Inc ykraonSwisn (A aorna.r. PAGE FOUR CiXaW HE JE MIT ThaSil • iremnrn Published Weekly by The Jewish Chronicle Publishing Cs., Inc. Joseph J. Cummins, President and Editor Jacob H. Schakne, General Manager at the l'Agoffice at Detroit. meter Mai rh 3, under the Art of M•tch a. 1.7V. tittered •• General Offices and Publication Building 850 High Street West Telephone: Glend•le 9300 Cable Address: Chronicle LwIdon Office 14 Stratford Place, London, W. 1, England $3.00 Per Subscription, in Advance Year - reach Mlle To leisure pubileatio; alretTr i reepoodonce and news matter met office by Tuesday evenIna of each week. — - — — - The Detroit Jow•h Chronicle molten correspondence on eubJects of Inlereet to the Jewish people, but dieelalens reeponelbIllty for an Indere...I of the • . views expressed by the writer.. October 31, 1924 Chealwan .3, 5685 Fruits of Folly.' 4 al 4 4 4 ) 4 4 4 American Jewry is called upon to raise $500,000 as an emergency fund with which to rescue and salvage the 5,000 unfortunates in Cuba and those 10,01)0 stranded ones in the ports of Europe. All this wretchedness, which really transcends de- scription, comes directly from the new immigration law, but were it not for the greed of unscrupulous steamship agents, the folly of sentimentalists and the downright desperation of our bedeviled people, even the Johnson Bill would not have claimed such a toll of human misery. From the reports on hand the immi- grants are abld to pass the mental and physical require- ments for entry but the quotas are long since fulled and they cannot enter and, what is more, those in charge are as anxious and scrupulous in upholding the law as are the immigration officials themselves. , These immigrants from Russia, Roumania, Hun- gary, Poland and Galicia find themselves in a land of tropical heat, without a knowledge of the language, among people whose habits, customs and appearance are strange and exotic. There is an insignificant Jew- ish community; there are no agencies for assistance or employment; funds are depleted and in most cases the immigrants are penniless, without hope of procuring employment. This picture is not at all overdrawn; if anything, it is an understatement. If ever in our day we witnessed a mad adventure it is this adventure of Israel in Cuba. Sometimes we wonder if that pathetic childish phil- osophy that "all will be well, God will provide," is re- sponsible for such tragedies as this Cuban affair, or does it come from sheer desperation, aided and abetted by false stories, woven by these birds of prey other- wise known as steamship agents. And yet, not long ago, the project of transporting the 10,000 European refugees to Mexico was seriously considered. The mat- ter is indeed vexing and troublesome, but it cannot be solved by practically exposing men, women and chil- dren to almost certain annihilation. Surely those who are in comfort and well-adjusted need not become im- patient, even though the harried and driven ones see no prospect of escape except by taking the most dan- gerous chances. One appalling feature of the whole affair is the plight of young girls and children. The men and ma- tured women are already accustomed to hardships and the hazards of life, but many of these immature ones may have their whole lives blasted by this corrosive in- fluence. If American Jewry thinks its day of giving is past it will have to revise that belief. This fund for emer- gency relief is only a half million for the present. We are certain more will be required before these wretch- ed ones are settled in sonic place where there is a pos- sibility of maintaining life with sonic degree of de- cency. This most unhappy condition may serve to awaken our people to a realization that chasing the will-o-the- wisp and the mirage is not the best pursuit for a sup- posedly practical, hard-headed people. American Jewry, however, must answer this present call with that magnanimity which characterized its giving before. Jewish intellectual and Manual worker. This advance had been painful and laborious. The Jew had not only the centuries-old antagonism of the Russian peo- ple to overcome but even greater handicaps and bur- dens were the traditions of the Ghetto, which viewed manual labor as rather degrading and placed a prem- ium upon Talmudic scholarship, speculation and trade. The nimble-witted trader, trained in the school of hard bargaining, persisted even in the artisan, and when the necessity arose the skin newly-grown-on was shed with- out much effort or persuasion. And that necessity did arise with overwhelming and surprising swiftness and force with the collapse of Russian industry in 1917. Instantly the Jew became speculator, petty trader, usurer, in short, a parasite. If his position before the revolution was one of sufferance and it was the genu-, ineness of his conversion to industry that was