New-York tribune., 1903-06-07

Talmudic system his-own hunger for literature
early led him into the forbidden paths Of secu
lar reading. There are stories of his school days,
when he slept with volume of Victor Hugo
Heine under his pillow, and in the hour of day
light, while his companions still slept read the
charmed pages, and the first sleeper
awoke hastily slid the forbidden volume
der his head. But his education is Tai
mudic to-day. When he refers to the Turks;
tn ~ exist for him as the descendants of
Ishmael. and he deduces The traits of these
MahoTQetans from this supposed ancestor His
philosophy, science and mathematics belong
10 the medieval age To-day this citizen
OF far off age. even in Europe, is turning out
feuilletons for 2 Jewish paper the rate of
three columns a day This is one Of the most
important features of the Yfddish press; a few
columns of news, CLEANED from the English
press and referring entirely TO Semitic interests,
are all that make the paper really daily news
paper; for the rest there is the feuileton, sa
tirically treating the manners and the customs
of this strange America. and contrasting with it
the golden ge that has departed.
This journalist sees in the new life just far
enough TO recognize that it means the disnte
grafton of the old. Imbued with ancient concep-
tions, with Old World pride. he the
breakdown Of the race. This is all he sees. ASK
this journalist, who moulds the opinion of thou
sands. for his opinion of Imperialism or of any
public question OF the day and he will look at
you in wonder. It simply does not reach him
He lives in America the life of Bessarab bia, he
has solution to offer to his people, no aspira-
ton for himself and SO. from the career of a
successful novelist he has drifted back into the
living tomb of 'Jargon" feuilieton writer
But this represents only single type of many.
Somewhere in the heart OF the Ghetto there lives
q man who in the universities of Russia is still
known as d famous though vanished scholar.
Languages, literature and sciences equally
his field. So eminent were his attainments that
he overcame the race prejudice and became
known widely. An idealist he seemed destined
to make a European reputa tion for himself, and
then suddenly he drifted out of the Old and into
the New World. In his university days he had
laid aside the Yiddish of the Ghetto, but the
threshold of q new world he suddenly found
himself alone, triendless and in his search for
human assistance he drifted back into the Jar
gon-" To-day that man. whose reputation might
have been Continental. sits at crude desk
pouring out column after column of comment in
Yiddish. The master of a dozen languages. he
Enthusiasm, hope, ambition have all vanished,
and he still tolls on painfully. his mind fixed
the past.
This buried Sc want has become a radical; his
articles belong 10 the familiar class Of 'whines'
for labor In which the workingnan is always
depicted as wronged. Occasionally. when agita-
tions are over. he turns out article popu-
lar science. In a word, he has become hack,
a space grubber seeking only chance TO write
in Yiddsh for living all his brilliant scholarly
prospects forgotten. In his feuilletons he rails
at America with q bitterness expressive of his
own disappointed and unhappy career. The land
of hope as fl is pictured in the fancy of the
immigrant, America has been for him the tomb
Of all that he once dreamed OF.
To turn from these shipwrecked scholars to a
man Of more actual practical standing in the
world of the press furnishes vet another glimpse
of the Journalism in which the workers re
buried There is on the East Side to-day, writ
ing blsiiy and prolihcally. who is known
far and wide the father of Jewish journalism
in America. To him belongs the credit of having
made YiGdish a possible vehicle for newspaper
use in this country. For many years it did not
yield 10 the present needs: ii was inf1exble as
form Of expression for Il new civilization.
Then this Journalist started in to coin ex-
pressions HIS method employing old
Biblical phrases to describe things. A sam
ple of the method, though not actual instance,
was furnished by one of the Ghettos best
known scholars.
Suppose he were searching for phrase TO
describe aufOTu0Dlle ne might 40 SOHlttIilIIe
Hike this First he would call il in Hebrew,
1.-The chariot Oh which the Prophet Elijah as
oande5 ~ Heaven" Presently the expression
would become fixed in the public mind and he
would shorten ii to chariot Of Elijah ana IN
+ba end II would become simply chariot. But
the aIIusion would still be preserved complete
This man. whose service 10 his people and
whose work for his language have made MIN the
hest known figure in Jewish journalism, is TO-
dav at work for a salary not exceeding $40
u,sak He founded the first Yiddish paper IN
tho country: he worked on every one or the
ter daily and thirty weekly papers that followed.
and such is his present status. He too is a
brrtsd Journalist, but. unlike the others, ne is
h,,rssd under the very structure he has raised
himself.
r~o,,, q e.tfure TO Q success furnishes q pleas
an. .,en. In contrast with the foregoing unsuc-
cssstu worker. there Is to-day as editor IN cnieI
~ an. of the most prominent Jewish papers IN
.,. countrv a converted Jew. Meshurneo is
,bs conteupfuous name his brothers Apply 10
.ucb whom they regard as rsnesades- for most
1.ws such step would mean absolute rum anu
,,st he has prospered under it. Certain East 0ius