Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-17
ADVICE TO HEBREWS
Simon Wolf Addresses Jewish Chautauous
at Atlantic City.
In Politics He Deprecntes the Hyphen.
ated American Citizen and is
an ExpansiOnist.

Simon Wolf of this city delivered an ad-
dress at the summer assembly of the Jew
ish Chautauqua Society, which met at At
lantic City last evening.
He said in part: First and foremost, and
above all other considerations, let US de-
clare in unmistakable terms that we are
not hyphenated Americans; that while as
Jews We are what our conscience dictates
and that in a social sense we may admire
the social customs and habits of fatheriand
| more than we do those of this country, but
as citizens of our common country, in a
political and national sense, we are plain
and simple American citizens. We should
make 1t our aim and object to frown upon
every attempt to ALLEVIATE US from these
high purposes. If We differ from the ad-
ministration temporarily in power, let us
do so as citizens. If we choose to advocate
any line of policy that we think best, let
us again do so as citizens; but at no time
let US be found congregated or aggregated
as JewiSh-Americans, COMMUNICATIONS
or Instantaneous, for that necessarily
leads to divisions, frictions, segregations, and
destroys the very purposes for which this
country exists-unity, and what is still more
necessary, the highest development of
American patriotism.
Patriotism is not a mushroom growth,
but is, on the contrary, century plant,
which receives its life blood and inspiration
from time and circumstances. 1t cannot
be conjured at will. but must grow as a re-
suit of deep and fervent thought, and love
of and for the institutions under which one
lives and proSperS.
No nation in modern times has exhib
tied such wonderful resources or such Won
derful recuperative powers as have these
United States, owing to the singleness of
purpose, manifested and made evident by
the citizens of common country, who
have spared neither time nor money nor
blood in exempifying by their conduct the
highest civic and patriotic virtues Thus
the duty of the citizen has been made plain,
the path for each to walk in has been
blazed by the pioneers of the past, and the
horizon of the future is as clear to my
mind as the results of the present are dom
inant and praseworthy. The citizens duty
is, however, not alone distinct and marked
in national sense, but in his private ca
pacity, in his conduct toward bis faith, to-
ward the community in which he lives, to
his family which look to him for counsel
and advice: to his friends to whom he is
an inspiration and hope-in short, the man
citizen must be a type, model and example.
He must do nothing which will disgrace his
faith his lineage, his family or his state,
always remembering the words of Lord
Macaulay, who says: Everything that low
ers Christianity in the public esteem and re-
spect is high treason against the civiliza-
ton of mankind" He must aim high and
be representative in every direction, wheth-
er he occupies the lowliest or the highest
position in the gift of his fellow men; he
must at all times strive to do that which
shall confer the largest amount of good on
the largest number. If the citizen happens
to be a Jew in faith, he must never forget
through what countless ages of misery and
suffering his ancestors were made to pass,
and that, having been permitted under the
providence of God to reach this haven of
rest, these great and glorious United States,
he must contribute and aid in every d1rec-
ton to strengthen the hands of government
in aid of the continuance and perpetuation
of the institutions under which we live, for
only when these are maintained in all their
integrity and solidarity is it possible for
him to enjoy the faith of his fathers
The Jew must no longer be terra in
cognita" but a recognized factor coinci-
dent with hi1 own contribution to the bet
terment of the state, and in all matters
which.go to the development of our country
and it's institutions.
And right now, as American citizens, we
confronted by another class of duties
which appeal to us, in which the question
of politics should not be allowed to enter
1t should not matter to us what party can
ddate is living at the White House, so long
as the President of the United States is
true to the highest instincts of the age
true to the best traditions of the past, and
alive to the present and the growing inter-
ests of the future One year has made a
wonderful change in the physical and po-
litical configuration of our country. We
are no longer isolated, but have grown as if
by Aladdin's lamp into great world power;
end l for one can see nothing dangerous in
this surprising change The survival of the
fttest Is applicable to nations as well as to
individuals. and thus / have no doubt what
sCever destined to lead in other
lands as We have led in our own, and that
the light of liberty, of good government
and of law and order will dawn in the dis
tant islands of the sea, bringing with them
the blessings and happiness of free institu-
tions. and giving US those wonderful and
ineXhauStible resources of the east for
which other nations have been struggling
and trafficking in vain, and which under the
ms
will produce revolution in the spiritual
commercial and economic world aiding in
the amelioration of our own citizens and
anordinS avenues for trade, commerce and
enterprise, thus relieving the tension and
stress that in many parts of our country
now confront us. We cannot for a moment
stop and parley with those citizens who
have misconceived their duties in this direc-
ton. We cannot stop to argue and criticise
on what should should not have been
done. For us 1t is enough to know we are
where we are, that the flag of our country
has been planted on soil which is under the
laws of nations ours. that American blood
has been spilled and American lives given
up In behalf of our government and its
laws, and that as patriotic American cit
liens it is our bounden duty to uphold the
government of the United States whether
the temporary administration be republican
or democratic The voice of the people is
the voice of God. There were tories in the
times of the American revolution, and not
among the lower classes, either, but among
the very highest; so there is nothing
strange or marvellous that we should find
persons of that class at this juncture in
the same part Of the United States as in
1716; but as the tories of those DAYS disap-
peared, broken In fortune and dying in other
lands, unknown and unheard of, SO the
tories of 1899 will disappear from the pages
OF history as factors in the DEVELOPMENT of
their countrys greatness and remembered
only as SO many wasps fitting through the
night of gloom which they themselves have
created.