the Atlantic sea- •Author of "The Jew Pays," Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher. APPENDIX 275 board, in the middle-West and on the Pacific, men and women who were faithful to the humane American tra- dition, or who had not forgotten their Bible, or who had had dealings with Jews in their own villages, came for- ward enthusiastically to do their part in every campaign, egged on by a sense that a people, which in spite of twenty centuries of persecution could still retain enough of their vigor to be continually making contributions to the world's civilization and be worthy citizens every- where, should not be allowed to perish in the shambles of a world gone mad. Judge E. B. Muse of Dallas has expressed, I venture to hope, the attitude of high-minded non-Jews in this matter in words which coming from a Jew would have been ungracious, but are all the nobler for their source : "All we have to do is to stop and think — ^think, what the Jew has done for the world — ^think what a debt the world owes the Jew, to make honest, conscientious men step forth and do their best now in behalf of the Jew. The Jew first pointed man to the worship of the only true and living God, a personal God, a God of love, law, justice and mercy. The Bible, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount — the foundation of all law in all civilized lands comes to us from the Jew. "Whoever saw a Jew beggar — whoever saw a Jew begging for bread in this country of ours? They are a proud, sensitive people. They are a frugal, economi- cal, thrifty and progressive people^ — all they ask is a chance and opportunity to live and be happy. "They have contributed of their blood and treasure unstintedly to every good cause for freedom and hu- manity's sake — from Bunker Hill to Yorktown and from Yorktown all the way to this good hour. No purer patriots ever lived, no more loyal friends had any man or country than the Jews, who for country and friendship's sake financed Washington in the dark days of the American Revolution. The history of the world tells the story of their undimmed devotion and undying love for freedom. It appears to me to be not only a duty, but it seems as well it should be the pleasure of every thinking, liberty- loving Gentile in America, to arise and say — Yes — yes, 276 APPENDIX this is the first time I have ever been called upon to help the Jew — God help me, I will do my best." Judge W. R. Allen of the Supreme Court of North Carolina stated the case for cooperation with Jews in their supreme need in these emphatic terms : "The Jews have been foremost in giving of their time and money for the upbuilding and improvement of our city and country. They gave more than a third of the cost of our local public hospital, have bought liberally of Liberty bonds, War Saving stamps, and have been generous con- tributors tO' the Red Cross and the Y. M. C. A. Shall we be less generous and liberal than they ? I regard this as an exceptional opportunity to express our appreciation to the Jews for what they have done. If I had it in my power as Chairman of the Goldsboro Jewish Relief Com- mittee, / should prevent the acceptance of any contribu- tion from the Jewish citizens of this community, so that we, the non-Jews, might have the pleasure of raising the entire quota ourselves." I have, myself, seen scores of busy merchants, and still busier mothers, forgetting their normal duties for weeks at a time to devote themselves day and night with- out stint and without thought of themselves, to this work. And this splendid spirit, as it transcended the lines of race and creed, passed also beyond the boundaries of occupation and class. -The wealthy and the influential did no more in proportion than the poor and the humble. From a village in North Carolina there came the report of an elderly spinster whose only source of income was a meagre property inheritance amounting to no more than two hundred dollars a year. She was among the first to respond to an advertisement inserted by a Chris- tian church in the local newspaper — the church not being of her own denomination — with a contribution of twenty- five dollars. Both for genuineness of sentiment and simplicity of language, I have no hesitancy in reproducing the letter which follows, as one of the purest documents in the annals of man's love for his kind: APPENDIX 277 J. S. MURROW MISSIONARY AMONG INDIANS 6o YEARS — 82 Y^ARS OLD UNDE^R god's DIRI^CTION i^OUND^R OF MURROW INDIAN ORPHANS' HOME) Atoka, Oklahoma, April 20th. Mr. Herbert H. Lehman, Treasurer, &c. Dear Sir: I am not a Jew. — I am an old worn out Christian — Indian Missionary — a Baptist. Your God is my God. Your Father — ^my Father. Your people are my Master's people. Your brethren are my brethren. My means are small — ^but my heart greatly rejoices because of this privilege of sending the enclosed one hundred dollars for the relief of the suffer- ing and starving Jews in Europe. Sincerely, J. S. MuRROW. In no way differeing in spirit, was the conduct^ of a prominent citizen of Wilmington, Delaware, at the end of a stirring address. The speaker, who had been warned that no collections would be permitted at the meeting, was compelled before he had ended, by the clamor of a largely non-Jewish audience, not only to accept pledges amounting to more than three-quarters of the quota as- signed to the city for the entire, campaign, but to accept the promise of this prominent citizen, that the quota would be either over-subscribed by the community or that he personally would make up the deficit. There is no parallel on record to this downright scramble on the part of men and women of other faiths to render service to a Jewish cause. 