FOREWORD
Let us reason together. What proof have we that the people of one race are better or to be considered with favor above those of another?
It is true there was a time when the word “stranger” or its equivalent in other languages than the English had the same meaning as enemy. Each savage tribe, the early ancestors of all civilized peoples, for want of knowledge and experience, considered all other tribes enemies, and even as civilization grew and boundaries began to be established an imaginary line made enemies of those dwelling on opposite sides of rivers and channels. With more reason, seas came to be recognized as territorial limitations, and it has required centuries to break down notions of enmity and antagonism between dwellers of different localities. Indeed, it can hardly be contended that this spirit of enmity and antagonism has been overcome, when we see not only peoples of different countries, but those of a common citizenship harboring animosities sometimes approaching the malignant, and giving expression both in speech and action to their hatred for those who differ from them in race or color or creed.
Victor Rubin in the following pages deals with this question of racial and religious antagonism in a fascinating but most effective manner. Perhaps no one will be able to speak more impressively of Mr. Rubin’s book “Tar and Feathers” and at the same time give an intimation of its contents than has the great scholar and traveler, Israel Zangwill:
“Mr. Victor Rubin, with the courage of youth, faces in his first novel the full blast of the actual. What Mr. C. E. Montague’s fine book, Disenchantment, expresses for the British soldier, Mr. Rubin’s Tar and Feathers expresses for the American. AllAmerica—of all creeds andraces—went to the great war as one man, as depicted in Tar and Feathers. The young Southerner, Hamilton, has actually been dragged from death on the battlefield by a negro and brought back to life and health by a Jewish surgeon. Yet the cannon have scarcely cooled before the old racial and religious prejudices reassert themselves. They resurge even in Hamilton, who cannot bear to touch the colored hand of his saviour. It is his struggle with them, and his final mastery over them, that constitutes the theme of Mr. Rubin’s novel. When Hamilton goes back to his narrow Southern home, he even under the pressure of the milieu becomes a paid agent of the Ku Klux Klan with its crusade against Catholics, Jews and Negroes.” (Mr. Rubin prudently calls it the “Trick, Track Tribe.”)
“Mr. Victor Rubin, with the courage of youth, faces in his first novel the full blast of the actual. What Mr. C. E. Montague’s fine book, Disenchantment, expresses for the British soldier, Mr. Rubin’s Tar and Feathers expresses for the American. AllAmerica—of all creeds andraces—went to the great war as one man, as depicted in Tar and Feathers. The young Southerner, Hamilton, has actually been dragged from death on the battlefield by a negro and brought back to life and health by a Jewish surgeon. Yet the cannon have scarcely cooled before the old racial and religious prejudices reassert themselves. They resurge even in Hamilton, who cannot bear to touch the colored hand of his saviour. It is his struggle with them, and his final mastery over them, that constitutes the theme of Mr. Rubin’s novel. When Hamilton goes back to his narrow Southern home, he even under the pressure of the milieu becomes a paid agent of the Ku Klux Klan with its crusade against Catholics, Jews and Negroes.” (Mr. Rubin prudently calls it the “Trick, Track Tribe.”)
