Yesterday our Union came into existence as a legally recognized
society, to begin action against that hostile movement which is aimed
directly against a portion of our fellow-citizens. This is the object
stated in section 2 of the constitution: in plain terms, to combat the
Anti-Semitic movement, and to do this by public lectures, the
dissemination of informatory literature, discussions, and, if
necessary, the founding of an organ to represent the Union.
Politics is excluded: primarily because our Union is not political,
and in the next place because the matter in question is social in the
strict sense of the word and has nothing to do with the conduct of
state business. The proof of this lies in the fact that we reckon
among our members persons of every shade of belief, that we welcome
without exception every one who is in full enjoyment of his civic
rights.
A certain order of opponents who are never at a loss for false and
mendacious allegations have already made the attempt to represent our
Union as one that purposes to take the field against Christianity in
favor of the Jews. Hostile attacks of this kind carry their own
condemnation. As a proof of the falsity of their assertions stands the
fact that we already number among our members priests of the two chief
Christian denominations, and that we announce the distinct expectation
of gradually enlisting all those who are first and foremost called to
preach the word of peace, of love to our neighbors, of humanity.
In a time when men are founding societies to protect dumb animals from
cruelty—and that with absolute justification—it is, I think, only
logical that we should at last take a stand also against cruelty to
our fellow-men, all the more as the attacks have not been confined to
assaults upon honor, but have taken the form of acts of violence which
have given our Jewish fellow-citizens every reason to fear for the
safety of their existence. I will mention only those suburban heroes
who smashed the windows of Jewish women and shouted threats of murder
at them; those soldiers who struck down an old man on the street; that
schoolboy who thrust a knife into the eye of one of his Semitic
comrades. These are individual cases out of many; a single one would
have been enough to stir all right-thinking men to a great cry of
indignation.
The party against which we are arraying ourselves seems to have
contemplated nothing less than to decree for Austria a sort of moral
state of siege, and thereby to bring a pressure to bear on the
timorous souls of whom there are more than enough, whereby many of
these will allow themselves to be enrolled in order not to call down
upon their heads the wrath of that association, which is always ready
with the appellative _Judenknecht_. Special laws directed against the
Jews, like those that have reached such a magnificent development in
Russia, would naturally not have been long in making their appearance,
and ultimately, as a logical consequence, special laws against all who
do not think as do those gentlemen of the persecuting party.
Well, to-day, by good fortune, it appears that there are still
Austrians who will not submit to such a reign of terror, and who
answer such demands with the cry, “Browbeating won’t work.”
In the bosom of the opposing party, on the other hand, the reign of
terror has broken out; every one who there believes himself called to
be a leader takes the proverb “Bend or break” to heart; every one
collects his troops around him and forms a detachment which snarls at
every other. Skirmishes also have already been fought, with fists and
words, and the lawsuits growing out of them show us clearly and
distinctly what is going on behind the scenes of that stage. This
ought to open the eyes of many an objective observer who has supposed
that he was falling in with the demands of the times if he joined that
troop.
Originally, when Herr Stöcker was still having his day, Anti-Semitism
attempted to put itself on the ground of Christianity, and of
threatened Christianity at that, and to conjure up a religious
question. This plan was a lamentable failure, for there were enough
honorable religious teachers who opposed it. Then the attempt was made
to lay emphasis on race differences and to make these the basis of
up-to-date persecution. Here also the results were meager, and so they
ultimately hit upon the method of rousing human passion, of heating up
the hatred and envy of all those, bringing all those to the
burning-point, who had little or nothing to lose but hoped to gain
much. Of course the matter could not be allowed to pass as mere
commercial or competitive jealousy; a scientific whitewash had to be
applied to the whole thing, and so they got footing on the social
question: accumulated capital is the destroyer of the little man; the
Jew has accumulated capital in his hands, therefore the Jew is the
destroyer of the little man. That there are among the Jews themselves
whole masses of little men who have scarcely a crust to nibble was
entirely lost from sight—such a thing simply does not count with
logicians of that stamp; they have in sight only the Christian little
man and the Jewish big man.
It is a recognized fact that you can fool the heedless masses with
certain catchwords as much as you please. It is the children’s game,
_Schneider, leih’ mir die Scher_ (“Puss in the Corner”), arranged for
the use of grown-up people: the one who tries to find a place knows
perfectly well that the place to which the other directs him is not
empty, but he runs toward it obediently, and meanwhile the wily fox
swaps his place for a better and snaps his finger laughingly at the
one dispossessed. This is the game played by those men who sin at the
phrase “social question”: “The Jew has an empty place”—and the dupe
makes for the Jew. Since he knows incidentally that his “friends” are
not well disposed toward the Jew, he means at least to get this much
advantage from the game, that he will vent his temper on the man; he
can do this without any expenditure of great courage and without
peril, for he has behind him a superior power which springs to his
aid—if the aid costs nothing more than a few fisticuffs.
As far as this dragging in of the social question is concerned, these
florid speakers only commit the trifling error of adopting for their
science absolutely faulty premises, so that their whole edifice is
shaky at its foundation. No social reformer, no economist of the
present time will look for the evil in accumulated capital as such.