278 APPENDIX The Campaign Without Precedent That marvel of mid-wartime — under the leadership of Jacob Billikopf, ten millions of dollars contributed by America to succor sufferers in Europe's ravaged zones — has in our present year a sequel magnificent. The end- ing of war did not end the agonies of people scourged infinitely — did not end the duty that America's quick- ened heart was witness of. Piteous pleas for help came from 300,000 war and pogrom orphans and 400,000 refugees who, if unsuccored, were doomed. Apparently inseparable obstacles confronted, due to economic and industrial depression, and to the wide- spread public feeling that philanthropic appeal had al- ready been carried to extremes. But^ — for the sake of the war-stricken Jews of Europe and Palestine — ^the leaders of American Jewry conferred and considered and determined. There was need, there must be relief. The result was victory marvelous. Of every part of the country, of every state in the Union, of every Jewish and many non- Jewish communities, the same splendid and thrilling story is told. It is a record based upon thoughtful insistence in resolute campaigns, ending in over-subscription — success everywhere, failure nowhere. The "National Appeal" was for $14,000,000. The response was beyond $18,000,000. In enthusiasm a "Victory Conference," presided over by Major General Abel Davis, celebrated the achievement — "one of the finest chapters in the history of the Jewish people," it has been denominated. David A. Brown, prominent citi- zen of Detroit, was the campaign's leader and the Victory Conference, held in Detroit on April 9, 1922, was largely a testimonial to the wonders that his capacity and devo- tion wrought. Delegates gathered from every part of the United States, and in their jubilation all hailed the apostrophe of their spokesman, Julius Rosenwald, who acclaimed David Brown the accomplisher unparalleled. Colonel Herbert H. Lehman, of New York, reviewing the work accomplished, advised the conference of plans contemplatdd by the Joint Distribution Committee to help the horrible situation abroad. "We must bear in APPENDIX 279 mind," he urged, "that we still have a great obligation, not merely for today or tomorrow, but that we must be in a position to help so far as possible in saving the masses of people on the other side who, without our help, will be entirely forlorn and helpless. In Russia the con- dition is appalling. There probably has never been a time in the history of man where so many people were suffering the pangs of hunger, in danger of their lives from disease and pogroms, and who were so completely hopeless, as they are in Russia. "We do not deal in Russia with thousands or tens of thousands of people, but with millions, and there we must continue for a considerable time our actual palliative re- lief on a large scale, or else these people will die. It is not a question of the little things which I have heard of, a little hunger, a little cold, a little suffering, a little misery, such as all of us have s^en within our own com- munities, but of actual life and death, and sometimes life that is worse than death, unless the situation can be re- lieved in Russia. It is believed that over the next twelve months, in conjunction with the American Relief Ad- ministration — Secretary Hoover's organization — ^that we must spend $5,000,000 to do the most necessary work for keeping iDody and soul together among those hun- dreds of thousands of people who, without our help, will die. "The situation in the Ukraine while, possibly, from a pure starvation standpoint not as bad as in the Volga, is bad enough under any circumstances, and far surpasses anything that our human imagination can encompass. But in addition to the starvation there, the Ukraine is the place where there have been within the last four or five years countless pogroms which have overwhelmed the Jewish population, so that the Jewish population in the Ukraine is in unique distress, in desperate situation. It is that population, and it is that situation, which with the very definite co-operation of Mr. Hoover's organiza- tion, we are going to try to relieve." Further elucidating the relief program. Colonel Leh- man told of "functional activities" decided upon after definite and intensive study of the situation. These are. 280 APPENDIX he said: child care, medical relief, cultural and edu- cational work, repatriation and reconstruction; and in forceful illustration of one