On the Trail of The Immigrant Part 7

I had just come from Jamestown, N. Y., which has about the same population of Scandinavians, where they had elected a Swedish mayor who gave great satisfaction, where many offices were held by Swedes, and where I had heard no such complaints.

In Minnesota generally, no taint attached itself to such Scandinavians as Knute Nelson, Lind and others who had served in high offices in state and nation; therefore I was shocked, puzzled and disappointed. I found the common verdict in Minnesota to be: "We can't trust the Swedes in public offices;" and the number of defaulting county and city treasurers of Scandinavian nationality (especially Swedish) who spent a few years in Stillwater prison, makes the generally accepted estimate of the high character of the Swede as a citizen waver not a little.

If this estimate be true it may be due first of all to the Swedish churches, which have not as a rule, in common with a large share of the American churches, sufficiently emphasized the fact that "righteousness exalteth a nation," and that it can become exalted only through a righteous citizenship. The Lutheran churches have been busy preaching doctrines and have been so eager to maintain the Augsburg confession that they have not laid much stress upon upholding the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and all that it means for the Kingdom of G.o.d. The "Mission Friends," as a large body of Swedish Christians calls itself, has been so busy in common with Methodists and Baptists, doing evangelizing work, and building up its local church membership, that it has forgotten that it has something to do with saving the state or the city.

The second cause may be ascribed to the clannish feeling fostered by cunning politicians, which makes these people vote for a Scandinavian no matter what his character is, just because he is one of their own. In this as in the first case I do not wish it to appear that the Scandinavian is a sinner above all others, but he has been remarkably unfortunate in the character of the officials whom he has chosen, and it will take a great deal of repentance and general betterment to make the people of Hennepin County unsuspicious of the Scandinavian office seeker.

The very worst thing in our national life, the most corrupting thing in every way is this voting as Scandinavians or Hungarians, and not as Americans. It amounts in many cases to a kind of treason and deserves to be treated as such. The politicians and the political party which foster that sort of thing are in a small but very dangerous business which does more to hamper the American consciousness in the foreigner than any other thing I know of; and is to-day the great poison which needs to be eliminated from the national life. In nine cases out of ten the foreigner is made a scapegoat by designing politicians who give him a small office which pledges him to do an unfair and often a dishonest thing. In the Northwest it has brought a stigma upon the Swedes: a bad reputation which they do not deserve and which they must throw off for their own good and for the good of the country.

The third and perhaps the best reason for this state of affairs is the fact that in common with other foreigners they have had a poor example set them by the Americans. Minneapolis citizens were so busy making money that they did not realize that their city was in the hands of thieves and robbers who not only "killed the body," but cast many a soul into h.e.l.l. One is roused to anger by the disclosures of graft in St.

Louis, Philadelphia and other cities too numerous to mention; but when city officials like the mayor of the city and the chief of police, both of them of good American stock, are proved to be in league with gamblers and other immoral folk who corrupt the youth and destroy the trustful foreigner who comes from farm and forest, then one's indignation ought to know no bounds. Justly, the Swedes of Minneapolis say, "the big rascals were Americans supported by American voters, many of them in Christian churches and highly esteemed in business and social life." Nor can the contented citizen of that beautiful place take any satisfaction in the fact that some of the rascals were brought to justice and that the conditions have changed. This miserable state of affairs might still exist if the aforesaid rascals had not quarrelled with each other and finally destroyed themselves. Scarcely any one in Minneapolis deserves the credit of having lifted his voice against it or raised a protest because of the encroachment of a vice which has no bounds and which can be made harmless only by being driven away. For a city to give up its waterfront to palaces of shame where openly and defiantly, women plied their fearful trade, is poor business, poor esthetics, poor ethics and poor Christianity. Its encroachment upon the Union Depot where every stranger enters, and its perfect freedom to obtrude itself, is all poor politics as it certainly is a poor introduction to that beautiful city's life. How much the foreigner is to blame I cannot tell, but this is true: that Minneapolis has the best foreign element and of course some of the worst; it has a vigorous, earnest American population with a n.o.ble heritage, and yet it has failed not only in making an all-around citizen of that foreigner but even in governing its own city; and the usual excuses of an ignorant, Sabbath-breaking foreign element do not hold good here, for the foreigner in Minneapolis obeys the Sunday law, goes to church (one church has over 4,000 worshippers on Sunday night), is not ignorant or vicious, and yet he is said to be a poor citizen.

After all the blame must fall largely upon those Americans who have lost the backbone of the Puritans and the vision of the Pilgrims, who feel little responsibility towards the great city problem, and rest content with the fact that they live in parks, that the saloon cannot encroach upon their dwellings, and then are willing to let the rest go as it pleases and where it pleases. If their pastors lift the prophetic voice, they are "fired," even as Savonarola was burned, and it amounts to the same thing. There is a perfect stream of new ministers who come and go, and many go away broken in body and in spirit.

In the politics of the state, the Scandinavian has a well-deserved and honoured place, and the administration of Governor Johnson goes far to disprove any aspersions cast upon his people.

