DS 143 C63 A A - c 33 1 1 O 1 > 7 <- 7 iRAR 9 - -n 7 ri 9 COHEN THE EVOLUTION OF JEWISH DISABILITY THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ^'^ t Evolution of sh Disability REV, HENRY COHEN, GALVESTON, TEXAS. ■§^ Cf^ Jo The Evolution of Jewish Disability REV. HENRY COHEN, GALVESTON, TEXAS. An Essay read before the Convention of District No. 7, I. O. B. B., New Or- leans, La., May 24th, 1896 NEW YORK: PRESS OF PHILIP COWEN, 2 1 3-2 1 5 E. 44TH ST. 1806. DS cc.T> THE EVOLUTION OF JEWISH DISABIUTY By Rev. Henry Cohen, Galveston, Texas TN as concise a manner as possible, I shall endeavor to -^ bring before you an outline of the evolution of Jewish disability — a theme that must at one time or another have held a place in our minds, inasmuch as at this late day and in this free country we have beeu threatened with an invasion of our right to liberty of conscience, presignifying legalized disabilities. It is, moreover, eminently proper that this subject should be discussed before a convention of the members of the Order B'ne B'rith, since our corporation of thirty thou- sand Israelites entitles us to a representation and a hearing whenever measures militating against our race and religion are suggested. Besides the upholding of charitable institutions and the impetus that our Order gives to literary culture, it should be our place, either separately or in conjunction with a special body purposely appointed, to agitate against any movement aimed at our freedom of conscience. In this agitation, if such shall ever arise, we shall have the judgment of all think- ing people upon our side. Let me hasten to assure you that I have not set up a man of straw in order to demolish it by a battery of argument. Early in the month of March of this year the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives at Washington was petitioned by the delegates of some zealous Christian sects to insert the name of Christ in the Constitu- tion of the United States, virtually making this a Christian country de jure and defacio, with all that such ecclesiastical legislation means. Public schools, the marriage rite and even public worship for all non-Christians would, in some shape or form, be under discrimination, and Church and State would be practically allied. If among Christians this would breed strife — for Protestants and Catholics are not yet agreed — what would result for Israelites? Not that the danger of an affirmative reply to the petition was at any 6 E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABILITY time imminent, for the American people are just, but it is well that we should understand the enormit)' of such a pro- cedure carried to success, as far as we Jews are concerned. The alliance of the Church and the State, or, in other words, a prescribed state religion, has always caused Israel to be accounted as a "stranoer" whose existence was a menace to the rest of the population, and this fact has been attested by no less a Christian authority than Iveroy-Beaulieu ("Israel among the Nations"). By reason of our non- acceptance of the state religion, we are considered by the masses as having nothing in common with the people with whom we live, and this is and has been the prime cause of our continued persecutions. In Biblical no less than in post- Biblical times, the Hebrews in Egypt, the Jews in Persia, the Israelites in mediaeval and modern Europe, suffered opposition because legislation, based upon a constitutional religion, adjudged them aliens. Let us trace the history of our disabilities in every country in which we have become numerous from their inception, through their amelioration^ to their entire removal (where they have been entirely removed), and let us see whether the idea postulated a moment ago will not be borne out — namely, whether our right to complete citizenship has not been based upon the supposition that, inasmuch as we, as Jews, totally differ with the state religion, we are aliens, and, as such, are liable to persecution. And it will be interesting to inquire whether the Israelite has not, in many instances, become degraded by the legal treatment he has received in consequence of this discrimination, and whether the reverse is not also true — that he has become elevated by tolerant legislation. Beginning as far back as a thousand years ago, we find that while the Jews in the East, living under the Kaliphate of Omar and Haroun-al-Raschid, progressed favorably by reason of benign legislation, they degenerated, in a measure, under Mutavakel, who looked upon them as strangers and interlopers. Their clothing was prescribed, as well as their beasts of burden, for the "giaour" could neither dress in the same manner nor ride upon the same animal as the " faith- EVOLUTION OF JFAVJSH DISABILITY 7 ful." Subsequently the inherent ability of the Jews was recognized and appreciated, and the Mohammedan rulers granted Israelites in their dominion political and social equality, to the end that the mental capacity ot the race might enlarge. For three hundred years the wisdom of this policy was proven. The Jews had, ere that, spread westward, and the mild rule of the Eastern Kaliphs was copied by France and Spain, and its consequent elevation of Israel resulted. In the former country, Jewish teachers were pre- ferably employed, Jewish physicians were in demaud, Jewish merchants and traders were honored, and Jewish navigators were common. They held land, served as government