task abroad, he stated that in contrast with the 8,500 Jewish orphans cared for in all of the orphan asylums of America, there are 300,000 war orphans abroad. One distinctive phase of the work in progress — re- constructive relief — strengthens the indigent population by credit-loans. A net-work of small loan associations offer help to hundreds of thousands of people. "We already have," reported Colonel Lehman, "sta- tistics for Lithuania where out of a total population of men, women and children of 150,000 we are actually loaning money to 11,000 men, and, conservatively esti- mating a family to consist of five people, if we make loans only to the heads of the families, we are already serving upwards of 50,000 people, or about one-third of the Jewish population of Lithuania. That is a most en- couraging thing. Where these banks were started less than a year ago, the deposits made by people who were really poor, have more than doubled in that period. That is the sort of thing that is going to lead us out of the work abroad. We cannot, of course, hope directly to help every suffering Jew abroad. It is not possible. We might just as well face that. But don't forget that when you do help to make self-sustaining 10,000 people, those 10,000 people will put their shoulders to the wheel, and help their own communities, and make the other people of their community self-supporting. "In every one of the last five years the Joint Distri- bution Committee, which is the agency that is working with the funds that America has placed at the disposal of Europe, for their relief, has directly and indirectly helped a larger number of people abroad than there are Jews in this whole country. "We know that the people of Poland and of Rou- mania and of Lithuania and elsewhere, are increasingly on the way to where they may be able to take up their own burdens. We are today not doing a single job in a reconstructive way where we do not expect the com- munities themselves to put up from 15 to 25 per cent of APPENDIX 281 the necessary funds, and they are doing it, and they are helping their fellows, and they are developing a spirit of co-operation and of self-help. The people we are helping in most of these communities are self-respecting, decent, honest people. They were just as fine, just as self-respecting, and just as desirous of carrying their share of the load before the war as you and I. That is beyond question. I do not recall a single public appeal, except in a time of great emergency, that ever came to this country from the Jews of Poland before the war. They were able to take care of themselves, and they were able to take care of the poor before the war. These people we are helping are not helpless people. They are not physically and economically unfit to do a man's work. We are helping people who are able, with a little aid from us, to get on their feet, and thus help their fellows. "Regarding repatriation there are 500,000 people wan- dering from pillar to post, driven from one place to an- other, without a place to lay their heads, without shelter, without food, without clothing, without any hope what- soever: 500,000 people^ — more than all the Jews of Chicago and Philadelphia put together! They are being harried hundreds and hundreds of miles, from one coun- try to another, with the hatred and lack of sympathy of the populations and of the officials of the coun- tries to which they go. These people consist, not of the strong and hardy, but of the old men and old women and young girls and pregnant mothers, of little children in arms, half of them in such physical condition that there is no hope of saving them. They die of typhus, they die of freezing, they die of various diseases to which they are subjected in this wandering. ; "We know where transports have reached Bessarabia, for instance, and been driven over the Russian frontier, where over half of a transport of three or four hundred have died within a period of two or three weeks. We know, from our own records, that of the 500,000 refugees that are being driven from one part of Europe to an- other, we have during the past year, under the leader- 282 APPENDIX ship of one of the greatest moral leaders that I know of —Dr. Bernard Kahn— helped over 200,000." An address by Louis Marshall, "the statesman of American Jewry," was a distinguishing feature of the Victory Conference. "When shortly after the start of the war, in 1914, the American Jewish Relief Committee was formed," said Mr. Marshall, "to answer the cry of distress that had come from the Jews of Europe, no one realized the magnitude of the cataclysm that had oc- curred. No one had any idea how long the work of re- lief would have to be carried on. Neither was there any conception of the amount of money the Jews of America would be called upon to raise for their suffer- ing brethren abroad. However, in the colossal task of raising upward of $60,000,000, the Central Jewish Re- lief Committee and the People's Relief Committee have given their utmost co-operation. "I feel that never since the world began has there been such an