I cannot pause even to outline the history of the B'nai B'rith. It
is unnecessary to do so here. I only refer to it to show that when
the pioneer Jews were still earnestly engaged in making money
they demonstrated their claim to the highest virtues by the grand
efforts they made to elevate and enlighten their fellow-men and
alleviate their sufferings on the broadest principles of humanity.

There was much in the first generation that we will not find
in the second. The first generation brought with it from Europe
some qualities that have not been transmitted and it imperfectly
acquired some that were born with the second.

I have already sketched the type of the first generation at the
time of the landing on American soil and in some respects the
effect produced by contact with the new civilization. The picture
would be wanting, however, in one of the essential features if I
failed to give proper prominence to one effect of the change.
The immigrant as a rule was scantily educated if at all, and not
infrequently the entire sum of his learning did not extend beyond
the Bible and the commentaries thereon. Beyond this he knew
little except some general principles of trade and barter. He was
unambitious in Europe to shine either as a scholar, artist or man
of means, because as a scholar or artist he was practically denied
a career without becoming an apostate, and to advertise his wealth
was to invite plunder or confiscation. In Europe he had been
inferior to tvery rank in society and the humility natural to his
position had degenerated into servile deference to his fellow crea-
tures. The sudden emancipation from such conditions was be-
wildering. He exulted in his freedom to an extent that was
rather ludicrous than oflFensIve. He became pompous in the
assertion of his equality with all men under the law and vulgar



DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN JEW. 119

in the ostentatious display of the wealth he so quickly acquired.
His house was furnished lavishly but with little taste, and he
imitated without discriminating judgment, the indulgences rather
than the essentials of polite society. Seeing society only on the
surface he was excusable for appreciating only its gloss and when,
as he thought, he had successfully acquired what he saw, he
speedily claimed to be a gentleman. He wore good clothes, lived
in a fine house, drove fine horses, frequented fashionable resorts,
gambled and dissipated as he daily saw gentlemen do, and in truth
believed himself one of the elect. His children were taught at
home to dress well and spend money, and at expensive rather
than efficient schools and under fashionable rather than com-
petent masters acquired a desultory education without the benefit
of parental direction.

These children, who formed the second generation, grew up
with uncertain feelings towards their elders. They had been
taught to look with admiration to the polish rather than to the
true metal of society. Their minds had been filled with an exag-
gerated idea of the importance of wealth and an underestimate
of the frugal methods by which it can alone be acquired with
safety. They naturally knew the English language, and derisively
laughed at the jargon of their seniors, and finally they were left
either without a thorough understanding of their religion, or
were so confused by the discords among theologians and the
ignorance of their parents, that they looked upon religion with
lofty unconcern or contempt.

In the good results of early religious training, in the domestic
virtues, in the faithful observance of the marriage vow, in the
practice of temperance and in physical development the second
generation was unquestionably behind the first. But on the
other hand, the child was born on free soil and wore his freedom
without effort; he was more manly and more scrupulous in his
dealings with the world. He was better educated, more refined,
more cultivated than his sire. His good clothes sat naturally
upon him ; he knew what to do with and in his fine house, and
he learned that society makes polish, and that mere polish and
glitter do not make society. Many of them eschewed trade alto-



I20 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

gather, and devoted themselves to literature, science and art.
They became actors, painters, musicians, lawyers, doctors and
chemists. Indeed they made a vast stride forward from the
position occupied by their immediate progenitors — without fully
covering the ground, however, between the starting point and the
goal. The second generation derided the vulgar claims of the
first, without appreciating that in kind but not in degree it was
guilty of a like presumption. But what of the third generation?

The seed has been planted, the grain waves green in the
fields — what will the harvest be?

We are the husbandmen, and upon us rests in the largest
measure the balance that shall be struck in the aftermath.