One of the most interesting communities in Kansas is the Swedish town of Lindsburgh, where Bethany College is located. It has become an intellectual and musical centre, and its influence is as wholesome as it is large.

I am not defending the foreigner; he has his faults, and too often does not make the most of his great opportunity, but he is as clay in the hands of the American who can make of him what he pleases.

In Jamestown, N. Y., you have a strong American community with firm convictions, and this same Scandinavian becomes like it.

In Minneapolis you have no such strong convictions of righteousness and you have a Scandinavian population which men in authority say is unfit to exercise its citizenship. Our cities need to cultivate a twentieth century Puritanism--broad and deep, intense yet sympathetic, unyielding yet charitable; and they will find that the most ready imitators will be the foreigners; especially these Scandinavians who were our kinsmen before they came here and who are ready to be our brothers, and heirs of the same Kingdom.

In everything which makes a strong people and a great state they have taken an active and conscientious part. They are staunch supporters of the public schools; their children finally become teachers and in every academy and university of the northwest the Scandinavians are an important contingent, industrious and faithful as students, scholarly and loyal as professors. Their churches are well built, well supported, and more and more their pastors are taking their places as true leaders among the people. They are intensely interested in the larger mission of the gospel and in the evangelization of the world; they believe in missions, pray for missions, give to missions, and thus have a wide horizon. In the Northwest they are the greatest foes of the liquor traffic, and one can always count on many of them in an effort to enforce existing laws or frame new ones for its restriction or destruction. Neither they nor any nationality which has come to America is alike good or free from serious faults, but a man would have to be short-sighted indeed not to realize that they have brought to this country rich moral treasures which we have not sufficiently used or developed.

What a people we might be, if we would appropriate all that the Jew brings of spiritual vision and cut down his business ardour and craftiness by our own emphasis of the n.o.bler gift; if we would receive the Slav's virgin strength and plant upon it all that we of older civilization have learned to hold precious; if we would emulate the German's thoughtfulness and thoroughness and not imitate and encourage him in the trade in lager beer and the use of it. What a nation we should be if we would take the Hungarian's devotion to his native land and make it burn with just such a true fire upon the altar of this country; and finally, if we would mingle all the virtues that the nations bring us with the seriousness and loftiness of the Scandinavian's mind and heart,--if we did this through one generation, in one city of our country we would bring the Kingdom of G.o.d down upon the earth.

Nor is this all a pious wish or simply a flow of rhetoric: we shall have to do that,--cultivate in one another the best gifts,--or we shall reap a harvest of the worst; for in the Scandinavian we can see how the very best may become like the worst simply through our own neglect. We must believe about one another only the best, for people, like bad boys, live up to their reputation.

This country ought to be no place for racial or national hatreds, and no people must be branded as this or that simply because of one superficial or even deep seated fault. How often I have heard from well meaning, respectable people: "You can't trust the Scandinavians, they are immoral, they are treacherous;" when in fact they had no proof for their a.s.sertions, and simply sowed seeds of discord of which they must some day reap the harvest.

IX

THE JEW IN HIS OLD WORLD HOME

It is said of a certain English scientist that he began a work on "Snakes in Ireland" by the sentence: "There are no snakes in Ireland"; and one could easily without seeming to be facetious begin this chapter by saying: "The Jew has no home."

He is a man without a country, and without a king; he belongs to a nation which, scattered over the face of the earth has yet retained the chief elements of an ancient faith, although no centralized authority guards it. Inheriting the cultural influences of his past, he absorbs the culture of each race which harbours him for a season. Although driven in turn from each insecure habitation, he has not degenerated into a nomad, but begins the task of home and fortune making, wherever a more hospitable people affords a resting place for his weary feet.

In his ancient home in Palestine, in the very citadel of his faith,--Jerusalem, he is the greatest stranger, and people of alien beliefs have built their monuments on the sites of his grandest spiritual conquests, and over the tombs of his prophets and seers.

Weeping, he tears his garments and beats his head against a wall which is all that is left of the temple thrice rebuilt, thrice ruined, and now having upon its ancient foundations a mosque, with crescent crowned minaret, from whose height the Muezzin cries: "Allah ho Akbar," a sound which vibrates against the ears of the Jew like the mocking of the prophets who seem to say: "I told you so."

Among the Arabs, his kinsmen, he is a stranger; for although in speech, dress and bearing he is like them, in thought and feeling he is above them; yet the coa.r.s.est Mohammedan servant will p.r.o.nounce the word "Yahudi," with all the scorn of a superior and all the hatred of an enemy.

His features have not changed since the time when Egyptian artists drew with crude touch on their temple walls the story of the stranger's coming, his slavery and his exodus.

Wherever you find him, among the Arabs of North Africa or among the Danes of Northern Germany, he still bears the marks of his race, with the flame of Sinai in his look and the fire of the Southland on his cheek.

In Africa he is most numerous in Morocco, where 300,000 souls struggle for daily bread and are hated according to their number; while in Egypt where once he was found in largest numbers, now only about 10,000 Jews live.