exhibition of nobility of character, of whole- hearted philanthropy, of — what is more — of the spirit of love and brotherhood, than the Jews of America have evinced during these last seven terrible years. I pray to God from the bottom of my heart that the time will soon be here when it will not be necessary for us to con- duct campaigns for the relief of our brethren abroad; that it may be given us to see that under proper political protection, which is afforded in the constitutions of the newly constituted governments of Eastern Europe, the Jew will have the opportunity of developing himself in his country; that the Jews will be enabled, through our assistance^ to become rehabilitated and reconstructed, so that we may turn our eyes upon the problems that con- front us here in the United States, that we may be en- abled before long to engage in campaigns for the collec- tion of funds necessary to grapple with the most mo- mentous problem that has ever confronted American Jewry. That is the problem of Jewish education. "We are now organized. We must prepare for a con- tinuance of that organization. We may, perhaps, be APPENDIX 283 obliged to change our lines of procedure, for whatever program may be necessary, that the means shall be forth- coming from the Jews, as they are amongst people of every other denomination, in order that Jewish children are brought up Jewishly, that they may know their own noble history, that they may appreciate the great treas- ure that has been confided to the Jewish people in the Bible, that they may understand the beauties of Jewish life. We must be able to train teachers and Rabbis, we must have presses which will give us Jewish literature for our homes. That all these multitudinous questions will be intelligently dealt with, there is not the shadow of a doubt. The Jewish heart is sound. Let the Jewish head, sound as it is in business, be also sound in those things that pertain to the spirit. "I say here, and I say it advisedly, that adversity some- times is a blessing. Blessed are our adversities. We may pluck from them the opportunity, the means for doing those things that will redound as a perpetual blessing, not only to the Jew, but to our beloved coun- try, and to all mankind." A notably costructive plan adopted at the Victory Conference provided for sending abroad a commission who coming into close personal contact with conditions there would become thus able to inform the Jews of America of the actual foreign situation. "J^st as it is the duty" urged Jacob Billikopf, the proposer of the policy, "of a board of directors of a federation to in- form their clientile what is being done with the money they contribute for its support, so it is our duty to in- from the Jews of this country what is being done with the money they contribute for war relief. I feel that if we send abroad a commission composed of business and professional men — ^men who have accomplished notable things in various fields — men who are regarded as lead- ers — ^they will help the people to visualize the situation. If such men went over and saw the wreckage of Euro- pean Jewry, saw how the devoted and heroic representa- 284 APPENDIX tives of the Joint Distribution Committee were strug- gling to meet the situation, they would have no difficulty in sustaining the interest, they would have no difficulty in making it possible for the Jews of America to visual- ize the terrible conditions we are trying to remedy. They would know how to answer effectively constantly re- curring questions. It is the most effective way we have of making the Jews of this country see the problem as it is with their own eyes. Not only would the commis- sion bring back a workable program, but on the basis of their reports and recommendations the Jews of America would have the ability intelligently to partici- pate in the work we are doing in Europe." Dr. Lee K. Frankel, Vice-President of the Metro- politan Life Insurance Company, heads this Commission, which in June, 1922, sailed for the stricken areas. The personnel of the Commission in addition to Dr. Frankel, consists of David A. Brown of Detroit, Professor Milton J. Rosenau of Harvard, and David M. Bressler and Samuel A. Goldsmith of New York. Felix M. War- burg, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, and Colonel Herbert H. Lehman joined the Commission in Europe. \ As was the mid-war experience, this campaign of 1921-22 was marked by the whole-hearted co-operation of non-Jews. "For example," reported Mr. Arm^ijid May, Georgia State Chairman, "in Noonan, Georgia, where there are no Jews at all, the president of the bank accepted the local chairmanship. Noonan has a popu- lation of 3,000. We suggested to them a quota of $500 — ^and they went over the top. Our little town of Albany, with 300 Jewish souls, undertook to raise a quota of $7,500. At a single meeting Albany subscribed $8,500." By way of further illustration, take the record pre- sented by Mr. Lionel Weil, State Chairman of North Carolina. "Irrespective of race or creed," he told the Victory Conference, "our entire citizenship