In lieu of reliable statistics, therefore, I must trust to my own experience. I have found that grosser criminality among the Jews is a more abnormal phenomenon than among most of the newer immigrant groups. In my intimate acquaintance with a number of Jewish communities in Europe, I know some as large as 10,000 souls, where such crimes as theft, robbery and murder are never committed; yet where cheating, fraudulent bankruptcy and receiving stolen goods are not uncommon.
The Jew has done himself almost irreparable injury by his protest against the reading of the Bible, and Christmas exercises in the public schools and in his attitude towards Sunday laws. In both cases he has shown himself intolerant, and has alienated staunch friends whose help and sympathy he may need in the day of tribulation. As a citizen and patriot, he is everywhere giving evidence of his devotion; while in the struggle for the coming of a better day in the government of our cities and of the state, he has done his full share; indeed, among the newer immigrant groups, he has furnished to that cause by far the largest quota.
There are several points at which the Jew does not satisfactorily answer the questions I ask. He provides far too large a number of those, who, as a class, seem unnecessary at the present stage of our economic development; he presents too solid a differentiated group, will retard proper adjustment and increase existing race antagonisms. His attitude towards the manifestation of the religious spirit in our public schools, his intolerance towards certain religious practices which are fundamentally ethical and social, but not necessarily sectarian, will more and more alienate those Americans who have been most hospitable towards him and upon whose good will he is dependent, economically and socially, if not politically.
These, I think, are the sore spots of the problem; and if the Jew is as shrewd as he is painted, he will look to their healing; while if the American is as charitable as I think him to be, he will give the Jew full time for reconvalescence.
XX
FROM FIFTH AVENUE TO THE GHETTO
IT has always been dangerous for the common mortal who was the spokesman of his kind to eat at the king’s table; for the tyrant at close range proved an admirable host and pleasant gentleman, whose tender meats and delicate wines covered a “multitude of sins.”
When, after having eaten lunch on the East Side for a week, one receives an invitation to luncheon on Fifth Avenue, even the most scrupulous may temporize, and I confess that, feeling highly flattered, I tossed my scruples to the winds and accepted the invitation.
The feast began for me, when my eyes rested on the splendid architecture of the palatial residence, its furnishings, marbles and pictures, which appealed to my artistic sense and almost reproduced the atmosphere of the refinement and culture of those lands in which they had their birth. In the winter garden where fountains played, and rare flowers nodded their bedewed heads, filling the air with fragrance, I forgot the squalor of the East Side and the darkness and dampness of that raw, February day.
With the luncheon I was less pleased; for frankly, I prefer noodle soup and Gulyas to French snails and terrapin.
To my plebeian palate the snails tasted like mucilage flavoured with garlic, and the terrapin like fricasseed Turkish towels.