The influences that operate on every plant began with crea-
tion. Climatic conditions and changes, seismic disturbances,
cyclones and tidal waves in ages long since forgotten, have all
in turn contributed some factor in the destiny of each seed that
is placed beneath the sod. But the immediate and almost con-
trolling influence is the skill and energy of the farmer, who
studies the surrounding circumstances for lessons of wisdom to
overcome the almost numberless difficulties that occur between
sowing and garnering. The little ones who play about our knees,
who load our hearts with solicitude, yet lighten them of sorrows
— they compose the third generation. They are the tender plants
which we are charged with carrying to fruitful maturity. Upon
their lives influences have been at work from remotest ages, but
with us still rests the controlling force that shall shape their
careers.

The harvest will depend upon the husbandman; and of us
it is thus spoken. Let us consider what we should aspire to do in
the premises and how our aspirations may be realized.

All parents whose natures are not abnormally corrupt, desire
the success of their offspring — but few are agreed as to what is
success. In the eyes of some it means wealth or power, or fame,
or learning, or several or all of these combined. By a minority
only, these are all but incidents in the careers of the young with
which heaven has blessed them. To them wealth, power, fame
and learning are glorious achievements indeed, but not the end



DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN JEW. 121

Upon which their lofty gaze is fixed. Their ambition is to make
their children rise to the highest plane of manhood and woman-
hood and deserve the praise which man and the favor which
God bestows upon true gentility. And what is true gentility?
It is to achieve prosperity by honorable effort, to attain power
by the influence of spotless conduct, to gain fame by good works,
to acquire wisdom by the study of nature and of nature's God,
and above all to refine and elevate the spirit by thinking the pure
rather than the corrupt and by doing always the good and never
the evil. This it is to be the perfect gentleman or the perfect lady.

The father who toils to lay up riches for his sons and daugh-
ters and trains them to guard and increase his store, ignoring or
slighting the nobler aims of life, performs a sorry service. He
gives them the power to satisfy their carnal appetites, but denies
them the ineffable sweets that are enjoyed even in poverty by
those who lead the intellectual and ethical life. And what
is power that is not based upon and guided by wisdom and love ;
or fame that does not attach to nobility of soul ; or learning that
leads not to wisdom, and the practice of virtue ? They are all but
the outward trappings that at first dazzle the beholder only to
become grotesque and hideous when closer inspection reveals the
contrast with what is thus gaudily concealed.

If you would make your children successful, train them to
deserve success. If you would have them be rich, teach them not
only how to acquire riches, but how to use them. If you would
have them powerful, educate them to attain power for noble ends.
If you would have them learned, let their learning be so achieved
that it shall lead to the wisdom that so often lingers stubbornly
behind the course of knowledge. If you would make them suc-
cessful, you must teach them to be happy, and to be happy they
must be honest, truthful, brave, upright, self-sacrificing and God
fearing. In a word, to be happy they must be virtuous. This
truth, though trite, cannot be too often repeated, for like most
truths it passes unchallenged and unappreciated, until at last it
dawns upon the mind that therein lies a treasure undiscovered
before.

How shall the lofty ideal which I have pictured be realized?



122 LEO N. LEVI MEMORDVL VOLUME.

What arts shall the husbandman employ to make the harvest
bountiful and good? I answer you with a truth as trite as the
one just mentioned — education. Educate the body, educate the
mind, but above all educate the heart. I cannot present any
system of education in this disquisition, but I venture to suggest
that you become in some respects the teachers of your own chil-
dren. Interest yourselves in their sports and pleasures. Take
part in them and give them such direction and scope that will pro-
mote healthy physical development and divert the young minds
from defiling associations. Assist them in their studies and make
their labors agreeable rather than irksome. Stimulate their am-
bitions by rewards and overcome their discouragements with
sympathy. Teach them by precept and example the nobility of
virtue. Nourish the sentiment so natural in children for the
true, the beautiful and good. Teach them self-denial, truthful-
ness, honesty, courage, charity and piety. Let no incident, how-
ever trivial, go by without making it leave upon their impres-
sionable minds some lesson of wisdom or goodness.

