every way is this voting as Scandinavians or Hungarians, and not as
Americans. It amounts in many cases to a kind of treason and deserves to
be treated as such. The politicians and the political party which foster
that sort of thing are in a small but very dangerous business which does
more to hamper the American consciousness in the foreigner than any
other thing I know of; and is to-day the great poison which needs to be
eliminated from the national life. In nine cases out of ten the
foreigner is made a scapegoat by designing politicians who give him a
small office which pledges him to do an unfair and often a dishonest
thing. In the Northwest it has brought a stigma upon the Swedes: a bad
reputation which they do not deserve and which they must throw off for
their own good and for the good of the country.
The third and perhaps the best reason for this state of affairs is the
fact that in common with other foreigners they have had a poor example
set them by the Americans. Minneapolis citizens were so busy making
money that they did not realize that their city was in the hands of
thieves and robbers who not only “killed the body,” but cast many a soul
into hell. One is roused to anger by the disclosures of graft in St.
Louis, Philadelphia and other cities too numerous to mention; but when
city officials like the mayor of the city and the chief of police, both
of them of good American stock, are proved to be in league with gamblers
and other immoral folk who corrupt the youth and destroy the trustful
foreigner who comes from farm and forest, then one’s indignation ought
to know no bounds. Justly, the Swedes of Minneapolis say, “the big
rascals were Americans supported by American voters, many of them in
Christian churches and highly esteemed in business and social life.” Nor
can the contented citizen of that beautiful place take any satisfaction
in the fact that some of the rascals were brought to justice and that
the conditions have changed. This miserable state of affairs might still
exist if the aforesaid rascals had not quarrelled with each other and
finally destroyed themselves. Scarcely any one in Minneapolis deserves
the credit of having lifted his voice against it or raised a protest
because of the encroachment of a vice which has no bounds and which can
be made harmless only by being driven away. For a city to give up its
waterfront to palaces of shame where openly and defiantly, women plied
their fearful trade, is poor business, poor esthetics, poor ethics and
poor Christianity. Its encroachment upon the Union Depot where every
stranger enters, and its perfect freedom to obtrude itself, is all poor
politics as it certainly is a poor introduction to that beautiful city’s
life. How much the foreigner is to blame I cannot tell, but this is
true: that Minneapolis has the best foreign element and of course some
of the worst; it has a vigorous, earnest American population with a
noble heritage, and yet it has failed not only in making an all-around
citizen of that foreigner but even in governing its own city; and the
usual excuses of an ignorant, Sabbath-breaking foreign element do not
hold good here, for the foreigner in Minneapolis obeys the Sunday law,
goes to church (one church has over 4,000 worshippers on Sunday night),
is not ignorant or vicious, and yet he is said to be a poor citizen.
After all the blame must fall largely upon those Americans who have lost
the backbone of the Puritans and the vision of the Pilgrims, who feel
little responsibility towards the great city problem, and rest content
with the fact that they live in parks, that the saloon cannot encroach
upon their dwellings, and then are willing to let the rest go as it
pleases and where it pleases. If their pastors lift the prophetic voice,
they are “fired,” even as Savonarola was burned, and it amounts to the
same thing. There is a perfect stream of new ministers who come and go,
and many go away broken in body and in spirit.
In the politics of the state, the Scandinavian has a well-deserved and
honoured place, and the administration of Governor Johnson goes far to
disprove any aspersions cast upon his people.
One of the most interesting communities in Kansas is the Swedish town of
Lindsburgh, where Bethany College is located. It has become an
intellectual and musical centre, and its influence is as wholesome as it
is large.
I am not defending the foreigner; he has his faults, and too often does
not make the most of his great opportunity, but he is as clay in the
hands of the American who can make of him what he pleases.
In Jamestown, N. Y., you have a strong American community with firm
convictions, and this same Scandinavian becomes like it.
