Digest of Public Opinion on Jewish Matters

[The purpose of the Digest is informative. Preference is given to papers not generally accessible to our readers. Quotation does not indicate approval.-Editor.]

Objection to the proposal to remove graves from the Cypress Hills and Mt. Carmel cemeteries in order to make room for an automobile road is voiced by “The Day” of yesterday, in an editorial commenting on the hearings on this subject before the Board of Estimates. Aside from the practical side of the question, the matter involves the honor of the dead, the paper points out, observing:

“It is not only a Jewish question. Many of the graves are not Jewish, but every civilized person respects the final resting place of the dead regardless of their origin. Jews who have suffered so much from vandalism perpetrated in their cemeteries in Eastern Europe will be the first to express their protest against desecration of any cemetery, whether it contains Jews or non-Jews, so long as it is a general civic question such as this one is.

“It would be a good example if precisely New York would show its respect to the human being; the city which kills three persons daily in order that the automobiles may run faster, the city which shows so little regard for the living should show some respect for the dead.”

DR. PAUL NATHAN URGES LEAGUE INTERVENTION AGAINST ROUMANIAN EXCESSES

Intervention by the League and refusal on the part of all civilized governments to make loans to Roumania are urged, as a means of putting an end to Roumania’s anti-Jewish policy, by Dr. Paul Nathan, noted leader of German Jewry. Writing in the “C. V. Zeitung” of Berlin, organ of the Central Verein der Deutschen Juden, Dr. Nathan declares:

“It is certain that the very possibility of intervention by the League would sober and frighten the Roumanian politicians. The prospect of being ordered publicly by the representative body of the civilized Powers to maintain peace and observe the rules of civilization is not pleasant. In respect to barbaric governments Geneva is the whip behind the mirror, and this whip does not fulfill its function if it is not taken down and put into action when necessary.

“In addition to this another very effective method can be used. Roumania is a state ruled by a caste whose financial needs are chronic and very urgent. This Roumania with its barbarous rulers is at this very time knocking at the doors of foreign treasuries asking for a large loan. She is being refused, in view of the general condition of the money market: these refusals should be continued in view of the political situation in Roumania. A country whose government favors the students who perpetrate excesses against a part of the population, a country which continues to be burdened by a still unsolved agrarian problem, does not deserve financial credit: questions of finance and of humanity are not identical, but without mothern humanity in a State there can be no permanent stability and without stability there can be no financial security To give such a State millions of dollars means to support barbariam and a barbaric government, while endangering the capital invested. A State which allows its peasantry to retain in a pitiable condition and which oppresses its Jews. allowing them to be pluralered and beaten, its still in a phase of development which makes it impossible to place faith in it and to invest millions of dollars in it.

“If the public opinion of the civilized world desires it, it can bring about an improvement and accomplish a work of political education in Roumania. For States in which the life and property of the inhabitants are not safeguarded the rule should be Not one cent, on the basis of financial wisdom and of humanitarian considerations.”