The Spirit of the Ghetto: Studies of the Jewish Quarter in New York

by Hutchins Hapgood

THE SOCIALIST PAPERS

The Socialist weekly, the Arbeiterzeitung, marked the beginning of the most vital journalism of the east side, and stood in striking contrast to the Tageblatt. In the circumstances attending its development into the two existing rival Socialistic papers, the Vorwärts and the Abendblatt,[2] a picture of the progressive and passionate character of the Russian-Jewish Socialists of the Ghetto is presented, and some of the most important and picturesque personages. The most educated and intelligent among the Jews of the east side speak Russian, and are reactionary in politics and religion. Coming from Russia, as they do, they have a fierce hatred of government and capitalism, and a more or less Tolstoian love for the peasant and the workingman. The purpose of the organizers of the Arbeiterzeitung Publishing Association was to educate the people, promulgate the doctrines of Socialism, and be altogether the organ of the workman against the employer. From the outset, beginning in 1890, the Arbeiterzeitung was a popular and influential paper.

All the older journals had affected a Germanized Yiddish, which the people did not understand; but the new paper, aiming at the modern heart of the Ghetto, carried on its propaganda in the common jargon of the Jew, the pure Yiddish; and, growing enormously in circulation, forced the language down the throats of the conservative journals. In this popular tongue, the Arbeiterzeitung carried on for five years a most energetic campaign for a broad Socialism, admitting all allied movements in favor of common ownership, directing and encouraging strikes, printing popular scientific articles, realistic stories, dramatic criticisms, and expressing and leading generally the best intelligence of the Yiddish community. With the constituency of which this journal was the organ, Socialism had almost the force and passion of a religious movement. An example of the paper's power was in connection with the Bakers' Union. That organization imposed a label on all bread made in the Ghetto, and insisted that all the bakers should handle only bread of that brand. The Arbeiterzeitung supported the Union so effectively that no other bread could possibly be obtained in the quarter. At the first Yahresfest of the journal, Cooper Union overflowed with enthusiastic workingmen, and long lines of the excluded stretched out down the Bowery to Houston Street.

IN THE OFFICE OF THE "VÖRWARTS"

The man whose name is most intimately connected with the Arbeiterzeitung is its former editor, Abraham Cahan, now known outside of the Ghetto as a writer in English of novels and short stories of Jewish life. He is of the best type of the ethical agitator; a convincing and impassioned speaker; he has held hundreds of workingmen by his clear and strongly expressed ideas, whether written in his paper or spoken at nightly meetings in some poor hall on the east side, where the men gathered after the labors of the day. Twice he went abroad to speak at international labor conferences. At the same time that he supported the definite cause of the Social Democracy, he put the same energy and passion into the education of the people in scientific and literary directions. He spoke and wrote for directness, simplicity, and humanity. In art, therefore, the realistic school of Russian writers, of whom in our generation there have been so many great men, received his fighting allegiance. For five years Cahan put all his intelligence and devotion into this work, and the power of the Arbeiterzeitung was partly his power. To-day, in the Ghetto, where fierce jealousies are rampant, Cahan is admitted to be the man, among many men of energy, intelligence, and devotion, who has wielded most influence in the community.

A literary and dramatic event happened in 1892 which showed the power of Cahan and his Socialist associates in influencing the taste of the Ghetto. It was the production of Gordin's drama Siberia. Up to that time, nothing but conventional opera, melodrama, and historical plays had been given on the Bowery, but the day after the performance of Siberia the Arbeiterzeitung contained a long review of the play by Cahan, welcoming it enthusiastically as an event breaking the way for realistic art in the colony. Since then this type of play has taken a prominent place in the repertory at the Yiddish theatres. For five years the Arbeiterzeitung continued its influence, but then came a split among the Socialists, which resulted in two daily papers—the Abendblatt and the Vorwärts.

