But I was mistaken. There was in the dining-room the usual rustling, clatter of plates, forks and knives, tinkling of glasses, and whispered conversation. "Our" American was sitting at the side of his odd Dulcinea, and he again looked like a self-satisfied cox-comb. But, it seemed to me that into the everyday mood of the vessel's table-d'hôte, there entered something elusive and significant, which could change the appearance of this motley crowd just as our American's face had changed at the end of our conversation.
And, in fact, a few weeks later, I happened to be present at one of those tempestuous manifestations of public opinion which at times break out like storms on the surface of the ocean. There is much that is ridiculous in the every-day tone of American newspapers, in their thirst for sensations and réclame, in their petty interviews. But here everything was suddenly swept aside, and the dominant tone of the American press became deep and significant. Now and then the voices of past generations,—the men who had been the builders of freedom and law in their country, the voices of Lincolns, Harrisons, and Davises pierced the bustle of every-day life and were heard in editorials, articles, in the speeches delivered at meetings.
The occasion for all this was again the Jewish question, and the ignorance of axioms shown by a nation of the old continent. And it occurred to me that probably somewhere in Chicago, Mr. Jackson, "who dislikes green peas," was delivering, or at least listening to, a speech about the axioms of human law, and was voting in favor of a corresponding resolution.
For he firmly believes that love is capricious. Like mercy, it bloweth, whither it listeth.... But justice, justice is obligatory....
THE JEWISH QUESTION IN RUSSIA[ToC]
Professor Paul Nikolayevich Milyukov, the central figure in the present Russian revolution, was born in 1859. Before the upheaval in 1905 he was known as a distinguished historian. In 1903 and 1904 he lectured on Russia at Harvard and at the University of Chicago, and in 1908 he spoke on the situation in Russia before the Civic Forum in Carnegie Hall. Ever since the revolutionary days of 1905-6, Professor Milyukov has been playing a most conspicuous part in the Russian emancipatory movement, as the leader of the Constitutional party, as a Duma deputy and the editor of the influential radical newspaper Ryech.