The whole number for Africa does not exceed half a million; in Asia he is 200,000 strong or weak, in America above 2,000,000, while Europe has given him room enough to grow into 7,000,000. Between 10,000,000 or 11,000,000 is about the whole number of Jews now in existence, with the city of New York as the largest Jewish centre in the world, having no less than 600,000 of the faithful.

To describe the Jews in their varied environments means to draw many pictures and yet one; for while they differ widely according to the degree of civilization by which they are surrounded, certain characteristics remain the same.

Everywhere the Jew becomes outwardly like his masters--but often remains unlike them in his spiritual life and in those deeper things which express themselves spontaneously and which are too well grounded in his nature to be wiped out entirely by the mere touch of the stranger.

Physically he is usually smaller and weaker, has brown or gray eyes and dark hair, although not seldom it is red and curly. Among the Europeans his head and neck are always large; but his face is the smallest.

There are a vivaciousness in his manner, a rather emphatic and constant gesticulation, and a certain something in his speech which always mark him, and mark him unmistakably, the Jew.

He quickly reciprocates both good and evil, and is regarded with apprehension because of his aggressiveness; for as both friend and foe he is intense. Where an inch of approach is granted he may want an ell, while where he hates he does not hate in moderation. His business shrewdness is proverbial, although it is not his native genius for the proverb current in the Orient: "It takes one Jew to cheat three Christians, it takes one Armenian to cheat ten Jews, it takes one Greek to cheat twenty Armenians," while no more correct than such generalities are likely to be, proves the a.s.sertion that he is not the champion in the chief game of life.

He has had bad environment for the development of business honesty, yet I know of scarcely a community in the world, in which the Jew plays any part, where he would not have a strong representation, if a group of the most trustworthy citizens was called together for any purpose.

The world in which he lives and in which he trades, is the world which he reflects, and he has not always created the conditions which exist there.

To "Jew down," which is a synonym for beating down in price, is as current in business where he is no factor, as where he is. In Italy it is an economic disease, and in Russia, in those regions closed to the Jewish tradesman, the native haggles with the priest about the price of a funeral or a baptism, with the cab driver over the fare, and even attempts to bargain on the railroad when he buys his ticket.

To generalize about the good or bad characteristics of the Jew is as difficult as it is to portray those of any race. When he judges himself he is either unjustly severe or profusely apologetic, for a people which has lived for so many centuries under abnormal conditions, cannot be known by the stranger, nor can it know itself.

At present the Jew is somewhere between Shakespeare's Shylock and George Elliot's Daniel Deronda; and more Shylock where the hate of the middle ages makes it impossible for him to grow into George Eliot's ideal. He is most uncomfortably felt in those countries where he is in the transition period, when he is apt to be over-bearing and given to sensuous pleasure; even then he is not so grasping as Shylock although not so lovable as Daniel Deronda. He does not need much time to come to his full development. His genius quickly manifests itself, and while he is charged with superficiality, the fact that in all sciences there are accurate scholars of the Jewish race, disproves that accusation, although his emotional nature does not best fit him for the patient task of the investigator.

His neighbours are quickly conscious of his faults because he is not yet schooled in the art of suppressing them, and his virtues are often unrecognized because they shine the brightest in the inner circle, from which the neighbour is usually excluded by mutual consent.

In Northern Africa we find him to-day just as he was thirty-five or forty years ago when Sir Moses Montefiore tried to alleviate his inhuman treatment and his impoverished and miserable condition. The Moors without knowing the prophecy concerning the fate of Israel are actively engaged in fulfilling it with a cruel literalness. In every city and village the Jews have their separate quarters and their own judges.

They are not permitted to study the reading and writing of Arabic lest their eyes defile the sacred pages of the Koran; they are not allowed to ride a horse although they may ride a donkey; and they must walk barefooted before the mosques.

They are prohibited from going near a well when a Mussulman is drinking, and must wear black, a colour despised by the Moors.

The men are all ugly because of the abject fear on their faces; their eyes are always cast down and their walk is unsteady while the whole posture is expressive of the worst kind of slavery.

They may be beaten, kicked and spit upon at any time without being able to protect themselves or even having the spirit to do it.

The women are unusually handsome and some of the homes are splendidly furnished and are hospitably opened to the traveller. The same conditions existed in Algiers until it pa.s.sed under the rule of France, when the Jews a.s.serted their superiority and became landowners, manufacturers and business men, so that nearly half of the property in Algiers is said to be in their hands, for which they are again beginning to feel hatred and persecution.

The Egyptian Jews are found only in the two cities of Cairo and Alexandria; but they have followed the victorious arms of England and have entered the heart of Africa where in Khartum and the fabled Timbuctoo there are Jewish communities.

In Asia Minor the largest Jewish population outside of Jerusalem is in Smyrna; where there are over thirty thousand in the city and vicinity.

These Jews, like those of Morocco, are descendants of Spanish fugitives and are considered, even by their enemies, honest and industrious, performing the commonest and hardest labour.

Jerusalem remains to this day the unhappiest city in the world for the Jew, who sees in it his glorious past and his present shame, and who must feel the pangs of persecution most in the city in which once he was master and lord.