THE CONQUERING JEW JOHN FOSTER FRASER

PRINCETON · NEW JERSEY

·0@0.

PRESENTED BY

John Stuart Conning, D.D.

DS 143 .F8 1915b Fraser, John Foster. The conquering Jew

THE CONQUERING JEW

By the same Author

THE REAL SIBERIA
PANAMA, AND WHAT IT
MEANS
THE AMAZING ARGENTINE
THE LAND OF VEILED
WOMEN
AUSTRALIA
PICTURES FROM THE
BALKANS
RED RUSSIA
CANADA AS IT IS

Cassell & Co., Ltd., London New York, Toronto and Melbourne

THE CONQUERING JEW

JOHN FOSTER FRASER

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

First published in 1915

CONTENTS

THE CONQUERING JEW

CHAPTER I

A REVIEW

IT is well if at the outset I make clear that these pages are not written from a pro-Semite or anti-Semite point of view. Many books have been published about the Jews; but the majority are marred by over-enthusiasm or violence of opinion, and lack the judicial spirit which is necessary in contemplating a phenomenon which is also a problem.

To be quite frank, this little volume is the consequence of an accident. For a good many years now it has been my custom to visit different parts of the world to study and write upon the development, chiefly economic, of various countries. And wherever I have gone I have found the Jew a principal factor. Whether it be on the bourses of the European financial centres,

or in the business of Broadway, or in the wheat markets of Russia or Argentina, or in the trade of Africa, north and south, there the Jew has always been prominent, quietly but restlessly obtaining grip of the commerce.

In a vague way, like everybody else, I was conscious that the Jew was "getting hold of everything," and I was perfectly aware that though personally the Jew was esteemed by those amongst whom he worked, there was an underlying dislike, which some people think is racial, but which is really economic. As a mere matter of personal interest, I began to make casual inquiry how far the Jew was really "getting hold of everything." I soon found I was delving in a field of startling facts. And when I accumulated my facts I was led, very naturally, into an inquiry of the why.

And this book is the outcome. It is written, so far as I know how, from an unbiased standpoint. Perhaps for that reason it will be disappointing to many readers: to the Jews themselves, always a sensitive people, because they will think justice is not done to them, and they will even resent some of my conclusions; whilst others who have come into contact with Jews in commercial

But the Jew of to-day is what the world has made him. That is a fact which the critical Gentile knows, but is inclined to forget. It is a platitude that this age is the heir of all the ages. More than any other people on earth the modern Jews are the children of the ages. Therefore it is without prejudice and without enthusiasm—though frequently with much wonder, which often merges into unstinted admiration—that I have studied the reasons this little race, belonging to the Semite family, has attained the position it holds to-day and endeavoured to find out what is going to be the future of the Jewish people.

Mark the contrasts. Though belonging to an ancient Orientalism, the Jews are amongst the most modern of races. They are exploiters of other people, and they are exploited. They have amongst them many of the richest men in the world, as undoubtedly they have millions of the poorest. They reach the extremes in generosity and meanness. They are grossly materialistic, and yet have taught the world much in idealism.

There are more men of genius among a million Jews than among a million Gentiles, but also there are more idiots.

the first and merging into the second generation; for it is mainly to the East End of London that Jewish immigrants from Russia go. The point I am making is, that the Jew, when he is in a minority and mixes with an alien people, begins to drop the characteristics of his own people, and adopts, generally unconsciously, but sometimes deliberately, the characteristics of the folk amongst whom he has pitched his tent.

We know of the tendency in modern Judaism to abandon the names of lineage, to become passive toward, if not to forsake, the old religion. We are conscious that the well-to-do Jew does not send his children to a Jewish school. In many of the capitals of the world the Jews eat forbidden foods; they keep no fast days; they sell on Saturdays—only the poor are orthodox! Slowly, but increasingly, there is inter-marriage between Jews and Gentiles. There were never so many Jews in the world as to-day, and yet it is to-day that the question is being asked whether the structure of Judaism is not going to crumble, and whether, within a few generations, the Jews, as a people apart, will not disappear and be absorbed by other races.

In Russia, where full liberty has been refused the Jews, the traditions of Judaism

are held most precious. Wherever the Jews are admitted to the freedom of nations the inclination is to break from the faith. An acquaintance with history shows us that so long as the Jew was oppressed he gripped close to the religion of his stock. Wherever he has been given equality he has slackened in faith and, except in race, is often as the Gentile.

In western Europe and in America the Jews are becoming denationalised. An attempt has been made to stem the tide by making accommodation with the twentieth century, by becoming up to date, by revising the Prayer Book, by using English instead of Hebrew, by having a sermon in English, even by the introduction of an organ.

Of the 12,000,000 Jews in the world it may be said that half the number—6,000,000—are poor, prolific, and staunch to their traditions. You will find them mostly in Russia and eastern Europe. There are 3,000,000 Jews in America and Great Britain, and these may be described as half-way Jews; they are within the faith and occasionally go to the synagogue. Yet there are 2,000,000 Jews who acknowledge their race, but little more. There are 1,000,000 who are frankly agnostic. I use round figures, whilst per-

fectly aware of the manifold exceptions, but fully convinced that my figures explain the grouping in masses.

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Asia has a little over 400,000, Africa 300,000, Australia 20,000, Great Britain 250,000, France 100,000, Germany 600,000, Italy 35,000, Rumania 266,000, Austria 1,225,000, Netherlands 104,000, Canada 60,000, Argentina 40,000, Brazil 3,000. As part of the Asiatic total there are 180,000 in India, and as part of the African total there are 150,000 in Morocco. Palestine has 85,000. Wherever you go—China, Norway, South Africa, the West Indies—you meet the Jews. Considering the world's population of 1,600,000,000, the total number of Jews is insignificant, but their influence in the affairs of the world is colossal.

The capacity of the Jew for business success need not be argued. If one would find broad and well-defined causes, it would have to be written that he is more materialistic than other men: he has a tremendous will power, and his tenacity is unflinching. Though always an adroit bargainer and money-maker, it is to be noted that not until comparatively recent times has the Jewish race produced men of intellect. The reason put forward is, that when the Jew was kept to his purely Talmudic culture, he made no intellectual progress whatever. It was only when he began to free himself from his old laws, to learn beneath the tree of modern

knowledge, that he produced men of intellectual qualities. In the whole range of the arts, as well as in law and literature, the number of Jews is out of proportion to their number in the general population. In Great Britain there are a quarter of a million of Jews in a general population of 46,000,000—say one-half per cent. of the whole. Yet of the men who achieve distinction in England six per cent. are Jews.

speaking, Jews are engaged in occupations more open to the practice of deception than are the mass of Christians. Again, when the Jew is a criminal his offence is usually fraud, whilst the Christian commits more crimes of violence. This does not mean that all Jews are fraudulently disposed; it merely offers further evidence in support of the statements just made concerning hereditary traits and the opportunities for fraud presented by the businesses in which Jews are engaged.

The cruelty of the Middle Ages intensified the sharpness and resourcefulness of the Jew. In olden days he had little opening in finance except to lend money to the Christian, and he was hated because he wanted his money back with a percentage—just as he is hated to-day in Russia by the improvident Russian, who flies to him for aid and then denounces him when he demands repayment. To-day, the Jew is the capitalist who often supplies the means to establish Christian manufacturers. Remember that all modern commercial enterprise, represented by joint stock banks, trusts, syndicates, stock exchange speculation, even the great department stores, were originated by Jews. Nowhere is competition so keen as in the United States. Yet it is in the United States that the Jews

The Conquesied Low

dish as their mother tongue, though the move is towards a decrease, because liberty makes the younger generations take up the language of the country of their adoption. The Jews of the Near East of Europe have a jargon called Spaniolisch, a relic of the time their ancestors were in Spain. Roughly, there are 2,500,000 Jews settled in English-speaking countries. About half of these may be said to speak English as their mother tongue. Indeed, the whole trend of the youthful Jews is to despise the Yiddish of their parents and to speak English amongst themselves as well as in conversation with Gentiles.