In Minneapolis you have no such strong convictions of righteousness and
you have a Scandinavian population which men in authority say is unfit
to exercise its citizenship. Our cities need to cultivate a twentieth
century Puritanism--broad and deep, intense yet sympathetic, unyielding
yet charitable; and they will find that the most ready imitators will be
the foreigners; especially these Scandinavians who were our kinsmen
before they came here and who are ready to be our brothers, and heirs of
the same Kingdom.
In everything which makes a strong people and a great state they have
taken an active and conscientious part. They are staunch supporters of
the public schools; their children finally become teachers and in every
academy and university of the northwest the Scandinavians are an
important contingent, industrious and faithful as students, scholarly
and loyal as professors. Their churches are well built, well supported,
and more and more their pastors are taking their places as true leaders
among the people. They are intensely interested in the larger mission of
the gospel and in the evangelization of the world; they believe in
missions, pray for missions, give to missions, and thus have a wide
horizon. In the Northwest they are the greatest foes of the liquor
traffic, and one can always count on many of them in an effort to
enforce existing laws or frame new ones for its restriction or
destruction. Neither they nor any nationality which has come to America
is alike good or free from serious faults, but a man would have to be
short-sighted indeed not to realize that they have brought to this
country rich moral treasures which we have not sufficiently used or
developed.
What a people we might be, if we would appropriate all that the Jew
brings of spiritual vision and cut down his business ardour and
craftiness by our own emphasis of the nobler gift; if we would receive
the Slav’s virgin strength and plant upon it all that we of older
civilization have learned to hold precious; if we would emulate the
German’s thoughtfulness and thoroughness and not imitate and encourage
him in the trade in lager beer and the use of it. What a nation we
should be if we would take the Hungarian’s devotion to his native land
and make it burn with just such a true fire upon the altar of this
country; and finally, if we would mingle all the virtues that the
nations bring us with the seriousness and loftiness of the
Scandinavian’s mind and heart,--if we did this through one generation,
in one city of our country we would bring the Kingdom of God down upon
the earth.
Nor is this all a pious wish or simply a flow of rhetoric: we shall have
to do that,--cultivate in one another the best gifts,--or we shall reap
a harvest of the worst; for in the Scandinavian we can see how the very
best may become like the worst simply through our own neglect. We must
believe about one another only the best, for people, like bad boys, live
up to their reputation.
This country ought to be no place for racial or national hatreds, and no
people must be branded as this or that simply because of one superficial
or even deep seated fault. How often I have heard from well meaning,
respectable people: “You can’t trust the Scandinavians, they are
immoral, they are treacherous;” when in fact they had no proof for
their assertions, and simply sowed seeds of discord of which they must
some day reap the harvest.
IX
THE JEW IN HIS OLD WORLD HOME
It is said of a certain English scientist that he began a work on
“Snakes in Ireland” by the sentence: “There are no snakes in Ireland”;
and one could easily without seeming to be facetious begin this chapter
by saying: “The Jew has no home.”
He is a man without a country, and without a king; he belongs to a
nation which, scattered over the face of the earth has yet retained the
chief elements of an ancient faith, although no centralized authority
guards it. Inheriting the cultural influences of his past, he absorbs
the culture of each race which harbours him for a season. Although
driven in turn from each insecure habitation, he has not degenerated
into a nomad, but begins the task of home and fortune making, wherever a
more hospitable people affords a resting place for his weary feet.
In his ancient home in Palestine, in the very citadel of his
faith,--Jerusalem, he is the greatest stranger, and people of alien
beliefs have built their monuments on the sites of his grandest
spiritual conquests, and over the tombs of his prophets and seers.
Weeping, he tears his garments and beats his head against a wall which
is all that is left of the temple thrice rebuilt, thrice ruined, and now
having upon its ancient foundations a mosque, with crescent crowned
minaret, from whose height the Muezzin cries: “Allah ho Akbar,” a sound
which vibrates against the ears of the Jew like the mocking of the
prophets who seem to say: “I told you so.”
