CONCERNING THE JEWS
Some months ago I published a magazine article(1) descriptive of aremarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then Ihave received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They weredifficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But atlast I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he reallyasks the questions which the other writers probably believed they wereasking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answerthis correspondent, and also the others--at the same time apologisingfor having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads asfollows:
'I have read "Stirring Times in Austria." One point in particular is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself, being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which did not have a party--they are absolute non-participants. Yet in your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all classes of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities? I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet, undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that same Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.
'Tell me, therefore, from your vantage point of cold view, what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of the Golden Rule?'
I will begin by saying that if I thought myself prejudiced against theJew, I should hold it fairest to leave this subject to a person notcrippled in that way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few yearsago a Jew observed to me that there was no uncourteous reference to hispeople in my books, and asked how it happened. It happened because thedisposition was lacking. I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no raceprejudices, and I think I have no colour prejudices nor caste prejudicesnor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. Allthat I care to know is that a man is a human being--that is enough forme; he can't be any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but I canat least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be thatI lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. Allreligions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious thingsabout him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence forthe prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, thisis irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Withoutthis precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course Satanhas some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one,but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I canget at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I canfind an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willingto do for any one who is under a cloud. We may not pay Satan reverence,for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents.A person who has during all time maintained the imposing position ofspiritual head of four-fifths of the human race, and political head ofthe whole of it, must be granted the possession of executive abilitiesof the loftiest order. In his large presence the other popes andpoliticians shrink to midges for the microscope. I would like to seehim. I would rather see him and shake him by the tail than any othermember of the European Concert. In the present paper I shall allowmyself to use the word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race.It is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means to the generalworld.
In the above letter one notes these points:
1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen.
2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for his unjust treatment?
3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?
4. The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.
5. Will the persecution ever come to an end?
6. What has become of the Golden Rule?
Point No. 1.--We must grant proposition No. 1, for several sufficientreasons. The Jew is not a disturber of the peace of any country. Evenhis enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he is not a sot, heis not noisy, he is not a brawler nor a rioter, he is not quarrelsome.In the statistics of crime his presence is conspicuously rare--in allcountries. With murder and other crimes of violence he has but littleto do: he is a stranger to the hangman. In the police court's daily longroll of 'assaults' and 'drunk and disorderlies' his name seldom appears.That the Jewish home is a home in the truest sense is a fact whichno one will dispute. The family is knitted together by the strongestaffections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverencefor the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burdenon the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease fromtheir functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works;when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in apoor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His raceis entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men.A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, butthere are few men that can say they have seen that spectacle. The Jewhas been staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as I know, nodramatist has done him the injustice to stage him as a beggar. Whenevera Jew has real need to beg, his people save him from the necessityof doing it. The charitable institutions of the Jews are supported byJewish money, and amply. The Jews make no noise about it; it is donequietly; they do not nag and pester and harass us for contributions;they give us peace, and set us an example--an example which we have notfound ourselves able to follow; for by nature we are not free givers,and have to be patiently and persistently hunted down in the interest ofthe unfortunate.
These facts are all on the credit side of the proposition that the Jewis a good and orderly citizen. Summed up, they certify that he isquiet, peaceable, industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutaldispositions; that his family life is commendable; that he is nota burden upon public charities; that he is not a beggar; that inbenevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the veryquintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add that he is ashonest as the average of his neighbours--But I think that question isaffirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man.The basis of successful business is honesty; a business cannot thrivewhere the parties to it cannot trust each other. In the matter ofnumbers the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming population of NewYork; but that his honesty counts for much is guaranteed by the fact thatthe immense wholesale business of Broadway, from the Battery to UnionSquare, is substantially in his hands.
