THE JEWISH CHRONICLE
religious identity was discovered. We do not exaggerate when we
say that in the large majority of cases, when men have been dis-
charged
for the supposed reason of their being Jews, a careful investi-
Issued Every Friday by the Jewish Chronicle Publishing Company.
General Manager gation has proved that their discharge was due either to their own
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ANTON KAUFMAN
inefficiency or to other causes with which their religious affiliation
had nothing whatsoever to do.
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Moreover, to jump at the conclusion that prejudice is an inciting
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in cases like these, is not only to do an injustice to the employer
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of labor, but also to that large body of Jews who feel that the cry of
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prejudice raised by a few is misrepresentative of the attitude of the
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Jews as a whole. We were particularly incensed, therefore, when in
Editorial Contributor a local evening paper we read this week that preparations are on foot
RABBI LEO M. FRANKLIN,
by the Jews of this city for a campaign through which to induce the
The Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on subjects of inter- large employers of Jewish labor in Detroit to permit their Jewish
est to the Jewish people, but disclaims responsibility for an indorse- employees to absent themselves from work during the approaching
holydays, the statement being made that the refusal of these employ-
ment of the views expressed by the writers.
ers to do so last year caused them to be denounced from many local
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Jewish pulpits. We do not know who inspired this article, but we
All correspondence to insure publication must be sent in so as to
stand ready to denounce it as vicious in principle and untrue in fact.
reach this office Tuesday morning of each week. VVe question whether anywhere large employers of labor have been
more generous to their Jewish workingmen than have been the manu-
at Detroit,
Entered as second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post Office
facturers of Detroit. Last year we took occasion to publish in these
Mich., under the Act of March 3, 1879
columns letters from such great concerns as the Ford Motor 'Co. and
the Cadillac Motor Car Co., in which they agreed to permit their
FRIDAY, AUG. 17, 1917
thousands of Jewish employees to abstain from labor on their high
holydays, without prejudice. An insinuation, in the face of these
Prejudice and the Individual
facts, that the Jews have to organize for their rights in matters of
Prejudice has been defined by Professor Morse of Clark Univer- this kind, is maliciously unfair. Last year a number of cases were
sity as a feeling of aversion against objects, beings and conditions, brought to our attention, of men discharged from their positions after
that is to be found not only in the human species, but may be traced the holydays, but an investigation showed that these men lost their
backward ' and downward through even the lowest forms of animal (life. positions not because they observed their religious holydays, but for
Strangely enough, however, the psychology of prejudice has never other good and cogent reasons.
been adequately investigated. The nearest approach to such investi-
We have gone into these matters in some detail in this article,
gation was 'made by Professor Hellenbach, who wrote under the title because we believe that the cause of the Jew is being greatly hurt by
"Die Vorurtheile der Menschheit." Writers of fiction have dealt with those in this and other communities who are speaking in his name
the subject from various angles, but they have scarcely delved into the without authority and without knowledge of the facts at issue. It is
depths where origins may be discovered. This much, however, has this sort of misrepresentation that actually makes for prejudice. Be-
been established with a fair degree of accuracy, that prejudice finds fore wholesale accusations are made against any man or any group of
its root causes in a sense of difference between the parties who stand men, therefore, let there be careful investigation made not only of the
relatively in subjective and objective relation to it. That is to say, qualifications of the individual against whom prejudice is supposed to
there is much more likelihood of prejudice manifesting itself between manifest itself, but of all the circumstances involved in the case.
individuals or races or nations or religious and political parties or Frequently it will be found under such conditions that they who cry
social groups or industrial classes whose interests are opposite, than prejudice are the only ones who arc really guilty of being prejudiced.
among those whose origins, customs, language, occupations and ordi-
nary wants, desires, ambitions and ideals are very much the same.
