RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 87 



United States, and on these matters he displayed an 

 amount of knowledge that was amazing. The more 

 I listened the more I wondered, till finally I could 

 not but ask him how he who wrote and worked so 

 much could find time to keep himself so well informed 

 of a country so far away as the United States. To 

 which he replied, "Your country has interested me 

 even more than mine. I have lost hope in mine; all 

 my hope was, at one time, centred in yours. But 

 yours is a disappointment as much as mine. Were 

 yours the free and representative government you pre- 

 tend to have, you would not allow it to be controlled 

 by the money powers and their hirelings, the bosses and 

 machines, as you do. I have read Progress and Pov- 

 erty by Henry George, and I know what Mr. Bryce 

 says about you in his American Commonwealth, and 

 I have read and heard even worse things about your 

 misgovernment than what they say. 



"We were all right," he continued, "as long as we 

 were an agricultural people. Our modes of life, then, 

 were simple, and our ideals were high. Politics then 

 was a religion with us and not a matter of barter 

 and sale. We became prosperous; prosperity brought 

 luxury, and luxury, as always, brings corruption. The 

 thirst of gold is upon us, and, in our eagerness to quench 

 it, and to gratify our lust of luxury, our one-time 

 lofty principles and aspirations are dragged down and 

 trampled in the mire. We build city upon city, and 

 pride ourselves in making one greater than the other, 

 and, in the meantime, we wipe out village after village, 

 whence have come our strength and moral fibre." 



