different countries tends to the impression that they have a
predominant kindness, which must have been deeply ingrained in
the constitution of their race to have overlasted the ages of
persecution and oppression. The concentration of their joys in
domestic life has kept up in them the capacity of tenderness; the
pity for the fatherless and the widow, the care for the women and
the little ones, blent intimately with their religion, is a well of
mercy, that cannot long or widely be pent up by exclusiveness, and
the kindness of the Jew overflows the line of division between him
and the Gentile.
"On the whole, one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history
of this scattered people, made for ages 'a scorn and a hissing,' is
that, after being subjected to this process, which might have been
expected to be in every sense deteriorating and vitiating, they
have come out of it (in any estimate which allows for numerical
proportion) rivaling the nations of all European countries, in
healthiness and beauty of physique, in practical ability, in
scientific and artistic aptitude, and in some forms of ethical
value. A significant indication of their natural rank is seen in
the fact, that at this moment the leader of the Liberal party in
Germany is a Jew, the leader of the Republican party in France is a
Jew, and the head of the conservative ministry in England is a Jew."
* * * * *
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULEY (afterwards Lord Macauley) delivered a
celebrated oration in the British House of Commons on April 17, 1833,
in support of the bill for the removal of the disabilities of the Jews.
After a destructive criticism of the arguments and reasons which were
then being advanced by the opponents of liberalism, arguments which
have since then been so completely outlived as to be no longer, in
any Anglo-Saxon community, deemed worthy of consideration, the great
statesman concluded his masterly presentation in a lucid statement and
eloquent peroration, as follows:
"Whatever the sect be which it is proposed to tolerate, the
peculiarities of that sect will, for the time, be pronounced by
intolerant men to be the most odious and dangerous that can be
conceived. As to the Jews, that they are unsocial as respects
religion is true; and so much the better; for surely, as
Christians, we cannot wish that they should bestir themselves to
pervert us from our own faith.
"But that the Jews would be unsocial members of the civil
community, if the civil community did its duty by them, has never
been proved. My right honorable friend who made the motion which we
are discussing has produced a great body of evidence to show that
they have been grossly misrepresented; and that evidence has not
been refuted by my honorable friend, the member for the University
of Oxford.
"But what if it were true that the Jews are unsocial? What if it
were true that they do not regard England as their country? Would
not the treatment which they have undergone explain and excuse
their antipathy to the society in which they live? Has not similar
antipathy often been felt by persecuted Christians to the society
which persecuted them?
"While the bloody code of Elizabeth was enforced against the
English Roman Catholics, what was the patriotism of Roman
Catholics? Oliver Cromwell said that in his time they were
Espaniolized. At a later period it might have been said that
they were Gallicised. It was the same with the Calvinists. What
more deadly enemies had France in the day of Louis XIV, than the
persecuted Huguenots?
"But would any rational man infer from these facts that either the
Roman Catholic as such, or the Calvinist as such, is incapable
of loving the land of his birth? If England were now invaded by
Roman Catholics, how many English Roman Catholics would go over to
the invader? If France were now attacked by a Protestant enemy,
how many French Protestants would lend him help? Why not try what
effect would be produced on the Jews by that tolerant policy which
has made the English Roman Catholic a good Englishman and the
French Calvinist a good Frenchman?
"Another charge has been brought against the Jews, not by my
honorable friend, the member for the University of Oxford--he
has too much learning and too much good feeling to make such a
charge--but by the honorable member for Oldham, who has, I am sorry
to see, quitted his place.
"The honorable member for Oldham tells us that the Jews are
naturally a mean race, a money-getting race; that they are averse
to all honorable callings; that they neither sow nor reap; that
they have neither flocks nor herds; that usury is the only pursuit
for which they are fit; that they are destitute of all elevated and
amiable sentiments.
"Such, sir, has in every age been the reasoning of bigots. They
never fail to plead in justification of persecution the vices which
persecution has engendered. England has been, legally, a home to
the Jews less than half a century, and we revile them because they
do not feel for England more than a half patriotism.
"We treat them as slaves, and wonder that they do not regard us as
brethren. We drive them to mean occupations, and then reproach them
for not embracing honorable professions. We long forbade them to
possess land, and we complain that they chiefly occupy themselves
in trade. We shut them out from all the paths of ambition, and then
we despise them for taking refuge in avarice.
"During many ages we have, in all our dealings with them, abused
our immense superiority of force, and then we are disgusted
because they have recourse to that cunning which is the natural
and universal defense of the weak against the violence of the
strong. But were they always a mere money-changing, money-getting,
money-hoarding race? Nobody knows better than my honorable friend,
the member for the University of Oxford, that there is nothing in
their national character which unfits them for the highest duties
of citizens.
