Life — June 20, 1918 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Lae ~ The Jewish Mind in these States E have cherished and honored in this country during the last twenty years a type of mind totally different from any of the types to which our government owes its organization, our commercial system its development, our country its growth. Jt is the most destructive mind in the world, the most grasping and unabashed, one of the ablest, one of the most aspiring, and, in its own view, the most concerned for human welfare. It is the mind, one type of which was exhibited the other day in Kansas City at the trial of Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes for violation of the Espionage Act. Mrs. Stokes is a Jewess, born in Russia thirty-nine years ago, who lived as a child in Whitechapel, London; was brought thence to Cleveland, and presently to New York, where she worked as a girl of ten in a cigar factory; was later employed by a newspaper, and presently married a rich philanthropist of one of the most benevolent and respected New York families. Her husband, after his marriage, turned Socialist, and went with his wife to live for a time in the heart of the Jewish section of New York. They were both active and vociferous Socialists, constantly appearing on lecture platforms, and especially propagating Socialist views in colleges and universities. Birth-control interested Mrs. Stokes, and she advocated that. The Pater- son silk-riots claimed her, and she defended Quinlan, the UND HE HAS SUCH A NICE GERMAN NAME, TOO Crown Prince: “Much as I love I. W. W. agitator who instigated them. the Stars and Stripes,” she said at an anti-rent meeting in 1908, “I love the red flag better.” : That seems to be the key of her mind an type. The Russian Jews of her sort—the intellectual variety—have no real national feeling. They are loyal to Socialism, to Internationalism, to whatever untried ideal of human welfare may he floating in their heads at a given time, bug are not bound by more than the loosest ties to any country or form of government. When the Socialist party in this country recorded itself last year as “unconcerned or Democracy triumph,” Mr. and Mrs. But she went back, and was readmitted. of minds of its whether Autoc! Stokes quit it. There was nothing in her to which the honor of the United States or its destiny as a nation was important. Why should they be important to a child of Ghettos, whose chief errand as a sojourner here has heen to change what she could of what she found! . In February she thought, and announced, that in the Bol- sheviki lay the hope of permanent peace. In March at a Zionist meeting she said (we quote the World) : cratic in and France are no more de The Allies are seeking the ends of the Great Brit than Germany capitalists, because they want to get rid of the Social. ists. They are fighting like dogs among themselves, Great Bri pn has been and are all seeking territory the enemy of ninety per cent. of the working people. To be sure, Mrs. Stokes’ opinions are not important in themselves. To be sure, John Spargo says she is a roman- ticist whose talk should not be taken seriously, and her husband says she has been misunderstood ; but as a typical Jewish agitator she is interesting, and useful to illustrate what species of mind it is, whence derived and with what tradition, that is working in these days so busily and in such numbers to influence and medicate our civilization. There is great modesty among our public writers about talking about Jews. In the newspapers they are an im- They are far above the average in intelli- Lots of them arg very good; lots lots of them are in the war up to mense power, gence and adaptability. of them are agreeable their necks and working hard for this country. American Jews, moreover, do love the United States and are true sons of it. But the Jewish mind is a totally dif- ferent instrument from other minds that operate in these States. It has a different background, different racial in- stints, different traditions, and with its great abilities and increasing grasp on all public concerns it is a factor of our future that deserves prayerful and attentive contemplation In Baruch and scores of like men we see it working for the good of the country. But what of the Hearst Jews that Hearst is so tender of ?- What of the I. W. W. Jews, the revolutionary Russian Jews, of whom Hillquit is one, with all breeds of bats in their noisy helfries? Mr. Wilson says the war is knitting us all together. These various and somewhat ominous Jewish brethren—what of them? As the kitting goes on shall they he a part of yarn, or are the rest of us to be the yarn and they the needles? Bo SoM; Lots of comicbooks.com