Page Six

THE JEWISH NEWS

may,

Apra

30, 1943

PLURIIIIIUS UNUIW

AND THE

CULTURES of DEMOCRACY

By H. M. KALLEN

on equal terms. The unity of the demo-
cratic way is a union that emerges from and
consists in this teamplay. It takes form as a
free association, and it rules not as a sover-
eign imposing its authority from without
and above, but as a servant receiving its
authority from within and beneath. Living,
in such a federal union, is characterized by
the fact that no relation in it is rigid, fixed,
compulsive. Individuals and associations of
individuals, each different from the others,
live together with the others in such a way
that all may enjoy the freest possible move-
ment, the greatest possible initiative. They form
an open society, in which hindrances to free com-
munications are at a minimum, and the process of
free communication on all levels—economic, relig-
ious, aesthetic, scientific, and political—constitutes
the bond of union between the different corn-
munican.ts.

H. M. Kallen, author of this important article, is
professor of philosophy and psychology and lecturer
on the philosophy of education in the Graduate
Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New
School for Social Research. He is author of a number
of volumes including "Culture and Democracy in
the United States" which first brought the concept
of cultural pluralism into public discussion. Dr.
Kallen was closely associated with the late William
James who left his unfinished work for Dr. Kallen
to edit. He hag been active in the Zionist Organiza-
tion of America, as an associate of the late Justice
Louis D. Brandeis, and in the American Jewish
Congress.
This article is reprinted with the kind permission
of the National Conference of Christians and Jews
from the special issue of Journal of Educational
Sociology sponsored by the Conference.

7

HERE IS AN ISSUE of human relations which
is as old as mankind and as inveterate as
thought. Philosophers call it "the problems of the
One and the Many" and find it also the basic
problem of existence. Humanly, however, it is the
problem of how people who are different from each
other shall live together with each other. It is the
critical problem of each personal life, of each race,
sect, sex, occupational group, political party, sover-
eign state, and religious establishment.

An educated man is distinguished from an igno-
ramus, a tolerant man from an intolerant, a man
of culture from a barbarian, and a free man from
a servile one by his desire for and training in free
communication with the different. Among free men,
the entire purpose of education is mastery of the
means and methods of free communication. Such a
mastery is, and always has been, culture; and it
measures any person's readiness to live and to grow
in a civilization that is - naturally a cultural
pluralism and that takes the facts of this plural-

The history of mankind indicates two major
ways of solving this problem, ways that recur, with
variations, in philosophy and the other arts and
sciences as well as in more "practical" affairs.

The first and by far the older and more prevalent
way is to deny all rights to the different. Some
primitives utterly extirpate the difference; others
make them one with themselves by eating them;
others by attaching their heads or scalps to their
own persons or possessions; still others by degrading
the different to slavery—in Aristotle's words, to the
status of a tool with life in it. More advanced so-
cieties have employed enslavement more than
slaughter, though they have always countered
disobedience or nonconformity with the threat of
death. Their elite have been conquerors; their
ideal has been total unity achieved by warfare
and imposed by victory, a unity in which every
part draws its existence, its meaning, and its value
from the one absolute, indivisible sovereign whole.
Under this unity, that only can be true which the
sovereign says is true—the different is heresy, error,
or infidelity; that only can be right which the
sovereign says iS right—the different is immorality,
sin, or treason. Under its doctrine and discipline, to
be different is to be evil and to merit either punish-
ment or destruction.

Since all nature breeds and multiplies differences,
differences come into existence willy-nilly—different
peoples, different communities with different econ-
omies, different faiths, different cultures, and differ-
ent ways of life and living. The mere existence of
these differents is a denial of the claims and a
challenge to the rule of those who speak on behalf
of a One, sole, exclusive, sovereign authority. Such
an authority, consequently, be it political, ecclesiasti-
cal, economic, or what have you, is compelled in the
nature of things to spend much of its force in
suppressing or destroying the different, especially
that which makes rival claims to unique sovereignty.
As the enemy of difference, such authority is also the
enemy of freedom, since freedom lives and moves
and has its being in the right - to be different. It
wages a permanent war against freedom.

The doctrine and discipline of the Nazis and
the Japanese are today's most sadistocratic embodi-
ment of this warfare against freedom, this under-
taking of those who would impose their One to
destroy or to enslave those who acknowledge and
respect the equal liberty of the Many.

The second way of resolving the problem of the
One and the Many starts in such acknowledgment
and respect. We call it the democratic way. Its
device is E pluribus umim. Its doctrine is stated by
the Declaration of Independence, its discipline by
the Constitution. The living faith that sustains
doctrine and discipline does not require the sub-
mergence or subordination of the different; it
requires the cooperation or teamplay of the different

ism as the basic material of its cultural ideal.

It is for the survival of such a civilization of
cultural pluralism as fact and as ideal that we and
our allies are today at war. As the United States of
America are many communities of peoples bound
to each other by free communication into one na-
tion; as the British Commonwealth of Nations are
many peoples, the strength of whose bond is
measured by the freedom of their association, so
are the United Nations. Yellow men, black men,
brown men, and red men, as well as white; Con-
fucians, Buddahists, Mohammedans, Parsees, Sikhs,
and Bahais and countless other faiths and cultures
as well as Judaist, Catholic, and Protestant are
joined together as equal soldiers in the war to
vindicate the freedom of their manyness against the
servitude of the Japanazi oneness. They uphold
the spiritual abundance of their Cultural Pluralism
against the spiritual scarcity of the foe's monist
Kultur. They advance the spontaneous orchestration
of the freely cooperating Many against the servile
coordination of the foe's regimented One; they pit
the strength of the team play by a Federal Union -
against the changing force of a sovereign unity.