But at this day, when Jewish influence in the world was never so great, the Jew is in a state of transition, abandoning his racial customs, paying the scantiest attention to Hebraic literature, intermarrying, with the consequence there are Jews, careful students of their own people, who believe that as a distinct people they will disappear within the next two centuries. No other race has so kept together during 3,000 years, but this has been more due to the oppression of their enemies than to kinship amongst themselves. During the long and harsh centuries of their ill-treatment they were bound together by

exterior causes. They found mental refuge in tradition and in Talmudic literature. As the door has been opened to them they have turned from their own traditions and toward Western culture. The "sour grape" theory is one that all mankind is disposed to adopt, however unconsciously. So, up to the eighteenth century, when the Jews were despised and excluded, the Jews retaliated by despising secular knowledge; indeed, their elders prohibited it: all necessary knowledge was in the Talmud.

Sometimes I read of the red-letter day in the history of this wandering nation, when the portals of the European universities were opened to the Jews. In one sense, true. It was, however, the beginning of the end of the Jews as a separate and individual people. Think of what it all meant to rabbinical learning. If we bring ourselves to realise the pain which would come to the hearts of the most honoured leaders in Christian thought on feeling that the new generation of clergymen and ministers were deliberately turning toward agnosticism, we will have some conception of the terror with which the old rabbis, soaked in the Talmud, saw orthodoxy threatened; how parents mourned when their sons were contemptuous toward what they

Jews, with a startling avidity for learning, came under the influence of Western universities. Till then, the old-fashioned Jews kept to the practices of the fourteenth century in medicine and law. The modern Jew must live in the latest day of the twentieth century. His skill in medicine, his range in law, are world - acknowledged. The young Jew who is a professional man has been de-Judaised. His thoughts are on another plane from that of his progenitors.

All this has been gradual, like the rising of a tide, but certain and unstemmable. Few things are more pathetic—Zangwill shows something of it in his play, The Melting Pot—than the difficulty of the old Jew, with the cloak of his faith still about him, to get a glimmer of understanding of the mind of his son who joys in emancipated ideas. In parts of Europe, especially where for centuries there have been large populations of Jews, the old people cling tenderly, tearfully, to the customs of their fathers. Mournfully they watch the slow breakdown of the Jewish Sabbath, and what hurts most is the open ridicule of their children of the ancient customs, the dietary laws, the special garb, the special prayers. The young folk, eager for

modern education, look upon all these as antiquated. They have a craving for modern intellectualism, modern science, and shrink from being thought to belong to the old time. So frequently, when the young Jew goes to a country where freedom awaits him, he not only leaves the old land, but the old faith, and he forsakes the old name.

Notwithstanding the enormous increase of Jewry during the last hundred years, the birth-rate is beginning to decrease. A century ago Jewish parents had an average of from four to six children. Now the average is falling to from two to three. One cause is the later age of marriage; Jews are behind Christians in the marriage age. Thus we see there is an increase of population when they are poor and kept together; but when they spread and are rich fewer children are born. Prosperity, therefore, will also contribute to the undoing of the race.

The decreasing birth rate, however, is partly compensated for by the low death rate. Care of the children means that few die young—and there are no more attentive mothers than Jewish women. There is no drunkenness amongst Jews; great care is taken of the mother for months before the child is born; proper nourishment is always

Then there is the matter of intermarriage—extremely rare until comparatively recent times. Social and religious differences kept the people apart; in some countries there was legal prohibition. Mixed marriages, however, are now on the increase. It should be marked there is a greater tendency toward Christian men marrying the Jewish women than for the Jewish men to marry Christian

CHAPTER II

THE GENIUS OF THE JEW

Though Jews are amongst the richest men in the world, we may as well dismiss the idea that all Jews are rich. If their dozen millions were reckoned as a nation and the total wealth was averaged it could be written that they are a poor people. Immense hordes of them, congested in Eastern Europe, are in a kind of chrysalis of poverty. Once they get free of their shell, get into the sunlight of liberty, they immediately begin to expand with the radiance of success. It is easy to point to poverty-racked Ghettoes in America and England, but the inhabitants are usually new arrivals.

But there is no handing on of impoverished conditions from father to son, from generation to generation, which is a characteristic of certain strata of Western people.

Take the English agricultural labourer: not well paid, a shrewd, capable fellow, though a slow thinker, as is natural with a man who lives in intimate association with Nature,

Those who are closely acquainted with Jews must have noticed a certain dislike—and the Jew is not shy—to the prominence which they have in the public eye. They are eager

At best, I imagine the social relation between Jew and Gentile to be that of two neighbours each standing on his own plot with a fence between them. They may talk to one another across the fence; they may shake hands, smoke a pipe and what not, but the fence will always be there." That is perfectly true so long as the races are pure Jew and pure Gentile; there are most definite racial peculiarities. But statistics of intermarriage show that the fence is being broken down and the Gentiles are all the better for the Judaic leaven. The genius of the Jew, by contact and by assimilation, is of the most tremendous force in the modern system of trade.

The Jew is in the melting-pot. He is being disintegrated. His qualities are not being lost, but disseminated. That is the great race phenomenon in operation before our eyes. As the restrictions are removed from the Jews, as the whole world is opened to them, as they loom large in achievement, the more they accomplish, the more they depart from the true spirit of Judaism. But as a race, their pertinacity is so strong that although the individualism of the Jew may go, the genius, the things that count, the clear vision, the swift decision, the doggedness to secure what is desired, remain. In what goes to make

It is not the story which the Jew has to tell. By legislation, by brute force, by the strength

of soldiery, he has been cowed, kept under, permitted no outlet, compelled, as in the Russian pales, to depend on his own race, and wretched and toilsome has been his travel through the centuries. All that time he has been a town dweller, concerned in affairs of cities, harassed, robbed, resorting to subterfuge to outwit the grinding designs of his oppressors, and ever with his mind aflame, watching, scheming, passing through the harshest school to learn financial and commercial competence. He is not a "sport" in the trading world, as his Gentile competitor usually is; he is part of a plant with definite characteristics. All this has to be reckoned when we consider how the Jews are active in the marts of the world, altogether out of proportion to their place amongst the populations of the world.

Though facts will compel me to dwell on the part Jews play in finance, it is not in that field alone they have distinguished themselves. We find them to the front in intellectual movements, politics, science, arts. With brilliant exceptions—Benjamin Disraeli, for example they have generally been concerned in antiroyalist and revolutionary movements, with advantage to their own race at the back of their minds. There is not a European Government that has not, at times, had distinguished Jews in its Cabinet. Jews have given the world famous literary men. Amongst musicians they have long been to the front, and even Wagner is now known to have been a Jew. In the journalistic world they are prominent; indeed, few things are more remarkable than the way Jews control the Press in London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and elsewhere. In theatre management and among playwrights Jewry is prominent. In art dealing the Jews are masters. In scientific laboratories their number is amazingly large, both as teachers and students. So in considering the Jew we must wander far beyond the Stock Exchange.