officials and were elected prefects. Jewish schools flourished and produced men whose learning was universally acknowl- edged. In short, from the king to the peasant Israel was respected, and in some instances beloved, to the verge of causing the dire enmity of Christian churchmen. The liberty that was granted them they appreciated, and by their patriotism and diligence they repaid tenfold the confidence reposed in them. If we have said so much of France, what shall we say of Spain, with its Golden Age of Judaism? In that country, from the eighth to the twelfth century Israel's lot was happy. As in the father-land, each man could sit under his vine and his fig-tree, and there were none to make him afraid. Such consideration was paid to the religious scruples of the Israelites that during the war between Mohammedan and Catholic Spain battles were post- poned by opposing generals because of the intervention of the Jewish Sabbath. Such treatment produced Jewish viziers and ministers. Such legislation gave birth to Jewish literary giants, honored by all, and turned the thoughts of Israel into a highly intellectual channel that directly and indirectly benefited the whole of Southern Europe. Philosophy and medicine, astronomy and philology, found their home among the Jewish people on the Peninsula, and so the powers that were, were repaid in kind for their unbounded justice. Alas! this was not to last. The dynasty of the Almohades in the latter half of the twelfth century knew no tolerance but for 8 E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABILITY Mohammedans, and the Jews of Spain, the alien race — alien because they did not follow the Prophet — were oflfered con- version or exile. Thousands of families left the country for other parts, and confusion and its consequent degeneration reigned where peace and enlightenment had held sway. In Catholic Spain, Jews were still respected, and, in notable instances, honored ; but as Catholic Spain grew and Moham- medan Spain diminished, the proverbial cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand, appeared and gradually spread over the whole sky until it burst forth in the storm of the Inquisition, with its Marannos, its tortures and its exiles, destroying in its impetuosity the usefulness of that country. Nevermore, O Spain, wilt thou revive! Thou wert a cruel mother to thy trusting children ! Thou wert unmindful of the light that Israel shed when thou wert benign, and so thou didst darken his soul and degrade his image by thine own black shadow ! We come now to France and the neighboring states. For a century and moie in the early Middle Ages, France modeled her laws of toleration after those of Spain, and the Jews were happy and enlightened in consequence. Gradu- ally, and by stealth, one enactment after another was intro- duced against the life and person of the Israelites. They were aliens, and could neither hold land, nor sell land, nor buy land. Their inclination for medicine was not encouraged, and, finally, their practice as physicians was forbidden. The professions were closed to them, and as soldiers, promotion was denied them. Commerce was the only port through which they might enter to make a living, and while it was not to their taste, as scholarship had been, it was, at all events, endurable. New restrictions and new regulations, prompted by envy and malice, soon brought trafiicking down to a low standard, and eventually took even that out of the hands of the Jews and drove them through an avenue that was distasteful and strange to them— money-lending. Thus we see that adverse legislation, based upon the Church-and- State theory of Israel being the "stranger" people, wrought unutterable harm for our race, the result of which has not EVOL UTJON OF JE WISH DISABILITY 9 altogether disappeared. But we have not yet done. France and Central Europe drove the Jews to money-lending and then persecuted them for usury, gave them no chance to earn a livelihood by any other means, and oppressed them for earning it by this means. Under Louis IX. (1226-1270), whole libraries of Jewish books were burned, and the " rou- elle," a degrading badge, was ordered to be worn by Jews of both sexes, thus discriminating against them mentally and physically. They were expelled, purchased back, expelled and re-purchased, and finally, after being accused of poison- ing wells and causing the plague, were in 1394, under Charles VI., commanded to leave the country altogether — an edict of expulsion which remained in force till the year 1784 (nearly four centuries). While it is true that during these four hundred years, and more especially in the seventeenth century, Jews gradually settled in French dominions, they were allowed there on sufferance only, and (as in the instance of Louis XIII.) Christians were forbidden to have intercourse with them. Despised and reviled, born of the soil and yet accounted foreigners, they were thus the victims of a legal ban. In Germany, whither the Jews had gone to escape West- ern or Southern persecutions, their position was precarious. Plundered and destroyed by the Crusaders, expelled and recalled and expelled again, their lives were made miserable. Throughout the Middle Ages they were serfs, and were inor- dinately taxed for a protection which they never received. With the possible exception of Frederick Barbarossa, every German emperor looked upon the Jew as so much goods and chattels, and treated him as