The entire Russian Jewry struggles against Bolshevism. This is true not only with regard to the bourgeoisie, but to the democratic classes of the Russian Jewry as well. It is sufficient to say that not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki. All political factions of the Russian Jewry are struggling against Bolshevism.The great majority of the Jewish population, including many of the poor, are being classed by the Bolsheviki with the so-called bourgeoisie, and every place where the Bolsheviki rule, the Jewish population, not to speak of very insignificant exceptions, is suffering and starving.The Bolshevist regime has destroyed the industries and the trade, and the Jewish population, which made its living mostly through participation in the industrial and commercial life, is suffering probably more than other nationalities. At the same time, the Bolsheviki are persecuting all religions, and the Jewish religious institutions have suffered from their despotic rule not less than the institutions of the Christian religion.The anti-Semites are making very wide use of the fact that Trotzky is a Jew, but the participation of several Jews among the Bolshevist leaders does not nullify the fact that the Russian Jewry, in its overwhelming majority, struggles actively against Bolshevism.It is significant that Bolshevism spread mostly in central and eastern Russia where the Jews constitute an insignificant minority.
The entire Russian Jewry struggles against Bolshevism. This is true not only with regard to the bourgeoisie, but to the democratic classes of the Russian Jewry as well. It is sufficient to say that not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki. All political factions of the Russian Jewry are struggling against Bolshevism.
The great majority of the Jewish population, including many of the poor, are being classed by the Bolsheviki with the so-called bourgeoisie, and every place where the Bolsheviki rule, the Jewish population, not to speak of very insignificant exceptions, is suffering and starving.
The Bolshevist regime has destroyed the industries and the trade, and the Jewish population, which made its living mostly through participation in the industrial and commercial life, is suffering probably more than other nationalities. At the same time, the Bolsheviki are persecuting all religions, and the Jewish religious institutions have suffered from their despotic rule not less than the institutions of the Christian religion.
The anti-Semites are making very wide use of the fact that Trotzky is a Jew, but the participation of several Jews among the Bolshevist leaders does not nullify the fact that the Russian Jewry, in its overwhelming majority, struggles actively against Bolshevism.It is significant that Bolshevism spread mostly in central and eastern Russia where the Jews constitute an insignificant minority.
It is a significant fact that the only Socialist elected to the United States Congress in the recent election, Meyer London, a Russian-born Jew, is a vigorous opponent of Bolshevism. In view of such evidence as the foregoing, it is surely not less thanridiculous to attempt to make Bolshevism appear as a phase of Jewish Socialism, and a part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, instead of what it is—namely, the wild anarchical outburst of despairing and desperate masses of men. I venture to say that when the history of this tragic episode in the life of Russia is authoritatively written, it will be found that Jews have not been responsible for the most objectionable features of Bolshevism. Not even Trotzky need be excluded from this generalization, for, while it is true that his genius made Bolshevism the formidable military power it became, the brutal excesses of the Red Terror must be charged against such men as Peters, the Lett, and Dzerzhinsky, the Pole.
[1]see the articles published in the New York pro-Bolshevist weekly,Die Neue Welt, June 27, July 4 and 11, 1919.
[1]see the articles published in the New York pro-Bolshevist weekly,Die Neue Welt, June 27, July 4 and 11, 1919.
No one who knows how the Jews of Russia, in common with the rest of the population, have suffered from Bolshevist misrule will be likely to give credence to the theory that Bolshevism is part of a Jewish conspiracy. As everybody knows, Jews made up a very considerable part of the commercial class in Russia. The indemnities levied upon this class by the Bolshevist commissions in the cities have applied equally to Jew and Gentile. It is a fact that ordinary Jewish shopkeepers have been compelled to pay their full share of the indemnities so levied. Scores of thousands of Jews have had their property confiscated and been reduced to abject poverty. Many thousands more have had to flee, leavingeverything behind them, thankful only that they could save their lives. TheChresvy-chaikashave drawn no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and the available records, meager as they are, prove that the Jews have contributed their full quota to the long list of the victims of these infamous terrorist organizations. Pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been too common in Bolshevist Russia to permit any suspicion that Bolshevism is a pro-Jewish movement. The evidence upon this point is overwhelming.
I am quite well aware that the statement that pogroms have been common in Bolshevist Russia will be challenged and indignantly denied by many of our American defenders of the Bolsheviki, Jews and Gentiles alike. It is none the less a well-attested fact. I have in my possession a mass of evidence which amply proves the truth of the statement. At the same time, I do not mean to charge that the Soviet government has deliberately instigated or authorizedpogroms. Indeed, I am quite ready to believe that the Soviet government has honestly desired and attempted to prevent such pogroms. Lenin accepted the presidency of an organization formed to combat anti-Semitism. The truth seems to be that just as pogroms have admittedly taken place in the new republic of Poland, despite the efforts of the Polish government to prevent them, and just as pogroms were carried out by Denikin's Volunteer Army despite General Denikin's attempts to prevent them, and the severe punishments inflicted by him upon the culprits, so regular Bolshevist troops in southern Russia have plundered and murdered Jews and raped and mutilated Jewish women and girls. Just as these lines are being written word comes, from sources of unquestionable authority, of pogroms against the Jews in the Ukraine, in which Bolshevist troops participated.