Some writers, Jews themselves, are wonted to be rhapsodical about the future. As today they outnumber the Jews "of the days of the Kings" almost threefold, that there are now twelve millions of them after nearly three thousand years of persecution, is regarded as an index that in the dim future, on the basis of present statistics, "they will number at least as many millions as do the most enlightened Gentile people of to-day." That would be true were the Jews to remain a compact people; but that, notwithstanding the current belief that they are cohesive, is just what the mass of Jews in the most enlightened

scholastic competition. Although they may rarely win a prize in our inter-collegiate tests, they are, on every field in Europe, amongst the swiftest runners in the race for classic honours. I have heard Germans urge this intellectual precocity of the Jews as a reason for debarring their children from the schools and colleges attended by other children. The struggle, they said, between the sons of the North, the pale Germans, with their blond hair and sluggish intellects, and these sons of the Orient, with their black eyes and alert minds, is an unequal one."

We can all agree with Leroy-Beaulieu that, as compared with the Jews, we are young, we are new-comers. In the matter of civilisation they are far ahead of us. It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught us, even on those paths which we had opened up without their aid. The moral acclimatisation of the Jew is accomplished with wonderful rapidity. He is able to adapt himself to any environment. Leroy-Beaulieu adds: "There is in every Jew a secret power of metamorphosis which has often amazed me. The ease with which he transforms himself borders on the miraculous.

The Jewish mind is lucid, distinct, clear, accurate. From a long line of forefathers engrossed in barter, traffic, calculation, figuring, the Jew has received his mental habit of taking nothing at its face value. The Jewish merchant is not easily taken in by words or good appearances. Leroy-Beaulieu rightly says: "There can be no doubt that the Jews, the so-called Semites, have given proportionately more men of talent to our Aryan

civilisation than the so-called Aryans themselves. . . The chance of discovering a distinguished man, a scholar, or artist, among a thousand Western Jews is three or four times as good as among a thousand Englishmen, French, or Germans."

physics with Jews, as with others, is an offshoot of theology. Altogether, Mr. Jacobs shows the productions of Jewish intellect are abstract, the result doubtless of their long life in cities and exclusion from Nature on the one hand, and from the education which lies in handicrafts on the other hand. This leads us to expect great mathematicians and philosophers from them, but not great inventors, biologists, or painters, till they have

to throw off the effects of their is rightly proud of what he has be world. As Mr. Madison Peters

, after 3,300 years, still form ne civilised world's jurisprudence

desert. To change the simile, the Jew jumped ahead like a dog freed from the leash. The startling progress of the Jews frightened the Germans, and gradually anti-Semite prejudice arose. Had that not taken place, I believe the Jew in Germany would have been quickly amalgamated with the Gentile. But the resistance drove him back upon his old faith, and the antagonism long retarded the assimilation which is now in progress.

Nowhere in the world do you find Todaises

In the United States the Jew has the same rights and privileges as any other citizen, but the prejudice against him is universal and strong. He is doing his utmost to break it down, and it is the minority of American Jews who have any wish to maintain a distinction. Mr. Ezra Bruno has divided the Jews in the United States into three denominations:—

• (1) Orthodox, representing Judaism unpurified.
• (2) Conservative, representing purified Judaism without faith.

(3) Radical, representing neither faith nor Judaism—an inference verging on agnosticism.

As Mr. Bruno says, the modern "temple" in the United States is a lecture hall, with no logical right to be classified amongst the faiths, and the services are chiefly of a vaude-ville kind. The average American Jew is always trying to get away from his descent, and would, no doubt, change his nose to an American model if he could. The American Jew, least of his race, displays any pride in his faith or ancestry. It is because he belongs to no special country that the Jew so "shakes down" to the conditions of any country in which he settles. His vitality is enormous, but is quickly dissipated, not lost, under free conditions. It is when he is driven back, in a way that would subdue the spirit of any other people, that he shows his recuperative powers.

Though the Jew is accepted with a friendly tolerance in England—there is no anti-Semitic feeling in Great Britain—I am sure the restless Eastern European Jew, when thinking of flying West, invariably has his eyes on America. He has heard so much of America as the land of liberty. And Judaism is quite in harmony with the spirit of Ameri-

canism. Because of the personal habits of the ignorant immigrants, but chiefly for economic reasons, the white-skinned American has a feeling of repulsion from the Jew. Yet the Jewish ideals, I maintain, are American ideals. The Americans get their ideals more from the Jews than from their Saxon forbears, as they would find out if they ceased to accept current jargon and traced realities back to origins. In their ideal, the Jews have a sound democracy; their ethics are an example to the world; they are virtuous, frugal, temperate; they love their homes, and are the best of parents. That they often fall short of their ideals is correct, but the same can be said of every nation.

All writers who have studied the question agree that if the Jews remained cohesive their force in the world would vastly increase. I do not, however, go so far as Messrs. Russell and Lewis, who, in their interesting little volume of essays on the Jew in London, say that if the race becomes absorbed into and merged in the general population of the countries where it dwells, its influence will be only such as that which the infusion at one time of Franco-Norman, or at a much later time, and to a smaller extent, of French Huguenot

blood, had upon the population of England, the influence of a new and vigorous strain which, notable for two or three generations, presently passes away and is forgotten. The writers of these essays agree in thinking that the essential feature of modern Israel is to be found, not in its blood, but in its religion, and that its continuance as a nationality will depend on whether or not it clings to its religion. That is the one thing which really marks it off. "Strongly marked as the race is, it will dissolve like a lump of salt in water unless it clings to its religion, and the very fact that it has been better received and better treated in England than anywhere else in the Europe of to-day, exposes it to a more severe strain than it has had to experience before."

The Jew is more prone to hazard than the Christian. Business of a shrewd and cautious character, "bulling" and "bearing" on the Stock Exchange, money-lending, the getting of something for nothing, appeals to him. Whether it be the Jew in the tenderloin district of New York, in the Ghettoes of Eastern Europe, or in the mellahs of Asiatic Jewry, he avoids, as far as possible, earning his living by manual labour, and always schemes for increment. Jews are always patrons of gambling

dens. I remember reading in Mr. Charles Booth's great work on life and labour in London, of his finding a little Jewish boy in a very poor district playing pitch and toss all by himself, studying the laws of chance in this humble fashion. Although the love of games of chance is inherent in the Jewish nature, it is certainly not because the Jew lacks acumen and farsightedness. The skill of Jews as chess-players is known by the world. Three out of four of the great chess-players are Jews. Chess is an Oriental game; so it may be in the blood. A combination of science and invention is required in the chess-player, and the Jew has the qualities which are necessary to excel.

Further, the Jew specially is characterised by an extraordinary ambition, which influences all his actions and differentiates him—more particularly in the lower and working classes—from the Gentile. He will avoid, wherever possible, and with apparent personal loss, the position of an employee. I say apparent, because his mind is always in the future, and he is usually intelligent enough to accept a temporary loss for the sake of future gain. But all the time we know the Jew is unpopular. The causes are display, ostentation, love of luxury, desire to get the

best for his money, wonderful success in all circumstances, aloofness and suspicion of the Gentile, his absolute sobriety, reluctance to join trade unions, a tendency to work entirely "on his own," chiefly and generally displacement of the Gentile in nearly every case where the Jew enters into competition with him.

population of Whitechapel is Hebrew; in Stepney, most of the people are Jews. The late Canon Barnett, who spent his life in the East End, wrote:—

disinclined to rouse animosity by openly punishing his enemy."

The Jew is ever striving, striving, to rise to a higher social station. The Jewish workman will starve himself so that his children be well-fed, be well-clad, and have a superior education, and in my investigations in schools I have never ceased to be surprised at the quickness of Jewish children compared with their Gentile companions.

that it is quite legitimate to outwit the other man on the ground that he is endeavouring to outwit you. And yet this is not a Jewish peculiarity; it is one of the recognised rules of the game in modern finance—though it may have been learnt from the Jew. Further, whilst in business Gentile relatives often clash, Jewish relatives have a great confidence in each other, and that is a valuable asset in partnership. The solidarity of the Rothschild family is the most outstanding case.