such. They were occasionally pawned en masse^ or presented to a vassal prince as a gift. Physically weak in the aggregate and too down-hearted to resist, they held their peace. Their lot was so hard that thousands emigrated to Poland and Turkey where the regal sway was comparatively mild. Everywhere, however, the Emperors attempted to destroy the germs of Jewish learning, so thoroughly culti- vated in bygone years, and were in many instances success- 1 o E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABIL IT Y fill. In England, whither Jews had emigrated from the continent, they lived till the end of the eleventh century in comparative security. They were ," protected " by extra taxation, of course, and must have attained to a degree ot learning, if we may judge by certain scholastic "Halls" named after Jewish leaders; once again showing that, under lenient legislation, they rise to the surface. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during the Crusades, the Christians found an excuse for robbing and murdering the Jews — co-religionists of the man, for the possessiou of whose sepul- chre Christendom was then fighting. They were accused of crucifying William of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln — trumped up charges, as all blood accusations are, and they suffered accordingly. Massacred at York and elsewhere at the accession of Richard I., plundered, tortured and mur- dered by John, their lives were in jeopardy by day and by night. Under Edward I., the statute book decreed that Jews should become agriculturists under pain of further taxation, but as the earlier edict that Jews should not hold real estate had never been repealed, this was impossible; and the Jews paid for that impossibility. After repeated attempts at con- version which resulted unsuccessfully, they were expelled ^s aliens in 1290, — the halt and the blind, the old and the young — men, women and children — victims of that religious fanaticism, rife in all church-ridden countries. The Jews expelled from Spain sought a home in Italy, but were very poorly welcomed. Several cities closed their doors ngainst them altogether, while others admitted them but to shut them up in ghettos. Numbers of Israelites crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and settled in Africa, to be eventually sold as slaves; and others met a barbarous death at the hands of the natives. Many went westward to Portu- gal, which afforded an asylum for a few years, thence were dispersed over Italy, Africa, and the East, some few finding a domicile in Holland. In Poland, where many refugees found a foothold, they were at first, in a manner, " protected." They were allowed to trade, but were looked upon as aliens and hence discrimi- E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABILIT Y 1 1 nated against. Already stunted in body and mind, they grew worse under Polish regime, and those who did not emigrate had barely the semblance of civilized men. After the recital of all these grim persecutions and expulsions, do not the plaintive words of Byron seem singu- larly true ? " Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall ye flee away and be at rest ? The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave. Mankind, their country — Israel but the grave ! " It were, indeed, of little use to portray this terrible his- tory of Israel's martyrdom, were it not that I wish to show the effect that continual persecution has upon a people, and how such persecution can almost dehumanize a race. During the years between the golden age of I'^rael, when our co- religionists stood abreast of progress and science, ethics and philosophy, and the end of the sixteenth century, the character of the race had deteriorated immeasurably. Forbidden to practise Judaism openly, prohibited from entering the pro- fessions, shunned by all who were not of the Faith, they were forced into mean trades and callings, and were made shrewd and wary, incredulous and suspicious. If money was the only thing to gain them protection, why, then, they would make money under all circumstancesi It is only remarkable that they were not as degraded as the world thought them, that they were not bereft of every spark of humanity ! Man can be deprived of much more than his material wealth. His ambition, his hope, his honor, his mental ease, can be taken from him— compared with such torment, the bed of Pro- crustes were down and feathers. And so under these trials the very physical likeness of the Jew became changed. His keen mind lay dormant, he bent his head and could look none in the face. It is but right to emphasize llie fact that these legal outrages were due to that parody of jurisprudence that looked upon the Jew as a stranger, such legislation having been born of the wedlock of Church and State. Let us now turn to a brighter page of Jewish history and show that as the nations (would that we could say all nations) 1 2 E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABILITY granted rights to Israel, his vitality, and his recuperative and rejuvenative power — legacy of his vicissitudes — mani- fested itself; he shook ofif his dejected appearance and looked the world in the face, repaying in kind the confidence reposed in him, and taking his place in honorable citizenship with the most respected in the land. The Marannos of Spain and Portugal received a hearty welcome from the inhabitants of Holland, to which country they went at the