The Seven-Branched Candlestick Part 14

This reward did come, definitely. It came at the end of May when, at the height of the reaction against the whole year of prejudice, I was chosen for the college senior society. It was a public election, held on the afternoon of one of the most important baseball games. There were crowds to watch the ceremony--students and graduates, young girls and parents ... so that the memory of the green campus and the banks of pretty gowns and parasols, the sunshine and the cheering will be with me till I die. I remember that there were tears in my eyes as I was chosen ... and that there came to me, with all the cool freshness of the spring winds, the thought that this was the end, the salvation from out of all the year's mean, squalid troubles. Here was I, a Jew, raised above all the other Jews who had ever entered this college ... raised among the highest, to be a power in the land, to be the champion of all those who had suffered, the winner through hardship and handicap, a vindicated Dreyfus, an example to all the lower cla.s.ses.... For, at twenty-one, alas, we are our own best heroes, and none can take our place!

College closed in a blaze of glory for me. There was even a note from Aunt Selina Haberman, wishing me well of this new honor and informing me that "Mrs. Fleming-Cohen, when she heard it, was green with envy!" Aunt Selina wanted to know, was I going to be a wicked boy, however, and stay away from her all next year, too. She was sure that, now I had won out, we could get along much more smoothly than we had.

I fear I began to think a little too highly of my position in the community. I was now capable of going to no less a person than the dean of the college and talking over with him, as if man to man, the possibility of an anti-Jewish agitation, the next year, and demanding in none too deferential tones that, should it come, the college authorities must do their share to stamp it out.

"Really, Mr.-er-er-,--what's your name?"

I told him very slowly, but it did not mean much to him. I rather pitied the old gentleman for not paying more attention to the undergraduate contests and triumphs.

But he did hear me out, and gave me information which I thought worth acting on. The large majority of the Jewish boys in the freshman cla.s.s had prepared for college at one school--a large private preparatory school in New York City. Perhaps it would be as well, suggested the dean, for me to go to the princ.i.p.al of this school and talk things over with him.

"Do you mean, I should warn him against sending so many of his boys to our college?" I asked.

The dean appeared dreadfully shocked. "Oh, no--dear me, no. That wouldn't do at all. Only--well, it seems that this school caters almost entirely to the sons of wealthy Jewish men--and that this princ.i.p.al is very fond of our college ... and so he grievously sends us all the boys that he can. You know, so many boys don't know where to go to college--and the princ.i.p.al often has a chance to suggest one, don't you see!"

The dean had a very sober face, but his eyes were twinkling. It relieved me to know, he was not taking this princ.i.p.al's bad judgment too seriously.

"So you think it would be wiser if there weren't so many Jewish boys in next year's entering cla.s.s?"

"Precise--oh, no, I shouldn't dare say that, even if I thought so.

Remember, I am in an official capacity here. But come around to my house tonight, when I've doffed my scholastic robe and am in my shirt sleeves--and perhaps I'll tell you, then, the name of that princ.i.p.al."

I did not even bother to do this. Without waiting for further advice, I went down to this school to beard the foolish princ.i.p.al in his den.

It was a hard matter to work my way into his presence. He had an office and inner office, and stenographers to guard them both. I wrote on my card, however, that I wished to speak to him regarding affairs at my college, and evidently piqued his curiosity to the extent of his giving me the interview.

In that inner office I found a youngish man whose face was adorned with a heavy black beard. He seemed strangely familiar, but I could not place him.

"Come in," he said, looking hard at me. His restless eyes did not leave my face all the while I was talking.

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked me when I had given him some stumbling hint of my mission.

"I think you ought to keep Jewish boys out of my college," I told him.

"It--it isn't altogether fair, and it would only provoke a renewal of the prejudice, if there should be as many freshmen next year as there were this."

"You are a Jew yourself," he said accusingly.

"Yes, I am. But don't judge by me.... I have always been an exception to all that prejudice."

"Oh, have you? I wonder why?"

I resented his tone, but went on to explain how I had entered college long before the antagonism had broken out; had worked hard, with Christian friends to help me, until I had won honors which a.s.sured me immunity from any unpleasantness.

"I congratulate you," he said dryly. "You no doubt deserve these honors.

Your sort always does."

I stood up angrily and looked him square in the face. Then suddenly I recognized him.... Pictures of my public school days came up before me.... The cla.s.s room and the big, crippled bully, Geoghen.... That finding of the Hebrew prayer book when the teacher was out of the room, and the hooting and mocking ... and then the teacher's return--and the fight.

It was Mr. Levi.

He smiled when he saw that I knew him, now. "I remembered you more readily," he said. "You have no beard to change your appearance." But it was more than his beard: there was a complete change in him from the dreamy, pale young man who had learned so harsh a lesson in those old days. There was a bitter twist to his mouth. His lips were set sternly, his eyebrows were lowered, his brow crossed by scowling lines.