I suppose that the most picturesque example in history of a trader'strust in his fellow-trader was one where it was not Christian trustingChristian, but Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who used tosell his subjects to George III. to fight George Washington with gotrich at it; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the FrenchRevolution made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to flythe country. He was in a hurry, and had to leave his earningsbehind--$9,000,000. He had to risk the money with some one withoutsecurity. He did not select a Christian, but a Jew--a Jew of only modestmeans, but of high character; a character so high that it left himlonesome--Rothschild of Frankfort. Thirty years later, when Europe hadbecome quiet and safe again, the Duke came back from overseas,
and theJew returned the loan, with interest added.(2)
The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, thoughhe has not a monopoly of them, because he cannot get entirely ridof vexatious Christian competition. We have seen that he seldomtransgresses the laws against crimes of violence. Indeed, his dealingswith courts are almost restricted to matters connected with commerce. Hehas a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practisingoppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, andfor arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock theother man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortablejust within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury knowvery well that he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent andfaithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he ischarged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as asoldier--like the Christian Quaker.
Now if you offset these discreditable features by the creditable onessummarised in a preceding paragraph beginning with the words, 'Thesefacts are all on the credit side,' and strike a balance, what must theverdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and demerits beingfairly weighed and measured on both sides, the Christian can claim nosuperiority over the Jew in the matter of good citizenship.
Yet in all countries, from the dawn of history, the Jew has beenpersistently and implacably hated, and with frequency persecuted.
Point No. 2.--'Can fanaticism alone account for this?'
Years ago I used to think that it was responsible for nearly all of it,but latterly I have come to think that this was an error. Indeed, it isnow my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.
In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter xlvii.
We have all thoughtfully--or unthoughtfully--read the pathetic story ofthe years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph,with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts ofthe poor, and human liberty--a corner whereby he took a nation's moneyall away, to the last penny; took a nation's live stock all away, to thelast hoof; took a nation's land away, to the last acre; then took thenation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, childby child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, leftnothing; a corner so stupendous that, by comparison with it, the mostgigantic corners in subsequent history are but baby things, for it dealtin hundreds of millions of bushels, and its profits were reckonable byhundreds of millions of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing thatits effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to-day, more thanthree thousand years after the event.
Is it presumably that the eye of Egypt was upon Joseph the foreign Jewall this time? I think it likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it. WasJoseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long inEgypt? and in time would his name come to be familiarly used to expressthat character--like Shylock's? It is hardly to be doubted. Let usremember that this was centuries before the Crucifixion?
I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later and refer to a remarkmade by one of the Latin historians. I read it in a translation manyyears ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It was alluding toa time when people were still living who could have seen the Saviour inthe flesh. Christianity was so new that the people of Rome had hardlyheard of it, and had but confused notions of what it was. The substanceof the remark was this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome througherror, they being 'mistaken for Jews.'
The meaning seems plain. These pagans had nothing against Christians,but they were quite ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or otherthey hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I notassume, then, that the persecution of Jews is a thing which antedatesChristianity and was not born of Christianity? I think so. What was theorigin of the feeling?
When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the Mississippi Valley,where a gracious and beautiful Sunday school simplicity and practicalityprevailed, the 'Yankee' (citizen of the New England States) was hatedwith a splendid energy. But religion had nothing to do with it. Ina trade, the Yankee was held to be about five times the match of theWesterner. His shrewdness, his insight, his judgment, his knowledge, hisenterprise, and his formidable cleverness in applying these forces werefrankly confessed, and most competently cursed.
In the cotton States, after the war, the simple and ignorant Negroesmade the crops for the white planter on shares. The Jew came down inforce, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants oncredit, and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's shareof the present crop and of part of his share of the next one. Beforelong, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro lovedhim.
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed.The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant and villagerstood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always readyto lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessities of life oncredit while the crop was growing. When settlement day came he owned thecrop; and next year or year after he owned the farm, like Joseph.
In the dull and ignorant English of John's time everybody got into debtto the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he wasthe king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways;he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulchre. To wipe outhis account with the nation and restore business to its natural andincompetent channels he had to be banished the realm.
For the like reasons Spain had to banish him four hundred years ago, andAustria about a couple of centuries later.
