The second of the two bottom facts of the Jewish side of the controversy is the undoubted hatred and envy by the Gentile of the superior Jewish intelligence, particularly in commerce, but as certainly in everything else. Nothing can keep the Jewish race from excelling. Ages of ancient wrong could not do it. Present-day oppression cannot do it. In some countries still the Jew is not allowed to own land. In others, Rumania for example, he is not permitted to enter the profession of lawyer, doctor, or teacher. In the old Russia he might not go to the Universities. In Poland he can exempt himself from army service and consequently is denied citizenship. Cruel as it all seems, and is, there is an underlying instinct of self-preservation at the foundation of it, for, given equal chances in the race of life, the Jew will ofttimes leave the Gentile laggard far behind.
In the early ’forties an enterprising statesman of Vienna began to train young Jews in journalism, and now all the important papers of Vienna are run by Jews. Since the opening of new doors to them in Germany they have dominated the artistic professions in Berlin, and have contributed overwhelmingly to the intellectual life of Germany. The greatest continental authority on Shakespeare, Professor Leon Kellner, is a Jew. Professor Einstein is a Jew, Professor Ehrlich is a Jew. These two great scientists are distinguished in a host of learned Jewish men of science. Maximilian Harden, eminent journalist, is a Jew. Max Reinhardt, composer, is a Jew. The list of famous living Jews is too long to be given in full. In England they distinguish themselves chiefly in politics—Lord Reading, Viceroy of India, Sir Herbert Samuel, High Commissioner in Palestine. And the Jews are dominant in the Socialist politics of Europe, not because of any deep and treacherous design against humanity they possess, but for precisely the reason they are dominant in other spheres, because of their good brains, logical minds, keen perceptions and rare artistic abilities.
If the economic domination of the world by the Jews should come to pass it will be in no small measure due to the historic fact of the persecution and exclusion which have necessitated to a great extent the expression of the rich mental life of the race along one narrow channel for two thousand years; and it will be due in some degree to the comparative self-indulgence and contempt for hard intellectual labour of the Gentile section of the world community.
This excursion into Poland, and the question of the Jews which the discussion of Poland always invites, has postponed for several pages the trip to Georgia. I had the intention to go to Warsaw this month, but a charming young Pole, a lovely girl of twenty, has come to stay with me for some months. Her cousin tells me she is Poland in epitome and advises me to stay at home! Wanda is still too young to be other than a fervid nationalist and patriot. She is full of the poetry and romance of things, and the love of dainty dresses. She is filled with the vague longings and sadness of youth, and likes the autumn better than the spring, which is exactly as it should be in sentimental twenty. My only trouble with my guest is one of race and upbringing. I have an unconquerable and brutal British habit of saying “yes” when I mean “yes.” She says “yes” when she means “no,” because to her it is polite and proper to say the thing you imagine you are wanted to say. The consequence is that I am in danger of killing her by dragging her from her books over the hills and dales of an English countryside, to put roses into the pale cheeks, and a bright light into the grey eyes which have seen too much of sorrow and suffering for one so young and fair.
CHAPTER XII
GEORGIA OF THE CAUCASUS
M. Camille Huysmans persuaded me to accept the Georgian invitation. “The Georgians want you to come very particularly because you were in Russia recently. They want someone who can make comparisons between the Bolshevik Government of Russia and the Social Democratic Government of their own country. It would be helpful to them, and would be interesting and useful to you.”
The delegation was selected from the Second International. Besides myself, Mr. J. R. Macdonald and Mr. Tom Shaw were invited from Great Britain; Messieurs Vandervelde, de Brouckere and Huysmans from Belgium; Messieurs Renaudel, Marquet and Inghels from France; and Herr Kautsky and his wife from Germany. Several Georgians and Russians with their wives were also of the party, and we were joined in Paris by Madame Vandervelde and Madame Huysmans and her daughter. The Kautskys joined us in Rome, travelling thither from Vienna.
Camille Huysmans would have to occupy a central position in any picture of the personalities of the present-day European Socialist Movement. His is a figure of more than ordinary interest. He is tall and slender, with an attractive mop of fair, curly hair. He possesses a keenly intellectual face, like that of Lasalle, delicate featured, but with a slightly cruel mouth. His eyes are restless and his general movements, except in speaking in public, are nervous. He has an extraordinary capacity for organization, and speaks four or five languages with equal fluency. His knowledge of the history and the present position of the world movement for Socialism is unrivalled.
His knowledge of the private histories as well as the public records of his Socialist colleagues in all lands is also very complete; which makes him a terror to evildoers. I have heard attributed to this knowledge the fact that the Russian Bolsheviks have left him severely alone. It certainly cannot be because he has spared them, for his hatred of their undemocratic form of government he has cried from the housetops.
His is the artistic temperament, and he is passionately fond of music and the drama. He loathes all the naked ugliness and stupid self-repression that passes for Puritanism in the minds of the soured and disappointed. He professes no personal religion, but temperamental leanings towards the forms of Roman Catholic worship are discernible in the expression of his general views of life. The pictures, the colour, the incense, the music of the æsthetic temples of every great Faith would probably be implicit in his scheme of things, for the sheer beauty of them.