Is this asking too much of fathers who have the cares of busi-
ness, and of mothers occupied by the duties of housekeeping?
Perhaps so if the business or the house is to be set up as a fetich
to which the little ones are offered as sacrifices. But if you pursue
your occupation or keep your house for your children's sake, as
you should, then whenever one must suffer, spare the children.
Do not embellish a cage in which to imprison their natures; do
not feed their stomachs with rich food and keep their minds and
hearts on starvation diet.

To paint the first and second generation has been a compara-
tively easy task. To point the way for the third has not been
more difficult; but to foretell its fate would require the gift of
prophecy. I am, however, full of hope. Under normal or favor-
able conditions the Jews have always advanced, and I anticipate
no exception here. The second generation has, in many material
respects, improved vastly on the first, and if we can only come
to see how far we are below the standard we should aspire to,
we will be better equipped to advance our children beyond our-
selves. We are quick enough to recognize the difference between



DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN JEW. 123

ourselves and our immediate predecessors; but with that self-
complacency so common to all mortals, we are slow to find linger-
ing in us many of the shortcomings of our ancestors, not to men-
tion those that have been derived from our environments, not in-
herited from our forefathers. If you would do your full duty
to your children, first learn to what extent you have failed in your
duty to yourself. Sum up your own qualities of head and heart,
and estimate in what degree you would have your children sur-
pass you. Nor is this all. Study, in the light of your great re-
sponsibilities, how you should demean yourself in order to bear
them with credit. Remember that children are imitative. Re-
member that they will copy your faults as well as your virtues.
If you are indifferent about your religion, they, too, will be
indifferent, and without religion you cannot teach the only char-
acter of morality worthy of respect. You may, indeed, without
religion teach honesty by pointing to the prison as the destiny
of thieves. You may teach regard for human life by taking
your children to a hanging; but if you would make them love
the right for the sake of the right, and not merely eschew the
wrong from fear of consequences, then you must instil into their
young minds and hearts the great principles underlying all re-
ligions and furnished to them all by the Jews. Remember, too,
that if you would guard your children against race prejudice, you
and they must rise superior to it. You can no more escape
bigotry by shrinking from Jewish designations, habits, customs,
or religious practices than the ostrich can escape his pursuers
by burying his head in the sand. Be brave and teach your chil-
dren courage. Do not obtrude your race or religion upon public
notice, but never withdraw them from the eye of friend or foe.
They are here, parts of yourself, and you stamp yourself an
inferior whenever you shrink from the name or responsibilities
of your people or your creed. Nothing excites such contempt
and hatred as disloyalty. The military leader who profits by the
treachery of an enemy, while loving the treason despises the
traitor. It is true in every relation of life. The renegade is ever
abhorred. The renegade Jew is despised by all broad-minded



124 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

Gentiles and Jews for his disloyalty, while the fanatics who
induce his apostasy contemn him for having once been a Jew.

But there exists no occasion to warn Jews against apostasy.
It is not conversion to other religions so much as indifference to
our own that gives us pause. I foresee, however, a better era
in respect of this. The dissensions raging among theologians
are being settled or settling themselves. The mists are lifting
from the minds of the laymen, and they will rescue the essentials
of Judaism from the ruins made by mere destructionists. Out
of the chaos that reigns there will emerge the vital principles and
practices that have always made Judaism not only a great system
of philosophy, but also a matchless religion. See to it that you
do your part and direct aright the efforts of your children. Take
pride in your people and be a pride unto them. Do not despise
them lest you be despised of all men. Elevate your race through
yourself and your offspring, and look forward with hungry
ambition to the hour when it shall be recognized as a proud
distinction to be one of the chosen people. That hour, I con-
fidently believe, can be and will be realized in America. With
all circumstances in favor of us, and native qualities th^t are
unrivalled, we shall progress surely upward from what we are
to what we should be, as rapidly as we have risen from what we
were to what we are. This is the mission of our children and our
children's children, and they, if not we, shall live to see the time
when, in the eyes of all men, no epitaph will contain such appar-
ent and eloquent eulogy as the brief announcement, "Here sleeps
a true son of Israel." To deserve such lofty praise is greater
than to wear by right the richest crown that ever rested on a
royal head.