That the book possesses a broad appeal is indicated by many other commendations of able readers as expressed in scores of periodicals, a few of which we quote:
“A cogent, common-sense appeal for liberality of view, for a realization that all humanity is intrinsically similar, that the great teachers of mankind all breathed love and unity ... a book which any man concerned with the interesting presentment of truth would do well to read.”—William R. Langfeld in thePhiladelphia Sunday Record.“Mr. Rubin has succeeded in analyzing the psychological effects of the war upon those who participated in it as few writers have done. He has depicted the ethical and moral metamorphosis with commendable accuracy and understanding.”—Boston Transcript.“Tar and Feathers is noteworthy in that it protests vigorously against prejudice of every variety and exposes the narrowness and the danger of organizations making for racial antagonism. The author writes with sincerity and conviction and is worth heeding if only for the vehemence with which he attacks the forces of snobbery and prejudice.”—New York Evening Post.“While the armistice bells are ringing and a war-ridden people all over the world are shaking themselves loose from the habits of four long years, the novel opens in a crowded ward of the American hospital, Rue de Saint Jacques, Paris. Robert Hamilton, a rich and cultured American from Georgia; McCall from Chicago, in civilian life a reporter on the Times (incidentally of the Catholic faith); Dr. Levin, the great American surgeon, and Williams, a negro graduate of Harvard, are here introduced. Of course, there is also Meadows, thenurse—Dorothy Meadows, who played around with the social service crowd at Madison, and graduated there some time “before the war.” Back in Georgia is Margaret, a typical “home girl” in Corinth. These are the leading characters out of whose reactions Mr. Rubin has evolved a presentable story upon which to drape his theories.“The scene shifts back to Corinth, where young Hamilton, is at once entangled in the affairs of the Ku Klux Klan, tho he doesn’t know in the least what it’s all about. Sent on a mission of propaganda to Chicago, Hamilton renews his friendship with McCall and Levin. The story of the part they play is a sermon to be hugged to the hearts of all 100 per cent Americans. Then, of course, there is Dorothy ... while back in Corinth is Margaret ... staying at home.“Mr. Rubin makes adroit use of the Chicago race riots of 1919 and otherwise molds his men and his times into a tale which moves with rapidity and vigor.”—Margaret Evans in theChicago Evening Post.
“A cogent, common-sense appeal for liberality of view, for a realization that all humanity is intrinsically similar, that the great teachers of mankind all breathed love and unity ... a book which any man concerned with the interesting presentment of truth would do well to read.”—William R. Langfeld in thePhiladelphia Sunday Record.
“Mr. Rubin has succeeded in analyzing the psychological effects of the war upon those who participated in it as few writers have done. He has depicted the ethical and moral metamorphosis with commendable accuracy and understanding.”—Boston Transcript.
“Tar and Feathers is noteworthy in that it protests vigorously against prejudice of every variety and exposes the narrowness and the danger of organizations making for racial antagonism. The author writes with sincerity and conviction and is worth heeding if only for the vehemence with which he attacks the forces of snobbery and prejudice.”—New York Evening Post.
“While the armistice bells are ringing and a war-ridden people all over the world are shaking themselves loose from the habits of four long years, the novel opens in a crowded ward of the American hospital, Rue de Saint Jacques, Paris. Robert Hamilton, a rich and cultured American from Georgia; McCall from Chicago, in civilian life a reporter on the Times (incidentally of the Catholic faith); Dr. Levin, the great American surgeon, and Williams, a negro graduate of Harvard, are here introduced. Of course, there is also Meadows, thenurse—Dorothy Meadows, who played around with the social service crowd at Madison, and graduated there some time “before the war.” Back in Georgia is Margaret, a typical “home girl” in Corinth. These are the leading characters out of whose reactions Mr. Rubin has evolved a presentable story upon which to drape his theories.
“The scene shifts back to Corinth, where young Hamilton, is at once entangled in the affairs of the Ku Klux Klan, tho he doesn’t know in the least what it’s all about. Sent on a mission of propaganda to Chicago, Hamilton renews his friendship with McCall and Levin. The story of the part they play is a sermon to be hugged to the hearts of all 100 per cent Americans. Then, of course, there is Dorothy ... while back in Corinth is Margaret ... staying at home.
“Mr. Rubin makes adroit use of the Chicago race riots of 1919 and otherwise molds his men and his times into a tale which moves with rapidity and vigor.”—Margaret Evans in theChicago Evening Post.
For ourselves, we have read nothing on the perennial subject of intolerance so much to the point and so well calculated to allay prejudice and make for good citizenship as “Tar and Feathers.”
THE PUBLISHERS.