XVII
MANY IMPULSES
Fair play comes first—and reasoning follows it. For fair play is always an impulse. It comes when least expected.
That is how it was at the university. The incident of the big, painted sign was practically the last demonstration against the influx of Jewish boys. Waters, who made capital of everything, attempted to found a formal organization dignified by the title of the Anti-Hebrew Collegiate League, but when, at the first meeting, he was not elected to the presidency, abandoned the project with bitter complaints against the ingratitude of his fellow members. A little later on, when the tide had turned in the opposite direction, he became the head of the Helping Hand League, and was atop the wave of contrition.
For the tide did turn. Men are always afraid to carry their propaganda beyond the point of the ridiculous. When tomfoolery turns to foolishness its perpetrators are only too anxious for a chance to abandon it.
It was impossible to keep the thing out of the newspapers. The day after that sign incident, there was a lurid story to be read at each of the city's breakfast tables and in the evening subways. New York took it up and made it a matter of shocked debate for a day and a half. The president of the university, in his quarterly sermon in chapel, spoke fervently of toleration and the gentle spirit.
The reaction was almost as hysterical as the movement itself. The little Jewish freshmen—timid, frightened little mice, who had been going about their classroom work and scurrying home and out of reach for so many months—suddenly found themselves lauded as martyrs, as the best of fellows.
One evening a deputation of them were waiting for me when I came in from supper. They had formed a Jewish fraternity, and wished me to join with them. Appeal to a Jewish philanthropist had brought them enough money to lease a house near the campus. They were sure that they would have sanction and support from the rest of the college, now that the prejudice had abated. And since they could not join any of the other fraternities, why should they not have one of their own?