Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1914-12-03
Great Hebrew Leader Seeks
Moral Backing of American
Members of His Race
Hits Russian Bugaboo.
Frederic william Vile. Special Cores
pondent of The Tribune.

Frederic William Vile. Special Cores
pondent of The Tribune.
London, Special-"Placed between
the devil and the deep sea, the Jews
of the world must hope for the tri-
umph of the allies and their cause
Israel Zangwill said to The tribune
correspondent today; mot because they
hate Russia less but because they hate
Prussian reaction and militarism
more"
l had been saving to the celebrated
Anglo-Jewish patriot and author that
American Jews baked at the idea of
according their moral support to any
coalition of billigerents or to any
cause with which Russia was identi-
fled.
l reminded him that we of the Uni
ted States ourselves were at this time
at loggerheads with cZardom in a mat
ter involving inhumanity to Jews in
general and our own Jewish fellow cit
liens in particular. / tried to make
Zangwill understand that it was hard
for American Jews, even those whose
memories did not go back farther than
Kishineff and Beiliss, to generate en-
thusiasm for Russian arms.
Zangwill required no such assur-
ances from me. He has had a stream
of correspondence from America rails
ing the same pertinent point, and he
gladly embraced the opportunity, he
explained, to argue it through the col
umns of The Tribune.
Question to Consider.
The question for Jews everywhere to
consider" he said, is this: What is
the interest of the higher civilization
the question purely from the stand
point of Jews by race. We should
weight it unselfishly from the stand
point of Jews by spirit.
My own convictions are not born of
the fact that | am either a Jew by race
or an Englishman by birth. They are
dictated by the conscience of a man
of letters who is in harmony with the
unlVersalistic teaching of the Hebrew
prophets and who boasts that there is
not a chauyinistic corpuscle in all the
blood that flows through his veins.
When this war began l remem-
bered that L had produced, among
many other works of art, three, at
least, which qualified me to claim for
myself utter impartiality.
During the Boer war / wrote The
Mantle OF Elijah an Indictment of the
British. Dom Paul's secretary, DR..
Leyds, told me. when / visited kruger
numbers of Harper's containing it were
fead by the Boer soldiers in the field
n had cheered their hearts with the
thought that there We're lovers of JUS
tlce In England.
"A few years ago [ wrote an indict-
ment OF everything that kaiserism and
RUSSIAN militarism stand for, THE
Wan God,"played by Sir Herbert Tree,
a drama which, in the light of events,
was prophetic in detail of this present
attempt of Germany to impose its ar
mored domination upon the world.
My earlier play, The Melting Pot
not unknown in Sioux City, was.
among other thjnrc q cyyrnor;,r -,
domination Of the Russian Pharaoh of
today.
II think, therefore, 1 can claim to ap-
preach the diagnosis of Armageddon in
no myopic, bigoted spirit.
Play Teaches Forgiveness.
TO remind me of Kishineff and rit-
ual murder prosecutions, as you do and
SO many of my correspondents, is to
Drlng Goals to Newcastle. Why. my in
dlct1nent of Russia, The Melting Pot
is playing in England at this very mo-
ment, Notwithstanding that Moscow is
our ally. But hat very play teaches
also reconciliation and forgiveness, and
the melting up OF the past into a finer
future.
You tell me the hope of liberty and
freedom for the Jew in Russia is dim
and dismal in the light of the cars
broken promises in the past. You say
American Jew fear that Russia's tri-
umph in this war will spell even great
er oppression for it's Jews than anv-
thing they have suffered hitherto. You
describe American wonder that liber-
allied England could have made COM
mon cause with reactionary Russia.
Influence Of German Menace.
Let me deal with the last point
first. 1t is true that British concep-
tons of civilization find their exact
antlthesls IN Russia, so far as the bu-
reaucracy is concerned, though GER
ta1nly not so far as teachers like Toll
stoi and Kropotsin (my neighbor in the
ountry by the way) are concerned.
However, If we are strange and I'M
natural political bedfellows. it is the
German menace, the military terrorism
which Germany has sought to impose
upon European mankind that has com
PEELED Europe to organize and federate
for it's overthrow.
Republican France alone was DOW
erless to resist it. 1t allied itself with
despotic Russia in the hope that be-
tween them they might roll it back.
Then a peril which a long been
merely continental and military be-
came pan-European and maritime.
Ihat compelled England t. affiliate it.
self with those others who were face
to a c with the German danger.
Il admit that we nave sunk below
the British level, ethically viewed in
WI ASuSo1dil dllldlCG. buC 1t Is Ger
many which has dragged us down to
the plane of brute force.
Effect Of Victory.
THE same leveling process has
brought all Europe to the lowest strata
OF uncivilization. war. but wal waged
Tor he highest civilization, that is,
freedom and political peace.
Nhen our victory is won, a victory
In which Russia will share, another
leveling process will inevitably, if not
Immediately. raise Russia to the strata
of its democratic British and French
allies. That is the point for Jew to re-
member.
Great Britain, to say nothing what
ever of France, relieved from the Prus-
sian incubus, will be able to impose
upon Russia Influence for the eman-
cipation of the Jews.
Sir Edward Grey has already in a
letter to me pledged himself to encour-
age Russia to emancipate its Jews, and
his Influence is to be used not simply
at the close of the war, as people i'm
agine, but at once.
"Britain's advice to Russia is DO 1t
now But at the worst the British for
eign secretary is bound to be a vital
factor In the peace to follow the war.
NJ 49, ~ ~ sE g. .2E-I ANHnL