The agility and receptivity of the young Jewish mind leads to the Jew being brilliantly successful in examinations; he gathers prizes with ease. The Jew, in all his relations with the outer world, suppresses sentiment and curbs emotion; sound common sense is the root element of Jewish psychology. His versatility is the outcome of the many rôles his people have had to play in their chequered career. The one new quality—a flower that has bloomed only since emancipation came to him—is humour. Some of our most humorous writers are Jews. The best satires on Jews are prepared by Jews. Most of the comedy writers of Europe are of Jewish blood. The fact that Jews control the theatres may have something to do with it, but this alone

cannot account for so many staged plays being from the pens of Jews.

Jewry emerged from the hazy past a tribe superior to its neighbours. A belief in their mission, together with a lofty idealism, never forsook them through twenty centuries. Their initial superiority soon found expression in trade, and at the beginning of the Christian era they were the principal merchants in the north African littoral. In their subsequent struggle for existence, borne with fortitude, their capabilities were accentuated. They were down-trodden, but they never lost their pride. Their religion provided them with an abiding hope. But Jewish genius fulfils the well-known tag about taking pains. Perseverance is their most valuable possession. A plodding steadfastness of purpose, relentless pursuit of a desired object, has really been the mainspring in conquering the world.

CHAPTER III

WHAT THE JEWS HAVE DONE

THE gregariousness of the Jews has done much to give them a prominence in the world far ahead of what their proportionate numbers would explain.

By race they are Asiatic, yet only 8 per cent. of the Jews to-day live in Asia. There are four times as many Jews in the United States as there are in all Asia. The British Isles were the first real refuge of the Jews, and harbour a quarter of a million, about ½ per cent. of the inhabitants; but the United States has eight times the Jewish population that Great Britain has, representing rather more than 2 per cent. of the inhabitants. Seventy-five per cent. of the American Jewish population has arrived within the last generation. Over 17 per cent. of all the Jews in the world now live in America. Nearly a quarter of the world's Jews live in English-speaking countries.

The Jew concentrates on those parts of the globe where there is social and industrial activity. Of the English Jews—all told, fewer than those in the Polish city of Warsaw—more than half live in London, and half of the remainder are to be found in Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Of the 75,000 Jews in Canada nearly half are concentrated in the commercial city of Montreal. Of the thriving community of 50,000 in South Africa, Johannesburg and Cape Town are responsible for a third. There are seventy-eight towns in the world with a population of more than 10,000 Jews, and the town must be very large that has a minimum of 10,000 Jews. It is within bounds, therefore, to say that ten of the twelve million Jews in the world are to be met with in great cities.

The immediate conclusion is that Jews flock to trading centres. But there are other reasons. It is laid down by their religion that the sacred functions of public worship must be performed in the presence of ten males above the age of thirteen. That has some influence on creating Jewish communities. Sometimes wonder is expressed why Jews get possession of certain trades and leave others alone. For instance, the Jews control the fruit and tobacco businesses. Strict Jews do no business on the Saturday; therefore a Jewish ironmonger, if he closed his shop on

The movement of precious metals throughout the world is under the influence of Jews. It is rightly said that no big war can be waged except by the financial assistance of the Jews. No national or international loan can be floated if the Jews care to act together and stop it. To a considerable extent the rate of exchange between countries is regulated by them. Though the New York Stock Exchange has Jewish members, only a little more than

Amongst European banks and firms run by Jewish capital and controlled by Jews are the Dresdner Bank, and the Handels-Gesellschaft, the Crédit Mobilier of Paris, Bischoffsheim, and Goldschmidt. The greatest bullion brokers in London are Jews. In the United States,

Amongst architects there are many Jews; but the name of George Basevi, who designed the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, stands out. It was Professor Morris Loeb who founded the Association of Harvard Chemists and became director of the chemical laboratory at the University of New York. Pro-

What the Jews have Done

won the Derby, "the blue ribbon of the turf."

In Freemasonry the symbolism is peculiarly Jewish. In both America and England there are a number of lodges formed exclusively of Jews. Whilst there is only one Grand Lodge in England—high office, up to Grand Senior Warden, has been held by Jews—each State in America has its own Grand Lodge, and eighteen of these have been presided over by Jewish Grand Masters.

In providing popular restaurants, pleasant, often cheap dinners, with music, the Jew has accomplished wonders in all the capitals of the world. If sometimes we complain of the decay of home life and the growth of "the restaurant habit," it is the enterprise and competition of the Jew which have made restaurants attractive—he brought imagination to play in the surroundings of the culinary department. The working classes are indebted to the Jew for cheap clothing. Formerly the not-so-well-to-do had to wear the cast-offs of their better-to-do neighbours, second-hand clothing. Nobody denounced the Jew sweater in the tailoring business more than the Gentile working-man, though probably he would not have been able to have bought the cheap new

suit he is now wearing if it had not been for the sweater.

took up a line requiring more thought. It may be mentioned that the Argentine wheat trade is controlled by four Jewish firms.

Jews have held the highest offices in public life. Disraeli, as Prime Minister of England, is an outstanding figure. Of the Lord Mayors of London, five have been Jews. Jews play an important part in the municipal government of England. In England, indeed, you find Jews in the Privy Council, in the House of

63

Lords, in the House of Commons, on the bench of the High Court. The chief protagonists of Continental Socialism were Jews—Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle. In every European legislature the Jew is to the front. Notwithstanding American prejudice a number of Jews have been elected to the legislatures of the State and Federal Governments.

CHAPTER IV

THE JEW IN AMERICA

When the Jew is charged with being an interloper in America he can reply to the Saxon that he was in America first. Columbus was partly a Jew. The great voyage of Columbus would have been impossible without Jewish help; it was Louis de Santangel who advanced money for the expedition. The story about Queen Isabella selling her jewels was a later invention. A number of Jews accompanied Columbus—I have recorded the story of a Jewish foot being the first to land on San Salvador—but there is positive evidence that the first man who started American trade was Gabriel Sanchez, a Spanish Jew, who got permission from King Ferdinand to sell cattle and grain to the Indians.

Here is a coincidence. The Jews were expelled from Spain on August 2nd, 1492. It was the next day that Columbus sailed west to the land which may become the principal home of the Jews in the world. He took with him astronomical charts and nautical instru-

ments which had been made by Jews. The man who discovered tobacco was a Jew-Luis de Torres.

We sometimes reckon the real history of America from the arrival of the Mayflower. In strict fact the Jews had developed the American sugar industry long before anyone who sailed in the Mayflower was thought of. That was the beginning. To-day every fourth person in Manhattan is a Jew! What will be the end?

Jews were on both sides; for many Jews remembered they had grown wealthy under British rule. On the other hand, Colonel Solomon Bush fought under Washington, and Hyam Solomon gave his whole fortune to assist America. At that time there would not be more than 4,000 Jews in the country, mostly well-to-do traders. I do not think that persecution drove them or their fathers across the Atlantic. America was not such a land of liberty. Indeed, in some States, just as in England at that time, Jews were debarred from holding public office. In the Civil War there were over 7,000 Jews in the two armies.

To-day the American Jew, to the number of over 2,000,000, is right in the centre of the picture. He has had to fight hard for a place,

and he has won. The Jewish invasion has frightened many Americans, until there has grown a considerable body of opinion in favour of closing the gates of Ellis Island to the shoals of immigrants that yearly seek asylum in the United States.

In a later chapter I will describe the part the Jew is playing in the financial and commercial activities of modern America. At this point I want to deal with the Jew himself —what is happening to him as a consequence of an environment dramatically dissimilar from that of his people in other parts of the earth.

