Nazi Cruelty to Jews Moves Edwin Markham to Protest

“Let there be thunders in the world; let be

A protest that will shake the ruler’s knee.

Let there be protest till the happy hour

When Justice shall unclothe her arm of power.”

Thus does Edwin Markham, author of “The Man With the Hoe” speak out, moved by the persecution of the Jews in Germany and by the need for reminding the American people of their traditions of freedom and brotherhood in the face of the oppression abroad.

The venerable eighty-two-year-old poet, regarded as “America’s uncrowned poet laureate,” has just completed a poem, “A Cry for Brotherhood: A Protest Against Hitler’s Persecution of the Jews,” which was released to the press yesterday through the American Jewish Committee.

The poem is reproduced in full on another page of today’s Bulletin. It describes the racial heritage of the Jews, from the time they “came from old night with Asia in their blood” through all the years the people were in bondage, when “Tyre heard their dirge and Babylon their moan.” Then a comparison is made between the oppression of old and the modern oppression in Nazi Germany, where “we see again the old hard hand laid on these women and men.”

SINGS OF THE BIBLE

The poet then recounts the cultural tradition of the Jews and sings of the Bible, of Moses, “who stood once in the holy place and gazed upon Jehovah, face to face,” of the Decalogue, and of all the other great figures in Jewish history: Isaiah, “whose voice was like the thunder of the sea,” David, Maimonides, and Spinoza. “Yes,” the poet continues, “from the trembling lips of many a seer the whole world has heard, and still can hear, the Psalms, the Torah, and the Talmud speak protection for the plundered and the weak.”

Finally, in a thundering peroration, Markham demands a vigorous protest from all civilized people:

“Protest this cruel wrong

In thunders of the sermon and the song.

Let cries go forth in shrill tempestuous note!

As if they rose from Tempest’s roaring throat.”

And he continues with a demand for universal brotherhood, for a cry for universal understanding that shall “be heard on earth and under every sky!”

Edwin Markham, who was born in Oregon on April 23. 1852, is best known for his poem, “The Man With the Hoe,” written in 1889, which received world-wide attention, being hailed as “the battle-cry of the next thousand years.” He also is known for his poem, “Lincoln, the Man of the People,” as well as for his many volumes of verse and his lectures.