PROGRESSIVE WORLD STRUGGLE OF THE JEWS 



19 



foundation, it is not to be wondered at, 

 when man's hand is against them, when- 

 they are desperate in their efforts to live, 

 when they have a faculty, in trade born 

 of the severest necessity. The objection 

 to them that they work together in the 

 interest of each other may well be true. 

 When general society is against them all, 

 they naturally stand together for self- 

 protection and for self-support. 



THEY MAKE GOOD SOLDIERS 



One can hardly expect that they should 

 feel entirely grateful to a government 

 which makes life so hard for them, or 

 that the desire to serve in the army 

 should be strong in them. And yet the 

 reports from the World War indicate 

 that they have made good soldiers, and 

 the history of the Jews in all countries in 

 which they have settled has been that 

 they have rallied to the support of the 

 government under which they lived. 



Their patriarch, Samuel of Nehardea, 

 sixteen centuries ago laid down the rule : 

 "The law of the government is the law" ; 

 and in the eighteen or nineteen centuries 

 in which the Jews have been wandering 

 over the face of the earth, rebellion and 

 treachery to the government under which 

 they lived have not been frequent among 

 them. 



A number of them in Russia under 

 the old regime doubtless had revolution- 

 ary and subversive tendencies, apparently 

 confined to Jews of university education, 

 who found difficulty in earning a live- 

 lihood under the restrictions and who 

 naturally cherished resentment. 



With their active minds, with their 

 genius for trade, cultivated by centuries 

 of necessity, they prefer trade to manual 

 pursuits, but many of them are skilled 

 artisans in many countries. 



DENIED EDUCATIONAL PRIVILEGES 



They do not follow agricultural pur- 

 suits because they have long been for- 

 bidden to own land, and by this long 

 deprivation their tastes have been formed 

 for city life. They have been cooped up 

 in ghettos of the city and, perforce, have 

 formed the habits of an urban popula- 

 tion. 



Denied the opportunity for education. 

 they are ignorant ; but no people in the 

 world manifest so much anxiety to se- 

 cure education and improve the opportu- 

 nities when offered with such earnest- 

 ness and success. 



It cannot be good for a country like 

 Russian Poland and the Pale to continue 

 6,000,000 of its inhabitants in such a per- 

 sistent condition of poverty and demor- 

 alization. It* must interfere with the 

 •proper development, prosperity, and 

 health of the rest of the population. So 

 large a congestion of this kind must make 

 a sore spot in the economic, political, and 

 social life of this part of Russia. 



In spite of their deplorable condition 

 and the immigration it stimulates, the 

 Russian Jews are very prolific and their 

 number is not diminishing. Their pres- 

 ence in Russia has been a continuing fact 

 and the policy pursued in respect to them 

 up to the Revolution did not remove it or 

 alter it and it was not a success. 



In aid of the Christian peoples of the 

 Balkans and Armenia, the Russian Gov- 

 ernment did a great work, for which 

 those peoples should be very grateful. 

 The conduct of Russia toward them was 

 in marked contrast to its attitude toward 

 the Jews within its own jurisdiction. Is 

 it too much to hope that the drastic ex- 

 perience of this war may lead Russia to 

 a different view ? 



A BLESSING IN DREADEUL DISGUISE 



If the war does help the Jew. it will 

 indeed be a blessing in dreadful disguise. 

 One-half the Jews of the world have had 

 to bear its miseries, its cruelties, its suf- 

 ferings. They lived in the theater of 

 war between Russia and Germany and 

 Austria. In this region, almost without 

 ceasing, the campaign continued. The 

 Russians laid waste the country in order 

 to embarrass their pursuing enemies, and 

 between the two armies the population, 

 of which the Jews were a large part, 

 suffered untold horrors. 



As soon as the war came on, as scon 

 as mobilizations were initiated. Germany 

 and Austria, on the one hand, and Rus- 

 sia, on the other, vied with each other in 

 a cultivation of the good-will o\ the Poles 

 and the Jews. 



Russia promised that an autonomous 