I know Jewish Russia and I know Jewish America. Without elaborating the point, the conditions of life are as the Poles asunder. In broad outline the Russian Jew is the same as the Russian Jew of the last generation. But transfer him across the Atlantic, and, except in facial type—and that is softening—he is like a man of another breed—taller, with different ambitions, and in the vast majority of cases with a quite different outlook on life. The past is dead; he would bury it; his gaze is on the future.

But it is a mistake to think the Jew lands in America blithe of heart and full of hope. You have only to see a crowd of Jewish immigrants, to be struck with their misery. Do not put all that down to the oppression to which they have been subjected elsewhere. They have passed under the harrow; but the old land is that of their birth, where they have left their kin, and the new world, with its new language, is strange and incomprehensible. They are an impressionable and emotional people, and there surges up in their breasts a great home-sickness. The youngsters, with the adaptability of youth, soon shake that off; but with their elders—though prosperity may come—it frequently abides throughout their lives.

To the devout, orthodox Jew nothing is more pathetic than the way the hustling, go-ahead young American Jew sneers at the "back numbers" amongst his own race, becomes Mr. Lewis instead of Mr. Levi, or Mr. Cowan instead of Mr. Cohen, and has no reverence for the God of Israel. Hebrew becomes a dead language. The young Jew laughs when it is thought he still abhors ham.

from tradition; he will intermarry with a Christian, not because she is a Christian, but because she is the woman he loves; he does not bother his head a little bit about Zionism; he does not care whether the Hebrew faith continues or dies; he is an American who happens to come from Jewish stock. The old Jew thought everything should be subordinate to the faith. The Jew I am describing, though neutral towards the faith, has modern ideals, and all his ambitions are distinct from any association with Judaism, and when he has a triumph he may be proud it was achieved by a Jew—but the pride comes after he has the triumph as a man, as an American, and that it was secured by a Jew is an afterthought.

The American Jew is of higher stature than the average Jew in the European country from which his father came. Though there is a disposition towards sterility in intermarriage—generally ascribed to the two bloods being antagonistic, though I suspect artificial causes are the reason, as it is not the poorer classes who intermarry—the marriage rate amongst pure Jews in America is much higher than amongst those of Saxon and Teutonic, or even Latin blood; and fertility amongst American Jews, especially amongst

sort of puzzle of the sieve, perplexing, tantalising, heartbreaking, and, in its futility—Jewish." The death-rate of the Jews is little more than half the average in America.

Though I have accentuated the inclination of the American Jew to forget there is such a place as a synagogue, I know I can be directed to the three thousand congregations in the United States, increasing in proportionate numbers far more than any other denomination. This is explained by the neverceasing Jewish immigration; but it is not so long ago since the American Hebrew said it could be shown that this increase of congregations does not at all equal the increase in Jewish population from immigration. Most of these congregations are composed of fresh arrivals or Jews of the first American generation.

Now, it is quite true, as Mr. Ezra Brudno has said, that conspicuousness has ever been the great misfortune of Israel. The tiniest speck on the Jew shows as distinctly as a large blot on other people. Everything the Jew does or abstains from doing is carefully noted by his Gentile neighbours. Perhaps this showiness is due to a characteristic trait of the Jew, or perhaps it is the fault of the insidious outlook of his neighbour. The fact

remains that the Jew is always in sight. During the last score of years, emigration to America has been abundant from all European countries, from Germany, from Italy, from Hungary, from Roumania, from Russia. Still, comparatively small as is the number of Russian immigrants, the Russian Jew has become conspicuous. The flood of Germans, Poles, and Italians is mentioned only as a matter of record; but the Russian Jew is pointed out apprehensively, almost alarmingly: "Let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply."

The questions have to be faced: Is there cause for grave apprehension? Are the Russian refugees a menace? Are they inferior to other immigrants? It is fair to hear what the Jew himself says on the subject. I go to Mr. Ezra Brudno again: "The immigration of German Jews dates back more than half a century. They, like the present refugees, fled from their native land, not so much because of their inability to gain a livelihood as from inhuman persecution. Massacres were no more rare in Germany then than at present in the Tsar's domain, and on their arrival here they took up peddling and engaged in business similar to that of a Russian immigrant. History repeats itself. Portuguese

slow progress in art or letters. It is almost a reflection upon the German Jews in the United States that during a century they have not produced a single man of letters or artist of note. Even their rabbis are mostly Austrian, Bohemian, Polish, or Russian."

See how these Jews hate one another! During the last quarter of a century hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews have landed in America. Mr. Brudno shouts: "Their

drunkenness; he is not a murderer or a burglar; his crimes are limited to "cunning, if you will."

But I think we have to look deeper than even economic competition to find the reason for the anti-Jewish sentiment. Those of us who are egotistical enough to believe we are broad-minded, very likely have streaks of

prejudice in our nature of which we are unaware, and which we would deny if suggested by others. So, just as tradition often hangs around the Jew, though he believes he is far away from it, there exists in the American mind, however free from racial resentment, a subconsciousness that the best of the Jews are crafty and covetous. Craftiness in the Jew has been cultivated by Christian treatment. It is easy to point to trickery and dishonest Jews, but in doing so we lay ourselves open to tu quoque. Every country, said a great German statesman, has the Jews it deserves. Dishonest Jews have never had the esteem of other Jews.

Superficial causes are factors which determine us in most things, and in these can be found the cause of American dislike for the Jews. The German Jew, with his podginess, his waddle and hooked nose, is the butt of the comic press. The Russian Jew, with his whipped-dog look and his cringing obsequiousness, arouses more contempt than pity. Jew mannerisms, his guttural pronunciation, his awful English, make one alternately laugh and feel indignant. Other races have these oddities, and though not so emphasised as in the case of the Jew, they do not stir the same feeling. Let us admit that the great majority

of Jews in America—and, all things considered, it would be strange if it were not so—are wanting in manners and are deficient in good taste, disabilities which bar social communion with Americans of their own class—though precisely the same accusation can be heard in European society against Americans. Just as Americans snort wrathfully when Europeans presume to say they are ill-bred, the Jew feels bitter on being informed by an American that he has no manners. Do not let us forget the description of the old lady who said that "vulgarity is what other people are guilty of."

Jews are usually poor when they arrive in the United States; the acquisition of wealth improves their material position, but gives no culture to their minds; their money, and the security it gives, makes them self-assertive. It is my good fortune to know Jews who are not to be surpassed by any people in what is generally called "gentlemanly conduct." But as, by accepted standards, the new rich Jew is frequently a buy-you-up vulgarian, we can understand why many hotels are closed to him. The cultured Jew could do much to remedy this, not by denouncing the hotels, but by getting his brethren to cease the cause of the closed doors.

Because Jewish parvenus arouse objection, it is the duty of the Gentile to be careful not to accuse all Jews of vulgarity, because

Hermann Struck, the noted Jewish artist, interviewed by the Jewish Chronicle (London) on his impressions of America, considers social ostracism there worse than in Russia. "Where

own interest as a defence against its enemies."
These are serious and significant words.

The Spanish and Portuguese, the most "aristocratic" intermixture in America, at first held themselves aloof; but as the Germans came in greater numbers and made success commercially, they were obliged to mingle with their humbler brethren. They have given the much-needed element of culture to the German Jews. At present, as I have pointed out, the German Jew shows much of the aloofness and hauteur to the Russian Jew that he, in his turn, received from the Spanish and Portuguese Jew. It is merely a question of top dog. But the Russian possesses a "strength of intellect and a reserve of knowledge which will outshine and outstrip the accomplishments of the German," said Mr. C. S. Bernheimer.