Among the Arabs, his kinsmen, he is a stranger; for although in speech,
dress and bearing he is like them, in thought and feeling he is above
them; yet the coarsest Mohammedan servant will pronounce the word
“Yahudi,” with all the scorn of a superior and all the hatred of an
enemy.
His features have not changed since the time when Egyptian artists drew
with crude touch on their temple walls the story of the stranger’s
coming, his slavery and his exodus.
Wherever you find him, among the Arabs of North Africa or among the
Danes of Northern Germany, he still bears the marks of his race, with
the flame of Sinai in his look and the fire of the Southland on his
cheek.
In Africa he is most numerous in Morocco, where 300,000 souls struggle
for daily bread and are hated according to their number; while in Egypt
where once he was found in largest numbers, now only about 10,000 Jews
live.
The whole number for Africa does not exceed half a million; in Asia he
is 200,000 strong or weak, in America above 2,000,000, while Europe has
given him room enough to grow into 7,000,000. Between 10,000,000 or
11,000,000 is about the whole number of Jews now in existence, with the
city of New York as the largest Jewish centre in the world, having no
less than 600,000 of the faithful.
To describe the Jews in their varied environments means to draw many
pictures and yet one; for while they differ widely according to the
degree of civilization by which they are surrounded, certain
characteristics remain the same.
Everywhere the Jew becomes outwardly like his masters--but often remains
unlike them in his spiritual life and in those deeper things which
express themselves spontaneously and which are too well grounded in his
nature to be wiped out entirely by the mere touch of the stranger.
Physically he is usually smaller and weaker, has brown or gray eyes and
dark hair, although not seldom it is red and curly. Among the Europeans
his head and neck are always large; but his face is the smallest.
There are a vivaciousness in his manner, a rather emphatic and constant
gesticulation, and a certain something in his speech which always mark
him, and mark him unmistakably, the Jew.
He quickly reciprocates both good and evil, and is regarded with
apprehension because of his aggressiveness; for as both friend and foe
he is intense. Where an inch of approach is granted he may want an ell,
while where he hates he does not hate in moderation. His business
shrewdness is proverbial, although it is not his native genius for the
proverb current in the Orient: “It takes one Jew to cheat three
Christians, it takes one Armenian to cheat ten Jews, it takes one Greek
to cheat twenty Armenians,” while no more correct than such generalities
are likely to be, proves the assertion that he is not the champion in
the chief game of life.
He has had bad environment for the development of business honesty, yet
I know of scarcely a community in the world, in which the Jew plays any
part, where he would not have a strong representation, if a group of the
most trustworthy citizens was called together for any purpose.
The world in which he lives and in which he trades, is the world which
he reflects, and he has not always created the conditions which exist
there.
To “Jew down,” which is a synonym for beating down in price, is as
current in business where he is no factor, as where he is. In Italy it
is an economic disease, and in Russia, in those regions closed to the
Jewish tradesman, the native haggles with the priest about the price of
a funeral or a baptism, with the cab driver over the fare, and even
attempts to bargain on the railroad when he buys his ticket.
To generalize about the good or bad characteristics of the Jew is as
difficult as it is to portray those of any race. When he judges himself
he is either unjustly severe or profusely apologetic, for a people which
has lived for so many centuries under abnormal conditions, cannot be
known by the stranger, nor can it know itself.
At present the Jew is somewhere between Shakespeare’s Shylock and George
Elliot’s Daniel Deronda; and more Shylock where the hate of the middle
ages makes it impossible for him to grow into George Eliot’s ideal. He
is most uncomfortably felt in those countries where he is in the
transition period, when he is apt to be over-bearing and given to
sensuous pleasure; even then he is not so grasping as Shylock although
not so lovable as Daniel Deronda. He does not need much time to come to
his full development. His genius quickly manifests itself, and while he
is charged with superficiality, the fact that in all sciences there are
accurate scholars of the Jewish race, disproves that accusation,
although his emotional nature does not best fit him for the patient task
of the investigator.