The Pogrom Victims' Relief Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society published a report of its investigations of the Jewishpogroms in southern Russia during the period when General Denikin's forces were fighting the Bolsheviki. The report, based upon evidence of unquestionable reliability, showed that Jews had been plundered and murdered not only by disorderly troops of Denikin's Volunteer Army, and by the troops of Petlura and by the robber bands led by "atamans," like Makhno,but also by regular Bolshevist troops. The report attributes to the latter the destruction of at least thirteen Jewish communities in southern Russia and the murder of five hundred Jews. And this is only one report of many. Before me as I write is the account given by an eyewitness of the pogrom which opened at Novo-Poltavka on September 1, 1919, and lasted through the whole of the week following.More than one hundred Jews were murdered, numerous women and girls were raped, and the entire colony was plundered.This pogrom was carried on by the guerrilla bands led by "atamans" Makhno and Grigoriev, together with regularBolshevist troops.[2]Do you ask me to believe that these pogroms were deliberately brought about as part of a "Jewish" conspiracy?
Under the rule of the Bolsheviki the local organs of Jewish autonomy in the Ukraine were entirely destroyed.[3]The chairman of the Jewish Community in Kiev, Mr. D. Levenstein, has testified to the brutal treatment of the Jews in that city during the Bolshevist occupation. Vladimir Kossovsky, one of the foremost leaders of the "Bund," well known in Socialist international circles, in an article published in the Jewish Socialist monthly,Die Zukunft, of New York, says:
Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist Russia have occurred with particular intensity during the first half of 1918. I shall point, as an example, to the pogroms in Gulkhov, in the government of Chernigov, where they assumed a particularly brutal form, and in anumber of places in the Poliesiye.All of these pogroms were the work of Bolshevist troops.The Glukhov pogrom, which has attained such sad notoriety, started on February 28, 1918, after a Bolshevist detachment had entered the city. The Red Army men, transformed into savage beasts, murdered the arrested Jews who were being taken under guard to the building of the Soviet,and the street which housed the Soviet was literally sodden with Jewish blood. All Jewish stores and residences were sacked.Peasants from the near-by villages soon joined the plunderers of the Red Guard in their work of looting and pillaging. According to newspaper reports, four hundred and fifty Jews were murdered, among these some Jewish soldiers who had been rewarded with "St. George" medals for bravery. Long lists of victims—such as could be identified—were at that time published in the newspapers.The pogrom was directed exclusively against the Jews, and the Christian population of the city did not suffer in the least.
Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist Russia have occurred with particular intensity during the first half of 1918. I shall point, as an example, to the pogroms in Gulkhov, in the government of Chernigov, where they assumed a particularly brutal form, and in anumber of places in the Poliesiye.All of these pogroms were the work of Bolshevist troops.
The Glukhov pogrom, which has attained such sad notoriety, started on February 28, 1918, after a Bolshevist detachment had entered the city. The Red Army men, transformed into savage beasts, murdered the arrested Jews who were being taken under guard to the building of the Soviet,and the street which housed the Soviet was literally sodden with Jewish blood. All Jewish stores and residences were sacked.Peasants from the near-by villages soon joined the plunderers of the Red Guard in their work of looting and pillaging. According to newspaper reports, four hundred and fifty Jews were murdered, among these some Jewish soldiers who had been rewarded with "St. George" medals for bravery. Long lists of victims—such as could be identified—were at that time published in the newspapers.The pogrom was directed exclusively against the Jews, and the Christian population of the city did not suffer in the least.
Concerning the pogroms in Poliesiye, Kossovsky quotes from the official organ of the Menshevist party, theNovaia Zaria, of Moscow, June 10, 1918, the following:
The large Jewish population of this region (Poliesiye) finds itself in a particularly tragic situation. The "activity" of the Red Army in Novogorod-Sieversk, Seredina-Buda, and Glukhov, wherethe Soviet detachments massacred the Jewish populations, has found an echo in other cities, and the sword of Damocles hangs at present over the unfortunate Jewish people. In the city of Potchep the Jews saved themselves from a pogrom by collecting in time fifteen thousand rubles, which they handed over to the pogrom-mad Red Army detachment upon its entrance into the city, in addition to giving it a splendid reception and a sumptuous feast. As reward for this reception the bashi-bazouks of the Soviet decided to spare the city.
The large Jewish population of this region (Poliesiye) finds itself in a particularly tragic situation. The "activity" of the Red Army in Novogorod-Sieversk, Seredina-Buda, and Glukhov, wherethe Soviet detachments massacred the Jewish populations, has found an echo in other cities, and the sword of Damocles hangs at present over the unfortunate Jewish people. In the city of Potchep the Jews saved themselves from a pogrom by collecting in time fifteen thousand rubles, which they handed over to the pogrom-mad Red Army detachment upon its entrance into the city, in addition to giving it a splendid reception and a sumptuous feast. As reward for this reception the bashi-bazouks of the Soviet decided to spare the city.
Pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been so common in Bolshevist Russia as to make the "Jewish question" one of extreme difficulty and importance. In numerous Soviets, notably Yaroslavl, Vitebsk, and Smolensk, Jewish members were openly insulted by the Bolsheviki; such epithets as "szhid!" ("sheeny!") were hurled at the Jewish members. Once more I quote from the article by Kossovsky:
In the provinces the pogrom mania invaded even the Soviets, not mentioning the Red Army which became more and more infected with it. According to the KievNaiye Zait, in the Vitebsk Soviet shouts were heard, "Chase the Jews out of the Sovietsand its institutions!" In the Yaroslavl Soviet, according to information printed in the Moscow Social-Democratic newspaper,Vperiod, there were often heard insulting and shameful cries directed against the Jews. In Smolensk, according toSvobodnaya Rossia, members of the Red Army would come to the Soviet and demand that Jews be barred from holding posts as war commissaries and commanders. A lively anti-Semitic propaganda was carried on in Moscow and Petrograd, too, though it never reached the stage of a pogrom. In Petrograd anti-Jewish posters, signed by a "Kamorra of the People's Revenge," were spread broadcast. As a result of the apprehensiveness aroused, detachments for self-defense were organized by the Jews of Moscow. In Petrograd the Bolshevist authorities did not permit the organization of self-defense bodies, fearing lest the weapons of the self-defense detachments be turned against the Soviet.Upon the initiative of the Petrograd Jewish Community the day of May 23, 1918, was designated as a Jewish National Day of Mourning throughout Russia as a protest against the latter-day Jewish pogroms in Russia. On that day the Jews were to close all their business establishments, not to issue newspapers, etc., etc. The May 23d issue of the Petrograd Jewish daily,Unser Tagblat, appeared in a black border and was full of articles relating to anti-Jewish attacks and pogroms, entitled: "Protest by Mourning," "Let Jewish Blood Boil," "The Day of Sorrow," "The Bloody Roll (Statistics Concerning Jewish Pogroms)." To convey to the reader the substance of these articles I will quotethe closing words of the article, "The Bloody Roll": "The old tsarist, bloody Russia, fell, and a new Russia, a radical-Socialist, a communist, Russia came in its place. And still, as before, we stand facing a roster of Jewish pogroms, a roster which is, as yet, far from ended, as each day adds new names, new victims, and new massacres."
In the provinces the pogrom mania invaded even the Soviets, not mentioning the Red Army which became more and more infected with it. According to the KievNaiye Zait, in the Vitebsk Soviet shouts were heard, "Chase the Jews out of the Sovietsand its institutions!" In the Yaroslavl Soviet, according to information printed in the Moscow Social-Democratic newspaper,Vperiod, there were often heard insulting and shameful cries directed against the Jews. In Smolensk, according toSvobodnaya Rossia, members of the Red Army would come to the Soviet and demand that Jews be barred from holding posts as war commissaries and commanders. A lively anti-Semitic propaganda was carried on in Moscow and Petrograd, too, though it never reached the stage of a pogrom. In Petrograd anti-Jewish posters, signed by a "Kamorra of the People's Revenge," were spread broadcast. As a result of the apprehensiveness aroused, detachments for self-defense were organized by the Jews of Moscow. In Petrograd the Bolshevist authorities did not permit the organization of self-defense bodies, fearing lest the weapons of the self-defense detachments be turned against the Soviet.
Upon the initiative of the Petrograd Jewish Community the day of May 23, 1918, was designated as a Jewish National Day of Mourning throughout Russia as a protest against the latter-day Jewish pogroms in Russia. On that day the Jews were to close all their business establishments, not to issue newspapers, etc., etc. The May 23d issue of the Petrograd Jewish daily,Unser Tagblat, appeared in a black border and was full of articles relating to anti-Jewish attacks and pogroms, entitled: "Protest by Mourning," "Let Jewish Blood Boil," "The Day of Sorrow," "The Bloody Roll (Statistics Concerning Jewish Pogroms)." To convey to the reader the substance of these articles I will quotethe closing words of the article, "The Bloody Roll": "The old tsarist, bloody Russia, fell, and a new Russia, a radical-Socialist, a communist, Russia came in its place. And still, as before, we stand facing a roster of Jewish pogroms, a roster which is, as yet, far from ended, as each day adds new names, new victims, and new massacres."
Mr. Louis Marshall, who is universally recognized as one of the foremost leaders of the American Jewry and who headed the American-Jewish delegation to the Peace Conference, in an interview published in the New York Jewish daily newspaper,The Day, July 27, 1919, categorically denied the assertion that there have been no Jewish pogroms under the rule of the Bolsheviki. He declared that such pogroms took place in the districts of the Ukraine controlled by the Bolsheviki as well as in those controlled by the robber bands. "We know of such pogroms having occurred," he said, "and very often the Bolsheviki care just as little about the Jews as others who make pogroms. It is possible that some of their pogroms are attimes different, but in substance there were Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist territory as well." Mr. Marshall added the following observation: "All Jewish representatives that I have met in Paris who came from Russia are strong opponents of Bolshevism. Even to this day the Jewish Socialist parties are no less sharp in their condemnation of the Bolsheviki than are the bourgeois parties."
