The Jewish leaders admit much truth in the impeachment. One accounts for the bad reputation of his race in the legal profession by pointing out that they entered the tricky branches of it, viz., commercial law and criminal law. Says a high minded lawyer: "If the average American entered law as we have to, without money, connections or adequate professional education, he would be a shyster too." Another observes that the sharp practice of the Russo-Jewish lawyer belongs to the earlier part of his career when he must succeed or starve. As he prospers his sense of responsibility grows. For example, some years ago the Bar Association of New York opposed the promotion of a certain Hebrew lawyer to the bench on the ground of his unprofessional practices. But this same lawyer made one of the best judges the city ever had, and when he retired he was banqueted by the Association.
The truth seems to be that the lower class of Jews of eastern Europe reach here moral cripples, their souls warped and dwarfed by iron circumstance. The experience of Russian repression has made them haters of government and corrupters of the police. Life amid a bigoted and hostile population has left them aloof and thick-skinned. A tribal spirit intensified by social isolation prompts them to rush to the rescue of the caught rascal of their own race. Pent within the Talmud and the Pale of Settlement, their interests have become few, and many of them have developed a monstrous and repulsive love of gain. When now, they use their Old-World shove and wile and lie in a society like ours, as unprotected as a snail out of its shell, they rapidly push up into a position of prosperous parasitism, leaving scorn and curses in their wake.
Gradually, however, it dawns upon this twisted soul that here there is no need to be weazel or hedgehog. He finds himself in a new game, the rules of which are made by all the players. He himself is a part of the state that is weakened by his law-breaking, a member of the profession that is degraded by his sharp practices. So smirk and cringe and trick presently fall away from him, and he stands erect. This is why, in the same profession at the same time, those most active in breaking down standards are Jews and those most active in raising standards are Jews—of an earlier coming or a later generation. "On the average," says a Jewish leader, "only the third generation feels perfectly at home in American society." This explains the frequent statement that the Jews are "the limit"—among the worst of the worst and among the best of the best.
CRIME
The Hebrew immigrants usually commit their crimes for gain; and among gainful crimes they lean to gambling, larceny, and the receiving of stolen goods rather than to the more daring crimes of robbery and burglary. The fewness of the Hebrews in prison has been used to spread the impression that they are uncommonly law-abiding. The fact is it is harder to catch and convict criminals of cunning than criminals of violence. The chief of police of any large city will bear emphatic testimony as to the trouble Hebrew law-breakers cause him. Most alarming is the great increase of criminality among Jewish young men and the growth of prostitution among Jewish girls. Says a Jewish ex-assistant attorney-general of the United States in an address before the B'nai B'rith: "Suddenly we find appearing in the life of the large cities the scarlet woman of Jewish birth." "In the women's night court of New York City and on gilded Broadway the majority of street walkers bear Jewish names." "This sudden break in Jewish morality was not natural. It was a product of cold, calculating, mercenary methods, devised and handled by men of Jewish birth." Says the president of the Conference of American Rabbis: "The Jewish world has been stirred from center to circumference by the recent disclosures of the part Jews have played in the pursuance of the white slave traffic." On May 14, 1911, a Yiddish paper in New York said, editorially:
"It is almost impossible to comprehend the indifference with which the large New York Jewish population hears and reads, day after day, about the thefts and murders that are perpetrated every day by Jewish gangs—real bands of robbers—and no one raises a voice of protest, and no demand is made for the protection of the reputation of the Jews of America and for the life and property of the Jewish citizens."
"A few years ago when Commissioner Bingham came out with a statement about Jewish thieves, the Jews raised a cry of protest that reached the heavens. The main cry was that Bingham exaggerated and overestimated the number of Jewish criminals. But when we hear of the murders, hold-ups and burglaries committed in the Jewish section by Jewish criminals, we must, with heartache, justify Mr. Bingham."
Two weeks later the same paper said: "How much more will Jewish hearts bleed when the English press comes out with descriptions of gambling houses packed with Jewish gamblers, of the blind cigar stores where Jewish thieves and murderers are reared, of the gangs that work systematically and fasten like vampires upon the peaceable Jewish population, and of all the other nests of theft, robbery, murder, and lawlessness that have multiplied in our midst."
This startling growth reflects the moral crisis through which many immigrants are passing. Enveloped in the husks of medievalism, the religion of many a Jew perishes in the American environment. The immigrant who loses his religion is worse than the religionless American because his early standards are dropped along with his faith. With his clear brain sharpened in the American school, the egoistic, conscienceless young Jew constitutes a menace. As a Jewish labor leader said to me, "the non-morality of the young Jewish business men is fearful. Socialism inspires an ethics in the heart of the Jewish workingman, but there are many without either the old religion or the new. I am aghast at the consciencelessness of the Luft-proletariat without feeling for place, community or nationality."