rallied to this call of human suffering and gave of themselves to relieve our stricken brethren. "The whole State was APPENDIX 285 aflame with this spirit for Jewish relief. Mayors is- sued proclamations. Churches and Sunday-schools took up collections. A great number of prominent ministers of different denominations accepted chairmanships in leading communities. The children of the State Masonic Orphanage actually gave of their small savings over $200, in order that our orphan children in distant lands should not perish.'' In personnel nothing surpassing was ever organized for such high-hearted work — leaders from every part of the Union and from every phase of activity sustaining the earnestness and effectiveness of the campaign. As National Director of the American Jewish Relief Com- mittee Henry H. Rosenfelt welcomed David A. Brown as National Chairman of this appeal for Jewish war sufferers — Mr. Rosenfelt's laurels won when, in complete charge of the campaign of 1920-21, more money was raised under his direction than ever thitherto had been so obtained. Mr. Brown's selection was caused through spontaneous appreciation of his outstanding personal record of achievement. He was on his way to a Euro- pean vacation when the call of his people interposed — and without a murmer he changed all the plans of pleas- ure he had arranged, and buckled on the armor for such labors as seldom are allotted to any man. Applauding friends spoke of his "sacrifice" — only, at the magnificent conclusion of his work, to elicit from him the response: "I have been just a little bit resentful, if you please, over the use of a word, and that is the word 'sacrifice.' The assumption that any man — and I am talking now, dear friends, for the hundred or more chairmen we have in our midst — the assumption that any man can sacrifice in giving himself to humanitarian efforts, is most ridicu- lous. No man can possibly make even the slightest kind of a sacrifice in doing work of this nature. The finest thing that comes to you in life is service of this kind. The only way to get joy, and the only way to get satis- faction, and the only thing that gives you pride, is when you give to someone, whether it is in a material sense, or whether you give of yourself. You can only get the thing worth while — and I say that in all earnestness — 286 APPENDIX you can only get that which is worth while by giving. You cannot get it by getting. "The only way I will accept any word of congratula- tion is if I may be permitted to pass it on to the thou- sands of men and women throughout our country who did this job. Why there are thousands upon thousands of men and women who started this thing months ago, and worked night and day, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen hours — yes, and twenty hours — who gave themselves just as much as I did. They made this victory possible." Supporting' Mr. Brown closely and continuously was a dynamic National Advisory Council, composed of James H. Becker, Jacob Billikopf, Jules E. Mastbaum, Paul L. Feiss, Colonel Fred Levy, Charles Rubens, Albert M. Rosenthal, Henry H. Rosenfelt, Samuel C. Lamport, Louis E. Kirstein, Felix M. Warburg, and Irvin F. Lehman. And supplenmenting these there were masters in efficiency denominated Zone Chairman: Charles Rubens, of Chicago; Cyrus Adler, Philadelphia ; Nathaniel Spear, Pittsburgh; Victor M. Kriegshaber, Atlanta; Louis E. Kirstein, Boston; David H. March, New Orleans; Nathan Frank, St. Louis; Moses A. Gunst, San Francisco, and Adolph Lewisohn, New York City — ^having oversight in groups of states. Every state had in addition its individual citizen chair- man : Isadore Weil, of Alabama ; Charles T. Abeles, Arkansas; Moses A. Gunst, Northern California; Adolph Fleishmann, Southern California; Milton M. Schayer, Colorado; Charles H. Shapiro, Connecticut; David Snellenberg, Delaware; Simon Lyon, District of Columbia; David Falk, Florida; Armand May, Georgia; Gov. Moses Alexander, Idaho; Jacob M. Loeb, Chicago; Julius N. Myers, Illinois (except Chicago) ; L. J. Borin- stein, Indiana; Jacob L. Sheuerman, Iowa; B. B. Woolfe, Kansas; Col. Fred Levy, Kentucky; Rabbi Emil W. Leipziger, Louisiana; Jacob H. Berman, Maine; Eli Frank, Maryland; Louis E. Kirstein, Massachusetts; Fred M. Butzel, Michigan; Joseph H. Schanfeld, Minne- sota; Joseph Hirsh, Mississippi; Nathan Frank, Mis- souri; Abe Wehl, Montana; William Holzman, Ne- braska; Abraham Machinist, New Hampshire; Felix APPENDIX 287 Fuld, New Jersey; Ivan Grunsfeld, New Mexico; Eugene Warner, New York (except New York City) ; David M. Bressler, New York City; Lionel Weil, North Carolina ; D. Naftalin, North Dakota ; Alfred M. Cohen, Ohio; Emile Offenbacher, Oklahoma; Jules E. Mast- baum, Eastern Pennsylvania; Nathaniel Spear, Western Pennsylvania; Archibald Silverman, Rhode Island; Louis Shimel, South Carolina; Joe Livingston, South Dakota; Joseph Newburger, Tennessee; J. K. Hexter, Texas; Gov. Simon Hamburger, Utah; Moe Levy, Vir- ginia; Louis H. Burnett, Washington; H. O. Baer, West Virginia; A. L. Salzstein, Wisconsin; Jacob