France he has a vote, but of what considerable use is it to
him ? He doesn t seem to know how to apply it to the
best effect. With all his splendid capacities and all his fat
wealth he is to-day not politically important in any country.
In America, as early as 1854, the ignorant Irish hod-carrier,
who had a spirit of his own and a way of exposing it to the
weather, made it apparent to all that he must be politically
reckoned with ; yet fifteen years before that we hardly
knew what an Irishman looked like. As an intelligent
force and numerically, he has always been away down, but
he has governed the country just the same. It was
1 The article was written in the summer of 1898.
217
because he was organised. It made his vote valuable in
fact, essential.
You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble.
That is nothing to the point with the Irishman s history
for an object-lesson. But I am coming to your numerical
feebleness presently. In all parliamentary countries you
could no doubt elect Jews to the legislatures and even one
member in such a body is sometimes a force which counts.
How deeply have you concerned yourselves about this in
Austria, France, and Germany ? Or even in America, for
that matter ? You remark that the Jews were not to
blame for the riots in this Reichsrath here, and you add with
satisfaction that there wasn t one in that body. That is
not strictly correct ; if it were, would it not be in order for
you to explain it and apologise for it, not try to make a
merit of it ? But I think that the Jew was by no means in
as large force there as he ought to have been, with his
chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly liberal
terms, and it must surely be his own fault that he is so
much in the background politically.
As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned some
figures awhile ago 500,000 as the Jewish population of
Germany. I will add some more 6,000,000 in Russia,
5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 in the United States. I
take them from memory ; I read them in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica ten or twelve years ago. Still, I am entirely
sure of them. If those statistics are correct, my argument
is as not as strong as it ought to be as concerns America,
but it still has strength. It is plenty strong enough as
concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 was nine per
cent, of the empire s population. The Irish would govern
the Kingdom of Heaven if they had a strength there like
that.
218 CONCERNING THE JEWS
I have some suspicions ; I got them at second-hand,
but they have remained with me these ten or twelve years.
When I read in the * E.B. that the Jewish population of the
United States was 250,000 I wrote the editor, and explained
to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews
than that in my country, and that his figures were without
a doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. I also added that I was
personally acquainted with that many there ; but that was
only to raise his confidence in me, 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 them
selves 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 (violet 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.
CONCERNING THE JEWS 219
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. 1
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 registering
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. c Can Jews do anything to improve the
situation ?
I think so. If I may make a suggestion without
1 In Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in some
newly-acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly named Abraham
and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could not tell t other from
\7hich, and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming
was put into the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the
graceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of
consequence, and Ui.ry labelled the race in a way to make the angels weep.
As an example, take these two : Abraham Bellyache and Sckmitl Godbe-
damned. Culled from Namens StudienJ by Karl Emil Franzos.
220
seeming to be trying to teach my grandmother how 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 Eng
land and America put every Jew on the census-book as a
Jew (in case you have not been doing that). Get up volun
teer 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
in Galicia 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
CONCERNING THE JEWS 221
party he voted for, the other party would come straight and
take its revenge out of him. Nine per cent, of the
population of the empire, 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 ot
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
222 CONCERNING THE JEWS
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 graves were
ruined, and more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered ;
CONCERNING THE JEWS 223
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 israe/i-
tische Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter gdnzlich
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 been 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 con
stitute 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 pro
portion 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
224 CONCERNING THE JEWS
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 but 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 l Harper s
Monthly, I was ignorant like the rest or 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
CONCERNING THE JEWS 225
for gallant soldiership in the field is as good as any one s.
This is true of the Jewish private soldiers and of the Jewish
generals alike. Major-General O. O. Howard speaks of
one of his Jewish staff officers as being l of the bravest and
best : of another killed at Chancellorsville as beino-
* O
a true friend and a brave officer ; he highly praises two
of his Jewish brigadier-generals ; finally, he uses these strong
words : Intrinsically there are no more patriotic men to be
found in the country than those who claim to be of Hebrew
descent, and who served with me in parallel commands or
more directly under my instructions.
Fourteen Jewish Confederate and Union families con
tributed, between them, fifty-one soldiers to the war.
Among these, a father and three sons ; and another, a
father and four sons.
In the above article I was neither able to endorse nor repel
the common reproach that the Jew is willing to feed upon
a country but not to fight for it, because I did not know
whether it was true or false. I supposed it to be true, but
it is not allowable to endorse wandering maxims upon
supposition- except when one is trying to make out a case.
That slur upon the Jew cannot hold up its head in presence
of the figures of the War Department. It has done its
work, and done it long and faithfully, and with high approval :
it ought to be pensioned off now, and retired from active
service.
226 FROM THE LONDON TIMES OF 1904
FROM THE LONDON TIMES
OF 1904
i
Correspondence of the l London Times
Chicago, April I, 1904
I RESUME by cable-telephone where I left off yesterday.
For many hours now, this vast city along with the rest
of the globe, of course has talked of nothing but the
extraordinary episode mentioned in my last report. In
accordance with your instructions, I will now trace the
romance from its beginnings down to the culmination of
yesterday or to-day ; call it which you like. By an odd
chance, I was a personal actor in a part of this drama
myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna. Date, one
o clock in the morning, March 31, 1898. I had spent the
evening at a social entertainment. About midnight I went
away, in company with the military attaches of the British,
Italian, and American embassies, to finish with a late smoke.