The man who should keep his millions locked up in his strong box in
the form of packages of bank notes—for so the common throng imagines
it—would ultimately perish of starvation, for it is a law of nature
that what is not renewed is at last used up. Accumulated capital,
then, is not in itself the cause but only the result. The evil has its
roots elsewhere; and if once these roots are radically extirpated,
then capital will of necessity circulate in such a way as to pass
through all hands.
A few representatives of the people have already indicated the
solution of the social enigma—if I am not mistaken, Dr. Menger
recently. It is not our affair, however, to go into this in detail
here, for our aim is simply to bring out the fact that the
Anti-Semitic movement on the basis of social science stands on feet of
clay, and that the men who to bolster their cause trespass on this
ground have only an utterly superficial acquaintance with the
question, most of them none at all. But the average man allows himself
to be persuaded easily, for he has learned a deal at school—but not
logical thinking. Now if he sees that another is (or rather seems to
be) doing this business for him, then so much the better; then he
gladly lets the other take the trouble and believes that he has done
his part when he joins in the hue and cry.
A few days ago an Anti-Semitic member of the Reichsrat took the floor
with an interpellation; it related to our Union and to the accession
of a man whose name is spoken with reverence and gratitude throughout
all Austria. The speech may receive a suitable rejoinder in a proper
place; I wish only to mention here that the said deputy used words to
this effect: that it appeared by our appeal that the Union intended to
wage battle in a “hostile,” extremely “acrimonious,” and
“unscrupulous” manner against the Anti-Semitic party as such and also
against all those citizens who cherish an Anti-Semitic spirit.
Hostile? Acrimonious? Unscrupulous? I should hope not! Those who think
that they have to see in Anti-Semitism a movement serviceable to the
general good we pity because they are on the wrong track, and we hope
that we shall be able by convincing proofs to bring them back to the
right path. Those that have found in Anti-Semitism personal means for
personal ends we _despise_, as every honorably-thinking man despises
him who uses unfair means to promote his own interests. Hostility and
acrimony, therefore, are not the right words. And as for
unscrupulousness, it depends on what the word is taken to mean. If our
opponents expect that we are going to take the tone that they are
pleased to use,—in which, for instance, they give their readers in the
_Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte_ the news about the formation of our
Union,—they, are mistaken. Such co-workers we would never accept into
our membership, for decency is above all things to be preserved in our
camp. We are of the opinion that no cause can ever be helped toward
good repute by abusive words. Some hundreds of years ago they would
indeed have had their effect, for then behind such strong expressions
came knock-down arguments with the fist, and the stronger fist
prevailed. But really to-day the great majority is better bred, and
rowdy attack with word and deed is not to the taste of the cultured
inhabitants of Austria.
Among our objects is also that of stirring our fellow-citizens to
independent thinking. We do not wish to dictate, we wish to lead and
to point out the way which it would be wise to take. Our two weapons
are to be reason and the sense of justice; with these, we are fit to
meet all attacks. We cannot be put down with pseudo-science, with
juggled statistics, with distortion of truth and justice, and other
such approved weapons; for we have in our ranks men who are
preeminently qualified to annihilate such arguments with strictly
scientific and expert methods, and to floor their antagonists _coram
publico_. In a word, we feel that we are strong, we feel that we are
equal to the work which we have undertaken.
Their opponents proved to be stronger. I shall have occasion hereafter
to tell something of the course that matters subsequently took. But now
I will return to the point where I broke off—to the Peace Congress at
Rome.
XXXI
THE CONGRESS IN ROME
Frame of mind · Life together in the Hotel Quirinal · General Türr and
his career · Little revolution against Bonghi · Alsace-Lorraine · The
Grelix couple · Baron Pirquet · Opening festival on the Capitol ·
Ruggero Bonghi as chairman · Weighty words · Founding of the Bern
Central Bureau · Echoes · The monthly _Die Waffen nieder_ is launched ·
A. H. Fried · “The Important Thing”
To Rome! No one can undertake the journey to the Eternal City without
being overcome by a certain feeling of awe. There vibrates in the soul a
diapason of historic and æsthetic tones, of memories of antiquity and
the Renaissance; pictures rise of Forum and Vatican, of gladiators and
cardinals, of palaces and churches, of entrancing gardens and dazzling
treasures of art. We also, both of us, quivered with this peculiar
_frisson_ of joyous expectation when we found ourselves in the train
that bore us Romewards. My Own naturally felt it with especial force,
for he was to see the Eternal City for the first time. And this frame of
mind was still more intensified by the object of our journey,—a
congress, a Peace Congress. That was history too, only not ancient
history, but the most modern; strictly speaking, the history of a future
at whose gates one could as yet only knock; but what a new and beautiful
world lay behind these gates!—And was I actually on my way thither as
the delegate of a society which I myself had called into existence, and
should I there—in the Capitol—meet and take counsel with statesmen from
all climes? Was it not an unheard-of temerity, or, in simpler terms, a
piece of impudence? It had all come about so quickly; I had acted under
such an irresistible impulse, under the compulsion of an eager will, but
also under the protection of that naïveté which consists in ignorance of
difficulties and hindrances, and which helps forward every hazardous
undertaking better than deliberation and experience.
