Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1918-01-24
JEWS AND THE
OPPRESSED OF
THEIR RACE

Many Jews in America had little
reason to sympathize with England,
France, Italy and Russia at the out
break of the war against the Teutonc
powers The memory of hideous
wrongs suffered at the hand of Won
Plehve and other tools of an autocrat-
lc Russian government were too re-
cent. 1t was true Prussian autocracy
had plunged the world into war for
political reasons best known to itself,
but it was equally true that England
and France, and later, Italy, had lea
gued themselves with a more arrogant
and malignant autocracy-imperial
Russia-to thwart the Prussian over
lords. A Jew could not see many good
reasons why he should lend support to
cause which, if successful, meant on
ly the further ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of a
brutal and cynical European power
that had, for centuries, been the chief
oppressor of the Semitic race.
But with the coming of the Russian
Revolution and the granting of equal
rights to the Jews in Russia, followed
by the entrance of the land of their
adoption into the war against Prus-
sianism, all was changed. The Ameri-
can Jew, with the enthusiast SIN of his
race for justice and equal rights for
all, cast in his lot unreservedly with
the Allies and contributed his sons and
his money to the cause of democracy.
The Jew has the reputation of know
ing good thing when he sees it. The
Jews in America know that this Gov
eminent has given them what they
long had sought in vain in almost ev-
cry European country-absolute free
dom to live their own lives in their
own way and to pursue without re-
striction the arts of peace, unmoleste6
by hampering much less oppressive
legislation, directed at them as race.
In America the Jews have pro spered {
as in no other country, possibly e&-
cepting England, and nowhere Rave
they been given the con- plebe cont
dence of their neighbors and their es-
TEEN and trust, as they nave here So
the United States. Diaraeli rose alsn
in the councils of the British empire,
as have others Of his p&ople since.
Here in Amerjea, Jews. have been z:iv-
en- even NOR aa95s5teu initial nrogfs of
public esteem and confidence Only
year ago as 1ogia Brandeis elevated
to tHe Supreme bench Today julius
enwald kn not ,nly at home
abroad rkable business
ans .hfcent charities,
hs les weel the Government
gaili5ons Of doLIars Of public funds, at
his own discretion and no man ques-
lions his absolute integrity.
Instance this sort could be multi
pEe5. and ,ney, in a measure, explain
eueausiasm of the Jewish people
here for the cause of democracy in
this world war The Jews are only
repaying, with their customary prodi-
gality, the friendship shown them by
liberal Government.
But back Of all this lies a deeper
and nobler feeling, an aroused sense
of Indignation against an autocratic
power that ruthlessly plunged the
| world into war to crafty selfish po-
| litical ambitions-an autocratic power
that today is carrying into the conquer
portions of Russia a deeper distress
and more acute suffering than the
Jewish people were forced to bear un-
der the rule of the Gar and his crea-
| lures.
| The condition Of the Jews in Poland
was pitiful three and half years a
go; today it is frightful. The mar
| tyrdom of almost an entire nation was
never before in the history of the
world worked out under such heart
rending circumstances and SO brutally
and with such synicism.
The Jews in America want this stop
ped and, as they have so often before
come to the succor of the oppressed
with their sympathy and their goods,
they now are responding magnifcently
from the least to the greatest, with
their blood and their money. jews
purchased literally in the first two
Liberty Loan campaigns, besides de-
voting their time and energies to the
successful fotation of those loans.
And they will do as much, if not more,
when the third Liberty Loan is placed
before the American people. Every
Liberty bond purchased, every thrift
stamp bought, means to the Jews in
America, as it means to all other A
mericans, liberty for oppressed peo-
pies.