"He knows that, in the infancy of civilization, when our island was
as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown
to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was afterward
the site of Rome, this contemned people had their fenced cities
and cedar palaces, their splendid temple, their fleets of merchant
ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen and
soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and their
poets.
"What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming
odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, in its
last agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished
by a brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the
depressed descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated
from the qualities of their fathers, if, while excluded from the
blessings of law and bowed down under the yoke of slavery, they
have contracted some of the vices of outlaws and slaves, shall we
consider this as a matter of reproach to them?
"Shall we not rather consider it as a matter of shame and remorse
to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the
door of the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career
in which ability and energy can be displayed. Till we have done
this, let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the
countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the
Maccabees.
"Sir, in supporting the motion of my honorable friend, I am, I
firmly believe, supporting the honor and the interest of the
Christian religion. I should think that I insulted that religion
if I said that it cannot stand unaided by intolerant laws. Without
such laws it was established, and without such laws it may be
maintained.
"It triumphed over the superstitions of the most refined and of
the most savage nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and
the bloody idolatry of the northern forests. It prevailed over
the power and policy of the Roman Empire. It tamed the barbarians
by whom that empire was overthrown. But all these victories were
gained, not by the help of intolerance, but in spite of the
opposition of intolerance.
"The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little
indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from
persecution as an ally. May she long continue to bless our country
with her benignant influence, strong in her sublime philosophy,
strong in her spotless morality, strong in those internal and
external evidences to which the most powerful and comprehensive of
human intellects have yielded assent, the last solace of those who
have outlived every earthly hope, the last restraint of those who
are raised above every earthly fear!
"But let us not, mistaking her character and her interests, fight
the battle of truth with the weapons of error, and endeavor to
support by oppression that religion which first taught the human
race the great lesson of universal charity."
* * * * *
Here is an utterance on this subject by OTTO VON BISMARCK. This man,
whose iron hand puddled the smelt of the furnace wherein, with fire
and blood, the German people were fused into political unity, was--or
rather, is, for he is yet living, and will long remain a power--this
man is no friend of the Jews. His spirit crystallized, and his
nature drew its inspiration out of the time when "_Polen, Juden und
Franzosen_" were a trinity of bugbears for the worshippers of royal
divinity in Europe. Bismarck never fully recovered from that nightmare
of his youth and early manhood, but he towered above his fellows, and
he had the faculty of perceiving the truth and a habit of telling it
which, notwithstanding his diplomatic training, he was wont to indulge.
In a notable debate in the Prussian Landtag during the session of 1871,
he expressed himself as follows:
"In my position as President of the Ministry I must repudiate any
obligation to fill the places in the civil service with Roman
Catholics according to their proportionate number in the population
of the country.... The existence of a distinctively religious body
in a political assembly is in itself a monstrous phenomenon....
This tends to make religion the subject of parliamentary
debates.... I adhere to the principle that every religion should
be allowed perfect freedom, without considering it, for that
reason, necessary that it should be represented in the executive
departments in the same ratio as in the population. Every religious
body would have as much right as the Catholics to claim this; the
Lutherans as well as the Jews, and _I have found that it is the
latter particularly who are most distinguished by their special
intelligence and capacity for administrative functions_."
* * * * *
As an estimate of Jewish citizenship by a man whose life experience has
afforded him a rare insight into social and political conditions on
both sides of the Atlantic, we quote the following expression by CARL
SCHURZ, on the occasion of the dedication of the Montefiore Home for
Chronic Invalids, in New York City:
"Honor to the men and women who have accomplished this and who are
bound to accomplish still more. They do honor to the community
which calls them its own; for any community, whatever its
pretensions, will be honored by citizens who take so high a view of
their duties to humanity.