Sherman, Wyoming. David M. Bressler, chairman of the City of New York achieved the marvelous. "Tfee quota originally set for the metropolis," epitomized Colonel H. A. Guinzburg, presiding at a celebration in honor of Mr. Bressler, "was four million dollars. Many who had been identi- fied with philanthropic effort thought that if two and a half millions could be raised the campaign would be a great success. The record is over five millions — at- tributable, have acclaimed those closely familiar with the work, to the organizing ability and inspirational influ- ence of Mr. Bressler." There were 92,000 contributors, not including the very large number of workingmen, workingwomen, municipal and federal employees and school children who joined in bulk contribution. Nor does the total of 92,000 include that other mass of anony- mous lovers of humanity who responded to the appeals made in theatres and other public gathering places. In previous campaigns the total list of subscribers had not surpassed 26,000. Calling the campaign "a life-saving expedition," Mr. Bressler, answering enthusiastic toasts to his wonder- working has responded: "Those who participated in the campaign through the giving of their means or service, or both, have much cause to rejoice. Theirs was the golden opportunity in the cause of suffering humanity, and to them it is given to have a share in the joy of 288 APPENDIX rescue of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, their kin, in war-devastated and pogrom-rid- den Eastern Europe. Despite business depression and every other obstacle, they stood heroically and stead- fastly to their task. Theirs is the achievement, and to them belongs this victory celebration. And let it be known and never forgotten, that in this wonderful out- pouring of love and service to the stricken and suffer- ing, many who were not of our faith participated eagerly and generously with the Jews of New York. Indeed, the campaign in New York, as is undoubtedly true of the campaigns in other parts of the country, demonstrated that in times of suffering the boundaries of race or creed are happily eliminated. In the mobilization of the community's philanthropic and social assets, no class, group or section, failed to answer ..ready to the call to service. More than 92,000 individual contributors, an unprecedented number in any campaign for any benevo- lent purpose whatsoever, attest the devotion, alertness and effectiveness of co-operation and effort, and is a last- ing monument to the great heart and sense of duty and responsibility of our Jewish population." The total of $18,000,000, precedented campaign," as called it, was contributed as Alabama $100,000 Arizona 25,000 Arkansas 100,000 California 750,000 Colorado 150,000 Connecticut 362,000 Delaware 100,000 District of Columbia 110,000 Florida 35,000 Georgia 200,000 Idaho 10,000 Illinois 2,087,000 Indiana 330,000 and over raised in this "un- Mr. Louis Marshall has follows : Iowa $106,000 Kansas 65,000 Kentucky 150,000 Louisiana 200,000 Maine 30,000 Maryland 522,439 Massachusetts 900,000 Michigan 300,000 Minnesota 354,000 Mississippi 50,000 Missouri 500,000 Montana 10.000 Nebraska 150,000 APPENDIX 289 Nevada $2,500 New Hampshire . . . 25,000 New Jersey 825,000 New Mexico 10,000 New York 5,142,000 North Carolina .... 147,000 North Dakota 50,000 Ohio 1,000,000 Oklahoma 60,000 Oregon 75,000 Pennsylvania 1,750,000 Rhode Island 110,000 South Carolina ... $80,000 South Dakota 50,000 Tennessee 125,000 Texas 250,000 Utah 25,000 Vermont 25,000 Virginia 155,000 Washington 100,000 West Virginia 70,000 Wisconsin 200,000 Wyoming 5,000 Canada 250,000 290 APPENDIX Americans Premier of Benevolence A. H. Fromenson in The American Hebrew, February 10, 1922. "Why do you do it?" That was one of the many questions I fired at Felix M. Warburg as I sat at his desk at the Kuhn, Loeb & Co. offices the other day — "it" being his remarkable range of Jewish activities. Only a few days before I had been turning the pages of "Who's Who in America." Out of curiosity I stopped to read the four inches of solid agate type that is de- voted to him and his interests. Here are a few: "Trustee of the American " Museum of Natural His- tory, Teachers' College, Jewish Theological Seminary, Charity Organization Society, Civic League for Immi- grants, Tuberculosis Preventorium for Children, Metro- politan Museum of Art." And I recalled that for years he had been identified with the Educational Alliance ; that for many years he had been president of the New York Y. M. H. A. ; that he was the first president of the Y. M. H. and kindred organizations; that he was the organizer and first presi- dent of New York's Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies; that he was no stranger in the councils of the Jewish Welfare Board, and that since 1914 the words "Joint Distribution Committee" and "Fehx M. Warburg" were practically interchangeable in the minds of the Jews of America and Europe.