Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-01-20
PAYS EMPHATIC TRIBUTE
TOL0YALN OF JEWS
Former President Taft Delivers Two
Addresses Before Geographic
Society.
Says That When War Ends Belliger-
ent Powers Must Look to Jewish
Bankers for Relief.

| Former President William H Taft. in
| two addresses yesterday before the Ma
tional Geographic Society. urged that
America join a league to enforce peace.
Emphatic tribute to the conduct, de-
| velopment and loyalty of the Jews
! through the fifteen centuries that they
have suffered persecution and humiliat-
ng discrimination was paid by Mr..
Taft. He said that through American
participation in the League to Enforce
Peace there would be a constant in
| fuence for the betterment of the Jew.
Almost constant persecution of the
Jew from the fourth to the nineteenth
century was ascribed by Mr.. Taft to
| religious intolerance of Christians.
He declared that after the war ends,
when the belligerent powers are at
tempting to bear the heaviest financial
| obligation of their history. it is to the
Jewish bankers that they must turn
for relief from their financial extremi
ties. Mr.. Taft said, in part:
Reviews Jewish Persecution.
1.-THE Jews are the only people who for
1900 years have had no country. have
been dispersed to the four quarters Of
the globe. and yet have retained their re-
ligion their cohesion, their intellectual
capacity. their loyalty to their race, and
have, whenever there was any pretense of
| equality of opportunity for them. forged
their way ahead into positions Of promi-
| nence. influence and power in business, in
professions, in philosophy, in art, in liter
AZURE and in government
No other people has ever been sub
| Jected to such continuous persecution
in denial of opportunity to make liv-
/ ing, for pursuit of happiness. in hu-
initiating restrictions upon their lib
erty. in exclusion from education and,
| indeed. in actual physical cruelty and
massacre"
Mr. Taft, after renewing the con-
slant persecution and wanderings Of
| the Jews for fifteen centuries asked:
Intolerance of Christians.
What are the reasons for this al
most endless persecution? l regret
| to say that it must be mainly attrib-
uted to the intolerance of the Chris
| tians. Other causes may be pointed
out, but in the last analysis the initial
cause was in religious prejudice. We
find it in the hostility of Constantine
after his conversion; we find it in the
bulls of the Popes, beginning in the
fourth century and continuing to the
council Of Trent: we find it in the court
of st. Louis OF France; we find 1t in the
religious frenzy of Queen Eleanor of
England. of Elizabeth of Russia and of
Marie Theresa OF Austria; we find 1t
in the inquisition of Spain: we find it
in the words of Martin Luther.
The history of the Jews in all coun-
! tries in which they have settled has
been that they have rallied to the sup
port of the government under which
they lived. Their patriarch. Samuel of
Nebardea. sixteen centuries ago laid
down the rule the laws of the govern
ment is the law and in the eighteen
centuries in which the Jews have been
| wandering over the face of the earth
which they lived and rebellion have not
been frequent among them.
May Find Blessing in War.
Denied the opportunity for educa-
| ton. they are ignorant. But no people
| in the world manifest SO much anxiety
| to secure education and improve the
| opportunities when offered with such
earnestness and success.
IF the war does help the Jew. it will
| indeed be a blessing in a dreadful dis
| guise. Its miseries. its cruelties, its
| sufferings. have fallen heavily on one
/ half of the Jews of the world. They
| live in the theater of war between
| Russia and Germany and Austria
Mr.. Taft further declared that all
three countries have promised better
| conditions after the war. vying with
| one another in the cultivation of the
good will of the Poles and the Jews
and that 1t is inevitable when the war
ends some governmental changes in
| policies will follow
I'm the worlds congress the form
and constitutional guarantee of an in
dependent government must in that
case form the subject of discussion,
and nothing could be more relevant
| than the question of what shall be
done with the Jews"
| Mr.. Taft concluded his address with
| an appeal for America to enter a
| league to enforce peace. and with a
| statement of the good that will come
| therefrom - besides other things, the
constant influence which her tradi-
| tional impulse to promote liberty, re-
I ligious tolerance and equality Of OPP
portunity everywhere. would have for
| the betterment of the condition of
| these people who for nearly two mil
| leniums have suffered from oppression
and persecution.