So far as I have been able to discover, there is not a large Jewish Community in Russia which has not repudiated Bolshevism. Not in a single instance has the support of the leaders of such a Community been given to the Lenin-Trotzky regime. For example, I have before me the report of the annual general meeting of the Jewish Community of Archangel, which took place on May 11, 1919. Therein is contained a Memorandum by the Council of the Community on the relation of the Jews to Bolshevism. The Memorandum points out that, while it is true that there are Jewsamong the leaders of the Bolsheviki, it is also true that there are many Jews among the leaders of the anti-Bolshevist forces. It names such men as MM. Vinaver, Gotz, Minor, Bliumkin (who assassinated Count Mirbach), Kannengisser (who shot Uritzki), and Dora Kaplan (who attempted to assassinate Lenin and forfeited her own life).
The Memorandum asks the non-Jewish world to remember that all of the Jews connected with the Bolshevist movement in any prominent capacity are apostates, that not one of them ever took the slightest part in the affairs of Russian Jewry, and that the Jewish people only learned of their existence at about the same time and in the same way as the Russian people in general became aware of the existence of such non-Jewish Bolshevist leaders as Lenin, Lunarcharsky, Tchitcherin, Krylenko, Dybenko, and many others. Attention is called to the fact that prominent Jewish national workers in Russia have been subjected to the same persecution andmaltreatment by the Bolsheviki as the public-spirited men and women of other nationalities. The Memorandum cites the imprisonment of Doctor Maze, Rabbi of the Moscow Community, and the confiscation of the buildings belonging to the Petrograd Jewish Community, where the cultural and religious institutions of the Jews of that city were centered. I commend to the attention of all fair-minded men and women the following paragraph from this document:
Aside from this group of Jewish Bolshevist leaders there is the Jewish people, the many millions of the Jewish population of Russia. The unassuming representatives of that Jewish Community of Archangel take the liberty to affirm that neither the Jewish people as a whole, nor any of its socially organized groups, are responsible for the savagery, violence, acts of blasphemy, and mockery of human rights which characterize the Bolshevist regime.The Jewish people are fully familiar with acts of brutality, with the Red Terror, familiar from long-past experience and from present experience in Bolshevist Russia, together with all the other nations inhabiting that unhappy territory. But the hands of the Jewish masses, of all the classes of the Jewish people, are not stained with this blood. We have not heard, and we believe that we shallnever hear, of any act of terror committed by any masses of Jews led either by Jews or by non-Jews.Let the Jewish Bolsheviki stand accused and condemned of their guilt like their compatriots of other nationalities, but there must be no room for generalization and wholesale accusation when the people as a whole are guiltless and where millions, permeated by a powerful cohesive force of an ancient culture organically foreign to the spirit of violence and vandalism, stand apart from a few individual persons.
Aside from this group of Jewish Bolshevist leaders there is the Jewish people, the many millions of the Jewish population of Russia. The unassuming representatives of that Jewish Community of Archangel take the liberty to affirm that neither the Jewish people as a whole, nor any of its socially organized groups, are responsible for the savagery, violence, acts of blasphemy, and mockery of human rights which characterize the Bolshevist regime.
The Jewish people are fully familiar with acts of brutality, with the Red Terror, familiar from long-past experience and from present experience in Bolshevist Russia, together with all the other nations inhabiting that unhappy territory. But the hands of the Jewish masses, of all the classes of the Jewish people, are not stained with this blood. We have not heard, and we believe that we shallnever hear, of any act of terror committed by any masses of Jews led either by Jews or by non-Jews.
Let the Jewish Bolsheviki stand accused and condemned of their guilt like their compatriots of other nationalities, but there must be no room for generalization and wholesale accusation when the people as a whole are guiltless and where millions, permeated by a powerful cohesive force of an ancient culture organically foreign to the spirit of violence and vandalism, stand apart from a few individual persons.
Quite similar to the foregoing is a Memorandum addressed by the Council of the Vladivostok Jewish Community to the Russian people. The concluding paragraphs of this address seem to me to be a complete and crushing refutation of the monstrous calumny that is being so assiduously spread among our people:
In the present historic movement the Council of the Jewish Community of Vladivostok deems it its sacred civil duty to come forward with the following protest. The Council declares that: (1) The many millions of the Russian Jewry reject every responsibility for the crimes committed against Russia by a small group of Jewish renegades who have nothing in common with the Jews and have long since broken off all connections with them, suchas Bronstein-Trotzky, Nakhamkes-Steklov, Apfelbaum-Zinoviev, Joffe, Kamenev, and others connected with Bolshevism, just as the Russian, Lettish, Polish, Georgian, Armenian, and other nationalities cannot be held to answer for the deeds and misdeeds of Bolshevist leaders who were born in their midst. (2) The Russian Jewry, as a whole, is warmly and sincerely devoted to the interests of Russia, its motherland, and has struggled and is still struggling for the regeneration of the Russian state, and is heartily interested, together with all the other peoples inhabiting Russia, in the speediest overthrowing of Bolshevism and the reconstruction of orderly life in Russia. The Russian Jews have lost over one hundred thousand of their brothers and sons in killed and wounded in the war with Germany. Thousands of Jews are found at present in the ranks of the armies of Admiral Kolchak and of General Denikin. (3) Bolshevism has ruined hundreds of thousands of Jewish merchants, business men, artisans, and men in various enterprises, and has completely destroyed the entire population of the Northwestern Territories.Thousands of Jewish families have been deported from Soviet Russiaand are now dragging out a miserable existence as refugees in Siberia, in the Ural region, and in the border cities.The Soviet government has shot and is still shooting Jewish public men, lawyers, engineers, physicians, and workmen who have participated in the struggle against the Soviet rule.In the near future there will be published documents and irrefutable facts revealingthe number of Jewish lives and the billions of Jewish wealth that have perished during the past two years in the struggle with Bolshevism.The Vladivostok Jewish Community protests to the Russian public opinion and to the honest and independent Russian press against the falsehoods, insinuations, and calumnies directed against the Jewish people in such profusion by the enemies of humanity and the state.