In all the ages Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail hisactivities. If he entered upon a mechanical trade, the Christian had toretire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and hetook the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers hadto get at something else. Since there was no way to successfully competewith him in any vocation, the law had to step in and save the Christianfrom the poor-house. Trade after trade was taken away from the Jew bystatute till practically none was left. He was forbidden to engagein agriculture; he was forbidden to practise law; he was forbidden topractise medicine, except among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts.Even the seats of learning and the schools of science had to be closedagainst this tremendous antagonist. Still, almost bereft of employments,he found ways to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways to investhis takings well, for usury was not denied him. In the hard conditionssuggested, the Jew without brains could not survive, and the Jew withbrains had to keep them in good training and well sharpened up, orstarve. Ages of restriction to the one tool which the law was not ableto take from him--his brain--have made that tool singularly competent;ages of compulsory disuse of his hands have atrophied them, and he neveruses them now. This history has a very, very commercial look, a mostsordid and practical commercial look, the business aspect of a Chinesecheap-labour crusade. Religious prejudices may account for one part ofit, but not for the other nine.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they did not take theirlivelihoods away from them. The Catholics have persecuted theProtestants with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closedagriculture and the handicrafts against them. Why was that? That has thecandid look of genuine religious persecution, not a trade-union boycottin a religious dispute.
The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria and Germany, and latelyin France; but England and America give them an open field and yetsurvive. Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there arenot many takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen;but that is because they can't earn enough to get away. The Scotch paythemselves that compliment, but it is authentic.
I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with theworld's attitude toward the Jew; that the reasons for it are older thanthat event, as suggested by Egypt's experience and by Rome's regretfor having persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, underthe mistaken impression that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely aJew--a s
kinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am persuaded thatin Russia, Austria, and Germany nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jewcomes from the average Christian's inability to compete successfullywith the average Jew in business--in either straight business or thequestionable sort.
In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which frankly urged theexpulsion of the Jews from Germany; and the agitator's reason was asfrank as his proposition. It was this: that eighty-five percent ofthe successful lawyers of Berlin were Jews, and that about the samepercentage of the great and lucrative businesses of all sorts in Germanywere in the hands of the Jewish race! Isn't it an amazing confession?It was but another way of saying that in a population of 48,000,000, ofwhom only 500,000 were registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent of thebrains and honesty of the whole was lodged in the Jews. I must insistupon the honesty--it is an essential of successful business, taken byand large. Of course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even amongChristians, but it is a good working rule, nevertheless. The speaker'sfigures may have been inexact, but the motive of persecution stands outas clear as day.
The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the newspapers, the theatres,the great mercantile, shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests,the big army and city contracts, the tramways, and pretty much all otherproperties of high value, and also the small businesses, were in thehands of the Jews. He said the Jew was pushing the Christian to thewall all along the line; that it was all a Christian could do to scrapetogether a living; and that the Jew must be banished, and soon--therewas no other way of saving the Christian. Here in Vienna, last autumn,an agitator said that all these disastrous details were true ofAustria-Hungary also; and in fierce language he demanded the expulsionof the Jews. When politicians come out without a blush and read the babyact in this frank way, unrebuked, it is a very good indication that theyhave a market back of them, and know where to fish for votes.
You note the crucial point of the mentioned agitation; the argument isthat the Christian cannot compete with the Jew, and that hence his verybread is in peril. To human beings this is a much more hate-inspiringthing than is any detail connected with religion. With most people, ofa necessity, bread and meat take first rank, religion second. I amconvinced that the persecution of the Jew is not due in any large degreeto religious prejudice.
No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his money he is a veryserious obstruction to less capable neighbours who are on the samequest. I think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly valuesthe Jew is not shallow, but deep. With precocious wisdom he found outin the morning of time that some men worship rank, some worship heroes,some worship power, some worship God, and that over these ideals theydispute and cannot unite--but that they all worship money; so he made itthe end and aim of his life to get it. He was at it in Egypt thirty-sixcenturies ago; he was at it in Rome when that Christian got persecutedby mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to him hasbeen heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy--but ithas paid, for it has brought him envy, and that is the only thing whichmen will sell both soul and body to get. He long ago observed thata millionaire commands respect, a two-millionaire homage, amulti-millionaire the deepest deeps of adoration. We all know thatfeeling; we have seen it express itself. We have noticed that when theaverage man mentions the name of a multi-millionaire he does it withthat mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust which burns in aFrenchman's eye when it falls on another man's centime.
