"Our civilized age culture brought about the age of scientific killings by some of our earth so-called civilized governments, by gas asphyxiation on the battlefields, sinkings by submarines of non-combatant ships whose innocent passengers floundered and drowned in the troughs of the high seas, and without warning the bombardment of open cities with the extermination of their blameless inhabitants.
"Having seen the perfect life on your planet, we feel a sense of shame, guilt, and disgrace in the conduct of our fellow earth men. It never seriously occurred to us that money lust was the primary cause of our misfortunes. We never gave it a thought that we could live without it.
"Thanking you for the opportunity of letting me talk to you. You will now hear from our following speakers of terrible happenings on our planet."
The toastmaster then announced Mr. David Levy as the second earthman speaker.
"Honorable President and Vice-President and distinguished Martian representatives. If it wasn't that we are all here, trying to find ways and means to help my fellow earthmen, I would feel ashamed to relate what I am going to, but under the circumstances I feel it honorable. I am a German-Jewish refugee, a member of a suffering earth sect. I was in Germany before the war, and also a member of a contingent of American troops in the start of its invasion.
"In spite of all our earthman's good religious teachings and commandments, we have always been afflicted with superstition and bigotry, until it has become a complex. Our apparently groundless dislike of our fellow man leads us to regard him with antipathy, enmity, and even hatred for imaginary grievances. We get prejudiced against him because he may be of a different nation, language, religion, or color; or because he may not eat the same foods or wear the same kinds of clothes; or because he may wear long hair or beard; or because he may not follow our customs and manners. We take offense against him for his abstinence, envy him for his sober progressive industry, or become jealous of him for his studious qualities and professional knowledge and success.
"Against these minorities and nations we first give vent to our vengeance, by baiting him with the utmost cruelty to acquire his land, property and wealth.
"A tragedy of a large remnant of my ancestors occurred in the year 70, when Titus of Rome conquered the agricultural nation of Israel, taking them all away from Palestine to captivity in Italy. They were not allowed to continue in the pursuit of their chosen agricultural occupation, but were sold as slaves. On the fall of Rome they seem to have been freed, and they wandered among all Christian countries of Europe. Wherever they went, they were not allowed to purchase land to follow their old occupation of farming and cultivation or to join the labor guilds; they were forced to become money changers, lenders, traders, or tax collectors.
"For long ages nearly all the great Christian religious bodies condemned the charging of interest on loans; therefore, some of their kings and feudal lords compelled the wanderers to become money lenders, using them by subterfuge as instruments to hold other lords in their power and to extort money from their people, and then taking the major portions of collections away from the money lenders. Other lords forcibly used them as tax collectors, all this starting, creating, and intensifying hatred and enmity against all of them everywhere.
"Defenseless strangers, wanderers with a different religion, language, and customs, they always were the scapegoats. They were then cruelly subjected to contempt, injustices, tortures, and massacres. In 1492, they were subjected to atrocious tortures by the Spanish Inquisition.