This function had been appointed to take place in the house
of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attach^ mentioned in the
above list. When we arrived there we found several
visitors in the room : young Szczepanik ; l Mr. K., his
1 Pronounced (approximately) S/iefla>mik.
FROM THE LONDON TIMES OF 1904 227
financial backer ; Mr. W., the latter s secretary ; and
Lieutenant Clayton, of the United States Army. War was
at that time threatening between Spain and our country,
and Lieutenant Clayton had been sent to Europe on
military business. I was well acquainted with young
Szczepanik and his two friends, and I knew Mr. Clayton
slightly. I had met him at West Point years before, when
he was a cadet. It was when General Merritt was super
intendent. He had the reputation of being an able officer,
and also of being quick-tempered and plain-spoken.
This smoking-party had been gathered together partly
for business. This business was to consider the availability
of the telelectroscope for military service. It sounds oddly
enough now, but it is nevertheless true that at that time
the invention was not taken seriously by any one except its
inventor. Even his financial supporter regarded it merely
as a curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so con
vinced of this that he had actually postponed its use by the
general world to the end of the dying century by granting
a two years exclusive lease of it to a syndicate, whose intent
was to exploit it at the Paris World s Fair. When we
entered the smoking-room we found Lieutenant Clayton
and Szczepanik engaged in a warm talk over the telelec
troscope in the German tongue. Clayton was saying :
4 Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway ! and he
brought his fist down with emphasis upon the table.
And I do not value it, retorted the young inventor,
with provoking calmness of tone and manner.
Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said :
* / cannot see why you are wasting money on this toy.
In my opinion, the day will never come when it will do a
farthing s worth of real service for any human being.
That may be ; yes, that may be ; still, I have put the
Q 2
228 FROM THE LONDON TIMES OF 1904
money in it, and am content. I think, myself, that it is
only a toy ; but Szczepanik claims more for it, and I know
him well enough to believe that he can see farther than I
can either with his telelectroscope or without it.
The soft answer did not cool Clayton down ; it seemed
only to irritate him the more ; and he repeated and empha
sised his conviction that the invention would never do any
man a farthing s worth of real service. He even made it a
brass farthing, this time. Then he laid an English
farthing on the table, and added :
Take that, Mr. K., and put it away ; and if ever the
telelectroscope does any man an actual service mind, a
real service please mail it to me as a reminder, and I will
take back what I have been saying. Will you ? *
1 1 will, and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket.
Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and
began with a taunt a taunt which did not reach a finish ;
Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy retort, and followed
this with a blow. There was a brisk fight for a moment
or two ; then the attaches separated the men.
The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the
autumn of 1901. As soon as the Paris contract released the
telelectroscope, it was delivered to public use, and was soon
connected with the telephonic systems of the whole world.
The improved limitless-distance telephone was presently
introduced, and the daily doings of the globe made visible
to everybody, and audibly discussible, too, by witnesses
separated by any number of leagues.
By-and-by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clayton
(now captain) was serving in that military department at
the time. The two men resumed the Viennese quarrel of
1898. On three different occasions they quarrelled, and
were separated by witnesses. Then came an interval of
FROM THE LONDON TIMES OF 1904 229
two months, during which time Szczepanik was not seen
by any of his friends, and it was at first supposed that he
had gone off on a sight seeing tour and would soon be heard
from. But no ; no word came from him. Then it was
supposed that he had returned to Europe. Still, time drifted
on, and he was not heard from. Nobody was troubled, for
he was like most inventors and other kinds of poets, and
went and came in a capricious way, and often without
notice.
Now comes the tragedy. On December 29, in a
dark and unused compartment of the cellar under Captain
Clayton s house, a corpse was discovered by one of
Clayton s maid-servants. Friends of deceased identified it as
Szczepanik s. The man had died by violence. Clayton
was arrested, indicted, and brought to trL;l, charged with
this murder. The evidence against him was perfect in
every detail, and absolutely unassailable. Clayton admitted
this himself. He said that a reasonable man could not
examine this testimony with a dispassionate mind and not
be convinced by it ; yet the man would be in error, never
theless. Clayton swore that he did not commit the
murder, and that he had had nothing to do with it.
As your readers will remember, he was condemned to
death. He had numerous and powerful friends, and they
worked hard to save him, for none of them doubted the
truth of his assertion. I did what little I could to help, for
I had loner since become a close friend of his, and thought
O * o
I knew that it was not in his character to inveigle an
enemy into a corner and assassinate him. During 1902
and 1903 he was several times reprieved by the governor;
he was reprieved once more in the beginning of the present
year, and the execution day postponed to March 31.
The governor s situation has been embarrassing, from the
230 FROM THE LONDON TIMES OF 1904
day of the condemnation, because of the fact that Clayton s
wife is the governor s niece. The marriage took place in
1899, when Clayton was thirty-four and the girl twenty-
three, and has been a happy one. There is one child, a
little girl three years old. Pity for the poor mother and
child kept the mouths of grumblers closed at first ; but this
could not last for ever for in America politics has a hand
in everything and by-and-by the governor s political
opponents began to call attention to his delay in allowing
the law to take its course. These hints have grown
more and more frequent of late, and more and more
pronounced. As a natural result, his own party grew
nervous. Its leaders began to visit Springfield and hold
long private conferences with him. He was now between
two fires. On the one hand, his niece was imploring him
to pardon her husband ; on the other were the leaders,
insisting that he stand to his plain duty as chief magistrate