The Denver Jewish news., 1919-01-09
Mr.. Taft Urges League
of Nations
LIBERTIES OF JEWS IN NEW
STATES WILL THEN BE SAFE
GUARDED.

The Public Ledger company has pub
lishcd n striking article by Ex-Presi.
dent William Howard Taft
Mr.. Taft says:
THE earnest efforts Of the Jews Of
the United States To induce our exc
cuiive to.rcmcdy the intolerable condi
tion of their co-religiouists in the bacl;-
yard countries of Europe has often
been met and defeated by the argr-
mcnt that our government cannot in
trrfcrc with the domestic affairs Of an
other nation. This argument has little
If any application 10 the present situn-
'ion. There is much evidence accumu-
.laiin~ to show that the pogroms ard
1hliscs of the Jews continue in the coin.
tries where they have heretofore cyist-
III ard that The chaotic aul lawlcss con
OF Iportunity for the cruel qualification
# race and religious prejudice. On the
Whole ii is not too much to say that
'hc people of the Jewish race have sur-
ttl'u HihFe III iiiS VIII us HoIi-coHlDits
ants. than any other people unless it he
the Scrbians and the Armrnians
"In Poland and in Galicia the true
story of their agonies and losses is
hcartrcnding. Now we five nations who
are to draft the treaty at Versailles
are setting up governments in Poland.
in the Ukraine and in the Baltic prov
in,ss. In all of these the Jewish pop
niation is n substantial percentage #
the whole. In their sad story we find
the Jews in the middle ages seeking ref
uge from the oppression and cruelty of
Western Europe and rushing to the
great empire of Poland. then stretch
ing from the Baltic 10 the Black Sea.
~ take advantage of Il charter of re-
'igious tolerance and opportunity grant
I'd by one of the liberal Polish kings.
''This is why half of the II. 900. 900 of
Jews living in the world We're at the
feg,nning of this war to he found in the
russian pale in which Jews were per-
inittcd to live. to v.sssai,. wds practically
-oterminous with the territory which
';ussia had tai:en from old Poland.
'Oneof hegreat projects. of this con-
;rcss of powers at Versailles is to set
up Independent governments in these
territories of the Russian Jewish pale
We shall he derelict in our duty If we
10 not require as part of the fundamen-
al law of these new republics that the
Jews shall have as great religious free
dom as they have in the United States.
I'ut we must do more. We must have
n league of nations to see to 1t that
such fundamental law exacted by the
treaty shall he enforced. We find full
precedent for such a provision i'm the
law i'm the treaty made by the congress
Mt Berlin. in which Bulgaria and Ru-
mania, which had long been heinous
sinner against the Jews. was forced by
the Berlin congress to adopt as part
of its constitution declarat tion that
there should he complete religious free
dom and that no citizen should be dis
criminated against ON account of his
religion in any respect. The Rumanian
government had the audacitv. after in
cooperating the guaranty in its funda-
mental law. to declare and hold that
Jews who had lived in Rumania for
two or three hundred years. father and
son were not citizens, but We're aliens.
In this way the protection of the Jews
provided for in the treaty of Berlin was
fouted and this was after Rumania
had secured recognition as a govern
ment on an additional promise of fair
, treatment of the Jews.
LET us have no farcical result in
working out this treaty at Versailles.
| Could we find stronger argument fol
the continuance of our league of ma.
tions than this ignOminious failure of
that congress in 1870. under the presi.
dency of BismarCk, to carry out its
declared purpose? If there he any peo-
pie who should he earnestly in favor
of league of nations as the outgrowth
and the conditions of this treaty now
being framed at Versailles. the Jews are
that people,