The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
for it was not true. His answer miscarried, and I never got it; but I
went around talking about the matter, and people told me they had reason
to suspect that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were
mainly with the Christians did not report themselves as Jews in the
census. It looked plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the city
of New York; and look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans,
and Chicago, and Cincinnati, and San Francisco--how your race swarms in
those places!--and everywhere else in America, down to the least little
village. Read the signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops;
Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal
(flower-vale), Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour),
Singvogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and all the amazing
list of beautiful and enviable names which Prussia and Austria glorified
you with so long ago. It is another instance of Europe's coarse and
cruel persecution of your race; not that it was coarse and cruel to
outfit it with pretty and poetical names like those, but it was coarse
and cruel to make it pay for them or else take such hideous and often
indecent names that to-day their owners never use them; or, if they do,
only on official papers. And it was the many, not the few, who got the
odious names, they being too poor to bribe the officials to grant them
better ones.
Now why was the race renamed? I have been told that in Prussia it was
given to using fictitious names, and often changing them, so as to beat
the tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and that finally
the idea was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with one
and the same surname, and then holding the house responsible right along
for those inmates, and accountable for any disappearances that might
occur; it made the Jews keep track of each other, for self-interest's
sake, and saved the Government the trouble(4).
If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia came to be renamed is
correct, if it is true that they fictitiously registered themselves to
gain certain advantages, it may possibly be true that in America they
refrain from registered themselves as Jews to fend off the damaging
prejudices of the Christian customer. I have no way of knowing whether
this notion is well founded or not. There may be other and better ways
of explaining why only that poor little 250,000 of our Jews got into the
'Encyclopaedia'. I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly of the
opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America.
Point No. 3--'Can Jews do anything to improve the situation?'
I think so. If I may make a suggestion without seeming to be trying to
teach my grandmother to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have
learned the value of combination. We apply it everywhere--in railway
systems, in trusts, in trade unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor
politics, in major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever our strength
may be, big or little, we organise it. We have found out that that
is the only way to get the most out of it that is in it. We know the
weakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentrated
faggot. Suppose you try a scheme like this, for instance. In England and
America put every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you have not
been doing that). Get up volunteer regiments composed of Jews solely,
and when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to remove
the reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that you feed on
a country but don't like to fight for it. Next, in politics, organise
your strength, band together, and deliver the casting-vote where you
can, and, where you can't, compel as good terms as possible. You huddle
to yourselves already in all countries, but you huddle to no sufficient
purpose, politically speaking. You do not seem to be organised, except
for your charities. There you are omnipotent; there you compel your due
of recognition--you do not have to beg for it. It shows what you can do
when you band together for a definite purpose.
And then from America and England you can encourage your race in
Austria, France, and Germany, and materially help it. It was a pathetic
tale that was told by a poor Jew a fortnight ago during the riots,
after he had been raided by the Christian peasantry and despoiled of
everything he had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and he
wished he could be excused from casting it, for indeed, casting it was a
sure damage to him, since, no matter which party he voted for, the other
party would come straight and take its revenge out of him. Nine per cent
of the population, these Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plank
into any candidate's platform! If you will send our Irish lads over
here I think they will organise your race and change the aspect of the
Reichsrath.
You seem to think that the Jews take no hand in politics here, that
they are 'absolutely non-participants.' I am assured by men competent
to speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedingly
active in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their work
and their votes among the numerous parties, and thus lose the advantages
to be had by concentration. I think that in America they scatter too,
but you know more about that than I do.
Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the value
of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of the
world together in Palestine, with a government of their own--under the
suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne,
last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal
was received with decided favour. I am not the Sultan, and I am not
objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the
world were going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it
would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find
out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any
more.
Point No. 5.--'Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?'
On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. On
the score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it will
continue. That is, here and there in spots about the world, where a
barbarous ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilisation prevail;
but I do not think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear
of being robbed and raided. Among the high civilisations he seems to
be very comfortably situated indeed, and to have more than his
proportionate share of the prosperities going. It has that look in
Vienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but he can
stand that; it is no particular matter. By his make and ways he is
substantially a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angels
dislike a foreigner. I am using this word foreigner in the German
sense--_stranger_. Nearly all of us have an antipathy to a stranger, even
of our own nationality. We pile grip-sacks in a vacant seat to keep
him from getting it; and a dog goes further, and does as a savage
would--challenges him on the spot. The German dictionary seems to
make no distinction between a stranger and a foreigner; in its view a
stranger _is_ a foreigner--a sound position, I think. You will
always be by ways and habits and predilections substantially
strangers--foreigners--wherever you are, and that will probably keep the
race prejudice against you alive.
But you were the favourites of Heaven originally, and your manifold and
unfair prosperities convince me that you have crowded back into that
snug place again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last week
in Vienna a hailstorm struck the prodigious Central Cemetery and made
wasteful destruction there. In the Christian part of it, according
to the official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; more than 900
singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many small ones were
torn to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; the
ornamental plants and other decorations of the graces were ruined, and
more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery's
whole force of 300 labourers more than three days to clear away the
storm's wreckage. In the report occurs this remark--and in its
italics you can hear it grit its Christian teeth: '...lediglich die
israelitische Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter ganzlich
verschont worden war.' Not a hailstone hit the Jewish reservation! Such
nepotism makes me tired.
Point No. 6.--'What has become of the Golden Rule?'
It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It is
Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and
give it an airing. But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into
this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home.
It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a
contribution-plate, or any of those things. It has never intruded into
business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a
business passion.
To conclude.--If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one
per cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust
lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to
be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is
as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial
importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of
his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in
literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse
learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers.
He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has
done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and
be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose,
filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff
and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast
noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their
torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now,
or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now
what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no
weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his
alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal to the Jew; all other
forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?
Postscript--THE JEW AS SOLDIER
When I published the above article in 'Harper's Monthly,' I was
ignorant--like the rest of the Christian world--of the fact that the Jew
had a record as a soldier. I have since seen the official statistics,
and I find that he furnished soldiers and high officers to the
Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. In the Civil War he
was represented in the armies and navies of both the North and the South
by 10 per cent of his numerical strength--the same percentage that was
furnished by the Christian populations of the two sections. This large
fact means more than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew's
patriotism was not merely level with the Christian's, but overpassed
it. When the Christian volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome and
applause, but as a rule the Jew got a snub. His company was not desired,
and he was made to feel it. That he nevertheless conquered his wounded
pride and sacrificed both that and his blood for his flag raises the
average and quality of his patriotism above the Christian's. His record
for capacity, for fidelity, and for gallant soldiership in the field is
as good as any one's. This is true of the Jewish private soldiers and of