Point No. 4--'The Jews have no party; they are non-participants.'
Perhaps you have let the secret out and given yourself away. It seemshardly a credit to the race that it is able to say that; or to you, sir,that you can say it without remorse; more, that you should offer it as aplea against maltreatment, injustice, and oppression. Who gives the Jewthe right, who gives any race the right, to sit still in a free country,and let somebody else look after its safety? The oppressed Jew wasentitled to all pity in the former times under brutal autocracies, forhe was weak and friendless, and had no way to help his case. But he hasways now, and he has had them for a century, but I do not see that hehas tried to make serious use of them. When the Revolution set him freein France it was an act of grace--the grace of other people; he does notappear in it as a helper. I do not know that he helped when England sethim free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have stepped forwardwith great Zola at their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe(3))the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, do youfind a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? In the United States hewas created free in the beginning--he did not need to help, ofcourse. In Austria and Germany and France he has a vote, but of whatconsiderable use is it to him? He doesn't seem to know how to apply itto the best effect. With all his splendid capacities and all hisfat wealth he is to-day not politically important in any country. InAmerica, as early as 1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who hada spirit of his own and a way of exposing it to the weather, made itapparent to all that he must be politically reckoned with; yet fifteenyears before that we hardly knew what an Irishman looked like. As anintelligent force and numerically, he has always been away down, but hehas governed the country just the same. It was because he was organised.It made his vote valuable--in fact, essential.
You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. That is nothingto the point--with the Irishman's history for an object-lesson. But Iam coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In all parliamentarycountries you could no doubt elect Jews to the legislatures--and evenone member in such a body is sometimes a force which counts. Howdeeply have you concerned yourselves about this in Austria, France, andGermany? Or even in America, for that matter? You remark that the Jewswere not to blame for the riots in this Reichsrath here, and you addwith satisfaction that there wasn't one in that body. That is notstrictly correct; if it were, would it not be in order for you toexplain it and apologise for it, not try to make a merit of it? But Ithink that the Jew was by no means in as large force there as he oughtto have been, with his chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him onfairly liberal terms, and it must surely be his own fault that he is somuch in the background politically.
As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned some figures awhileago--500,00--as the Jewish population of Germany. I will add somemore--6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 in the UnitedStates. I take them from memory; I read them in the 'EncyclopaediaBrittannica' ten or twelve years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them.If those statistics are correct, my argument is not as strong as itought to be as concerns America, but it still has strength. It is plentystrong enough as concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 was nineper cent of the empire's population. The Irish would govern the Kingdomof Heaven if they had a strength there like that.
I have some suspicions; I got them at second-hand, but they haveremained with me these ten or twelve years. When I read in the 'E.B.'that the Jewish population of the United States was 250,000 I wrote theeditor, and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with moreJews than that in my country, and that his figures were without a doubta misprint for 25,000,000. I also added that I was personally acquaintedwith that many there; but that was only to raise his confidence in me,for it was not true. His answer miscarried, and I never got it; but Iwent around talking about the matter, and people told me they had reasonto suspect that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings weremainly with the Christians did not report themselves as Jews in thecensus. It looked plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the cityof New York; and look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans,and Chicago, and Cincinnati, and San Francisco--how your race swarms inthose places!--and everywhere else in America, down to the least littlevillage. Read the signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops;Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal(flower-vale), Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour),Singvogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazinglist of beautiful and enviable names which
Prussia and Austria glorifiedyou with so long ago. It is another instance of Europe's coarse andcruel persecution of your race; not that it was coarse and cruel tooutfit it with pretty and poetical names like those, but it was coarseand cruel to make it pay for them or else take such hideous and oftenindecent names that to-day their owners never use them; or, if they do,only on official papers. And it was the many, not the few, who got theodious names, they being too poor to bribe the officials to grant thembetter ones.