The American Jews support all their own charities. In New York alone they have nine hospitals, twelve old folks' homes and retreats, and fifteen orphan asylums. There are six hundred institutions for unfortunate Jews throughout the United States. Politicians of every grade have arisen amongst the Jews. They make great sacrifices to provide education for their children, though at some colleges a dead set is made against them and

Dr. Magnes, in a sermon in reply to an article in McClure's Magazine, complained of the way in which Jews are exploited by politicians, magazine writers, and sensa-

tional preachers. "If a magazine editor wants to sell magazines, he either praises the Jews unduly, or insults their good name. If a political party wants to make capital, it does not scruple to use slanderous matter concerning the Jews, and after spreading these stories, winds up with fulsome praise of the Jews' good qualities. We are regarded by every doctrinaire as so much bacteria, on which all sorts of experiments can be made. What we Jews demand of the people round us is, that we be allowed to work out our own salvation."

A Jewish woman, Miss Lillian Wald, started one of the most important developments of the modern educational system—the work done by nurses in the public schools. In 1902 she obtained the consent of the Boards of Health to begin the experiment with one of her Settlement nurses. To-day there are 140 school nurses in New York, in what is called the Department of Child Hygiene, and the movement has spread to many American cities. She was also one of the first to help in pointing out the evils of child labour, and to assert that there should be laws to keep children from working.

are twenty-four Jews in Congress. Jews have represented the United States in the diplomatic and consular service in Turkey, Bucharest, Egypt, Tunis, and elsewhere. The most remarkable thing about the connection of Jews with Freemasonry in America is that during 1906-7 five Jews were at one time at the head of as many State Grand Lodges. The introduction of opera into the United States was largely due to the instrumentality of the Jews.

Up and down, appreciated and reviled, accepted, rejected, and yet advancing like a mighty flood—that is the story of Judæa in America. At the present rate of progress, by 1930 there will be 7,000,000 Jews in the United States. Not Palestine, but America seems to be the Promised Land, with New York as the New Jerusalem. Jews are part and parcel of American life to an extent little realised by Americans themselves. A magazine writer notes, "A New York citizen living in a handsome residence designed by Arnold Brunner, may lay down the latest novel by Abraham Cohan, go to the 'phone, improved by Emil Berliner, and inform his partner that theatre tickets have been procured for David Warfield's new play under the management of David Belasco; after which he will return

to his chair and read the Times until his wife returns from Altman's, without realising that he has been in any way indebted to the Jews."

changed from his fathers, so his sons will change from him. It sickens the heart of the jealous Jew when he thinks his people will be merged in the American people. The elders wrap their phylacteries round them and moan. But a new Jew does not wear a phylactery. He fraternises amongst Christians when he has the opportunity. He intermarries. Social ostracism will disappear. The day will come when his descendants will forget their Jewish origin. The old men will cry, "Woe, woe!" But America will be all the better for the influx of Jewish blood.

CHAPTER V

AMERICAN JEWS AND THEIR OCCUPATIONS

OF the 2,000,000 Jews in the United States, half are to be found in New York. New York is the largest Jewish city in the world. The range of the children of Abraham stretches from the sweated new arrival to the opulent banker.

American commerce would be thrown out of gear if the Jew suddenly ceased activity. There is not a business, a trade, or a profession which is not influenced by the Jews. New York is a Jewish world unto itself, for here are to be found all types of Jews, all phases of Jewish thought.

Whilst New York has its million, Chicago has 100,000, Philadelphia the same number; 75,000 are in Boston, 50,000 in St. Louis—wherever there is money-making there is the Jew.

ner Sombart, has calculated that in a hundred years the United States will have a majority of Slavs, Jews, and negroes in its population.

Already the Jews have the practical monopoly in some trades, and are swiftly invading others. As tailors, shirt-makers, cloak-makers, furriers, and allied trades, they have everything in their own hands. They are skilled in furniture making and in house decoration. They are expert in what may be called the gentler manufactures, jewellers, watch-makers, producers of electrical appliances. They are prominent in all professions, education, medicine, the arts. They conduct huge department stores. As middlemen their competition is so keen that it is hoped the consumer gets an advantage. You find them busy on the stock and cotton exchanges. They have a grip on the real estate business.

Whilst in other countries the Jew is often a moneylender—indeed, in Europe it is rare to find a moneylender who is not a Jew—moneylending is not a characteristic of the Jew in America. Indeed, it may be said that the American Jew is a borrower, always keen to get the loan of money with which to extend the area of his business.

We occasionally use the phrase, "Rich as a Jew." Lumping all the Jews in America

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together, they are not rich as a class. The influx of practically destitute aliens keeps down the average.

Generally speaking, the Jew is rather shy of having to do with anything which suggests a trust. He likes to be a banker or a lawyer or a dealer in clothing, jewellery, or cigars. He is a petty storekeeper; but amongst his people you find a Siegel, a Straus, and a Bloomingdale. Among the beef kings are Sulzberger, Nelson Morris, and Schwarzchild. Jews are pawnbrokers, but they are also financiers, like Speyer, Seligman, Loeb, and Schiff. There are five Guttenheims amongst the smelters of Colorado. Twenty-five per cent. of the silversmiths of America are Jews.

The Jew does not often grow cotton, and he is not in textile manufactures; but in the clothing business he sweeps the field. In tailoring, boot and shoe making, and fur preparing the Jews—roughly $2\frac{1}{4}$ per cent. of the population—have 45 per cent. of the business; but though the Jews do not grow cotton they take a big hand in controlling the cotton market.

The Jew, therefore, is in almost everything. It has been said the Jews somewhat resemble a department store: you ask what you want and they give it you. Amongst

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south. There is no anti-Jewish feeling. Six Galveston institutions have Jews at their head. The Universities have Jewish professors. The Jews hold high rank as Freemasons, and those that are clubable are welcomed in the clubs. Indeed, I could make a grand tour of the whole of the United States, and it is doubtful if there would be a single place where the Jews were not "making good."

who have such a prominent place in the scholastic profession as the Jews.

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Only a few years ago a considerable number of these present-day millionaire proprietors were carrying packs on their backs or trundling push-carts. And they are large holders, not only in the East Side tenement district, but in all parts of the city, including the high-class business and residential sections. The chances are, says Mr. Hendrick, if you wish to lease an apartment in almost any part of New York to-day, that you will pay your rent to a Jewish landlord. There is not the slightest doubt that in a few years the Jews will own the larger part of Manhattan Island, the richest parcel of real estate in the world.

Apparently, huge capital is required to operate in property. The Jewish new-comer has not the means, but he scrapes and economises until he has a small bundle of dollars. Then he leases a wretched tenement dwelling, lives himself in the worst rooms, lets the others, makes a profit, and then proceeds to a bigger enterprise in leasing. At the end of a few years he can purchase a tenement house, though he will burden it with mortgages. With struggling and squeezing he will become complete owner. In Europe, as I have said, the Jew is a lender; in America he is a borrower. Most of the rich present-day Jews of the United States have built their fortune on

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judicious borrowing, but always shrewdly seeing the way to return the money with a considerable margin for themselves. By foresight, or out of the shrewdest speculation, the Jews are becoming the principal owners of New York City.

One half of the students in Columbia University and three-quarters of the undergraduates in the College of the City of New York are Jews. These young fellows are

invading the Civil Service; they are elbowing the American-German-Irish competitors on one side. They win the prizes fairly in examination, for they easily out-distance the Gentiles in knowledge. Mr. Hendrick says they have already obtained absolute control of certain city departments. They fill nearly all medical and laboratory offices, in which New York employs a fair-sized army. They have captured a great majority of the engineering jobs. They hold most of the minor legal positions. They are the city's searchers, process-servers, and law examiners. Most of the municipal office-boys are youngsters from the East Side; the stenographers and type-writers are nearly all Jewish girls; the book-keepers and holders of minor clerical positions are nearly all Jews.