"There's one thing about you that I remember," he snapped at me. "You were a Jew--and yet you stood aside and let those little cads take the book of G.o.d and make nasty fun of it--and never raised your hand or even your voice to stop them. That's the sort of boy you were. And, I suppose, you're still the same. It'd seem so, anyhow. You probably won all your college honors through standing aside. And now you have the audacity to ask me to do the same, lest you be made uncomfortable by the number of other Jewish boys at your college. You want me to stand aside, do you? Well, I wish I had a thousand Jewish boys to enter into your college's next year's cla.s.s!"

He glared at me. "If you want to know the truth, I can't get a single boy in my school to go to your college, now. I wish I could. Because I'm training them to fight like men. They aren't the sort who win honors by allowing themselves to be cla.s.sed as exceptions...."

As for myself, I knew that he was half wrong, half right--and that there was nothing more for me to say. I had learned what I came to learn. So I got up to go.

"And if there's another such demonstration, next year," he sneered, "you and your precious honors will have to stand aside again, eh? It must keep you very light on your feet!"

XVIII

I STAND--BUT NOT ASIDE

Thus it happened that only five Jews enrolled in the entering freshman cla.s.s. One of them, of course, was Frank Cohen.

Mr. Levi's accusations had stung deeply. My anger at them was all the more intense because my heart admitted half their truth. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that there could be no possible aggravation this year: surely, with only five Jewish freshmen, the percentage would be small and unnoticed. It was all very well, that venom of Mr. Levi's--but it was unreasonable. I would be glad if the Jewish question would never again be mentioned during my college course.

The opening of the senior year found Frank Cohen and me on the Palisades, talking eagerly of what his college course would mean to him.

He made me smile, his dreams were so like my own had been when I, too, was a freshman. Made me wonder, too, how much I had fulfilled those dreams. Something accomplished, yes--and as much unfulfilled, disregarded, left undone. Well, perhaps, in this last year, I would have the chance again--and would not flinch.

The chance came just two days after the opening of college. It came when Frank Cohen burst into my room about nine o'clock at night, in company with another Jewish freshman. The other one was dogged, frightened, and, when he was behind my closed door, began to cry noiselessly. As for Frank, who was made of stronger stuff, he sat silent in his chair, grasping its arms and trying to control the intensity of some revulsion which had come over him.

They told me quickly what had happened. They were just from a meeting of freshman candidates for the college newspaper. The meeting had been called in order to instruct these candidates in the rules and qualifications of the compet.i.tion. All men who cared to enter the compet.i.tion had been invited. Two men had made speeches: the editor-in-chief and the managing editor of the paper, Sayer and Braley by name.

These had been cordial speeches, urging all men present at the meeting to work hard in this compet.i.tion. There had been speeches of encouragement, in glowing colors--and then, at the end of it all, in front of the fifty-odd youths who were a.s.sembled there, Braley had closed his speech with this:

"We wish to say that any Jew who may have it in mind to enter this compet.i.tion might as well save himself the pains. We shall not even consider the election of a Jew to the board."

Immediately a gasp, then a snicker had run through the roomful; then necks had craned and heads turned to catch looks at Frank and the other freshman who stood, flushed and humiliated, in their midst.

Then the meeting had broken up, and the other candidates, taking their cue from Braley's speech, stood aside to let Frank and his companion pa.s.s down through whispering, giggling aisles. They had tried to go calmly, unconcernedly, as if the shock of the insult meant nothing to them. But the other Jewish freshman had broken down, and Frank had to put his arm around him to keep him up and straight upon his path through the crowd's midst, out upon the campus and over to my dormitory.

I sat a little while silent after I heard them tell of it. I was as much stunned as they--and sickened too. I had thought all that sort of thing was done with. I had hoped it was all past, even forgotten--and here it was, leaping up again to confront, to threaten, to jeer at us. I had only dimly imagined the possibility of it. I had no plan, no hint of how I should go about it.

Two years ago, if this had happened, I should not have cared one way or the other. I should have crawled away into a corner and buried my face to hide my fear's approach. I should have waited to see how others acted, how others fought--and then, at best I should have fought along in a half-hearted, half-dreading fashion. Even now, I had nothing to fight for. I knew what Judaism was--and that it was for the G.o.d and the people of Judaism that I should be making my little fight--but--

I turned about and saw the eyes of the two freshmen glued upon me.

Frank's especially--and they were beginning to fill with a troubled distrust which I had never allowed to be there before. I could not fail Frank. I would do what I could.

"All right," I said, drawing on my coat. "Go ahead home and get to bed.

I will see what I can do."

I went with them across the campus to the other freshman's room. Frank would sleep there for the night, though he usually went back to his parents. I think he did not have the heart tonight to face them, and when they asked their usual breathless questions of the day's work and play, lie to them and hide from them the galling incident. He did not seem to feel the insult for his own sake; he was thinking, rather, of his mother and of how she would feel, should she ever know.