end of the sixteenth century. Immediately upon their arrival, they declared their faith and were allowed to build synagogues and schools, Jiarly in the eighteenth century they were granted numerous rights and privileges, which resulted in commercial prosperity for the country, and a return to intellectual culture for themselves, and conse- quently for thoFe with whom they came in contact. From Amsterdam went forth the first movement towards the return of the Jews to England, whence they had been expelled in 1290. Manasseh ben Israel's petition to Oliver Cromwell is English history, and our co-religionists in Britain have recently instituted " Re-settlement Day " as a local Jewish anniversary. But while Holland and Erigland were progressing, there was, as yet, only a glimmering light in Northern and Central Europe, which now and again — such as at the invention of printing or at the rise of some great Jewish scholar — would break into a lurid flame. In Germany and Austria they were regarded as aliens and were oppressed in consequence. The thumbscrew and the rack gave place to taxation, with now and then an expul- sion. In some cities Jews could not leave their ghetto at night, and a special permit was required to receive a guest. Money and property were confiscated at the slightest pretext, and when in 1745 Maria Theresa expelled 20,000 Jews from Austria, the tide of persecution seemed, for a time, to be at the flood. It was, however, the fulness of the breaking wave. But a few years more, the ebb and flow cast up a Mendelssohn to right some of the wrongs of his co-religion- ists. This later persecution in Germany blasted the lives of the Jews to such an extent that they isolated themselves. EVOL UTION OF JE WISH DI SAB J LI TY 13 refused to learn the lang^uage and literature, spoke a jargon, and hated their oppressors with a holy hatred. Small wonder then that the outside world had tolearn afresh the nature and calling of the Israelite — his law, his characteristics, his life. Subsequently, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, when the Code Napoleon, introduced into the Kingdom of Westphalia as well as into all French provinces, took the place of the old German statute — according to which Jews were strangers and outcasts, liable to imprisonment without a trial — the full citizenship accorded to the Jews in France at the Revolution was accorded to our German co-religionists. The LeibzoU or body tax was abolished, and all positions in the State, except those directly under the government, were open to Israelites. This freedom, however, did not last long. Following the downfall of Napoleon, the treaty of Vienna (1815) put the same legal restrictions in practice that had obtained before the French supremacy. The Judengasse was established at Frankfort, all offices of the State were closed to them, the number of Jewish marriages was limited, and Christian names were forbidden them. They were, how- ever, again admitted as citizens at the Revolution of 1848, and in 1850 Frederick William IV. of Prussia gave them full rights. Since the war of 1870 there has been nothing upon the statute code of the German Empire militating against Israelites. In France, in the year 1781, owing to the friendship for Israelites of several noted men, an agitation for Jewish free- dom was begun, which ended on September 27th, 1791, by their full emancipation. The phrase ''Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" could not be quoted for the new French nation, unless all the inhabitants shared therein. To the eternal honor of France, be it said, she was the first modern nation to give full rights and privileges to Israelites. This stand was more than confirmed b> Napoleon Bonaparte, since whose time the status of the French Jews might well serve as a model to other countries. In Italy, from the later Middle Ages till 1848, the Jews •were restricted, except during the few years Napoleon held 14 EVOLUTION OF JEWISH DISABILITY sway. The ghetto was established in all cities, and Israel had to move with caution. In 1848, their position began to improve, and the last restriction was erased in 1670, since which time they have been accorded full liberty. Portugal in 182 1, and Spain in 1868, opened their gates to Israelites, and have formally invited them to return and become citizens. In the Austrian Empire, where the LeibzoU was abol- ished in 1783, their legal disabilities were slowly removed, and to-day there is nothing upon the statute-book against our co-religionists. In Holland, where from the Middle Ages they had been practically free, they were made legally so from -the year ^793- Belgium in 1830, Sweden in 1848, Denmark in 1849, Greece in the same year, and Switzerland in 1874, enfran- chised their Jewish residents, which Norway has yet to do. The Balkan provinces, with the exception of Roumania, have, since the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, given the Jews full rights as citizens, and the general progress made by our brethren in faith has been remarkable in consequence. Roumania is almost as barbaric to-day as she was a century ago, and her citizens are correspondingly retrogressive. Nearly every right is denied them, and they are scarcely sure of their own lives. The statute-books teem with Jewish restrictions, and their emancipation seems far ofif. The history of the emancipation of the Jews in England is most interesting, because of the unremitting struggle