Price Was Too High National Democratic Organ Says: Polish Ambassador in America Promised Too Much in

We might have expected that the abolition of the Czarist restrictions would not be very much to the liking of the National Democrats, “Emanuel” (Mr. Joseph Heftman) who used to be the editor of the Hebrew daily “Hayom” here writes to-day in the Yiddish daily “Moment”.

Not, he says, because it would have made things any easier for the Jewish citizen. They know very well that actually the abolition of the restrictions will not improve matters. But what they are afraid of is that it may mean the Government’s repudiation of official antisemitism, and that the Government may follow it up by attempting to carry into effect a certain equalisation of status of the Jewish citizens in Poland.

Here is their paper, “Gazeta Warszawska”, “Emanuel” proceeds, publishing an article headed “Too Big A Price”, in which the author tries to show that Jewish world opinion is more favourably disposed towards Poland now because of the pledges which the Polish Ambassador in the United States gave the American Jews recently that the Polish Government will set aside the Polysian swamps for Jewish colonisation. Thanks to world Jewry’s more friendly feeling towards Poland, the “Gazeta” says, the League of Nations, too, was more friendly at its last Council meeting in the matter of the Polish-German conflict.

So the Polish Ambassador’s pledges helped Polish diplomacy in Geneva, “Emanuel” comments. The National Democratic writer is quite clear about it in his own mind. An improvement in the attitude of world Jewry must be worth something if it can influence Geneva. That is all very true, the antisemitic paper admits, but the price is too high. The Polysian swamps must not be given up in return for Jewish sympathies. It is better to let the swamps rot in the sun, rather than that they should be drained and colonised by Jews,

If we look into the Jewish colonisation plans, the “Gazets Warszawska” proceeds, if we consider the failures of Jowish colonisation in Palestine, and we realise furthermore that in the matter of the colonisation of Polysia we are approaching the stage of territorial and strategic problems, we shall have to recognise that the Polish Government has gone very far, indeed, in promising certain things through its Ambassador which have a far greater value for Jews than antisemitic sentiments, more or less.

In other words, “Emanuel” says, even the National Democrats would seem to have no objection to a little lessening of antisemitic feeling in the country. But they cannot stand the thought of an actual improvement being effected in the Jewish question. The draining of the Polysian swamps appears to them to be something real and concrete, which might actually improve the condition of Polish Jews, and that must not be allowed.

We Jews, he concludes, do not regard the Polysian swamps as such a real and concrete affair, that Polish Jews can look to it for any big fortunes. The history of the Polysian swamps is very reminiscent of the story of the Bluebird, or some other tale for children and believers. We are very much surprised by this polysian business being constantly brought up somewhere abroad, while here on the spot, we have our everyday questions, much smaller in scope, which urgently call for immediate action. We have the question of the Jewish school system, of compulsory Sunday closing, of the Jewish right to work in State and municipal institutions, and lots more of the same kind. But the whole situation is very characteristic of the state of public feeling in Poland with regard to our status and our demands. And in this regard the stand taken by the National Democrats is very illuminating.