The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-09-14
SETTLE. MONDAY, SEPT. II.
PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.


ing resolutions:
The cruelties and prosecutions practiced upon
the Jews in Russia are abhorIent 20 the sense OF
justice of this people, and the intervention of
our government by ell proper means to secure to
the oppressed of all foreign nations equal rights
under their laws is commended.
The action of the New York Republicans
will not move Russia from her cruel pur-
pose; nor will it move our government to
take any steps toward intervention. From
Washington's day down to the present the
policy of the United States has been that
of non-intervention in European affairs.
We refused to interfere in behalf of France,
our old ally, when England made war
upon her less than ten years after the
American Revolution whose success the
arms and money of France made possible;
we refused to interfere during the Greek
Revolution of 1924; we refused to help the
Canadian rebels in 1887 or the Hungarians
in 1919, when no less man than Rufus
Choate spoke eloquently in their behalf.
We have, as a people, been generous con-
tributors of food and money to the cause
of Irish Home Rule, but we have crushed
two Fenian fiIibuster raids on Canada, and
az a government we have strictly minded
our own business
Russia will give no more heed to these
New York resolutions than Queen Victoria
does to the report of New York meeting
to express sympathy for Irish Home Rule.
The city of London has already protested
by great indignation meeting, at which
Cardinal Manning spoke, but the Russian
press treated it with contempt and sarcas-
tically asked Balfour if the Irish landlords
whom he politically represented had not
been in the habit of periodically bidding
their oppressed tenantry "to go to hell or
America" Nevertheless the passage of
these resolutions of protest against Rus
sian Jew batting by the New York State
Republican Convention was decent and
proper thing to do. 1t swells the tide of
public sentiment against inhumanity or
ganized into government; it discharges the
American people of their moral obligation
TO speak out sternly against civic cruelty
and wrong; we are like decent man who
cannot under law afford to prosecute his
neighbor for his inhuman treatment of his
family, but he can publish him as brute
and a coward to his felow-citizens. 1t is
not our duty nor our right to take the Rus
sian government by the collar any more
than it was Engand's right and duty to
take us by the collar when we legalized
human slavery, but it is our right and
duty to denounce to the whole world Rus
sian inhumanity, just as it was Englands
right and duty to tell us as she did that to
legalize slavery was crime against the
spirit of the age.
In another respect the New York reso-
buttons are valuable as a rehuke to a mar
row spirit of Jew hating that is not alto
gether unknown in the United States,
which Is expressed in mean attempts to
excite race prejudice against a people
that do not deserve ill-treatment. This
spirit OF hostility to the Jews as a race has
no sort of defense To lean upon and in an
historical sense II never had. Its origin
dates hack 10 wretcked superstition
which was used by rapacious barons and
higoted monks in the middle ages to rob
the thrifty and ingenious Jew of his prop
erty and then To throw his body 10 the
brutal, bowling, ignorant mob to worry
even as pack of cowardly ours will hunt
10 death friendless little fugitive house
cat. There is no doubt but that Jew bait
ing began when the crusades had begun
90 impoverish the kings and nobility
Of Europe, and in their greed they swim
died and plundered their Jew creditors
Just ~ the Russian mobiles and peasantry
have time out Of mind robbed and muir
dered the Jews who had loaned them
money and pressed for payment. 1t is
historically true that before the cru<ades
the Jews in Spain, Portugal. England and
Germany were prosperous, happy and
cultivated people. who were on excellent
terms with their neighbors; they were not
only able traders and merchants. hui
gallant and patriotic soldiers. In Spain
and Portugal they fought gallantlv against
the Moors; and in Germany they were
such good citizens that when the robher
harous after the cruSades began 10 pinch
the Jews these peaceful people had the Sc.
cret and not seldom the open sympathy
and friendship of the common pcople.
The early Plantagenct kings Of England
robbed, tortured and massacred the Jews
of York. One Of the ablest kings of Eng
land. Edward the First. could not protect
the Jews from massacre in 1919 and ban.
tshment in 1890. This decree OF Danish.
ment was not revoked until Cromwell
ruled England; and England had been A
nation $40 years before a Jew. no matter
how high his character. acute his inte-li-
Eence. splendid his accomplishments
and ability, became under English
law the equal of any Fnclishtuan.
The Jews were expelled from Spain bv
Ferdinand and Isabella Emmanuel
king of Portugal, also expelled
The Jews in imitation of the Spaniaris
No class had done more to promote the
commercial prosperity Of Portugal than the
Jews. These Jews had collected in great
numbers in the great cities of Portugal;
they had grown ia wealth and power;
they had been protected by the
Aoors and bad up to 1895 been