The great department stores, such as we know them to-day, have grown out of Jewish brains. The names of Straus, Altman, Stern, Bloomingdale, Siegel, Greenhut, tell the story of the amazing stores in the great cities, most of which have, within the last generation, sprung from the humblest of beginnings. The Jews are masters of the whisky trade in America. Eighty per cent. of the members of the National Liquor Dealers' Association are Jews. It has been shown that 60 per cent.

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of the business of distilling and wholesale trade in whisky is in the hands of the Jews. As middlemen they control the wine product of California. Jews visit the tobacco-growing States, buy up nearly all the leaf tobacco, so that the great tobacco companies have to buy the raw product from them. The Jews have a grip of the cigar trade. The American Tobacco Company manufactures about 15 per cent. of the cigars smoked in the United States. The Jews provide the rest. It will be seen that the Jew lays his hands on those businesses which require the smallest outlay at the start. The mighty concerns, which fulfil orders from the Atlantic to the Pacific, mostly began with peddling from door to door.

Many of the greatest American banking houses were established by Jews. The railroad field in America, extending from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast, and south from the Missouri River to the Mexican line, is now largely dominated by the Jews, chiefly the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co. Mr. Hendrick reports that among other properties the influence of this firm extends to the Illinois Central. This Jewish house is also the largest single power in the Baltimore and Ohio. It is also influential in the Southern Pacific. It is by no means without power

in the great railroad system built up by Commodore Vanderbilt—the New York Central. A year or two ago the whole Gould system escaped, at the eleventh hour, from falling into the hands of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., and George Gould rescued himself only by appealing for help to another Jewish banking house, that of Speyer and Co. Had the United States Supreme Court not interfered, there is every likelihood that the same combination would have taken over the larger part of the railroad mileage of the country.

The amusement of America is almost completely in the hands of the Jews—at least 90 per cent. of the operatic, theatrical, vaudeville, and kinema entertainments are provided by the Jews. They enter the business, not because they are actors who have become managers but because there is money in it. There are half a dozen big theatrical firms whose controllers are all millionaires. There is one firm, the Schuberts, who own, lease, or control nearly twenty theatres in New York, and outside have an interest in quite eighty more. There are Jews who have done excellently on the artistic side of the stage; but this counts for nothing compared with the complete triumph of the Jew on the managerial side. Men like Charles and Daniel

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Below the hill on which stand the Jews who have become dazzlingly wealthy by operating in so many phases of American life are two million other Jews, nearly all animated with the same ambition and spurred by the same desire of success. It is the lamp which

Justice of England is a Jew. There are Jewish members of the Government. There are Jews in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons. The late King Edward rather went out of his way to show his friendship for the Jews. They are good citizens, are liberal supporters of national charities, maintain their own poor.

It might be possible, as I have previously suggested, to raise a Jew hunt in the Eastend of London, not from any dislike of the Jews as such, but because they are new-comers, who in the struggle for existence undersell the British working man, and, by overcrowding certain districts, compel the Londoner to live some distance from his employment. This is where the personal element comes in. But the British working man, in the mass, has no antipathy to the Jew. He recognises his qualities and concedes that if he cannot get a living in another country he is entitled to make an endeavour in England.

From high finance to street peddling the Jew is markedly in evidence in London. There are all sorts, from the waddling, hooknosed, guttural victims of the sweating shop to the tall, well-made, cultured gentleman whom you cannot distinguish from an Englishman. There is no resentment against the

London, including its far-flung suburbs, has a population of nearly 10,000,000. But though there is a sprinkling of Jews everywhere, the majority congregate in particular areas—the Whitechapel region when they are poor, the Maida Vale and Hampstead areas when things are prospering with them, and the immediate neighbourhood of Park Lane when they are abundantly affluent. London is so enormous that there are hundreds of

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thousands of folk who have never been in particular districts; indeed, would have some trouble in telling whereabout they lay.

On the Jewish Sabbath most of the Jewish shops are closed. On Saturday night, when the Jewish Sabbath is over, the main streets are thronged with people speaking no English. There is something pathetic about the weak-framed, pale-faced old Jew, often in an anti-

way the Jews reduce the wages of an industry to the starvation line. There is a good deal of truth in that, but we must be on our guard against exaggeration. We recognise that in cheap tailoring, cheap cabinet-making, cheap shoemaking, and the manufacture of cheap cigars, the Jew has chiefly created a business rather than filched it from somebody else. Therefore the Jew in his competition grinds the Jew much more than he does the Christian. It would appear that "rapid production through minute subdivision of labour forms rather a stage in the evolution of employments to which Jews naturally gravitate than an evil of their creation."

In the cap trade Jewish women are engaged, though there are also some Gentile women. With few exceptions the Jews have the fur trade in the City as well as in the East End. The cheapest kind of umbrellas are made by Jewesses. The poor sort of "sew round" shoes and slippers are made by Jews under wretched conditions—in Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel—often huddled together in foul, underground rooms. Carpet slippers are the product of Jew operatives. An increasing number of Jews are in the the East End furniture trade. The majority are cabinet-makers; some are carvers and

upholsterers; a few are chair-makers and polishers. Some of the most advertised firms are Jews. Male cigarette makers in London are foreigners, and most are Jews. All these employees are at the lowest end of the Jewish scale. We have to go to the Rothschilds and other Jewish bankers to find the other end.

It has been said that the Russian or Polish Jew represents the concentrated essence of Jewish virtue and Jewish vice, for he has, in his individual experience, epitomised the history of his race in the Christian world. Every Jewish lad who lands from Libau in the London docks has the mechanical faculties of the intellect; his powers of reasoning and calculating have been cultivated. So there has come into the labour market a race of workers to contest matters with those who in the main are content to be manual labourers. Where quickness and endurance rather than skill and strength are needed, the Jew is more than a match for the Christian worker. And always he has his eye on the goal of financial achievement; he does not understand what is meant by being content with a competence.

When you find his competitors complaining of his methods it is because, being an Oriental and out to win, he is not always loyal, and integrity is not one of his virtues. The

there was established the Four Per Cent. Industrial Dwellings Co.; the object was to provide the industrial classes with maximum of accommodation at a minimum rent, compatible with paying 4 per cent. on paid-up capital. The chairman of directors is Lord Rothschild. That the rise of house rent in the district inhabited by Jewish immigrants has resulted in the crowding out of the native residents is demonstrated statistically. The apparent predilection of the Jewish immigrants for the congested districts, despite higher rents and poor accommodation, has been a riddle to the sociologist and a problem for the philanthropist.

But let us travel westwards in London. Many of the chief bankers are Jews. The Rothschilds have the premier position. Messrs. Stern and Co. are a very old-established firm of bankers and financiers. Recently Lord Michelham—then the head of Stern and Co.—seceded from the parent firm, taking Colonel Hunziger into partnership, and started under the title of Herbert Stern and Co., Cornhill. Messrs. Sassoon and Co. are leading merchants and bankers. There are so many Jews on the Stock Exchange that it is sometimes referred to as the high temple of Judea. In politics, law, theatrical management, journalism, the

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Jew occupies a position altogether out of proportion to his numbers.

Leeds has a large tailoring interest with a Jewish Master Tailors' Trade Association. The Jews number about 20,000 out of 428,953; the third largest Jewish community in the United Kingdom. About 1,800 belong to the Amalgamated Jewish Tailors, Machinists, and

^* See chapter on "The Jew in the World of Art" (p. 277).