In the present historic movement the Council of the Jewish Community of Vladivostok deems it its sacred civil duty to come forward with the following protest. The Council declares that: (1) The many millions of the Russian Jewry reject every responsibility for the crimes committed against Russia by a small group of Jewish renegades who have nothing in common with the Jews and have long since broken off all connections with them, suchas Bronstein-Trotzky, Nakhamkes-Steklov, Apfelbaum-Zinoviev, Joffe, Kamenev, and others connected with Bolshevism, just as the Russian, Lettish, Polish, Georgian, Armenian, and other nationalities cannot be held to answer for the deeds and misdeeds of Bolshevist leaders who were born in their midst. (2) The Russian Jewry, as a whole, is warmly and sincerely devoted to the interests of Russia, its motherland, and has struggled and is still struggling for the regeneration of the Russian state, and is heartily interested, together with all the other peoples inhabiting Russia, in the speediest overthrowing of Bolshevism and the reconstruction of orderly life in Russia. The Russian Jews have lost over one hundred thousand of their brothers and sons in killed and wounded in the war with Germany. Thousands of Jews are found at present in the ranks of the armies of Admiral Kolchak and of General Denikin. (3) Bolshevism has ruined hundreds of thousands of Jewish merchants, business men, artisans, and men in various enterprises, and has completely destroyed the entire population of the Northwestern Territories.Thousands of Jewish families have been deported from Soviet Russiaand are now dragging out a miserable existence as refugees in Siberia, in the Ural region, and in the border cities.
The Soviet government has shot and is still shooting Jewish public men, lawyers, engineers, physicians, and workmen who have participated in the struggle against the Soviet rule.In the near future there will be published documents and irrefutable facts revealingthe number of Jewish lives and the billions of Jewish wealth that have perished during the past two years in the struggle with Bolshevism.
The Vladivostok Jewish Community protests to the Russian public opinion and to the honest and independent Russian press against the falsehoods, insinuations, and calumnies directed against the Jewish people in such profusion by the enemies of humanity and the state.
In view of such facts as these, is it reasonable to suppose that Bolshevism is a pro-Jewish conspiracy? Is it less than ridiculous to suggest that the system which has reduced hundreds of thousands of Jews to abject poverty, broken up thousands of Jewish homes and families, confiscated billions of Jewish wealth, imprisoned thousands of prominent Jews, and murdered numerous others, is part of a Jewish conspiracy? Surely, every intelligent person must see that any such conspiracy must necessarily require, as the first condition of its success, a degree of racial solidarity never yet attained by any people at any time in the history of the world. That solidarity could only be obtained by assuring to the Jewstheir complete exemption from the suffering and oppression imposed upon the non-Jewish population. Had there been any thought of securing the solidarity of the Jewish people of Russia against the non-Jewish population, it would have been effectively thwarted by the imposition of such burdens of poverty and suffering upon the Jews, and their resulting resentment. Not the smallest particle of evidence has ever yet been adduced to show that the Jews in Russia have been exempted from any of the oppressive features of Bolshevism. As Mr. Wells reminds us, the Bolsheviki have suppressed the Hebrew language, the historic language of Judaism, to preserve which Jews in all lands and during many centuries have made such vast sacrifices. Do we need any further evidence?
[2]The full account of this eyewitness appeared in theOdesskiya Novosti, September 27, 1919.
[2]The full account of this eyewitness appeared in theOdesskiya Novosti, September 27, 1919.
[3]Statement by Dr. M. Zitron,Dos Yiddishe Volk, of Warsaw, July 11, 1919.
[3]Statement by Dr. M. Zitron,Dos Yiddishe Volk, of Warsaw, July 11, 1919.
Precisely such propaganda as that which theDearborn Independenthas been carrying on is responsible for many of the blackest and most shameful pages in history. Wherever and whenever there has been an organized propaganda of anti-Semitism it has invariably been closely intertwined with every other contemporary reactionary oppressive and contemptible force. To those who know the history of anti-Semitism in Russia, in Poland, and in Rumania, even in quite recent years, this statement will seem so trite as not to require any demonstration. This close association with other forms of reaction and brutal oppression is not peculiar to anti-Semitism, but is a common characteristic of every form of race prejudice and hatred. Among theTurks organized prejudice and hatred of Armenians has invariably been found to be closely associated with all the other evil forces in the Turkish Empire. In our own country, discrimination against and injustice to the negro goes hand in hand with almost every other form of reaction and oppression.
