The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-06-12

NEW YORK, June 12.-This week
| Sothern and Marlowe-beg pardon,
Marlowe and Sothern-stalked across
the stage of the Academy of Music in
a presentation of The Merchant of
Venice" Following the miserable
mess of tepid tragedy, mild melodrama
and puerile pruriency, qualities super
abundant in the past seasons dramatic
offerings, the Shakespearean revival by
these worthy artists came as a well
come relief. 1t may also be utilized
to point moral, which is that times
have changed nightly since Shakes
peare created the immortal character
of Shylock.
Tome was, and not so long ago.
when Shylock was a synonym for ava
rice and heartless grasping greed
Today he has changed his aspect. We
see him as the representative of race
that was bounded through Europe,
prosecuted relentlessly in every ma
ton in which he sought refuge des-
poiled of his property by due process
of law, constantly outraged in all his
susceptibilities, at times put to torture
and death without other cause than
that he was a Jew, and at all times the
object of the suspicion, derision and
hatred of the dominant peoples. Shy
lock was a usurer-a monster, if you
will-but he was human, and his brain
was filled with the teeming memories
upon him and his family. The blood
of all his ancestors for centuries back
swept hot through his tortured veins
and every pulsation of his heart called
loud for revenge. A pound of flesh,
torn bleeding and palpitating from the
quivering, pain wracked body of his
arch enemy-perhaps, after all, that
were little payment for all that he had
suffered. Looking backward, in the
light of larger experience and wider
human charity, there are some among
us who believe that justice slipped
cog in the trial of Shylock.
Zionist Congress.
Those who entertain the theory that
the Jewish people are incapable Of
seeing beyond a dollar and that their
ideals never soar beyond the hope o!
amassing wealth, convict themselvei
of a narrowness of knowledge lament
able in this day and age. There are
Shylocks yet among us, but for the
most part they are those whose backs
yet feel the sting of a Russian knout
or the subtler sting of the scorn
heaped upon them in other European
nations. Freedom for them means the
liberty to return with usury the ill
treatment which their race has known
for centuries. But even for these the
social philosopher can find apology.
That the leaders of the Jewish race
in this country are idealists beyond
the average of men is sufficiently
proven by the presence in New York
today of nearly a thousand delegates
come to attend the annual gathering of
the Federation of American Zionists.
Their aim is to establish a Jewish
state in Palestine, the land of their
fathers made immortal in sacred writ.
Such project is of a certainty not in
keeping with the belief that cupidity
is the chief handspring of Jewish mo-
tive. To abandon position and wealth
in America and Europe for the sake
of a home in a barren land rendered
desirable only by sentiment and the
instincts of the heart-to carry always
in the brain this splendid vision of a
nation of Jewish people ruled by Jew
ish kipgs-to toll and save by day in
order that the dreams that fill the
happy night may some time meet with
realization-such is not the ambition
and the hope of sordid materialists.