Now why was the race renamed? I have been told that in Prussia it wasgiven to using fictitious names, and often changing them, so as to beatthe tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and that finallythe idea was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with oneand the same surname, and then holding the house responsible right alongfor those inmates, and accountable for any disappearances that mightoccur; it made the Jews keep track of each other, for self-interest'ssake, and saved the Government the trouble(4).
If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia came to be renamed iscorrect, if it is true that they fictitiously registered themselves togain certain advantages, it may possibly be true that in America theyrefrain from registered themselves as Jews to fend off the damagingprejudices of the Christian customer. I have no way of knowing whetherthis notion is well founded or not. There may be other and better waysof explaining why only that poor little 250,000 of our Jews got into the'Encyclopaedia'. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly of theopinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America.
Point No. 3--'Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?'
I think so. If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be trying toteach my grandmother to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we havelearned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere--in railwaysystems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minorpolitics, in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strengthmay be, big or little, we organise it. We have found out that thatis the only way to get the most out of it that is in it. We know theweakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentratedfaggot. Suppose you try a scheme like this, for instance. In England andAmerica put every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you have notbeen doing that). Get up volunteer regiments composed of Jews solely,and when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to removethe reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that you feed ona country but don't like to fight for it. Next, in politics, organiseyour strength, band together, and deliver the casting-vote where youcan, and, where you can't, compel as good terms as possible. You huddleto yourselves already in all countries, but you huddle to no sufficientpurpose, politically speaking. You do not seem to be organised, exceptfor your charities. There you are omnipotent; there you compel your dueof recognition--you do not have to beg for it. It shows what you can dowhen you band together for a definite purpose.
And then from America and England you can encourage your race inAustria, France, and Germany, and materially help it. It was a pathetictale that was told by a poor Jew a fortnight ago during the riots,after he had been raided by the Christian peasantry and despoiled ofeverything he had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and hewished he could be excused from casting it, for indeed, casting it was asure damage to him, since, no matter which party he voted for, the otherparty would come straight and take its revenge out of him. Nine per centof the population, these Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plankinto any candidate's platform! If you will send our Irish lads overhere I think they will organise your race and change the aspect of theReichsrath.
You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in politics here, thatthey are 'absolutely non-participants.' I am assured by men competentto speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedinglyactive in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their workand their votes among the numerous parties, and thus lose the advantagesto be had by concentration. I think that in America they scatter too,but you know more about that than I do.
Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the valueof that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of theworld together in Palestine, with a government of their own--under thesuzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne,last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposalwas received with decided favour. I am not the Sultan, and I am notobjecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in theworld were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think itwould be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race findout its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride anymore.
Point No. 5.--'Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?'
On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. Onthe score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it willcontinue. That is, here and there in spots about the world, where abarbarous ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilisation prevail;but I do not think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fearof being robbed and raided. Among the high civilisations he seems tobe very comfortably situated indeed, and to have more than hisproportionate share of the prosperities going. It has that look inVienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but he canstand that; it is no particular matter. By his make and ways he issubstantially a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angelsdislike a foreigner. I am using this world foreigner in the Germansense--stranger. Nearly all of us have an antipathy to a stranger, evenof our own nationality. We pile grip-sacks in a vacant seat to keephim from getting it; and a dog goes further, and does as a savagewould--challenges him on the spot. The German dictionary seems tomake no distinction between a stranger and a foreigner; in its view astranger is a foreigner--a sound position, I think. You willalways be by ways and habits and predilections substantiallystrangers--foreigners--wherever you are, and that will probably keep therace prejudice against you alive.
But you were the favourites of Heaven originally, and your manifold andunfair prosperities convince me that you have crowded back into thatsnug place again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last weekin Vienna a hailstorm struck the prodigious Central Cemetery and madewasteful destruction there. In the Christian part of it, accordingto the official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; more than 900singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many small ones weretorn to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; theornamental plants and other decorations of the graces were ruined, andmore than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery'swhole force of 300 labourers more than three days to clear away thestorm's wreckage. In the report occurs this remark--and in itsitalics you can hear it grit its Christian teeth: '...lediglich dieisraelitische Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter ganzlichverschont worden war.' Not a hailstone hit the Jewish reservation! Suchnepotism makes me tired.