It is quite useless to pretend that such articles as those published in theDearborn Independentand the LondonMorning Postare not really anti-Semitic propaganda, but merely a legitimate discussion of a great and serious problem. Such specious pleading will not deceive any intelligent, honest person. The only possible object of the articles is to convince the people who read them that civilized society is threatened by a great world-wide secret conspiracy of the Jews; that this virile and highly intelligent people, scattered throughout the civilized world, and numbering, it is estimated, about sixteen millions, is secretly organized and led by an "invisible government" composed of some of the ablest and keenest minds in theworld, to the end of bringing all the governments of the earth, together with all industry and commerce, under the absolute rule and dominion of a dynasty to be set up by an aristocratic Jewish Sanhedrin.
Even if we ignore, for the purpose of this discussion, the fact that to sustain this charge a structure of cruel falsehood has been erected with great cunning, it is surely plain enough that the effect of such a charge upon the minds of such non-Jews as believe it can only be the development of a spirit of antagonism toward Jews, as Jews. In so far as theDearborn Independentsucceeds in its efforts, it must inevitably make our Gentile population regard their Jewish neighbors with fear and suspicion. And from such fear and suspicion emanate intolerance and hatred and their brutal progeny. There is no essential difference between the articles which have been appearing in Mr. Ford's paper, either in spirit or in text, and those which, in a past so recent that its horror haunts the memory ofmen and women of our generation, let loose upon tens of thousands of helpless and inoffensive people the most bestial and fiendish cruelty and hatred ever attained by beings called human.
I can quite well remember the intense horror with which the Christian world read of the wave of pogroms against the Jews which swept over Russia in 1891, following the inhuman enforcement of the "May Laws." Jewish women in travail, forced to flee for their lives, hid in cemeteries, and in those "cities of the dead" brought forth their babes. Jewish fathers took their daughters to brothels for safe hiding. Jewish women and girls were raped. Jewish homes were looted, and whole villages inhabited by Jews were burned down. Even women and children were brutally murdered, simply because they were Jews and because a newspaper propaganda in all respects like that now being carried on in this country and in England had made the Jewish people the object of suspicion andfear and, therefore, of hatred. It was then that a Russian statesman declared that the "Jewish question" would be solved only when one third of the Jews had perished, another third emigrated, and the remaining third been converted to the orthodox Church!
The frightful massacre of Jews at Kishinev in 1903 likewise resulted from a newspaper propaganda very similar to that which is now being carried on by theDearborn Independentand the LondonMorning Post.On that occasion an unexampled and unprecedented outburst of horror thrilled the whole civilized world. John Hay, our then Secretary of State, said: "No person of ordinary humanity can have heard without deep emotion the story of the cruel outrages inflicted upon the Jews of Kishinev. These lamentable events have caused the profoundest impression throughout the world." President Roosevelt said, "I have never in my experience in this country known of a more immediate or a deeperexpression of the sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity that has occurred."
The Kishinev outrages were the direct and logical outcome of the campaign of calumny and hatred against the Jews waged by the local newspaper, theBessarabetz, owned and edited by a Moldavian named Kroushevan. Except for the specific charge of "ritual murder," with which I shall presently deal, the campaign of Jew-baiting pursued by this journal, which produced such disastrous and monstrous results, was the counterpart of that now being carried on by theDearborn Independent. Kroushevan charged that the Jews were conspiring to secure world dominion; he charged that the economic power of the Jewish race in Russia was a peril to the nation; he charged that Jews were responsible for Socialism and social unrest. The anti-Semitic articles appearing in this country and in England during the past few weeks are quite like those which used to appear in theBessarabetz.
Of course, the crowning infamy of the campaign of hate waged by the Kishinev paper was the charge of "ritual murder." A Christian boy, named Ribalenko, belonging to the village of Doubossar, midway between Kishinev and Odessa, was murdered, his body being found in an orchard. TheBessarabetzat once declared that the boy had been killed by the Jews for sacrificial purposes, thus reviving one of the most terrible and most infamous libels ever directed against any race or sect—a calumny that has been exposed and refuted again and again. Subsequently, after the mischief had been done,it was proved that the boy was murdered by his uncle and the care-taker of the orchard in which the body was found—both of them Russians and Gentiles.The murderers confessed their guilt, the motive for the crime being gain.
The horrors of 1891 were repeated and even excelled at Kishinev in 1903 as a result of this propaganda. It is not necessary to go into the gruesome details of the numerousnameless sex mutilations, the awful outrages committed upon young girls and their gray-haired grandmothers, the shockingly brutal and bestial murders, the well-authenticated cases of nails driven through the eyes of a woman and the cutting out of the tongue of a two-year-old child; let these brief references suffice. It is all too evident from the most reliable accounts of the massacre that hatred born of resentment and fear had made the Gentile mobs as savage as wild beasts. They were no longer human.