Cultural Pluralism thus defines both the material
and the spiritual intent of the four freedoms. It is
both the means and the goal of a way of life for
which survival and growth American history has
been an unceasing struggle. Today it embodies the
form of those freedoms that are the hope of all
the world.

A Memoire on David Lloyd George and Zionism

Forty Years Since Uganda .

With the question of refugee set-
tlement dominating Jewish minds
and forming the subject of the
Bermuda conference, it is timely
to recall that 40 years ago Britain
first made her offer of a Jewish
homeland in Uganda. Mr. Medzini
recalls a little-known episode in-
volving David Lloyd George, who
recently celebrated his 80th birth-
day. —The Editor.

.

JERUSALEM—Mr. Lloyd
George's 80th birthday was greet-
ed in Palestine with particular
warmth. For the Jews of Pales-
tine, Mr. Lloyd - George's name
is connected with four decades
of interest in and sympathy for
their cause.;.
Why four decades? Mr. Lloyd
George was Prime Minister at
the time the . British Cabinet is-
sued the Balfour Declaration, but
that was only 25 years ago. But
it really is 40 years, because his
name was first mentioned in a
Zionist document in 1903.
Follows Up Clue
While working on a history of
Zionism 10 years ago, the present
writer came across a letter sent
by the last founder 'of the Zionist
Organization to its executive com-
mittee in Vienna, in .Which Dr.
Herzl wrote as follows: "Attached
a Draft Charter by - Mr. George
Who is .a member of Parliament".
Followiiig.un the clue, I wrote
to -Mr.- Lloyd George asking him
Whether he himself. had any ree:-
ord. of. the' matter. A prompt
TePly• furnished information in-
cluding at least two hitherto uri.
published documents.
It was in the year 1903 when
the British government, shocked
by the pogrom in Kishinev, ex-
pressed its readiness to plate at
the disposal of the Zionist move-
ment a large tract of land in
Uganda for the purpose of a
Jewish settlement.
Negotiations Began
Negotiations were begun, and
Mr. David Lloyd George, M.P. ;
then also a practicing solicitor,
was asked by the Zionists to
draft a charter for the territory.
His document, laying down the
rights and duties of the Jewish
colonizing body, is interesting
mainly for the provision-that the
Jewish settlement territory in

-

the heart of Africa should be
called "New Palestine."
The scheme fell through be-
cause the Zionist Organization
saw little chance of success for
any large-scale Jewish settle-
ment Outside Zion. The British
settlers, in - their turn, -.opposed
the proposal, and the report of
a Jewish commission sent to
Uganda was of a negative nature.
At that time, June 1904, the
first debate on Jewish settlement
problems took place in the House
of Commons. Mr. Lloyd George
was one of the speakers while
others included the Prime Min-
ister, Mr. A. J. Balfour and Sir
Edward Grey. The failure of the
Uganda project led to an attempt
on the part of the Zionist lead-
ers in 1906 to revive an older
scheme for a Jewish settlement in
the Sinai Peninsula.
Retells Story
The assistance of Mr. Lloyd.
George, by then holding an im-
portant ministerial appointment,
was sought. He agreed to remit
a memorandum on the subject to
his • colleague, Sir Edward Grey,
who was then beginning his mem-.
orable period of service at the
Foreign Office. The memoran-
dum retold the story of the Zion-
ists' attempts to find a solution
to the Jewish problem through
the establishment of a "National
Home" .(this possibly being the
first use of the term in a Zionist
' document).
The memorandum pointed out
that the original scheme for es-
tablishing a Jewish settlement in
the Sinai Peninsula failed to re:-
ceive the necessary approval be-
cause Lord Cromer's• advisers
were of the opinion that it would
be impossible to provide the Nile
water necessary for irrigatidn.
At the end of 1905 technical

By M. MEDZINI

experts were invited by the Zion-
ist Organization to go into the
matter again. They came to the
conclusion that "the objections
previously felt can without ab-
normal difficulty and expense be
overcome." The Zionist Organi-
zation, therefore, asked the Brit-
ish Government to review its
previous decision on the subject.
End of Chapter
A short memorandum dated
"Foreign Office, March 20, 1906,"
bears witness to the end of that
chapter. It runs: -
"Sir E. Grey has carefully con-
sidered the statement communi-
cated to him by Mr. Lloyd
George, on the 6th instant, in
which the executive committee
of the Zionist Association ex-
pressed their readiness, if rea-
sonably assured of the moral
support of His Majesty's Govern-
ment, to proceed to form a Col-
onization Company for the pur-
pose of establishing a permanent
Jewish settlement in the Sinai
Peninsula on the lines of the
scheme discussed in 1903.
"In view of the very strong
arguments adduced by His Maj-
esty's Agent and Consul General
at Cairo against the practibility
of the scheme, which were fully
explained in the letters addressed
to the late Dr. Herzl on June
19, and July 16, 1903, and which
do not appear to have been sen-
sibly modified by any subsequent
consideration, Sir E. Grey fears
that it would be useless to sug-
gest to the Egyptian Government
that the question be reopened."
The question was reopened,
and on a wider scale. This time
Mr. Lloyd George played a lead-
ing part in the effort, together
with his onetime political oppon-
ent, Mr: Balfour. • :

-

Copyright 19-43 by
Independent Jewish 'Press Servi6e, , Inc.

The Nazi Reign of Terror

By WILLIAM L. SHIRER
Is the title of the revealing feature article to appear in next week's
issue of The Jewish News. it will be published by special -arrangement
with Survey Graphic, for whom the -article was originally. wr;tten.

• BE SURE TO READ THIS IMPORTANT FEATURE