BUYING A NEWSPAPER

Cahan, Miller and others of the men who had started the Arbeiterzeitung gradually lost control through the share system which had been inaugurated. They desired to maintain a liberal policy towards all labor movements, and to allow the literary and Socialistic societies to be represented in the paper, but the other faction wanted the newspaper to be exclusively an organ of Socialism in its narrow sense. The result was that, soon after the publication of the Arbeiterzeitung as the Daily Abendblatt, Cahan resigned the editorship and turned disgusted to English newspapers and to realistic fiction, in which he was absorbed until recently. A few months ago he resumed the editorship of the Vorwärts after an absence of several years from participation in Yiddish journalism. Louis Miller, a witty and energetic Socialist and writer, who had from the first been active in the management of the weekly, was one of the most prominent of the men who continued the fight against the narrower Socialistic element—a fight which resulted in the establishment in 1897 of the other Socialist daily now existing, the Vorwärts.

These two papers were, until recently, when the Abendblatt died, bitter rivals. The Abendblatt was devoted to the interests of the Socialist Labor Party while the Vorwärts supports in a general way the Social Democracy; altho it is not so distinctively a party paper as was the Abendblatt. The adherents of the latter paper looked upon the Vorwärts as unreliable and the Vorwärts people thought the Abendblatt intolerant. The Abendblatt prided itself on its uncompromising character, and the Vorwärts is content to adapt itself to what it deems the present needs of the Jewish community. Thus the Vorwärts is willing to join hands with reform movements in general, with trades unions, etc., while the Abendblatt stiffly demanded that allied organizations should enter the socialist camp. The triumph of the Vorwärts was therefore a triumph of the more liberal spirits.

Two other daily publications are more distinctively mere newspapers than the two Socialistic organs, and make no consistent attempt to influence public opinion, at least in the definite direction of a "movement." The Abend-Post seems to have no very distinctive policy or character; it is neither Socialistic nor conservative Jewish; the distinction it aims at is to be a newspaper simply, to reflect events and not to determine opinion. In the editor's words, the Abend-Post "is not chauvinistic, like the Tageblatt; the Jew does not resound in it. It aims to Americanize the Ghetto, and diminish or ignore the chasm between Jew and Gentile." The editor of one of the Socialist papers calls this sort of thing by another name. "The Abend-Post," he said, "is an imitation of American yellow journalism." A fifth daily, the Herald, is even less distinctive than the Abend-Post. It has no party and is not as sensational as the other. It might, perhaps, be called the Jewish "mugwump."

Recently a sixth daily, The Jewish World, has been organized under favorable auspices. Its avowed policy is to bridge the chasm which exists between sons and fathers in the Ghetto; to make the sons more Hebraic and the fathers more American; the sons more conservative and the fathers more progressive. Connected with its management is H. Masliansky, one of the most impassioned orators of the Ghetto.

The question of the circulation figures of these five dailies is a difficult one. About the only thing that seems certain is that the Tageblatt leads in this respect. Even the editors of the other papers admit that, altho they differ as to the absolute figures. The editor of the Tageblatt places his paper's circulation at 40,000, the Abend-Post at 14,000, the Herald next, and the two Socialistic papers last, which ending is a felicitous consummation for the editor of the most conservative newspaper in the Ghetto. The editor of the Abend-Post says the Tageblatt leads with a daily issue of about 30,000, the Abend-Post coming next with 23,700, the Herald and the Socialist papers stringing out in the rear. The editors of the Socialist sheets naturally give a somewhat different order. Mr. Miller of the Vorwärts puts the actual circulation of the Tageblatt at about 17,000; his own paper, the Vorwärts, next, with about 14,000 daily except on Saturday, the Jewish Sunday, when the number ranges between 20,000 and 25,000, owing to the fact that the conservative newspapers (i. e., those that are not Socialistic) do not appear on that day. The circulation of the rival Socialistic paper, the Abendblatt, he puts at about 8,000. In these figures there is no attempt at entire accuracy.