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.]

The belief that Roumania’s new premier, M. Averescu, is a tool in the hands of his predecessor in office, Bratianu, under whose regime occurred numerous anti-Jewish excesses, and that there is a possibility of Bratianu’s continuing to control the country, is voiced by the “Nation” of New York. Writing editorially in the April 14 issue, the “Nation” observes:

“Instead of calling a representative of either important opposition party, the Nationalist or the Peasant, he (the King) has chosen as Premier M. Averescu, who is regarded as Bratianu’s tool and whose little People’s Party has only five seats in the present Parliament. Upon Averescu falls the task of holding elections within the next two months. With a new electoral law and a camouflage cabinet to work through, Bratianu has some reason for confidence. He may swing the elections and come back into power with an apparent majority. He may continue to control cabinet and king, banks and business, and to wreak his will on the country–until the inevitable crash comes. For Roumania’s money under the Bratianu dictatorship has dropped to one-fiftieth of its original gold value; the national minorities and the peasants are in a state of violent ferment; the dynasty is unpopular; and the opposition, composed of the Bessarabian Peasants’ Party and the Transylvanian Nationalists, holds a majority in the present Parliament. The next months may witness something more violent in Roumania than royal abdications and court intrigues.”

A more hopeful view of the situation, in so far as it touches the Jews, is taken by the “Jewish Morning Journal” (April 12) in an editorial dealing with the policy of Premier Skrzynski in Poland and the policy which Premier Averescu of Roumania has announced he intends to pursue.

“Skrzynski may follow a better path than that taken by Grabski or Witos, and Averescu has the opportunity to free himself of the Bratianu tradition. For the beginning it is good that neither Skrzynski nor Averescu is going back to the old policy; and a friendlier attitude to the Jews will result in such general improvement for Poland and Roumania that it will be impossible to retreat to the former attitude or even to remain at the present development,” the paper observes.

AMERICA’S CONTRIBUTION TO PALESTINE

That the support of Palestine reconstruction by Americans constitutes at once the most practical and most idealistic American contribution to foreign lands, is the opinion of H. V. Kallenborn, associate editor of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle,” who writes in the current issue of the “Century Magazine” on America’s Place in the World.

“American Jews are happy in America, and few of them are willing to exchange the manifold opportunities they have for the hard manual labor and communal living that await them in a Zionist settlement. But they are willing to provide the money needed to help their less fortunate brethren. American companies have been organized to purchase land, build houses, create settlements; and some of these are paying interest on their investments. Of all the movements which Americans are sponsoring in foreign lands none has a more practical and at the same time a more appealing aspect that the transformation of the arid hills of Judea into flourishing agricultural settlements by those who look upon bleak Palestine as the promised land.”

DECLINING ROLE OF IMMIGRATION IN U. S. POPULATION GROWTH

Immigration accounted for but one-sixth of the total increase in the population of the United States during 1925, we learn from the National Bureau of Economic Research, whose figures the “Literary Digest” quotes as follows:

“The total population gain in 1925 was slightly larger than the average for the last seventeen years, but materially less than that of 1923, when the large amount of immigration contributed to a population increase of 1,996,000, as in 1909, when, for the same cause the population growth ran up to 2,173,000.

“During the last year immigration played but a minor role in the population growth of the country, accounting for less than one-sixth of the total increase, the excess of births over deaths adding 1,367,000 persons, while immigration accounted for but 262,000 new inhabitants.”

THE KLAN’S NEW STRATEGY

Speculation on the possible consequences in the change of tactics by the Klan which has shifted the burden of its war from an attack on the Jews, Catholics and Negroes to an attack on Evolution, is contained in the “By-Products” column of the New York “Times” of April 11, wherein we read:

“The Klan, presumably, does not go in for refined analysis, nor does it waste much time over water that has flowed under the bridge. Otherwise it might stop to reflect on the possible consequences of its new strategy in shifting the war from an attack on Catholics, Jews and Negroes to an attack on Evolution. The evolutionary theory allows for decadence as well as progress. By accepting Evolution wholeheartedly any Kleagle or Wizard would have no difficulty in proving that all men were originally perfect, but that in the course of time a considerable portion of them degenerated in the direction of Rome, the synagogue and the colored chapel. On the other hand, in denying the operations of the law of change, the Klan is in danger of admitting that Romanists, Jews and citizens of African descent are the result of original creation. It thus concedes them a status and prestige which the earlier Klan philosophy refused to acknowledge.”