THE AMERICAN JEW.

Synopsis of address at a banquet given in honor of D, G, L. No.
7, /. O. B. B. at New Orleans, La.

It is a singular term. It carries with it no political associa-
tion. When the American is found abroad and the estimate is
made of him by others, he stands as a representative of the
country, which is a kindergarten of liberty for all the world; he
exemplifies the spirit meant by Grover Cleveland when he said,
in opening the 'World's Fair," that this was the country which
made men. Gladstone paid tribute to the country of 3,000,000
men which framed an organic law to withstand the test of time,
and said it must have been an inspiration from God. A civiliza-
tion has been builded here, which despite the sneers of Europe,
has brought all nations to the feet of Columbia paying tribute.
This inestimable liberty should be guarded against anything
which might impair its beauty and its strength. It is a country
of refuge, but those who seek refuge here must not only eat of
the bread of America, but partake also of American doctrines.
He is proud of being an American, but he has another lineage,
not inconsistent with the other, of which he was equally proud.
If there was inspiration in the American constitution, how much
more inspiration must there have been in the code written
thousands of years ago, only a few hundred words, which fitted
then, has never failed to fit, and will fit for all time. The Jew
gave the Decalogue as the foundation of civilization.

The Jew is the nobleman of all time, whose lineage goes back
before written history to traditions, which all men admit be-
cause all men know them to be true. But today he claims Amer-
ican citizenship as his proudest title, next only to that of
"American Jew." Four hundred years ago the Jews were ex-

125



126 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

pelled from Spain. Four hundred years ago America was dis-
covered, and here he has found freedom of conscience and of
action. He has become an American citizen and intends to
remain one, claiming of the blessed mother of liberty those
blessings bestowed by her upon those who deserve it. He of-
fered to her the testimonial of obedience to law and charity ir-
respective of creed. When the persecuted Jew comes to these
shores the Jews already here could promise that he would be-
come no burden, breed no disorder, renounce all allegiance to
other countries and devote himself to acquiring the principle of
citizenship. The children the members had seen today, were the
hostages that the Jews would rear, good citizens: the race and
the religion would never become objects of barter.

The speaker contrasted the expulsion of the Jews from Russia
and their reception in America, and they have been casting aside
their disability, so as also to deserve the title of the "American
Jew." He called attention to the twin article in the North
American Review upon the "Sweating" system, which spoke of
the victory won in New York. It was because the laborers
were Jews, Russian Jews, and the article said that it was because
of their "dignity of endurance and courage to abide by the law"
that they won their fight against capital. He repeated his
own experiences with the immigrants, who were given the
declaration of independence and the American constitution
translated into their jargon. A week later they returned
with questions as to certain points in the constitution,
showing that they had really begun the study of the American
doctrine. There is talk of a German vote, and an Irish vote,
but never of a Jewish vote. Judaism was a faith which would
not suffer the indignity of political speculation. New York is
a close state and in 1896 there will be 60,000 Jewish votes in
New York City. If manipulated as a whole it might settle the
question of the presidency, but such a matter would be as im-
possible as quenching the sun with a glass of water. The Baron
Hirsch relief committee is made up of men prominent in both
political parties, and if one of them were to attempt such a
thing he would be ostracized from his fellows and his plan de-



THE AMERICAN JEW. 137

stroyed. The Jewish people is a people capable of learning
something and forgetting much, taking care of the poor, build-
ing up such structures as this asylum, making new citizens of
outcast orphans, making them men for soldiers and citizens, and
women for wives, and they can hurl back with defiance the
charge of Chandler that they are not entitled to become Ameri-
can citizens.