* A remarkable range of activities, truly. And so I put that question to him. He delighted me with the unexpectedness, the sim- plicity, of his answer: "I suppose it is because of my confounded good nature." When you think it over that's the very essence of the finest of human emotions. You can give it any other name you like; but in the last analysis it comes back to *"That great son of Israel (I speak it ardently) that noble son of our race, that man who knows what sacrifice means, that man who for seven years past has laid aside all of his great business and devoted himself whole heartedly to the cause of Israel — Felix M. Warburg." — Louis Marshall to the Victory Conference. APPENDIX 291 "good nature." It is the sense of noblesse oblige that makes him take such an intense interest in things that are for the Jewish good and that makes him assume the terrifying responsibilties that have gone with the ad- ministering of the $47,000,000* which have been raised in this country for the past seven years to help the war- stricken Jews of Europe and which has made him such an active force in the 1922 campaign to raise $5,000,000 in New York City toward the $14,000,000 appeal. It is this same good nature — yes, his great sympathy with those who suffer and those who want — ^that has caused him to help many young men and women toward their careers and that makes him do the many, things that he finds the time to do. But the thing to which he gives most of his time is the Joint Distribution Committee, of which he is chairman. His interest in Jewish affairs is an evolution. When he came to this country one of his first Jewish interests was the Educational Alliance, down on East Broadway. Here the bitter struggle of hundreds of Jewish young men toward the finer things of life was revealed to him. And so be became interested in the Y. M. H. A., and it was perhaps due to his persuasion that Jacob H. Schiff presented that organization with its building at Ninety- second street and Lexington avenue. At the Educational Alliance he met Julia Richman whose struggle for public school reform won his sup- port and led him into the Board of Education; and on the East Side he saw Lillian D. Wald at work in a dingy tenement, and because he believed in her work the Henry Street Settlement and its manifold activities received his co-operation in exchange for the inspiration he gfot from them. The whole drab vista of the life of the poor spread before him in this way. And so he became interested in the idea of setting up classes in public schools for de- ficient children under Miss Farrel; and in probation under Gov. Hughes ; in the Association for the Help of the Blind; and in Teacher's College and in Harvard *Over $65,000,000 now. 292 appendix: University. But at the same time he became interested in the men and women who give themselves to social work and into whose lives he has brought so much sun- shine by making their work possible and enduring. It was a natural, a logical evolution. It is not so long ago that Mr. Warburg thought that the time was fast approaching when he could turn his thoughts to the things, to the pleasures that he has had to abandon. The period of palliative relief was drawing to a close, and the J. D. C. was planning liquidation. But when James H. Becker and then Dr. Bogen and Dr. Rosenblatt returned to this country and told the terrible story of the 300,000 war and pogrom orphans who would perish if American Jewry withdrew its support; of the 400,000 refugees doomed to death by typhus and other plagues unless we in this country came to the rescue ; of the spiritual and moral decadence and the parallel growth of anti-Semitism that would result unless the Jews of Europe were helped to regain their cultural status and given the opportunity to become again self-sustaining and self-respecting, Mr. Warburg was among the first to sign the call for the conference held in Chicago last September at which the $14,000,000 appeal was launched. And he went right into the thick of the campaign. "Even though you won't say so, Mr. Warburg, this work that has taken up practically all of your time dur- ing the past seven years has been nerve-racking and soul- trying. Its responsibilities are tremendous, and its de- mands appalling," I said, "has it had any compensation for you — any satisfaction, any gratification?" He an- swered : "I couldn't have done anything like this if it had to be done for the Jews in America — I would have had to leave the country. I couldn't have endured listening to our people's expressions of gratitude. But I have had the greatest satisfaction in being able to do this at a dis- tance for a people I will never see, and whose thanks I will never hear and never receive. To do this thing has been to do something worth while." If you will recall the story of that Jew who fell into a lime-kiln as he fled, so the poor family at whose door APPENDIX 293 he had left bread and wine should not know their bene- factor and stand abashed before him, you will realize that in this answer stands out all of the Jewish aristo- cracy of the son of Moritz and Charlotte Warburg, of Hamburg, and the spiritual heir and grandson of Nathan Marcus Oppenheim, of Frankfurt.