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.]

Only the Scopes trial will compare in interest with the Sapiro-Ford trial which has opened in Detroit, declares the N. Y. “Telegram”, in an editorial of yesterday. The paper also dwells on the implications of Senator Reed’s role as Ford’s chief counsel. We read in part:

“The heat lightning of racial and religions prejudice is likely to play out of the Detroit court room. And when you stir up race and religion you stir most people. From this standpoint alone only the Scopes trial should compare in interest with this case.

“Another item is the presence of Senator J. A. Reed, of Missouri, as chief counsel for Ford. Since he took the job he has become one of the best known of Americans and a candidate for President. He may have anticipated neither eventuality when he took the job. Will his entrance in this whirlpool of prejudice help or hurt him politically?

“The interesting point on which the trial will turn for most of our millions, however, is the personality of Ford himself. This manufacturer with the idealistic impulses, this Midas with the ascetic face, is probably the best known man in the world, with the possible exception of Charles Chaplin, who made the world laugh while Ford was putting it on wheels.

“Ford’s queer streaks of prejudice and intolerance, the impossible idealism which resulted in the famous peace ship fiasco, have counted little with a country which likes and trusts him and remains immensely interested in him as an industrial, if not a social, genius.

“What effect will it have if he should come out of this case convicted in the public mind of unfairness and cruelty to a whole race? What will be the effect if he wins?”

The conviction that Sapiro’s libel suit against Ford is of concern to the Jews in a similar way as the Beilis case was in its time, is expressed in the “Jewish Morning Journal” by I. Magidov, who observes:

“The Sapiro case is not a personal issue between Sapiro and Henry Ford, but a case which concerns all Jews, just as the Beilis case concerned as Beilis was accused of using Christian blood but the accusation did not state that he was a vampire that thirsted for human blood; the accusation stated that he sought Christian blood because it was the dictate of the Jewish law. In the same way Ford is charging not that Sapiro sought to gain control of the food supplies of the world, but that he was commissioned to do so by the international Jewish money power. Such an accusation cannot be ignored by the Jews.”

The “Forward” expresses doubt whether the Jews will gain from the trial, even if the outcome should be favorable for Sapiro. Says the paper:

“No doubt Ford will defend himself through technical tricks. He has clever lawyers, his influence is great and he is popular among the masses. It is difficult to imagine any jury or judge issuing a verdict against Ford, branding him as a libeler and liar. Any other verdict will be worthless.

“We doubt whether the evidence against Ford will get one-tenth of the publicity that will be given to the evidence for Ford. The reason is simple: the evidence against Ford will be quiet, not sensational, and it will bear the character of defense, whereas Ford’s ‘proofs’ will have the character of an attack. The impression will be made that Ford is fighting for the interests of the masses, that he seeks to protect them against a group of dangerous robbers. These sensational charges of his will be received by the press with greater interest than the facts marshalled against him.”

DISCUSSES HARPER’S ARTICLE “WHY EUROPE DISLIKES THE JEW”

The article in “Harper’s Magazine” on “Why Europe Dislikes the Jew,” by Joseph Bard, is commented on in the “Day” of March 13 by Dr. A. Coralnik Dwelling on the assertions of the so-called intellectual anti-Semites of Germany and France that the Jews are a purely rationalistic people lacking in the creative, artistic qualities of the Christian peoples. Dr. Coralnik says:

“Anti-Jewish? No. that is something for a country like Hungary, but for a Berlin or Parisian intellectual that is a bit too strong. He does not want pogroms; he does not believe that the Jews art the only capitalists or the only communists in the world; he laughs at the ‘protocols’ and at the theory of a ‘Jewish conspiracy.’

“But still–he dislikes the Jew, and answers the question as Joseph Bard does in ‘Why Europe Dislikes the Jew’ in ‘Harper’s,’ with a new motive. Note this: he does not speak of Jew hatred, he does not ask for restrictive laws against the Jews; he merely wants a sort of intellectual or social ghetto, that is, he does not want it, but, he says, the European nations want it and are gradually enforcing their will in this matter.

“Jews, he contends, are different than the Gentiles. The Gentiles are more complex, the Jews simpler: the Gentiles are suffering, struggling, wrestling with world problems; they are constantly driven on by a religious, artistic urge, they long, they yearn, they strive. Jews, however, have reached the end of their searching, have solved all problems, they have no further quest; they have a different, an ancient approach to the world and its problems. The Christians have an atmosphere, the Jews merely a logical machine.

“Perhaps,” Dr. Coralnik continues, “there is a kernel of truth in this contention, only the problem is falsely postulated. The question is not one of different approaches but of age. It is a question of being mature or immature. The tragedy of the Jew, as a cultural unit, is that he is always older than his environment. Take, for example, Russian Jewry: what an old man the Jew is in comparison with the Russian! What the Jew has forgotten the Russian has not yet learned and what is a discovery to the Russian is an A B C truth to the Jew.”

Thus, we are told further, when with the eastern advance of Catholicism and western culture, the Russians “discovered” suddenly “the Christian mysticism,” it assumed in their minds a barbarian, childish, fantastic form. They became conceited and said: “We Russians have discovered the profound truths, while you Jews are irreligious, you are Bolsheviks, you are rationalists–and we dislike you.”

Likewise in Germany, Dr. Coralnik points out. The Germans are the most rationalistic people in the world, and Christianity, created by the Jew, is in reality a strange product to them. Yet they charge the Jews with being too rationalistic.

“You may twist the ‘anti-‘ whichever way you will,” we read in conclusion, “give it one interpretation or another–it is an old story to us. And we do not become excited. Sometimes it hurts, we will not deny; but the pain is mingled with a feeling of pity–pity for them.”

COMMUNICATION TO THE EDITOR

Sir:

In your “Digest of Public Opinion our Jewish Matters” in your issue of March 1, we note that you refer to the article. “Why Europe Dislikes the Jew,” in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine as “Harper’s anti-Semitic article” and that you give space to an editorial from the Jewish Daily News which refers to the article as consisting of “vulgaridiotic charges” and states that “Harper’s Magazine does not even have the courage which others have shown of frankly admitting its anti-Semitism.”

Will you permit us to point out that Mr. Bard, the author of the article in question, is himself a Jew, that the article does not justify but attempts to analyze the causes of anti-Semitism in Europe, and that if your quotations had included other passages from this article than those chosen for comment, it would have been clear–an it must, we believe, be clear to any impartial reader–that the article was not intended to be and is not, in fact, anti-Semitic? It would be just as fair to claim that the paper in our preceding issue by Albert Jay Mock, which analyzed the reason for the present anti-American feeling in Europe, was a peace of anti-American propaganda. We wish that your subscribers might read Mr. Bard’s article is full and make there own decisions as to its of views, we were confident that they will appreciate its complete lack of anti-Semitic bias. Needless to say, Harper’s Magazine has no sympathy with anti-Semitism.

THE EDITORS Harper’s Magazine New York, March 4, 1007.

Morris Eller, father of Judge Hmanned Eller, of the Chicago Superior Court, was named Superintendent of Banks for Cook country by Country Treasurer George H. Harding.