“In my own regiment I promoted five men from the ranks for valour and good conduct in battle. It happened by pure accident, for I know nothing of the faith of any one of them, that these included two Protestants, two Catholics, and one Jew; and while that was a pure accident, it was not without its value as an illustration of the ethnic and religious make-up of our nation and of the fact that if a man is a good American, that is all we ask, without thinking of his creed or his birthplace.
“In the same way, when I was Police Commissioner in New York, I had experience after experience of the excellent service done—an excellent work needing nerve and hardihood, excellent work of what I may call the Maccabee type in the Police Department under me, by police officers of Jewish extraction.
“Let me give you one little incident with a direct bearing upon this question of persecution for race or religious reasons. You may possibly recall, I am sure certain of my New York friends will recall, that during the time I was Police Commissioner a man came from abroad—I am sorry to say, a clergyman—to start an anti-Jewish agitation in New York, and announced his intention of holding meetings to assail the Jews. The matter was brought to my attention.
“Of course, I had no power to prevent those meetings. After a good deal of thought I detailed a Jewish sergeant and forty Jewish policemen to protect the agitator while he held his meetings; so he made his speeches denouncing the Jews protected exclusively by Jews, which I always thought was probably the most effective answer that could possibly be made to him, and probably the best object lesson that we could give of the spirit in which we Americans manage such matters.
“Now let me give you another little example dealing with a Russian Jew, an experience I had while handling the Police Department, and that could have occurred, I think, nowhere else than in the United States.
“There was a certain man I appointed under the following conditions: I was attracted to him by being told on a visit to the Bowery branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association that they had a young fellow there, a Jew, who had performed a feat of great note in saving people from a burning building, and that they thought he was just the type for a policeman. I had him called up and told him to take the examination, and see if he could get through. He did, and he passed.
“He has only been an excellent policeman, but he at once, out of his salary, proceeded to educate his younger brothers and sisters, and he got either two or three of his old kinsfolk over from Russia, through the money he had saved, and provided homes for them.
“I have given you examples of men who have served under me in my administration of the Police Department in New York and my regiment. In addition thereto, some of my nearest social friends, some of those with whom I have been closest in political life, have been men of Jewish faith and extraction. Therefore, inevitably, I have felt a degree of personal sympathy and personal horror over this dreadful tragedy, as great as can exist in the minds of any of you gentlemen yourselves.
“Exactly as I should claim the same sympathy from any one of you for any tragedy happening to any Christian people, so I should hold myself unworthy of my present position if I failed to feel just as deep sympathy and just as deep sorrow and just as deep horror over an outrage like this done to the Jewish people in any part of the earth.
“I am confident that much good has already been done by the manifestations throughout the country, without any regard to creed whatsoever, of horror and sympathy over what has occurred. It is gratifying to know—what we would, of course, assume—that the Government of Russia shows the feelings of horror and indignation with which the American people look upon the outrages at Kishineff, and is moving vigorously not only to prevent their continuance, but to punish the perpetrators.