ques- tioned. If his position in Russian life was indefinite, unstable and untenable before the Bolshevist regime was ushered in it surely became more so after t at time. In the first days of the revolution the insistence upon proletarian origins and the disfavor of bourgoise connections made the position of the Jews more un- happy than that of any nationality in Russia. When the first enthusiasms• for proletarian superiority passed away and the New Economic Policy was inaugurated the position of the Jew improved slightly. But through all the vicissitudes and changes in policy the pre-emi- nence of proletarian origins persisted and the Jew, as non-proletarian, has been'a pariah. Economically, the Jew has been living on the edge of a knife. As a nep- man he is treated with contempt and suspicion, even in the best times, arid in times such as these which now prevail in Russia, he is a leper, despicable beyond all description, for some of 'them are well-fed and prosper- ous while starvation is everywhere. The poverty-strick- en Jews receive no consideration for the double reason that they are nepmen and non-proletarian. The situation is indeed tragic in the land of social experiment. The Jew suffers most from these experi- ments, for in no sense does he belong in the scheme of things as they are in the Russia of today. But we are hardly prepared to accept the catastrophic estimate of these cautious reporters. There is no need to exagger- ate. Even an understatement of the fact is enough to fill one with despair. Out of this hodge-podge of blunderings, famine, unsound theories, prejudice and passion arrives one group of clear-visioned, forceful and realistic men or- ganized in the Ort. They are at, present trying to raise $1,000,000 to extend their activities, which con-, sist in the training of Jews in the crafts, arts and agri- culture. The fact 'that the Ort is asking for $1,000,000 only is conclusive proof that the statement of the dele- gates. is grossly exaggerated, for the Ort would not hesitate to ask American Jews for $10,000,000 to save, salvage and rehabilitate Russian Jewry. Ilelp the Ort so that Russian Jewry will escape from its untenable, anomolous position in Russian life. Help the Ort so that the movement to give Russian Jew- ry a respected position of equality with the other na- tionalities in Russia may become a fact. Three Million Jews Will Starve. The three cautious American delegates who attend- ed the Carlsbad Conference report that there will be three million less Jews in the world unless the political and economic conditions in Russia are remedied. We wonder how many Jews in Russia would starve if the delegates were not cautious or if they did not base their conclusions upon facts, but rather upon vaporings and fancy. There would not be enough Jews in Russia to die, they would really have to import sonic of our Ga- lician and Roumanian Jews to supply the angel of death with enough victims of starvation. No doe proposes to minimize the catastrophic fac- tors in Russian life, nor would any one with an appre- ciation of the serious economic malady in that land tat- tehipt to dissipate the grave dangers which beset our unhappy people by a picture of hope and cheer, when the facts obviously contradict such a picture. The con- clusions of the delegates are based upon the facts ob- served in a Russia which is with a famine hardly less serious than the Russia of four years ago. when the failure of the crops in the Volga combined with the in- adequacy of railroad transportation created a condi- tion which taxed even the most pessimistic imagination. The position of the Jews in the economic lifd of Russia must be understood in order to appreciate in some measure their present precarious situation. Be- ginning With the abolition of serfdom in Russia, which synchronizes with what may be called the Russian in- dustrial revolution, the find the Jew definitely, though slowly, breaking down the barriers of Ghetto economic isolation and restriction. The putty trade, smuggling, speculation and usury and the general occupations of living by one's wits which characterized Ghetto Jewry gave way to trades and callings which were clasilied among the productive. When the world war broke out in Europe the insignificant, practically negligible, number of useful. productive Jewish workers of the Ghetto days had grown until more than 50 per cent were productive, useful workers. These were com- paratively happy days for Russian Jewry despite the discrimination and occasional pogroms. The Jew had lost his parasitic position and was silently and inexor- ably hewing out a place in Russian society where 'he could point to his present accomplishments and not past grandeur. Even the stubborn and apparently irrefrag- able prejudices of Russian -bureaucracy were crumb- ling in the face of this substantial contribution of the iSgeS1