In Leicester the well-known clothing firm of Hart and Levy are Jews. In Manchester Jews live in one quarter, and are largely engaged in the cotton trade with the East and the North coast of Africa. In both Birmingham and Bristol Jews are to be found in the coat-making industries. In Dublin the Jewish population, about 2,700, includes a number of cultured Jews who have taken highest distinctions at Trinity College.

were received by the Board for the relief of sufferers from the disease.

Suggestions were devised for the improvement in the dwellings of Jewish poor, and it was noted that the congestion of Jews in certain districts was beginning to be relieved by their distribution outside the so-called Jewish quarter, and on these lines of watchful care

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a nursing staff at her own expense till 1906, when she procured additional resources, and who has efficiently conducted this department herself.

Alderman (afterwards Sir) David Salomons, M.P. (one of the first Jewish M.P.'s), Mr. Sampson Samuel, Lord Rothschild, and others assisted in these efforts. Except for concessions in regard to "kosher" diet in workhouses, and the admission of separate utensils for cooking the kosher meat, which the Guardians undertook to purchase, the result of years of efforts of the Jewish Board of Guardians to secure for the Jews a share in the benefits of the poor rates to which they contributed is not very noticeable, and it would seem that the Jews in England must themselves mainly bear the burden of Jewish refugees from the Continent. Constant watchfulness is used by the Board over all legislative proposals likely to affect the Jewish poor.

According to Mr. Joseph Jacobs, it appears that of all marriages between English Jews $7\frac{1}{2}$ per cent. are between first cousins—a proportion five times as great as that of other inhabitants of London. The assertion is often made, and as often denied, that Jews suffer more from deaf-mutism, idiocy, etc., than other people owing to the frequency of consanguineous marriages. Mr. Jacobs proves that many marriages which seem to be between cousins—the name being the same—are really not so; the fact of the name being the same

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Jews. He states it is the fashion among English Jews to remedy this paucity of surnames by adopting others of similar initial, e.g. Montmorency for Moses. Doubtless consanguineous marriages are more frequent among Jews in England than on the Continent. Mr. Jacobs says: "Probably 7½ per cent., and certainly 6 per cent., of all marriages between native English Jews are between first cousins; and nearly one-tenth of all English Jews are the offspring of consanguineous marriages."

Cambridge and Oxford have both Hebrew congregations and synagogues. Jewish life at the Universities reveals nothing of the Ghetto. Jewish students do not form an isolated community; they are not restricted to one House or College, but are scattered all over the University. As it is by its social life—for which Oxford and Cambridge are admittedly unique—that the schoolboy may be turned into a man of culture, it will be seen how advantageous this is for the Jew, who has been for so long restricted within narrow grooves. There is always the danger of his being drawn away from his faith. At Cambridge Jewish religious services are held regularly, for the most part by students

themselves, for there is no regular minister. At Oxford, on the other hand, there is practically no Jewish life. When a general meeting of the congregation is called, often only two members respond.

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General, and became Lord Chief Justice. Mr. Herbert Samuel became President of the Local Government Board. Mr. Montagu became Secretary to the Treasury. Several professing Jews have been raised to the peerage; several have been sworn of the Privy Council; and a number created baronets. The Council of India and the higher branches of the Civil Service at home and in India have their Jewish members. Sir Matthew Nathan has been entrusted with two Colonial Governorships.

CHAPTER VII

THE JEWS IN THE BRITISH DOMINIONS

In every part of the British Dominions the Jews have full citizenship. The Colonies gave them emancipation earlier than the Mother Country; indeed, since 1832 Jews have been able to sit in the Canadian Parliament. From the first Jews received equality in Australia.

The outrages on the Jews in eastern Europe, from 1881 onwards, caused an influx into Canada of Russian, Rumanian, Galician, and other Jewish immigrants who not only swelled the communities already established, but formed new settlements throughout the Dominion. Agricultural colonies were established at Assiniboia, Hirsch, Oxbow, Wapella, and elsewhere, mainly through the generosity of Baron Hirsch, who also largely subsidised them. A Jewish minister who recently visited these settlements speaks hopefully of their future. He says there are about 130,000 acres in process of cultivation under the direct supervision of the Jewish Colonisation

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Association, and having a population of close upon 3,500. In his opinion, the Jewish immigrant cannot fail to succeed if he will only work at first under an experienced farmer and familiarise himself with the conditions in the country.

On the whole, the Jews in Canada are fairly prosperous. Some are making money and working up for themselves positions of importance. Besides the leading cities already mentioned, there are Jews in Berlin (Ontario),

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Belleville, Brantford, Calgary (Alberta), Chatham (New Brunswick), London, Magnetowan (Ontario), Ottawa, Quebec, Regina (Saskatchewan), St. Catherine's, St. John, Sydney, Sherbrooke, Vancouver, Woodstock, Salt River (New Brunswick), Yarmouth, and Yorktown. The Jew is swiftly increasing his influence in Canada.

marked during the last five years that very soon it will be the third largest community in the Commonwealth.

When gold was first discovered at Coolgardie, in 1896, there was such an influx of Jews that their numbers and means together permitted the building of a synagogue; but subsequently the community thinned down so that it found itself unable to continue paying the debt on the building, which has now been sold to a Masonic body.

In all the leading cities the Jews are taking a prominent part in civic life. Jews have been mayors of nearly all the capital cities, and many of them occupy the important position of magistrate. In Victoria two leading industries, coal and the cultivation of beet for the production of spirits and sugar, owe much of their development to the untiring efforts of a prominent Hebrew of that State. A relative of the Montefiore family played a prominent part in the foundation of the State of South Australia, and also served in the Legislative Assembly. The Adelaide Chamber of Commerce has been presided over by a member of the race. A Jew of this State had the distinction of being Premier for a short period. Melbourne has a Jewish paper, as

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has also Sydney. The towns of Karridale and Boyanup, in Western Australia, owe their existence to the enterprise and energy of a Jewish lumber merchant. Generally speaking, the Jewish population of the Commonwealth consists mostly of immigrants. It is found that 79.7 per cent. of all the Jews in New South Wales live in the city of Sydney; 60 per cent. of all the Jews in South Australia live in Adelaide; and 57.5 per cent. of the Jews in Queensland live in Brisbane.

About 1870, when gold was discovered in the Otago district, the Jews made their appearance in New Zealand. Although this initial immigration has never been very largely followed up, the early settlers of the race have been powerful in helping to shape the destiny of the islands. Many of them have presided over Chamber of Commerce meetings; and it was principally due to the vigorous policy of public works followed by a prominent Jew, who was Premier for some time and subsequently Agent-General in England, that the North Island was opened up. The Jews have supplied much of the impetus which has developed commercial enterprise in this dominion. They are active in journalism, and several Jews own and edit newspapers. In the war with the Maoris a number

fought in the British ranks; and it was a member of the Hebrew race who offered to sustain half the cost of a battleship to be presented to the Mother Country.

It has been assumed by some critics of Jewish dominance in the mining industries of South Africa, that the Semitic race only made its appearance on the scene at the period of the boom that set in after the discovery of gold and diamonds. The assumption is far from the truth. The directors of the Dutch East India Company, who for one hundred and fifty years were responsible for the administration of affairs in the Colony at the Cape of Good Hope, included Jews among their number.

The industrial awakening of the whole interior of Cape Colony can be traced to the assiduity of those early Jewish pioneers who landed on South African shores in the early part of the nineteenth century. Many industries bear witness to this, but more especially the trade in hides, wool, mohair, and merino which has had so much to do with the prosperity of the Cape in recent times. A leading firm of Jewish brothers, by fostering the cultivation of the Persian goat, built up a business in wool and mohair, with ramifications all over the world, from which many

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