of her great men for liberty of conscience, against enormous odds. From the year 1656, the re-settlement of the Jews in England began. In 1673, their right of public worship was threatened, and later on they were heavily taxed. The phrase, "On the true faith of a Christian," was omitted from the judicial oath in 1723 where Jews were concerned, and in 1740, foreign Israelites who had served in the British navy for two vears obtained certain rights of naturalization. This encouraged Anglo-Israel to patriotism, and many fought for the government, while others helped it financially. England EVOLUTION OF JEWISH DISABILITY 15 did not respond as heartily as she should, for it was not till three-quarters of a century thereafter that the next emanci- patory act — marriage solemnization according to the Jewish law, hitherto prohibited — was passed. From that time prejudice against Israel commenced to die, although its death was slow. Early in the third decade of this century, extraordinary eflforts were made by our co-religionists in England to become entirely emancipated, and gradually the better sense of the English people prevailed. Although, in 1847, Baron Lionel de Rothschild was elected a member of Parliament, he was not allowed to take his seat till 1858, the Christian oath of allegiance to the government acting as a deterrent. In 1866, the abolition of all verbal strictures was accomplished, since which Jews have held the highest honors in England, and. there is nothing whatever on the statute-books that smacks of discrimination. In Turkey, the Jews have been gradually emancipated, the last two Sultans having been particularly favorable towards them. It is only true to add that useful citizenship has been the result. In Morocco and Persia, the Israelites are in thraldom, with everything in the judicial code against them. Living in certain quarters of the town, shut in on all sides, their lot is terrible. Beaten and spat upon in the streets, at the mercy of every passer-by, a bitter cry for redemption is raised to the powers that be. Such persecution has made the Jews benighted and ignorant, and the law is still pressing upon them with a heavy hand. I have purposely refrained from touching upou Russia, or its Jewish disability is a matter of current history. The May Laws of 1881, introduced by Ignatief, are still in force ; and while the Jewish status was bad enough before that time, it is worse now. The "pale of settlement" is too small to allow the millions of Israelites to live therein as human beings should live, and unless the law of local settlement is repealed, emigration or deterioration is left tbem. Their mental life is made the mark for cruel shafts, as only a i6 EVOLUTION OF JEWISH DISABILITY small percentage can enter the schools, and everything that can make existence miserable is legally advanced. It would be a miracle if the Russian Jew was all we could wish him to be. If there is anything questionable in his nature, it is born of the degradation forced upon him. In South America, until comparatively recent times, there were the same restrictions placed upon Jews as in Southern Europe, and even to-day there are numerous laws against the full emancipation of our co-religionists of the Spanish Main. In North America, whither some Jews had emigrated from Brazil in the seventeenth century, Peter Stuyvesant put obstacles in the way of Jewish settlement. Rhode Island, colonized by Roger Williams, decreed in its charter of 1644 that every man may follow the dictates of his conscience, and to Roger Williams we are indebted for his excellent advocacy of the total separation of Church and State and his masterful ideas of the removal of civil disabilities In Mary, land, in 1761, the judiciary refused to give naturalization papers to two co-religionists, basing their refusal upon a certain "Toleration Act" passed in 1649, and it was not till 1826 that full rights were accorded the Jews in that State. From that time there has been nothing upon the statute- books of the different States curtailing our rights and privi- leges as citizens, we being in every respect " free and equal.'* That our useful life as part and parcel of this Republic is well recognized, contemporary events show. From this brief history of "The Evolution of Jewish Dis ability," we may deduce that the Israelite can hardly rise above the moral level of the laws that curtail his liberty; that, whenever such laws have been passed, there has been a tendency to retrograde, and that, whenever and wherever just laws have been passed, the Jew is the peer of his fellow" citizen in every respect. The Jewish characteristic of adapt- ability to environment is well known. Place the Israelite wherever you will, and he will assimilate quicker than any other man. There is this diSerence, 'however, marked all through his history. While a non-Jew will quickly fall to a E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISABILITY 1 7 degrading level and but slowly rise to an elevated position, the Israelite, tempered by the persecutions of two thousand years — treatment that has called into play all the religious consciousness that he ever possessed — falls slowly, but rises and progresses very quickly. Where freedom has been given him, he is almost immediately at his best. Consider him an alien, and his ardor is dampened. That his chequered past has made him so assimilative we cannot for a moment doubt. Having had to accommodate himself