"I would first resign, and then teach the people to abolish monopoly of land, the same as now," answered the Idealist. "But what would you do, Teacher?"
"I would teach the people from the throne that they were oppressed by their system of monopoly—and by their Czar."
NATIONAL ATAVISM
By Internationalist
HE Jewish circles in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities of America are aroused over the visit of a spectre called Nationalism, alias Territorialism. Like all spectres, it is doing a lot of mischief and causing much confusion in the heads of the Jewish population.
The spirit of our ancestor, Abraham, has come to life again. Like Abraham, when Jehovah commanded him to go in quest of the promised land, the Jewish Nationalists make themselves and others believe that they long for the moment, when with wife and child and all possessions, they will migrate to that spot on earth, which will represent the Jewish State, where Jewish traits will have a chance to develop in idyllic peace.
Natural science calls retrogression of species, which shows signs of a former state already overcome, atavism. The same term may be applied to the advanced section of the Jewish population, which has listened to the call of the Nationalists. They have retrogressed from a universal view of things to a philosophy fenced in by boundary lines; from the glorious conception that "the world is my country" to the conception of exclusiveness. They have abridged their wide vision and have made it narrow and superficial.
The Zionism of Max Nordau and his followers never was more than a sentimental sport for the well-to-do in the ranks of the Jews. The latter-day Nationalists, however, are bent on reaching those circles of the Jewish race that have so far followed the banner of Internationalism and Revolution; and this at a moment when revolutionists of all nationalities and races are most in need of unity and solidarity. Nothing could be more injurious to the Russian revolution, nothing prove a lack of confidence in its success, so much as the present nationalistic agitation.