Between the Lines

The new constitution adopted last Saturday by the Polish Parliament is a final blow to Jewish rights in Poland.

With the national minority treaties being renounced unilaterally by the Polish government, the present change in the constitution deprives the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland of the only opportunity left them of bringing their plight to the attention of the world. Deprived of parliamentary representation they will now no longer have the opportunity to voice their grievances from the platform of the Polish parliament as done hitherto.

SIDING WITH DR. THON

American Jewry will therefore be fully on the side of Dr. Thon, president of the Jewish Parliamentary Club, who urged that all Jewish members of the Polish Parliament vote against the new constitution as protest against depriving the Jews of their parliamentary representation. Only such a protest could sufficiently emphasize the fact that the Jewish population—a tenth of the entire population of Poland—has been stricken dumb with one stroke of a pen.

It is scarcely credible that those Jewish deputies who preferred not to vote against the new constitution and contented themselves with abstaining from voting, have done so only in the hope that some way could be found whereby the Jews might still be represented in the Polish parliament under the new constitution. Such optimistic feelings are no longer entertained in Poland even by people who have less political experience than the Jewish parliamentarians.

THE JEWISH ‘YES’-MEN

It is therefore difficult to justify the action of those Jewish deputies who at the last moment reversed their decision to demonstrate against the new attack on Jewish rights by voting against the constitution. Should there eventually be one or two Jewish representatives in the Polish parliament, they will be seated, under the new constitution, not as representatives of the Jewish population but as members of the government party, who are only incidentally Jewish.

The difference between being elected as a representative of the Jewish population on a Jewish ticket and being elected on a government ticket merely as a Jewish member of the government party is self evident. The Jew elected on the government list will always be responsible to the government party and not to the 3,000,000 Jewish inhabitants. In casting his vote in the parliament he will always have to say “Yes” to every government proposal even though this proposal may be against the interest of the Jewish population. Certainly such a Jewish deputy will not dare to complain from the parliamentary tribune against the many discriminations being practiced against the Jews in Poland and which are ruining their economic existence.

JEWS LEFT TO MERCY

The result of all this is that the 3,000,000 Jews in Poland will now no longer have any spokesman to voice their sorrow and present their demands. They will now be left entirely to the mercy of the Polish government without even being able publicly to complain of the mistreatment to which they are subjected.

It is perhaps true that the new constitution, giving more dictatorial powers to the president, is also a blow to the anti-Semitic National Democratic party. With the Polish parliament now becoming a mere rubber stamp existing solely to approve any action taken by the party of Marshal Pilsudski, much could be done to hamper the National Democratic party in its anti-Jewish activities. The question is, however, whether anything will be done in this respect. Experience has shown that no matter how the government party wishes to weaken the influence of the National Democratic party, it has never attempted—for this or the other reason—to combat the National Democrats in their anti-Jewish propaganda. On the contrary, in the field of Jew-baiting, the National Democrats were always given a free hand.

PAST RIGHTS ANNULLED

The new constitution in Poland is a death sentence to the Democratic parliamentary system of the country. It spells nothing but a dictatorship. It bestows upon the president almost monarchical powers. As for the Jews, the new constitution marks open robbery of their last political rights, even though these rights were never enjoyed by them more than on paper.