Daily 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.]

A vicious attack against “Russian and other Slavic Jews” because they consider this country a democracy, appeared in an editorial article in the “Manufacturers Record” of Baltimore.

This publication, which styles itself “Exponent of America,” aroused because of the movement in New York City College led by Dr. Morris Cohen against the compulsory course in military training, takes occasion to call the government in Russia “Jewish” and to ascribe to it the movement against compulsory military training in American colleges. It also insults the aliens generally declaring that “few of them ever become Americanized” and “just being born in America does not convert the alien soul.”

But to quote the “Manufacturers Record”:

“So far as our experience of Russian Jews has gone in America, they are frequently out of sympathy with our institutions. They are inclined to read into our institutions a spirit that is utterly distinct from the spirit that was breathed into it by he Fathers of ’76. They do not understand that this is not and never was meant to be a democracy. It was neither that nor a federation. It was, and ought still to be, a republic. That it is drifting toward the rocks of radical democracy is due entirely to the propaganda and influence of aliens, and among such aliens none has been more destructive of the true spirit of our institutions than Russian and other Slavic Jews.

“Just now all Slavic Jews seem bent upon forcing us into association with the nations of Europe, and it is well known that Moscow has been financing a propaganda for driving us into the League of Nations. The reason for this will appear from the fact that such a relationship will tend to “internationalize” us, and to “internationalize” us is to destroy that patriotism which makes a people conservative, strong and difficult to conquer.

“The spirit of that Jewish government that is Soviet Russia today is not only anti-Christian but anti-religious. It is atheistic. The training of our young men to understand military discipline so as to be able to train soldiers and direct them for the defense of the country is directly opposed to the interests of this military Jewish government in Moscow.”

After this assertion about “this military Jewish government in Moscow,” the paper attributes Dr. Cohen’s anti-militaristic activities to the fact that he is a Russian Jew. Quoting one of his statements, the “Manufacturers Record” continues:

“These are not the words of an American. They are the words of a man born in Minsk, Russia, who never has learned to think as an American. He is an alien, even though he be naturalized. Few aliens ever become Americanized; they continue to think as foreigners.

“New York city largely has a foreign soul, as everyone knows. We have been trying for some decades to Americanize New York and several other foci of alien thought in this country, and it has been nearly a hopeless task. Just being born in America does not convert the alien soul. In such a city as New York, if the instruction of the young is not in the hands of simon-pure Americans, the on-coming generations absorb such ideas as those promulgated by Morris Raphael Cohen, son of Abraham Mordecai Cohen, emigrants from Minsk”.