Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-01-25
Copyright, 1914. by The American.

Pot" though 1t has in some instances
served to interpret to each other the
old generation and the new. has more
frequently been misunderstood by
both. While "a distinguished Christian
clergyman wr"te that II was "cal-
culated to do for the Jewish race what
Uncle Toms Cabin did for the col
ored man." the Jewish pulpits of
America have resounded with denun-
citation of Its supposed solution of
the Jewish problem by dissolution.
AS II even play with a purpose
could do more than suggest and in
terpret!
1t is true that its leading figure.
David Quixano, advocates absorption
In America, but even he Is speaking
solely of the American Jews and asks
his uncle why, II he objects to the
dissolving process, he did not work
for q separate Jewish land. He Is
not offering panacea for the Jewish
problem, universally applicable But
he urges that the conditions offered
| to the Jew in America are without
parallel throughout the world
And, in sooth. the Jew Is here citi-
zen of a republic without q state
religion-a republic resting more
over, on the same simple principles
Of Justice and equal rights as the
Mosaic Commonwealth from which
the Puritan Fathers drew their in
splration.
In America, therefore, the Jew by
roundabout journey from Zion has
come into his own again.
1t is by no mere accident that when
an inscription was needed for the CO.
lossal Statue of Liberty in New York
harbor. that Mother Of Exiles' whose
torch lights the entrance to the New
Jerusalem, the best expression of the
spirit of Americanism was found In
the sonnet of the Jewess, Emma
Lazarus
Giue me your tired, your poor.
YW huddled masses yedrain0 to
breathe free,
The tcretched refuse of your teemin0
shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest
t0St TO me,
itt my lamp beside the golden door.
And if. alas! passing through the
golden door, the Jew finds his New
Jerusalem as much a caricature b.
the Crumbling of its early ideals as
the old became by the fading of the
visions of Isaiah and Amos he may
find his mission in fighting for the
preservation of the original Hebrlac
pattern.
In this fight he will not be alone,
and iutermarriage with his fellow
crusaders in the new Land of Prom
Use will naturally follow wherever no
theological differences divide. There
will be neither Jew nor Greek. In
tor N ID NH {e A4ai
intimacy, will follow, even when the
parties stand in opposite religious
camps; but this is less advisable as
leading to house divided against
itself and to dissension in the up
bringing of the children.
IL is only when a common outlook
has been reached, transcending the
old doctrinal differences, that inter
marriage is denuded of those latent
discords which the instinct of man
kind divines, and which keep even
Catholic and Protestant wisely apart.
Jews Absorption Slower.
These disCords, together with the
prevalent anti Semitism and his own
ingra!ned persistence, tend to pre-
serve the Jew even in the Melting
Pot" SO that his dissolution must be
necessarily slower than that of the
similar aggregations of Germans,
Italians or Poles
But the process for all is the same,
however tempered by specific fac
tors. Beginning as broken off bits of
Germany, Italy or Poland, with news
papers and theaters in German,
Italian or Polish. these colonies
gradually become Americanized. their
vernaculars, even when jealousy
cherished, become a mere medium
for American conceptions Of life;
while in the third generation the
child is ashamed both OF its parents
and their lingo, the newspapers
dwindle In circulation, the theaters
languish.
The reality OF this process has been
denied by no less distinguished an
American than DR.. Charles Eliot
/ president OF Harvard University.
| whose prophecy of Jewish solidarity
in America and of the contribution OF
| Judaism. to the worlds future is more
| optimistic than my own. DR. Eliot
| points to the stlll unmelted heaps Of
| racial matter, without suspecting
although he is chemist-that their
/ semblance OF solidarity is only kept
up by the constant immigration of
! similar atoms to the base TO replace
! those liquefied at the apex.
Once America slams bpr dnors cha