Collection: Frank Leslies Weekly Publication: Frank Leslies Weekly Date: SEPTEMBER 24, 1908 Title: What the Jew Owes to the Republican PartyBy Charles M. Harvey, What the Jew Owes to the Republican Party By Charles M. Harvey, Author of a “History of the Republican Party” I. W HEN President Roosevelt brought peace between Japan and Russia in 1905, he at the same time did a service for the Jews of the United States and the world which neither the world nor the United States knew anything about until an incidental intimation of it was given recently by Professor Maxime Kovalevsky, of the University of St. Petersburg, in an article by him on the treaty of Portsmouth, published in a St. Petersburg magazine. A translation of portions of that article has been printed in some of the papers in the United States and other countries. “Those who know the important role which the followers of the law of Moses play in the United States, especially in New York and in Massachusetts,” said Professor Kovalevsky, “can understand the significance of the frank interviews which Count Witte had with such leading Jews as Jacob H. Schiff, Oscar Straus, Isaac Seligman, Adolph Lewisohn, and Adolph Kraus. In those conversations Count Witte, promising nothing formally, did not defend Russias policy regarding the Jews , but made apologies for it. He explained to them that this policy had its critics even among Russias statesmen, and intimated that it would undoubtedly be changed in the near future.” It has recently been learned in this country that Count Witte, who was the head of the Russian peace commissioners to this country, went further in making promises of a more humane attitude toward the Jews in Russia than these cautious words of Professor Kovalevsky would indicate. In order to win the American public over to Russias side, and to get favorable terms for Russia in the Portsmouth peace treaty, he found it necessary to make pledges of better treatment for the Jews in the future than had been accorded to them before that time. He was prompted to take this course by the plain talk which President Roosevelt had with him. The President warned Count Witte not only that civilization demanded better treatment from Russia for the Jews than that country had been giving to them, but that only by such a change could the cordial relations of the United States with Russia be maintained. Witte made promises, especially with regard to the Jews of American citizenship who should go to Russia on business or for pleasure. These promises have been carried out. There have been no repetitions of the Kishineff massacre of the Jews of a few years ago. In the attitude of Russia toward the American Jews who visit her no line is drawn between them and the Christians. President Roosevelts influence was felt in the concessions which Russia has made to the Jews in the elections for the successive Dumas which that country has had in the past three years. These are among the reasons why the leading Jews of the country have repeatedly expressed their gratitude toward President Roosevelt and Secretary Root, who, as head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, has directed these negotiations. The Jews have known, too, that Secretary Taft was in hearty sympathy with the President and Secretary of State. One of the most active and influential members of President Roosevelts Cabinet, Secretary Oscar S. Straus, of the Department of Commerce and Labor, is a Jew . He was appointed by President Roosevelt in 1902 to succeed the late ex-President Harrison as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and was made Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1906. Secretary Straus has been one of the most effective of the stump speakers for Taft in this canvass, and took a prominent part in the campaign in Vermont and Maine. II. If Professor Kovalevsky, in his narrative of the doings of the Russian commissioners at the peace convention at Portsmouth, had thought of this fact, he could have said that when Count Witte landed in New York he was in the largest settlement of Jews which the world has ever seen. Out of the 11,000,000 of Hebrews who are in the world to-day, 5,000,000 are in Russia, 2,000,000 in Austria-Hungary, and 1,600,000 in the United States, half of the entire Jewish population of the United States being in New York City. Most of these are on Manhattan Island. There are more Jews in New York City than in the entire German empire, two and a half times as many as there are in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and nine times as many as there are in France. In his recent very questionable attack upon the Jews in one of the leading magazines, Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham estimated that there are 1,000,000 of that race in New York City. Conservative computation puts the number at about 800,000. As, in accordance with the spirit of American institutions, the law makes no distinctions between religions in the United States, the census takers have not given us the figures for any of the denominations. Careful estimates, however, have placed the number of Jews in the United States at 1,600,000, and in New York City at half that number. New York has seven times as many Jews as London, eight times as many as Berlin, ten times as many as Paris, and fifteen times as many as St. Petersburg. New York has thirty-two times as many Jews as are in Jerusalem to-day, and twenty times as many as are in the whole of Palestine. There are twenty times as many Jews in New York as were in Jerusalem at the height of that capitals glory preceding its destruction by Titus. Every fifth person who is met on the streets of New York, and every fourth person who is seen in the Manhattan section of the city, is a Jew . Manifestly the Jews are an important social and political force in the United States, particularly in the countrys industrial, financial, and social capital. In the politics of the largest of the forty-six States, the State which has often turned the scale in presidential contests, the politicians of both political parties are compelled to take