The future should be judged by the past. The Jews of today
came here fifty years ago much the same as the Russian refugees,
and have done much for themselves and their country. They
have upheld commerce on land and sea, promoted science and
art, advanced in literature and have been loyal to the common-
wealth in peace and in war. Somebody said the Jew was not a
soldier. When the roll was called, more Jews were found on
the side of the Confederacy alone than the proportion of Jews
to the population of the entire country. If the men on either
side were asked they would say that they met Jews doing duty
in the face of danger. There was nothing to be ashamed of
in the record, and he prophesied that the handful of American
Jews here today with their hands uplifted by their American
co-workers of other faiths, would lead to the same place the Rus-
sian outcast, so that when the enemies of the Jews went upon
the hilltops and looked upon the industrious Jewish emigrants
in the fertile valleys below they would exclaim, "How beautiful
are thy tents. Oh, Jacob ; thy tabernacles, Oh Israel !'*



ORGANIZED CHARITIES.

Address delivered by Mr, Leo. N, Levi at the Annual Meeting
of the United Hebrew Charities,

Certainly there is no greater cause than that which has
brought us together here to-night, and I am impressed with the
conviction that no man should allow the promotion of that cause
to suffer in the slightest degree by any lust for glory or fame.
And I believe that the few thoughts that I have to express will be
more effective if, in an informal way, they come to you, not as
the utterances of some wiseacre speaking downward from the
platform, but as the thoughts of a co-worker in the ranks, ad-
dressed to his co-workers, with the design to provoke thought
and excite discussion, in order to reach the truth. This cause,
in which we are enlisted requires science rather than art; ideas
more than words; and ideas only as impulses to achievement.

I say it calls for science rather than art, because there is no
department of human activity that requires more to bfe reduced
to a scientific basis than the administration of charity. It has
been said here to-night incidentally that it is no longer an open
question that charity should be organized; but I cannot concede
the accuracy of the statement when I am confronted as I have
been, here and everywhere else throughout this country, with the
short list of subscribers to organized charities. If the conviction
that charity should only be administered through organization
were general and widespread, we could only account for the
paucity of subscribers by assuming the want of a charitable
impulse among our co-religionists. It is not true that that im-
pulse is wanting. If anything, it exists too strongly, but is too
little subject to the control of reason. There is too much of that
indiscriminate personal benefaction, which has been so aptly
termed by Bishop Potter "the help that hurts."

128



ORGANIZED CHARITIES. 129

It is necessary, therefore, for this and kindred organizations
not to assume that it is the consensus of opinion that charity
should be administered only through organization.

Let me assure you, from a wide experience, that it is yet
necessary to do missionary work in that direction, and to educate
the people, and the whole people, to a perfect understanding that
charity has two aspects; one emotional, the other intellectual. It
must proceed from an emotional impulse to do good, it must be
directed by an intellectual process that will guarantee the thing
desired. And there are still further lessons, the fruit of which
must be carried into effect, not only in individual good work,
but in corporate good work. Among such lessons is, that all
charity must proceed along lines that take no account of self;
that the pleasure of the giver, the fame of the giver, the rewards
of the giver, shall receive no consideration at all, or if any, in a
minor degree ; that the great desideratum is effectiveness in the
interest of those in whose behalf charity is exhorted.

I hope I make that clear. I would I had the power to make
it as clear as it appears to me, that if there be merit in the charity
that is done for the pleasure that is extracted from it by the
giver, it is not possessed of that character of loftiness, of purity,
which attaches to charity that takes no account of self, that looks
not for the thrill of pleasure when the tear is dried and the groan
is stilled, but is done in response to that small still voice of con-
science embodied in our religion from time immemorial, that
from him who hath a surplus there shall come to him who hath
not, the tithe that is in payment of a debt. I read the other day
in the list of contributors to this organization the initials of
some one unknown, "in payment of my tithe," and it excited in
me a thrill of admiration. I looked forward then, as I do now,