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 indicate approval.–Editor.]

Count Cherep-Spiridovich, author of the recently published anti-Semitic book “The Secret World Government,” who is now resident in New York, is planning to become Emperor of an all Slav consolidation, to include Russia, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia and Bulgaria, the New York “World” of June 28 informs its readers.

In this enterprise, the paper reveals, the Count is having the financial backing of some Americans, chiefly Mrs. Harriet Jean Beauley and H. Victor Von Broens-Trupp. The general has established his headquarters at Mrs. Beauley’s manor at Arrochar, Staten Island, in the old Barrett Manor, which he has renamed Slav Palace. Quoting a “proclamation” by Cherep-Spiridovich despatched to the Slavs throughout Europe, informing them that he is convoking an all-Slav convention in New York on October 20, the “World” traces the Count’s activities since 1890 and remarks:

“Count Cherep – Spiridovich went everywhere and talked politics with everyone. And at critical moments during the last twenty-five years of European affairs, when Foreign Ministers held there breaths the Count supplied the press of Europe with explanations and predictions. He claimed at one time to have postponed the World War ten years by intervening at a tense moment.

“In 1907 a man arrived here wearing a magnificent uniform with the glittering epaulets of a General, a sash from shoulder to hip and more stars, crosses, medals and decorations — principally Balkan — than ever seen in the United States before.

“According to the records,” the “World” further explains, “he came here in 1920, and then was taken to Ellis Island for a special inquiry by the Immigration Bureau before being admitted. There was some confusion as to his identity, for the visiting General was denounced in a published letter as the wrong Cherep-Spiridovich. The letter said there were two Cherep-Spiridoviches–one was an enthusiastic amateur of world politics, the other an adventurer who traded on the amateur’s name and tried to float large political schemes involving the collecting of money.

“Yesterday at Arrochar the present General was asked about the two Cherep-Spiridoviches. He said the adventurous one was now in Paris and occassionally caused embarrassing confusion.

“Arthur Cherep-Spiridovich of Arrochar yesterday looked at the reporter for the World with unwavering eye and declared he was the man who warned King Alexander of Serbia and Queen Draga in 1902, six months before they were assassinated; who warned the Grand Duke Sergius in Moscow in 1904, several months before he was blown to pieces; who was responsible in 1908 for the war of liberation which freed Roumania, Bulgaria and Serbia from the Turks, who foresaw the last World War and now foresees the next.

” ‘Four Emperors who opposed me in 1912 do not exist today,’ he said. ‘If the Kaiser had known what I knew he would not have entered the war.’ “

PROFESSOR LESSING OF HANOVER SEES ZIONISM AS ONLY SOLUTION TO JEWISH PROBLEM

The opinion that the solution of the Jewish problem lies between Assimilation and Zionism, is expressed by Prof. Theodore Lessing, who was the object of the recent sensational anti-Semitic demonstrations of the students in the Technical College of Hanover, Germany, where Herr Lessing is a Professor.

Writing in the “Juedische Zeitung” (June 11th issue) of Breslau, Prof. Lessing says in part:

“What road remains open to the Jews? There are only two: either to take up a mission of mediation between the peoples, or, in a world where every people and every group says “I”, to learn equally to say with quiet pride, “I”. The role of middle-man, from world religion and world socialism down to technical communication and philology, theatrical literature, chess-playing and horse-dealing, that means to be condemned to a kind of “Luftmensch” existence. The other way, the conservative way, satisfies the natural instincts and leads back to the Old Homeland in Asia which has never completely gone from the blood of the Jew. For the Jewish masses there can only be a choice between these two possibilities–a home nowhere except in the spiritual, or else to emigrate from all the States where one is only tolerated, a guest–prejudice and inferiority ideas. It may be said that it is so; it may be a disgrace to the humanity of Europe, but we will not hide the truth. We have nothing to look for in the corps of officers, in the student corporations and sports groups, which do not accept our membership as an honour. We force ourselves on no-one and where we are not welcome we hold back. The history of Spain has shown that a people may deprive itself of its noblest citizens when it rids itself of its Jews. The history of the Jews of Germany for two hundred years past has been the history of giving of fabulous energies for alien purposes and alien aims. If all this labour of love has been in vain and a man of Jewish blood, whatever he may do in his work and his life, remains in a magic circle of exclusion, then the only sound and natural reaction should be for him to turn away, irrespective of whether practical Zionism will be victorious or whether it is the last tragic achievement of a people doomed to destruction. The decision for or against Zionism should not, therefore, have to be made dependent on whether within the future a wholly or only a semi-in-dependent Jew-governed Palestine is feasible.”