To the Editor, Jewish Daily Bulletin:
My duties as an historian require me to read “The Jewish Daily Bulletin.” By your recent issues I am moved to write a few words which I am enclosing for such purposes as you may desire. I shall consider it an honor if you wish to present my humble statements to your readers, whom by the quality of your publication I know to be of exceedingly high intelligence….
With highest regards to you for the great work you are doing, I am,
Cordially Yours,
Francis Trevelyan Miller, LL.D., Litt.D.*
Allow me to congratulate the readers of the Jewish Daily Bulletin on their good fortune in having a publisher and editor who will present such able articles as those by William B. Ziff.
It has been my privilege as an historian of some fifty volumes to follow Mr. Ziff day by day in his brilliant discussion of “Jewry Must About Face,” and “The New Jew.” Every professional historian should preserve these articles as standard authorities on one of the most vital phases of human progress.
The time has come when we must fix the position of the Jew in world history. This great race has been shuttled back and forth for centuries and yet it has been one of the most vitalizing forces behind world progress.
May I state that I speak as a Christian who recognizes the fact that Christian civilization itself was founded by a Jew. A young Jewish philosopher, the founder of Christendom, one of the most remarkable anomalies in human history. And for this the Christian world has made this young Jew a “God.”
May I say again that I make this statement, a simple statement of fact, as the grandson in the tenth generation of Governor Bradford, who founded the first true democracy in the world’s history at Plymouth, established on the inalienable rights of man to “worship God according to his own conscience.” My grandfather on the paternal side was the first rector of Edinburgh University in the sixteenth century. My forefathers for generations have been Protestant theologians, for whom I hold the deepest reverence.
This, however, but increases my respect for, and my debt to, the Jewish race. I repeat: The time has come when we (Christians) must in justice to ourselves, and as a matter of integrity, honestly acknowledge the position so long due the Jews in world progress. And how could this recognition he more gratefully made than by the descendants of the “Mayflower” and Plymouth Rock who founded America on the spiritual and social laws set forth by the Hebrews in the Old and New Testaments— every word of which was written by a Jew.
Some years ago while conducting researches in Paris on the origins and development of civilization, it was my privilege and duty to make this statement in a chapter on the greatest historic events in the progress of mankind:
“The first epochal event was the establishment of the principle of one creative power, one God, which was to remake the world. The second epochal event was the establishment of the ethical code, the Ten Commandments, the foundation stones of our social and civil system upon which has been built our whole civilization. These were given to the world by the Hebrews.
“Historians tell us that these Hebrews have contributed nothing to art and have left no monuments. Nothing could be further from the truth; they gave us the basis on which all the great art of the world has been produced. They left monuments in their ‘One God’ and the ‘Ten Commandments’ which endures through the ages—monuments far greater and nobler than any other two contributions in all human history.”
(Kindly call these to the attention of the unspeakable tyrant in Germany who would throw the world back into paganism.)
I would like to continue this discussion along these lines, but it would require a volume in itself. The irrefutable facts, which would stand the severest test in the highest courts of justice, are so overwhelming that I can hardly restrain myself to the limits of space in this excellent publication, the Jewish Daily Bulletin.
Allow me one more paragraph: The “case for the Jews” is so strong that its direct evidence enters into nearly every great event in the world’s history. Recent discoveries prove that the Hebrews, not the Phoenicians, gave the world its first alphabet upon which all language is based, the tongues of all races and nations. The discovery of America by Columbus was in ships owned by Jews, the Pinta brothers. There is much evidence that Columbus himself was of Jewish antecedants.
So it goes throughout all human history: Show me an epochal event and somewhere behind it I shall find—a Jew!
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*Who’s Who lists Dr. Miller as an historian, economist and author. He is editor-in-chief of some fifty standard historical and biographical works and author of the following: “America—The Land We Love,” “Life of Thomas A. Edison,” and “Portrait Life of Lincoln.” He is president of Historical Foundations and has conducted economic investigations for the Review of Reviews, World’s Work and Independent.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