"And who are these citizens? They are Jews. This is not the only
monument the Jews of New York have planted to their benevolence
and public spirit. There are others--some even far exceeding this
in costliness and grandeur. But none--none of their own and none
instituted by any other class of citizens excels it, nay, perhaps
none equals it in beauty of sentiment and devotion. And for whom is
this done? Hear the noble words of the President of the Society as
found in last year's report: 'As Israelites we are compelled, both
by circumstances and inclination, to provide for the needy of our
own faith; but this must not induce us to exclude any human being
because of his religious belief from the benefit of an institution
charged with the improvement of bodily ailment.' Thus it is done
for the brotherhood of men. This is the true spirit, worthy of
him whose name this edifice bears. It is the spirit, too, which
more than any other, has created the brightest, the most stainless
glories of our great American Republic--the spirit which, without
any governmental action, out of the spontaneous initiative of the
patriotic citizen, through private munificence, through individual
solicitude for the welfare of all, has covered this land all over
with educational institutions and enterprises of benevolence. In
our school days we read of the Roman matron Cornelia, who, when
other noble ladies exhibited to her their stores of pearls and
precious stones, called in her children, and pointing to them,
said: 'These are my jewels.' So when the Old World shows to us the
magnificence of its baronial halls and royal castles, the American
Republic may point to her colleges and hospitals and asylums
founded by the patriotic generosity of simple citizens, and say,
'These are my palaces.'
"And to entitle the American people to this proud distinction,
the Jews have done as much as any other class of citizens--nay, I
may repeat in their presence what I have frequently said in the
presence of others--the Jews have, in proportion to their numbers,
done far more. I repeat this with all the greater willingness, as
I have recently had occasion to observe the motive springs, the
character and the aims of the so-called "anti-Semitic" movement, a
movement whose dark spirit of fanaticism and persecution insults
the humane enlightenment of the 19th century; whose appeals are
addressed to the stupidest prejudice and the blindest passion,
whose injustice affronts every sense of fairness and decency and
whose cowardice--for cowardice is an essential element in the
attempt to suppress the competing energies of a mere handful of
people--whose cowardice I say, should provoke the contempt of every
self-respecting man.
"In the face of this movement, which for years has stirred some
European countries, and thrown its shadows even across the ocean,
upon our shores, it is most grateful to the human heart to hear
the President of the Montefiore Home say, that while this roof
is to shelter the neediest of Israel, no human being because of
his religious belief shall be excluded from its protection. He
might take the clamorous anti-Semitic by the hand, show him the
hospitals, orphans homes, charity schools, founded and sustained
by Jewish money, Jewish labor, Jewish public spirit, benevolence
and devotion and say to him: 'If you have any sick, any aged,
any children who cannot find help elsewhere, here we shall have
room for them, and they are welcome.' What has the anti-Semite to
answer? No, no, that movement cannot survive. It must perish in
shame. It will be consigned to an ignominious grave by the generous
impulses of human nature and the civilization of this age. And what
will remain will be the beneficent influence and the sweet memory
of such good actions as yours, and the brotherhood of mankind."
* * * * *
On the same occasion as that noted above, the opening of the Montefiore
Home for Chronic Invalids, HON. ABRAM S. HEWITT, Mayor of New York
City, spoke as follows:
"No other people, so far as I have observed, no sect or
denomination or party have done so much as the Jews, to relieve
distress, give education and elevate the standard of morality
in our midst, and I make that statement after a good deal of
observation and attention, particularly that part of it concerning
the subject of education.
"I have never found the Jews lacking in public spirit. It is said
of them that they have the art of getting wealth. If but a part
of what is said of them be true, they understand well the use of
wealth when once acquired. They are found among the first admirers
of art, they love music and have since the daughters of Judah hung
their harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon.
"This charity is unique, and it is a link in the chain of Jewish
institutions. So long as there are calls by suffering humanity, the
Jews will year by year add new links to their beautiful chain until
it embraces every need of society regardless of race and religion.
"I have read at the door as I entered, that the Israelites erected
this building to the chronic sick in honor of Moses Montefiore, a
Jew, who for nearly a hundred years set an example to other people
and creeds of a broad charity that affects all people and all lands.
"This institution was one long wanted in New York for a class
for whom there is no hope save such offered by the poor-house
or Blackwell's Island. They were here given instead a home in
which love reigned and religion presided, religion which opened
the portals of the other world where all must go, rich and poor,
Jew and Christian, where reigns the Heavenly Father whose chosen
people have proven steadfast amid all oppression and persecution,
and who has so long preserved them, but who nevertheless knows no
difference between His children."
* * * * *
From a deeply thoughtful address before the Young Men's Hebrew
Association of Philadelphia, by JUDGE F. CARROLL BREWSTER, on the
Valley of Baca as referred to in Psalm lxxxiv, we quote the following
as the expression of a Nestor among jurists:
"Perhaps, then, the very dreariness of this barren place was
intended as a prophecy of the woes which God's chosen people should
encounter on their march through the history of many ages. And the
water to be found in the midst of this desolation might prefigure
the refreshing deliverance which the centuries were to bring. Of
bitterness and of persecution, of suffering beyond man's power
to describe, of its depth, of all that is sad and sorrowful, the
history of the Jewish nation bears tearful testimony. The student
has two marvels, as he turns these weary pages of the very monotony
of cruelty. He wonders how the ferocity of man could ever enact
this horrible tragedy, and then he wonders how the race survived.
