R. D. B. Speaks

For thirty years Editor-in-chief of the Daily Express in London, England’s most celebrated journalist and chairman of the Board of Directors of the London Daily Express

Several months ago, while I was in the United States, I wrote in the Jewish Daily Bulletin expressing surprise at the discovery on my part of so large a Jewish population in New York. I also expressed surprise that so enormous a number of people, comprising as near as possible two-thirds of the population of the American metropolis, was not organized, among other things, for its own protection.

I wrote that article on the Twentieth Century Limited between New York and Chicago and was then impressed by the remarks of the train stenographer who took down the article.

He said: “Isn’t it funny that this immense number of Jews should not be organized? I am of Irish descent and I have, I suppose, an Irishman’s inherited preference for human organization. Imagine what we Irish could do in New York with a solid mass of two million of our people behind us.”

I reminded this amiable stenographer of the fact that the Irish of New York, with far fewer numbers than the Jews, have done pretty well in the matter of helping themselves. Also, I pointed out that it was neither the desire of the Jews nor their genius to be political masters of any community, at which he gave, even in the train, a most audible sigh.

What I had in mind. I told him, and I repeat it now, was the hope that someone with energy, initiative and organizing ability would weld some sort of Jewish organization out of this amazingly loose material lying ready at hand, for the mere purpose of proving that Jews should no longer be used as mats to be trampled with impunity.

There are hundreds of legitimate uses to which such an organiation could be put and it is unnecessary for me to point them out.

I remember that in that article I suggested that Jews in all parts of the country should write Jacob Landau, head of the Jewish Daily Balletin, to see how the scheme could be forwarded.

A few days befoe I sailed, I had the good fortune to be present at a meeting of a dozen or more of the most important Jews in New York, and therefore, in all Jewry. I was much impressed with their earnestness, their desire to do all in their power to aid the oppressed Jews of Germany, or wherever they may be oppressed, and I felt that with a ringing leadership something important and effective could be accomplished with these men behind.

This is not to imply that American Jewry through its representatives is not doing valuable work. Indeed, I know from personal experience how generously and earnestly the work of assistance has been performed by individuals and organizations, yet I feel the rank and file ought also to do their part and that can only be achieved with organization.

I think, as America is now the greatest Jewish country in the world in the matter of population, no effort should be spared in keeping the masses fully informed of what is going on. That is important.

Incidentally, while I was on my tour I came in contact here and there with Jewish communities and I was much struck by the sincerity and anxiety on the part of local leaders on all questions affecting Jewry. Since my return to England, I have been taken to task by several American ladies, workers in the the cause, for certain derelictions on my part. I spoke in Pittsburgh to an audience in which there were perhaps only a small fraction of Jews. I traced the history of this latest German outburst of anti-Semitism and said that in my mind it was largely economic. Also, that some of the Jews who had come to Germany from the East after the War were not of the best types. I said also, in recalling the activities of some of these people who are known as “schiebers” or profiteers, that I had little sympathy for them myself and then I was mistakenly understood to have “supported the brutal, inhumane treatment of my own people” before an audience largely non-Jewish.

Well I do not quite recall my words. I spoke without notes. I think I said: “When I saw some of these people at work I would not have minded doing a little pogrom of my own.” If that is taken to mean that I am supporting the Hitler program and any other program involving personal brutality, then I must offer my regrets at my inability to express myself in sound English. I did not, of course, mean that. I might have been more circumspect in my language.

I repeat that to me the “schieber” is a reprehensible person, be he Mohammedan, Christian, Hindu or Jew, and I have no sympathy for him. It is unfortunate that the Germans could seize on this gang and point to them as being representative Jews, which they are not. The Jews in Germany are too well placed in respect to the outside world to be classed with those undesirable. On my part, I am not repentant at having said that anti-Semitism in Germany received its recent flare-up largely owing to economic reasons and I am not yet prepared to say that all Jews are angels anymore than that all Christians are saints. Let us look the facts in the face. Which brings me to the end of my statement with this admonition to all Jews: It is your duty to let the world know what it owes the Jews in matters of Knowledge, Art, Literature and Science; not shout it from the housetops, but unostentatiously let it be known that the world at large benefits from the free interchange of thought and social as well as economic activities between Jews and non-Jews. Also, stop being super-sensitive. The rest of the world interprets that as an inferiority complex.