them into the account. They are a larger force even than the population figures would indicate. In the industries, in education, in finance, and in politics they are potent. Over $1,000,000,000 of the $5,000,000,000 represented by the property of New York City is owned by its Jewish inhabitants. It is possible that some of these points were brought to Count Wittes attention by President Roosevelt, in some of the frequent consultations between the count and the President preceding and during the negotiations at Portsmouth, on which Russias fortunes so largely depended. It is certain that the improvement in Russias attitude toward the Jews dates from that affair, and Mr. Roosevelt had a decisive influence in bringing it about. As Jewish emigration from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and other European countries to the United States, except as it is momentarily interrupted by the present business stagnation here, is on a large scale, the time is not far distant when the United States will lead even Russia in the number of its Hebrew inhabitants, and the Jew will become a much larger factor in the political and business life of this country even than he is now. Then, as now, the recollection of the service which has been done for him by President Roosevelt and his Republican predecessors will count for much in determining his attitude toward the Republican party on election days. III. The United States and not Palestine is to be the Zion of the future for the sons of Abraham. Palestine lacks the resources to support the 11,000,000 Jewish inhabitants of the world, if the Zionists’ programme of the transfer of all the race to that locality could be carried out. They have all the rights in the United States which they could have in Palestine, even if the ancient Jewish nation were resurrected there, for here they are on an absolute political and social equality with all the rest of the people. England, which has been more liberal in its treatment of the Jews than any other European country, and in which they have a larger social sway than they have anywhere else in the Old World, did not admit Jews to membership in the House of Commons till 1858, and the House of Lords was not opened to them until 1885. A member of the house of Rothschild was the first Jew to enter each of these chambers. But in the United States the Jew has had all such privileges from the beginning. In Article VI. of the Constitution it is declared that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” In order to insure the absolute completeness of this religious freedom, the first amendment to the Constitution sets forth that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” ONE OF THE MOST CURIOUS OF MONUMENTS. COLUMN OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES, SIXTY-FIVE FEET HIGH AND WEIGHING SEVERAL TONS, A FEATURE OF THE CANNSTATTER VEREIN FESTIVAL AT PHILADELPHIA. Mildred Neil . UNIQUE SCENE AT NEW YORKS STATE CAPITOL. GOVERNOR HUGHES AND THE CENTRAL FEDERATION OF LABOR OF ALBANY, N. Y., ON THEIR WAY TO DEDICATE THE FEDERATIONS PAVILION FOR CONSUMPTIVES. A. Sayles . Israel Jacobs was elected to Congress from one of the Pennsylvania districts in 1790, a year after the wheels of government under the Constitution started, and dozens of Jews have been in one branch or the other of the national Legislature since then. Mordecai Noah, a well-known New York journalist, was appointed consul-general to Tunis by President Madison in 1813, and the number of Jews who have been on the diplomatic roll in the United States since then has been notably long. Jews have, for more than a century, been filling all sorts of political offices in the United States, both State and national. Many are in elective or appointive posts under the government to-day. It is since the Republican party appeared, and as members of that party, that the Jew s activity in politics has been most marked. As he was accustomed to persecution in the Old World, the Jew naturally was attracted toward the party which was founded on the principle of the brotherhood of man. Several Jews were among the signers of the call for the Republican convention which met in Jackson, Mich., on July 6th, 1854, which was the first State gathering held anywhere in the country by the Republican party. Many Jews had been prominent in the anti-slavery agitation which preceded the establishment of the Republican organization. They were among the delegates to the Fremont convention of 1856, which placed the first Republican presidential ticket in the field, and figured also in the convention of 1860, which started Lincoln on the road to the presidency. The Cincinnati Gazette , in an inquiry which it made in 1854, said that every Jewish paper in the United States except one had taken the anti-slavery side and was supporting the Republican party. Rabbi Liebman Adler in Detroit, Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs in Philadelphia, and Rabbi David Einhorn in Baltimore were as active in the anti-slavery agitation of over half a century ago as were their Christian co-workers among the clergy, Beecher, Bellows, Chapin, Boole, and the others. In all the wars of the United States, from that of 1775–83, in which independence was won, onward to the war of 1898 against Spain, many Jews were in the nations armies, and some of them rose to high rank. President Roosevelt said that among the most courageous men in his Rough Rider regiment were the ten or twelve Jewish members, one of whom became a lieutenant. The President has always been a strong admirer of the Jews . Their courage, persistence, initiative, and honesty attract him. When the President was appealing to Count Witte in 1905 for a reform in the barbarous treatment given by the Russian government to the Jews , he was carrying out the enlightened policy of the Republican party, which has always stretched out its hand to the man in distress. For many reasons a large majority of the Jews belong to the Republican party.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 23:41:59 +0000
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