"It would be a vain and painful task to recite here the thousandth
part of what history tells us, and it is certain that history does
not, in this case as in many others, falsify the facts. These
narratives were all written by the actors who took a horrid pride
in recounting their own infamy. The man who has but a moderate
installment of feeling in his breast must cry out with indignation
as he reads of these outrages. To the jurist they are especially
repugnant, for they tell not only of the slaughter of human beings,
but of the murder of justice."
* * * * *
The following is from the pen of GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, the life-long
editor of "Harper's Weekly" and "Harper's Magazine." As a prominent
actor in the stirring events of his generation he has left a marked
impress on our national life, but great as was his influence in the
councils of the nation he was yet best known to the large mass of the
American people as the genial, persuasive writer of the "Easy Chair"
in the magazine which he so ably edited. The extract which we print is
from that department of Harper's Magazine, where it appeared in July,
1877, vol. 55, p. 300.
WHAT WE OWE TO THE JEWS.
"One beautiful June evening in Paris the 'Easy Chair' strolled
with a friend into a café on the Boulevard. They had been to hear
'Robert le Diable' at the French Opera, and gaily humming and
gossiping they sat upon the broad walk that was still thronged on
the still summer night. Presently a dark-haired man came quietly
along and seated himself at a table near by. He was alone, and
seemed not to care for recognition. He was simply dressed and was
entirely unnoticeable except for the strong Jewish lines of his
intellectual face. The 'Easy Chair's' companion whispered, 'That
is the man to whom we owe the delight of this evening; that is
Meyerbeer.' After a little while he added with feeling, 'How much
we owe to the Jews and how mean Christendom is!'
"It was remarkable how much of the conspicuous work and influence
on that evening was due to the genius of a people whose name is
so constantly used as a word of reproach. A few months before,
Mendelssohn had been buried in Leipsic, and in Berlin the 'Easy
Chair' had heard the memorial concert of his music at the
Sing-Akademie. Rossini was still living, and Verdi was writing
operas, but Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were the recognized masters
of music. The evening before, the 'Easy Chair' had seen the Jewess
Rachel in 'Phedre'--the one woman who contests the laurel with
Mrs. Siddons, and who was then the great living actress. Beyond
the channel, Disraeli, the child of Spanish Jews, was just about
to kiss hands as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to become the
political leader of the British Tories. In the vast city in which
they were sitting, the 'Easy Chair' knew that the Jewish Heine
was living, breathing his weird and melancholy song, while in
Paris and London and Frankfort and Vienna the great masters of
the mainspring of industrial activity, the capitalists, who held
peace and war in their hands, and by whose favor kings ruled, were
Jews. The philosophy, the arts, the industry, the politics of
Christendom were full of the Jewish genius, the gayety of nations,
the delight of scholars, the scepters of princes, the movements of
civilization, hung in great degree upon it. It is as true to-day
as in that long summer night, and the words of the 'Easy Chair's'
friend are still as shamefully true. 'How mean Christendom is!'
"Recently in New York an estimable and accomplished gentleman
was rejected as a member of the Bar Association 'for no other
reason that can be conceived,' indignantly said one of the leading
members, 'except that he was a Jew.' Doubtless a few votes would
procure the rejection. But the Association is not a social club,
and presumptively a man who is an honorable member of the Bar is
a fit member of the Association. The few hostile votes, however,
represent the prejudice. It is very old and very universal. To the
audience of to-day there is nothing in Shakespeare more vital and
intelligible than the fervent appeal of 'Shylock' to the common
humanity of the world around him. The Jew is still separate, and
the prejudice which has pursued him for generations is but slightly
relaxed. The lines of demarcation are fine. They are often almost
invisible. But they are deep, and apparently absolute. It is one
of the most common and most tenacious of the objections to 'Daniel
Deronda' that it deals with Jews and Jewish life and character.
The fact is sometimes almost resented as an offence to the mass of
readers. Even in 'Ivanhoe,' although torrents of Christian tears
have flowed over the closing pages, where the noble and beautiful
'Rebecca' asks to see the face of the fair 'Rowena,' yet such
is the fell and weird outlaw of the Jew from general sympathy,
that the catastrophe seems to be an inevitable fate. There is no
doubt that this prejudice is as cruel in its effects as it is
unreasonable in its origin....