Thus far neither theDearborn Independentnor the LondonMorning Posthas reproduced the "ritual murder" lie. Perhaps neither will do it. Probably not. At the same timeboth papers have done their utmost to create in the minds of their readers a readiness to believe that or any other infamy when attributed to the Jews. There is not, and there cannot be, any assurance that in the soil thus prepared by these papers, others more ignorant or less scrupulous will not successfully plant belief in the ancient legend ofsacrificial murders committed by Jews. And even if this never happens at all, the fact remains that in charging that the horrors of Bolshevism were deliberately instigated by Jews, British and American anti-Semites have appealed to the same unreasoning, instinctive, primal passion. For Bolshevism, primarily a political and economic program though it be, impinges upon religious faith and religious authority. Thus do the anti-Semites play with fire in close proximity to the high explosives of human nature.
It was not the ancient, insensate hatred inspired by belief that the Jews kill Christian children in their Paschal rites which made the Kishinev pogrom possible. That added the element of savage fanaticism to the antagonism and resentment already developed by the economic position of the Jews. The extortions practiced by Jewish money-lenders the superior business capacity, perseverance, and resourcefulness of the Jewish traders and shopkeepers as compared with their Gentile rivals; the intense competitionof Jewish artisans, superior to the average Russian workman in intelligence, industry, thrift, sobriety, and ambition—all these things resulted in bitter antagonism. Upon that economic fear and resentment religious fanaticism fastened and flourished.
Herein lies the danger of the anti-Semitic propaganda in this country and in England. It is invoking economic fear and resentment. The non-Jew is adjured to contemplate the spectacle of the Jews ousting the Gentiles from one industry after another, gradually assuming leadership and control of our industry and commerce, thanks in part to superior intelligence, skill, and diligence, but in part also to a lack of moral scrupulousness. So the Jew is presented as a dangerous economic rival to be feared and guarded against. The Gentile is thus taught to look upon Jewish prosperity as a sort of parasitism, and as a menace to the well-being of all non-Jews, even where the withdrawal of Jewish enterprise and activity would mean ruin for Jew and Gentilealike—a condition long recognized in the principal Russian cities. Now, I do not deny that some of the worst aspects of capitalism have been developed to a special and notable extent by some Jews. Neither do I forget that others have developed the very noblest social idealism. The point I am now making is that hatred of the Jew, even when it is motivated by economic fear and resentment, will inevitably nurture every other form of anti-Jewish prejudice. If the campaign of the anti-Semites succeeds in cultivating that fear and hatred in the minds and hearts of our people, there can be no assurance against the occurrence of pogroms here.
In an article published in theDearborn Independent, June 19, 1920, it is argued that, transplanted in American soil, anti-Semitism will change its character and that it will not, in this country, take the form of mass violence. Not a single fact or historical example is cited in support of this optimistic theory. There are fine phrases about "the genius of Americanism" and the "innate justice of the American mind," but that is all. And these fine phrases can be easily and adequately disposed of by the simple observation that anti-Semitism, like all other forms of race hatred, is incompatible with "the genius of Americanism" and with "innate justice."
These seem to me to be self-evidenttruths. Nevertheless, we have had many bitter manifestations of race hatred in this country, not a few of which have been attended by mass violence. When I reflect upon the savage race riots which have occurred in this country, and the numerous lynchings of negroes by infuriated mobs, I cannot bring myself to accept the easy optimism of the anonymous Jew-baiter. Even as I am writing these lines the morning newspaper comes to hand with the account of the lynching of three negroes, one of them a woman, in Georgia. The story is quite familiar in its shocking details. The three negroes, who were charged with murder, were in the custody of the sheriff of the county, when they were seized by a mob and brutally murdered. That this was due to the fact that they were negroes, a manifestation of race hatred, is beyond question.
My faith that we shall be spared the shame and ignominy of pogroms rests upon other and, I believe, more solid foundations.I have confidence that the anti-Semitic propaganda will be met by the stout resistance of the great mass of our citizens of Gentile birth and heritage who will fight and crush anti-Semitism in defense of Christian civilization and of American ideals, traditions, and institutions. That seems to me to be a rational faith; it affords firm anchorage. On the other hand, it is a stupendous and dangerous folly to believe that you can cultivate, as part of our national psychology, anti-Jewish fear and prejudice without reaping in due course a harvest of hatred and violence toward the Jewish people. Racial hatred is everywhere the same.
There is no reason for believing that here in the United States we possess a special immunity from the worst forms of anti-Semitism. It would probably be safer to say that our conditions afford exceptional opportunities for their development. We have drawn heavily upon the Old World for our population, which reflects the divisionsand the antipathies, the hereditary jealousies and suspicions, which for hundreds and, in some instances, thousands of years have troubled mankind. We have not yet welded these diverse elements into anything approaching homogeneity; our national consciousness is still undeveloped and, as a consequence of that fact, we have as yet not developed fully those self-imposed disciplines and restraints which are attendant upon highly developed national solidarity. Our national life, with its alien masses only partially assimilated, is as susceptible to inflaming passion as the wind-blown dry autumn leaves are susceptible to the flame of the torch.