His neighbours are quickly conscious of his faults because he is not yet
schooled in the art of suppressing them, and his virtues are often
unrecognized because they shine the brightest in the inner circle, from
which the neighbour is usually excluded by mutual consent.
In Northern Africa we find him to-day just as he was thirty-five or
forty years ago when Sir Moses Montefiore tried to alleviate his inhuman
treatment and his impoverished and miserable condition. The Moors
without knowing the prophecy concerning the fate of Israel are actively
engaged in fulfilling it with a cruel literalness. In every city and
village the Jews have their separate quarters and their own judges.
They are not permitted to study the reading and writing of Arabic lest
their eyes defile the sacred pages of the Koran; they are not allowed to
ride a horse although they may ride a donkey; and they must walk
barefooted before the mosques.
They are prohibited from going near a well when a Mussulman is drinking,
and must wear black, a colour despised by the Moors.
The men are all ugly because of the abject fear on their faces; their
eyes are always cast down and their walk is unsteady while the whole
posture is expressive of the worst kind of slavery.
They may be beaten, kicked and spit upon at any time without being able
to protect themselves or even having the spirit to do it.
The women are unusually handsome and some of the homes are splendidly
furnished and are hospitably opened to the traveller. The same
conditions existed in Algiers until it passed under the rule of France,
when the Jews asserted their superiority and became landowners,
manufacturers and business men, so that nearly half of the property in
Algiers is said to be in their hands, for which they are again beginning
to feel hatred and persecution.
The Egyptian Jews are found only in the two cities of Cairo and
Alexandria; but they have followed the victorious arms of England and
have entered the heart of Africa where in Khartum and the fabled
Timbuctoo there are Jewish communities.
In Asia Minor the largest Jewish population outside of Jerusalem is in
Smyrna; where there are over thirty thousand in the city and vicinity.
These Jews, like those of Morocco, are descendants of Spanish fugitives
and are considered, even by their enemies, honest and industrious,
performing the commonest and hardest labour.
Jerusalem remains to this day the unhappiest city in the world for the
Jew, who sees in it his glorious past and his present shame, and who
must feel the pangs of persecution most in the city in which once he was
master and lord.
Highly interesting is the story of the Jews in China. That they existed
there, was known as early as the sixteenth century when the Jesuit,
Ricci, found them in Khai Fung Fu, the old capital of Honan.
How they came to China is not definitely known, but according to Chinese
history they came as far back as 58 B. C.
In 1848 they were found by some English missionaries, who reported their
synagogues in ruins and the Jews unable to read the one scroll of the
law which remained. At present there are only about twenty families
left, and but a few years ago, a number of Jews came from the interior
to Shanghai, to be taught Hebrew by the English Jews and to have the
rite of circumcision performed.
The real Jewish world, and that which touches our own each day is in the
eastern part of Europe; in Hungary, Poland, Russia and Roumania.
While most of the Jews in the south of Europe and Asia are the
descendants of Spanish Jews, from whom they inherit a peculiar language
and certain tendencies of worship and belief,--those of Eastern Europe
are nearly all under the cultural influences of Germany, whose language
they speak, in a more or less corrupt form. They left Germany because of
the persecutions of the middle ages and settled among the Slavs, where
they have lived for many centuries; never quite sure of an abiding
place, and suffering ever recurring persecutions of varying degrees of
intensity.
The Jews of Bohemia, whose spiritual centre was the Ghetto of the city
of Prague, as well as the Jews of Hungary, exhibit certain liberal
tendencies in their faith, and are midway between orthodox and reformed
Judaism. They are generally classed among German Jews, while the Jews of
Poland, Lithuania and Bessarabia, are classed with the Russian Jews, by
far the largest number, and the one great source of Jewish immigration
to this country.
The cause of this immigration is found in the persecutions, not new in
the history of Israel, but like death, always holding a new terror.