Point No. 6.--'What has become of the Golden Rule?'
It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It isExhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday andgive it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it intothis discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home.It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or acontribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded intobusiness; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is abusiness passion.
To conclude.--If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but oneper cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dustlost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly tobe heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He isas prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercialimportance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness ofhis bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names inliterature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruselearning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.He has made a marvellous fight
in this world, in all the ages; and hasdone it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, andbe excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose,filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuffand passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vastnoise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held theirtorch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now,or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is nowwhat he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, noweakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of hisalert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal to the Jew; all otherforces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
Postscript--THE JEW AS SOLDIER
When I published the above article in 'Harper's Monthly,' I wasignorant--like the rest of the Christian world--of the fact that the Jewhad a record as a soldier. I have since seen the official statistics,and I find that he furnished soldiers and high officers to theRevolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. In the Civil War hewas represented in the armies and navies of both the North and the Southby 10 per cent of his numerical strength--the same percentage that wasfurnished by the Christian populations of the two sections. This largefact means more than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew'spatriotism was not merely level with the Christian's, but overpassedit. When the Christian volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome andapplause, 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 woundedpride and sacrificed both that and his blood for his flag raises theaverage and quality of his patriotism above the Christian's. His recordfor capacity, for fidelity, and for gallant soldiership in the field isas good as any one's. This is true of the Jewish private soldiers and ofthe Jewish generals alike. Major-General O. O. Howard speaks of oneof his Jewish staff officers as being 'of the bravest and best;' ofanother--killed at Chancellorsville--as being 'a true friend and abrave officer;' he highly praises two of his Jewish brigadier-generals;finally, he uses these strong words: 'Intrinsically there are no morepatriotic men to be found in the country than those who claim to beof Hebrew descent, and who served with me in parallel commands or moredirectly under my instructions.'
Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families contributed, betweenthem, fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these, a father and threesons; and another, a father and four sons.
In the above article I was neither able to endorse nor repel the common approach that the Jew is willing to feed upon a country but not to fight for it, because I did not know whether it was true or false. I supposed it to be true, but it is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon supposition--except when one is trying to make out a case. That slur upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in presence of the figures of the War Department. It has done its work, and done it long and faithfully, and with high approval: it ought to be pensioned off now, and retired from active service.
(1) See 'Stirring Times in Austria,' in this volume.
(2) Here is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us thatshabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or creed, butare merely human:
'Congress has passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, ofLibertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality ispathetically interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honestman may get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for UncleSam. In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the contract to carrythe mail on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville and Coffman, thirtymiles a day, from July 1, 1887, for one year. He got the postmaster atKnob Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended thathis bid should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got thecontract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of thefirst quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate hewas working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with thePost Office Department. The department informed his that he must eithercarry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up hisbondsman would have the pay the Government $1,459.85 damages. So Mosescarried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week-day for ayear, and carried the mail, and received for his labour $4, or, tobe accurate, $6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid wasaccepted, his pay was proportionately increased. Now, after ten years,a bill was finally passed to pay to Moses the difference between what heearned in that unlucky year and what he received.'
The 'Sun,' which tells the above story, says that bills were introducedin three or four Congresses for Moses' relief, and that committeesrepeatedly investigated his claim.
It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressedvirtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully givingexpression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election,eleven years to find out some way to cheat a fellow Christian out ofabout $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 duehim on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same timethey paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions--a third of it unearned andundeserved. This indicates a splendid all-round competency in theft,for it starts with farthings, and works its industries all the way up toship-loads. It may be possible that the Jews can beat this, but the manthat bets on it is taking chances.
(3) The article was written in the summer of 1898.
(4) In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in somenewly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abrahamand Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could tell t'other from which,and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was putinto the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess thegraceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sortof consequence, and they labeled the race in a way to make the angelsweep. As an example, take these two: Abraham Bellyache and SchmulGodbedamned--Culled from 'Namens Studien,' by Karl Emil Fransos.