The hydraulic press., 1859-04-02
The Damn Jews

speak, the same words every day your
life, and they can certainly do no harm
in print, if none comes from utterine
them. What do you mean when you
"damn the Jews?" In one sweeping
malediction you express an hereditary
prejudice which had its origin in reli-
gious hatred, and was kept alive by cen
turies Of spiteful and cruel persecution.
The men of Jerusalem, or those in au-
thority there, are said to have crucifed
Christ moro than eighteen hundred
years ago, because they believed him a
blasphemer-perhaps political con-
spirator For this, every Jew has been
under a Christians heel for many ages
For this, whole nations of Israelites have
been driven from country to country all
over the face of the earth. They have
been pariahs- -outlaws-dogs. whom it
was point of religion to torment and
slay. Their substance has been gath
cred painfully and in secret only to be
shamelessly stolen from them. Every
where they have been the unprotected
victims of bigotry, Of rapacity, of ma
tional prejudice and popular rage. Even
in lands where their skill as artifcers,
as merchants, as professors of the useful
and elegant sciences has made them the
most valuable citizens, they have not
been free from persecution. Spain dis
graced and impoverished herself by
compelling them to flee beyond her lin
it's, and this in the reign of Isabella the
Catholic ! Our own mother isle was
not more hospitable, and when she did
not drive them forth, retained only to
despoil and insult them. But we will
not pursue the sickening catalogue of
their past wrongs, which are only allu-
ded to for the purpose Of showing the
origin of a vulgar prejudice. With all
our boasted iiberality we still persecute
the children of Israel, in blind obedience
to motives which admit of no justifca-
ton. Not by faggot, and rack, and i'm
prisonment, and robbery, and usury
laws, and exile do we express our hatred,
but by withholding social fellowship, by
public contempt, by the mean habit of
calling them all robbers and " damn
Jews" 1t is one of the misfortunes of
the Hebrew people that Christian in-
tolerance has confined them until late
wears to avocations which tend to narrow
the feelings and develop sordidness
though in the exhibition of these traits
they are not at all peculiar, nor are these
traits universal with them any more than
with U.S. We have forced them to be
economical, even parsimonious, in order
to exc out Il subsistence, and to be Sc.
cretive and distrustful, in order to secure
their gains from our unholy clutches
by ages of hateful cruelty, unredeemed
by the least ray of that charity which
is the Christians boast, they have been
taught to look upon us as natural foes
and to treat us as such. 1t is wonderful
that they have come through such ar
ordeal possessing the noblest qualities
wonderful that such people should
now furnish the world with musicians
whose strains all are singing-with
sculptors, whose works are treasures Of
art-with writer's, and statesmen, and
fnanciers of splendid ability and repute
Americans should be the last people
on earth to have ever upon their lips an
opprobrious epithet stigmatizing the
character of whole race, and that g
race whose religion is blended with ou1
own, whose bible we still call holy
whose traditions are our most familiar
knowledge, whose very names we beal
and love. Every American young mar
should blush to re-echo the expression
of prejudice which is the hateful off
spring of tyranny-should scorn to pol
lutte his lips with an unjust aspersion
that is equally vulgar and profane.
PAPER AND RAGs.-There are in tht
United States nearly eight hundred pa