The Counting Minority
Groups whose outlook upon life is from entirely opposite angles not
only are frequently unwilling, but they are often unable to focus not
Too much stress is laid on numbers. While it is true that in a
only each other, but that world in which the other lives and moves and democracy the majority must rule, it is still not true that the destinies
has his being, from a proper perspective. This fact was clearly of mankind have ever been decided by numerical majorities. The
brought out by Professor James in his notable book, "The Will to truth is that the great events that have changed the face of human
Believe," where, for instance, he shows that a hypothesis which would history from time to time have always been the reflex of the activities
be buoyant with life to the Arab is stone dead to the Christian, largely and leadership of some dominant and outstanding personality. The
because the latter will not even examine its claims to acceptance, but prophet has always been the one man of his time. It is, therefore, a
complacently pushes it aside with a smirking smile and a shrug of the mistake to believe that a cause is assured of permanence just because
shoulders. Should one test his own average experience in regard to for the moment it happens to have a majority on its side. The Jew
prejudice, whether from the subjective or the objective standpoint, he has always represented a minority among the peoples in whose midst
would find that Professor James has put his finger upon a very vital if he has lived. Indeed, he has been always a mere handful among
not upon the central cause of prejudice. Men become so set in their multitudes. And yet the Jew has survived and he has left his indeli-
own ideas of things, that anyone who takes the opposite viewpoint ble mark upon every civilization with which he has come into contact.
becomes by that token in their eyes a fanatic and a bigot. They will
It were well for those groups of our co-religionists who are for-
not listen to his arguments. They will not be convinced. To use ever prating of their growing numerical strength, to bear this fact in
Professor James' well known phrase, "They lack the will to believe." mind. If numbers were the sole criterion of strength and influence,
Of this countless illustrations might be brought forward from every then indeed must the Reform Jews of America concede, as some of
phase of human experience. Men pre-judge their fellows. As a their Orthodox friends would have it, that their time of leadership is
, result, they who charge prejudice against another are as frequently as past. In the face of the tremendous immigration of these past years,
not themselves the victims of a prejudiced mind.
it would be stupid to hope that the Reform Jews in this land might at
This fact shows itself, we believe, nowhere more clearly than in the present be in the majority. But majorities do not count in spirit-
the attitude of a considerable number of Jews in their attitude toward ual matters. "Not by strength and not by might," says the Scripture.
the non-Jewish community. No matter what the conditions that The Reform Jew believes that the future is his because, true to the
happen to make for the disadvantage of the Jew, these people at once best traditions of Israel's past, he stands in closest touch with the
raise the cry of prejudice: - Now we are the last to hold that even in latest revelation of God's will and of mankind's need in the today.
this twentieth century and in this beloved America, the spirit of Besides, his numbers are constantly increasing. As a rule the son of
prejudice against the Jew has entirely abated. The readers of this the Reform Jew is loyal to his religious inheritance. On the other
paper, and especially those who are familiar with the pulpit utterances hand, signs are not wanting that the children of the Orthodox Jew in
of the writer of this article, need not be reminded that where anti- America will either be Reform Jews or that they will not be Jews at
semitism raises its vicious head, we have never been slow to raise our all. The spirit of freedom with which the very atmosphere of our
voice in denunciation of it. But we are firmly convinced that many country is permeated, will 'not permit them to remain the spiritual
times the cry of prejudice is raised when it is not warranted, and that slaves of rite and formalism. The Reform Jew, we believe, is the
often a careful investigation of all the facts involved would prove counting minority today. Whether in the future he will represent
that if a Jew seems to have been discriminated against, the discrimina- the numerical majority or not, we do not know. Only this we know
tion was due to his own fault and not to any religious prejudice on —that in spiritual matters numbers do not count.
the part of those from whom the seeming discrimination emanated.
This is particularly true, we believe, in the matter of the employ-
ment of Jews in large industrial plants. Constantly we are told that
this or that employer of labor will not give employment to Jews, or
that Jews have been discharged from employment as soon as their
THE _JEWISH CHRONICLE