In Russia the horrors of these persecutions are shared by other
non-Russians, yet there is in the Jewish persecutions an element of
hatred and contempt which makes them exceptionally galling, and affects
not only the Jews’ civic, social and economic condition but their
self-respect also. They are classed with the Kalmuks, the Samoyedes, the
Kirghese and other aboriginal tribes of low mental capacity and still
lower standards of civilization; while not sharing with them their legal
status, being as Jews, regarded as outlaws, for whom special repressive
legislation is necessary.
Above all else, these laws tend to keep them within the pale, which pale
is the old kingdom of Poland, and the western provinces originally
belonging to Poland. On this territory which is by far the smaller
portion of European Russia, over 5,000,000 Jews are virtually
imprisoned, entrance into the larger Russia being permitted only to:
1. Merchants of the first class, who have to pay an annual tax of nearly
$500.
2. Professional men who have university diplomas. As, however, of the
entire number of pupils admitted to the higher schools only from five to
ten per cent. are permitted to be Jews, this class is very small.
3. Old soldiers who have served twenty-five years in the army.
4. Students of higher education.
5. Apothecaries, dentists, surgeons and midwives.
6. Skilled artisans, who have no legal residence outside the pale but
who may follow their vocation anywhere, provided they earn their living
by their trade, and that they are members of their trade guilds; a
privilege rarely granted to Jews.
Worst of all is the element of uncertainty as to the interpretation and
operation of the laws, which are now lax, now severe, but always means
of extortion and a recognized avenue of income for numerous officials.
The greatest hardship suffered comes from the fact that in the villages,
only those residents who were there prior to a certain date, are
permitted to remain; while the vast majority is herded together in the
city Ghettos, which offer but a scant living to the normal population.
The Jewish part of the city, the Ghetto, is invariably sunk in mud or
dust, according as there is rain or sunshine, and is the picture of
melancholia. Cadaverous men in long, black, greasy cloaks, countless
children and women, who alone carry sunshine; for in the Jewish woman’s
heart the hope of giving birth to the Messiah is not yet dead.
All of these people are narrow chested, with the melancholy eyes deep
set; they have long bodies and short limbs with which they make ambling
strides like the camel in the desert.
It is a haggling, bargaining, pushing, crowding, seething mass; ugly in
its environment, hard for the stranger to love, cowed by fear, unmanned
by persecution; a thing to jeer at, to ridicule, to plunder and to kill.
This is no apology for the Jew. He carries the faults and the sins of
ages; not only his own, but those of his persecutors also. He is himself
the keenest critic of racial faults, and once awakened to them hates
them and his race most unmercifully. His people are greedy, greasy, and
pushing, or doggedly humble; as might be expected of hunted human
beings, who for 2,000 years have known no peace, wherever the cross
overshadowed them. They could escape torment in a moment by having a
few drops of holy water sprinkled over them, for baptism opens to all,
the door of opportunity. Whatever else may have died, the ancient fire
is not dead in them, and they prefer to suffer, to die, if need be,
rather than to enter a so-called Christian church through the door of
expediency. Sometimes that door has to be entered, but the Jews who
enter it are still Jews, and often they suffer agonies of mind and of
spirit, to which persecution might be preferable.
A friend of mine in Moscow, a manufacturer of tobacco, who had lived in
that city for thirty years, received sudden notice to dispose of his
business and leave the city. He was prosperous, his children were going
to school, they knew no home but Moscow, and the town to which they were
to go was in the crowded Jewish pale which he had left as a child.
He and his family were baptized, he became a full-fledged Russian, with
all the rights of citizenship, and his business went on as usual.
Soon afterwards, however, he became depressed, the depression increasing
each time that he had to take part in religious ceremonies which were
hateful to him, and it was not long before he grew violently insane.
I have no doubt that as soon as the Jewish disabilities are removed,
most of those who have entered the Greek Church will return to the
faith of their fathers which they have never really left.
It is said in Moscow of a certain Jew, that after the priest had
instructed him in the catechism, he asked: “Now what do you believe?”
and he replied: “I believe that now I shall not have to leave Moscow.”
Much more than this, these so-called converted Jews do not and cannot
believe.