Michael Davitt called attention to the fact that in the Kishinev pogrom it was not the rich Jews who were the victims, but Jewish workingmen and their families. That, I believe, is the universal experience. The rich Jews can buy immunity or protection. If as a result of vicious propaganda serious anti-Jewish riots take place in thiscountry the victims will not be the rich Jewish financiers and brokers, against whom theDearborn Independentfulminates, but innocent and inoffensive, hard-working men and women and their children. And if ever that time comes such men as Henry Ford must bear the major responsibility and guilt.
Let us suppose, for the argument's sake, that anti-Semitism in this country develops, as predicted in Mr. Ford's paper, along less brutal lines; that there will be no such orgies of murder and lust and spoliation as some other nations have had to their shame and dishonor. In that case, how will the organized hostility to the Jews be manifested? Specifically, what is the program of the group of anti-Semites in this country with which theDearborn Independentis identified? Are they prepared to announce that program, and to have it measured by the standard of the American ideal? Or is it possible that the only "secret conspiracy" is on their side; that the real object of thisanti-Semitic agitation is to prepare the way for a political and economic program which its authors dare not publicly avow?
When I was in England recently,[4]I gained a fairly clear and reliable idea of the political and economic program of those bitter Jew-haters who are responsible for the organized campaign of anti-Semitism in that country. In view of the fact that our anti-Semites, including theDearborn Independent, have so slavishly copied the propaganda of the British anti-Semites, it is justifiable to assume that they are in general agreement with that program, and that they would adopt it in this country, subject to whatever modifications may be made necessary by the differences between the institutions of the two countries. At all events, unless and until the actual program of the anti-Semites of this country is set forth with candor and precision, they have no cause for complaint if it is assumed that their aims are practically identical with those of the Britishanti-Jewish propagandists whose arguments they repeat in detail, including every grotesque stupidity and every clumsy distortion of the truth.
The program of the British anti-Semites, adapted to American conditions, would involved, as a minimum, the following measures:
1. Disfranchisement of all Jews whose parents and grandparents were not all native-born American citizens.
2. Denial of the right to hold legislative or administrative office, either elective or appointive, to all Jews other than those whose parents and grandparents were all born in the United States.
3. Denial of the right of naturalization to Jews on the ground that they are not assimilable.
4. Prohibition or very strict limitation of further Jewish immigration.
5. Exclusion from the legal, medical, and teaching professions of all Jews except those entitled to full citizenship. (See 1 and 2.)
6. Exclusion of all Jews, except those entitled to full citizenship, from certain economic rights and privileges, including the right to acquire and own land, the right to engage in the sale of stocks, bonds, securities, or real estate, or in banking, money-lending, or insurance.
7. The right of admission to colleges and universities to be so limited as to admit only a small percentage of Jewish students.
That this outline of a program will seem to many to be simply a fantastic jest I am quite well aware. The fact remains, however, that it is simply a bald presentation of the program believed in by a great many anti-Semites. I have only taken the measures that are seriously urged for adoption in England and changed their wording to correspond to American conditions. There is not one item in the program which I did not hear advocated with evident seriousness when I was in England. I learned of one society organized upon a national scale, all of whose members must "prove that theirparents and grandparents were of British blood." This society is very actively engaged in the spread of anti-Semitic propaganda. Its prospectus states that it was "Founded to secure the re-enactment of the Act of Settlement, 1700, 1701, which secured the government of Britain to Britons and the land of Britain to the ownership of Britons."
The point of the demand for the re-enactment of the Act of Settlement lies in the fact that one of the clauses in that historic instrument provides that, "no person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging (although he be naturalizedor made a denizen), except such as were born of English parents,shall be capable to be of the Privy Council, or a member of either House of Parliament, or enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military." It is also stipulated that no such person shall be capable "to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the Crown tohimself, or to any other or others in trust for him." In the light of the constitution of this British society with its large dues-paying membership, and its demand for the re-enactment of the above-quoted provisions of the Act of Settlement, the most drastic parts of the suggested program do not seem so fantastic, after all.
Here, then, is a program of anti-Semitism which fairly expresses the political and economic aspirations of large groups with whom our American anti-Semites, led by theDearborn Independent, appear to be working in close co-operation and harmony. Whether the program fully meets with their approval or not, it can hardly be questioned that, if their anti-Jewish agitation is to have the result of bringing about political and economic remedies for the conditions they assail, and not pogroms, it will be necessary to discriminate between Jews and Gentiles in citizenship, in education, in property rights, and in economic opportunity. Precisely how these discriminations are to bemade may be open to doubt, but that they must be made is—once the anti-Semitic position is taken—beyond all doubt.
Against that reactionary aim I set the American ideal, or what President Roosevelt called "the historic American position of treating each man on his merits as a man, without the least reference to his creed, his race, or his birthplace." Anti-Semitism would divide our citizenship by racial and religious barriers; the Americanism of Washington and Lincoln and Lee and Roosevelt would weld all into a united whole, regardless of race or religion. The way of the anti-Semite is the way of Russia under the tsars, the way of the unspeakable despots who for centuries made the word "Turk" a synonym for oppression and brutal reaction. I prefer the American way. I am opposed to anti-Semitism, not alone for humanitarian reasons, but as a matter of loyalty to America. Anti-Semitism is treason to the American ideal.