When we arrived at our destination the Interparliamentary Conference was
still in session; our Congress was not to begin till two days later.
Almost all the participants in the two events had taken up their
quarters in the Hotel Quirinal; and so this whole international society
of pacifists—at that time, to be sure, the expression “pacifism” had not
been coined—was brought together in constant intercourse,—in the large
dining-room at meals, in the halls at all hours of the day in conferring
groups, in the drawing-rooms in social intercourse. Here I found all the
old friends and colleagues with whom I had so long been in
correspondence, and many new friends besides. I remember that at my
first arrival there was standing in the vestibule a tall, martial
figure, with a white mustache a quarter of a yard long, and an
acquaintance who was present introduced “General Türr.” Happy omen, that
the first antagonist of war whom we met at the place of the Congress was
a general, “a grizzled warrior”! His life’s history comprises a whole
chronicle of wars: in 1848 as lieutenant under Radetzky in Italy; in
1849 with Kossuth in the Hungarian Revolution. Banished from Hungary, he
was one of the English army in the Crimean War; in 1855 arrested in
traveling through Hungary, condemned to death—pardoned through the
efforts of the Queen of England. In 1859, on Garibaldi’s general staff,
he takes part with the thousand, in the expedition to Marsala; fights at
the Volturno with his division; in 1860 is military governor of Naples;
in 1861, general-adjutant to King Victor Emmanuel. And how he, the
battle-tried veteran, was here, to take part in the peace campaign. Not
as a new convert; even when serving with Garibaldi he had been taught
the misfortune of war and the hope that a European peace organization
might be possible, for he was the inspirer of the famous manifesto sent
out by Garibaldi to the princes of Europe inviting them to union; and
ever since 1867 he had been a member of the French Peace Society founded
by Frédéric Passy.
As the Interparliamentary Conference was still in session when we
reached Rome, we had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the
representatives of the fourteen different parliaments who were here
assembled under the presidency of Minister Biancheri. It was originally
intended that Ruggero Bonghi should preside, but he had withdrawn, for a
whole little revolution had broken out, and the German and Austrian
parliamentarians would not have gone to Rome if Bonghi had not waived
the chairmanship. What had occurred? The famous savant and former
Minister of Public Instruction had published in some review an article
which contained language expressing sympathy with the French conception
of the Alsace-Lorraine question. I find among my letters an echo of the
feeling that was aroused at that time in both the parliaments of Central
Europe. Superintendent Haase, member of the Austrian Reichsrat, wrote
me:
Noble and highly honored Baroness:
After a three weeks’ absence I came to Vienna yesterday by way of
Teschen, where I gave hasty attention to only the most important
official papers and packed into my trunk the private letters that had
arrived for me. I am sincerely distressed to find now that your letter
of the twenty-third of last month has remained unanswered, and that
you must be having a very curious idea of my politeness. So, in the
first place, I crave your pardon.
As regards the business, I must make a distinction between the
general and the specific. Whatever service I can perform in the
cause of human charity will always be gladly done; and if you should
ever be in want of my commonplace services, call upon me. It will be
a double pleasure to me to help forward a good work if at the same
time I can be of service to an ideal woman, so worthy of deference
for her high-mindedness. Do not, I beg of you, take this as banal
flattery. But the special case with which we are concerned to-day
has become different since you wrote to me. To take part in the
Interparliamentary Conference this year, and in the Peace Congress
at Rome, as I had intended, is no longer possible for me.
For, even though Signor Bonghi does at a later time give out that
Alsace-Lorraine will not be spoken of at the Congress, yet in
consideration of what he has already said he is not the man under
whose leadership the friends of peace can meet in conference.
War is not merely a misfortune, it is a crime, committed by the person
who calls it forth. But in the statement that a demand which can be
made effective only through the force of arms is justifiable there is
surely involved a sort of “summons to the dance,” and whoever issues
it, even indirectly, becomes an accessory and responsible for the
bloody consequences. Signor Bonghi’s utterances about the position of
France toward Alsace-Lorraine would, in case France declared war upon
Germany, compel him to approve of this war at least. This involves a
logical impossibility of his condemning war altogether; and if he
nevertheless does so, he comes into contradiction with himself: Bonghi
versus Bonghi.
This contradiction would be bad enough in all conscience if it related
to a war of Peru against Chile; but, since the point of Bonghi’s
well-known utterance is directed against Germany, those among the
friends of peace who are friends of Germany can least of all
participate in an assembly over which Bonghi presides and to which he
in a sense gives character. I do not know how you feel about this
matter. But I should wish that all of us who unite with our hereditary
love and fidelity to our Austrian imperial dynasty and fatherland the
warmest sympathies for our ally, the German Empire, should not part
company in our feelings about this situation.
And now, highly honored Baroness, accept the expression of my most
distinguished consideration, with which I sign myself
Your wholly devoted
Dr. Haase