to every conceivable situation, his character speedily reflects the treatment he receives. Of the eflfect of continued oppressive measures working to the physical and social detriment of our co-religionists, let me adduce but one instance — the apathy of our people towards agricultural pursuits. None will deny that in our early history we were tillers of the soil. The Jewish life was an agricultural life for over two thousand years. In mediae- val times, in nearly every country we were forbidden to hold land, even upon a tenure, with the result that our natural affection for Mother Earth died out; and only during the last two decades — thanks to our philanthropists — have agricul- tural colonies begun to flourish. Our disinclination for agriculture has always been affirmed against us as a vice. If it be such, it is proper to answer this accusation by citing the words of a noted French statesman, who, in defending the Israelites in public assembly, said: '' Tiie vices of the Jews are the result of the degradation to which we have subjected them. Better their condition and they will quickly improve themselves." And in this connection let me quote Leroy-Beaulieu: "The Jew's past is responsible for his good and his evil qualities, for his strength and for his weakness, for all the peculiarities of his physical and moral being. And here is the distinction to be made— whatever is good in the Jew physically, and perhaps morally, is due to himself, whatever is bad|in him is due to us (Christianity); the former is of his own making, the latter is our work." The term alien, by which our people were invariably 1 8 E VOL UTION OF JE WISH DISA BILITY known, brought scorn in its wake, as the legislation accorded to the stranger, depriving him of fair means to existence, succeeded in forcing him to adopt unfair methods. This is our outcry, and it should be the plaint in every country where, by the partial or total combination of Church and State, perfect freedom of conscience is threatened. Psycho- logists are unanimous in the opinion, based upon historic facts, that in order to regain his complete manhood, the Jew requires no other help than Liberty. Now, notwithstanding the first Article in the Amend- ment to the Constitution of the United States, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," a committee repre- senting certain Christian sects petitioned the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives to insert Christ in the Constitution. The reply of the Senatorial committee to whom this bill was referred was all that could be expected from wise men and patriots. The substance of the answer lies in these notable words: "Among all the religious persecutions with which almost every age of modern history is stained, no victim ever suffered but for the violation of what government denominated the law of God. To prevent a similar reign of evils in this country, the Constitution has wisely withheld from our Government the power of defining the divine law. It is a right reserved to each citizen, and while he respects the rights of others, he cannot be held amenable to any tribunal for his conclu- sions." The wisdom of this response is unquestioned. Make us aliens by inserting anything in the Constitution to which we cannot bend our conscience,and we run the risk of living, in this country, as we have lived in other countries, on sufferance only. Instead of the thousands of emigrants learning with avidity, albeit in the Hebrew language, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, we would have the harrowing spectacle of a large class of intelligent people — native born and foreign — E VOL UTI ON OF JE WISH Dl SAB I LI TY 19 constantly upon the alert for legal discrimination. And while we can almost positively assert that this contingency will never arise, it is well to call the attention of those zeal- ous agitators for a Christian Constitution to the fact that they are asking for something, the import of which is detrimental to an intellectual and law-abiding section of the Republic, and indirectly fostering inquisitorial methods and the series of social and political persecutions that during the Middle Ages gave birth to a Torquemada. It would be a wise and patriotic act did the opposition to this proposed amendment to the Constitution come from the Christian clergy of all denominations, for it is in their power to aid the cause of Liberty by setting before their congregants the result of this contemplated violation of perfect freedom, a disaster that would speedily react upon the whole American nation. It should be our aim to imbue our Christian fellow- citizens at large with the importance of protecting that liberty which has ever been the mainstay of these United States, so that the Stars and Stripes may never be sullied by that legislation that erstwhile darkened mediaeval Europe. The principles for which the founders of this country, free and independent, fought and died, must ever be upheld, and it behooves us individually as Jews, and collectively as B'ne B'rith, to record our dissatisfaction with everything that savors of an alliance between Church and State, and we will thereby prove ourselves loyal Americans, loyal Israelites and loyal " Sous of the Covenant." UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Alleles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. MAY 10 i9» 315 3 1158 00690 9971 i UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY