All in a Life-time

Our Commission arrived in Warsaw on the 13th of July, and we were immediately immersed in the vortex of Polish affairs.

The Jewish masses looked upon us as hoped-for deliverers, and upon me as a second Moses Montefiore, but no other faction was pleased at our presence. Paderewski’s request that we be sent was far from representing the wishes of the entire Polish people; the majority of the Government—particularly Pilsudski, the Chief of State, and his group—had difficulty in concealing their mistrust of the Mission, and a large portion of the press unreservedly described our purpose as a piece of uncalled-for interference.

As no enduring benefit was likely to be accomplished unless we won the good will of all concerned, we saw at once that to secure this was only secondary to our discovering the truth. Accordingly, as soon as we were settled in the Raczynski Palace, where the Poles signed their Declaration of Independence in 1790, we began a long series of conferences with men from all the political factions, persons of the various religious faiths, members of the Cabinet and Parliament, the Volks-Partei, the Arbeiter-Verein, and with Jews—Zionistic, Assimilators, and Orthodox. Of the Jewish members of the Parliament there were Dr. Grynenbaum, Dr. Thon, Mr. Farbstein, Hardclass, Dr. Rosenblatt, who were Nationalistic Zionists; Dr. Weinza, who was a Radical Zionist; and Dr. Schipper, who was a Socialistic Zionist. Then there were Preludski, and Hirsthorn of the Volks-Partei; and Rabbis Perlmutter and Halpern of the Orthodox Jewish party.

Our quarters were flooded with visitors. To our first sitting came representatives of the Zionists to state their case, and then the picturesque Rabbi Perlmutter, with his white, patriarchal beard, who, accompanied by two other rabbis, called to extend the welcome of the Orthodox Jews.

That was the beginning of a full fortnight of Warsaw hearings. Day after day, we sat there, listening, questioning, taking voluminous notes, making bulky records. There came representatives from the Jews of Lodz, Lemberg, Cracow, Vilna, and other towns—each delegation with its own story and each entreating us to visit its city and conduct personal investigations there. The story of the men from Minsk is worth repeating: they claimed possession of definite information of a conspiracy against them whereby, when the Polish Army should enter Minsk, Anti-Semitic Bolshevist soldiers, lagging in the rear of the Bolsheviki’s retreat, would “snipe” at the conquerors from houses occupied by Jews, so that the Jews would be blamed and pogroms result; they even gave the location of the houses.

Thus it went from morning until night. One day there were ten different delegations, each important, each interesting, to be listened to. It was not long before we found, to our surprise, that the chief sources of trouble could be traced to a comparatively few factional leaders, not more than would fill a small room, and that for these the opportunity to express their clashing views was in itself a relief to the tenseness of the situation.

In a class by himself, however, was Rabbi Rubenstein, who came from Vilna when we were in the middle of one of our endless conferences with Warsaw Zionists. He was a Lithuanian and though he had been flogged for refusing to sign a paper charging the Bolsheviki with the Vilna outrages, he was still defiant toward the Poles. Learned in more than Jewish scholarship, he had a grasp of the economic laws involved in the present difficulties and a keen understanding of world politics that was touched with statesmanship. But, above all, he was the shepherd pleading for his sheep; he displayed a pathetic faith that here at last was a tribunal anxious to dispense justice. Imagine a face like that of some mediæval artist’s “Christ,” lined with the horror of his recent experiences; eyes wide with the grief that they had suffered in witnessing the massacre of the flower of his flock. His gesturing hands shook, his voice was broken by emotion, but he recounted the history of these now well-known Vilna excesses with an eloquence that was all the more moving because it was wholly unstudied, and every now and then the current of his speech was broken by spasmodic ebullitions of resentment which he could no longer repress.

He begged us not to make the mistake of previous hasty investigators. He implored us to spend at least three days in Vilna. His community had retained two lawyers, who had collected all the evidence; everything would be thoroughly prepared, but there were so many witnesses to be examined that a three days’ sojourn was the minimum necessity. Here, it was clear, was no religious fanatic; his plea was so brilliant, his sincerity so convincing, that we readily agreed with his request.

I have said that the Zionists were our first callers; they were also our most constant. We were soon in close contact with all their leaders, attended their meetings, and studied their activities. Some were pro-Russian, all were practically non-Polish, and the Zionism of most of them was simply advocacy of Jewish Nationalism within the Polish state. Thus, when the committee of the Djem, or Polish Constitutional Assembly, called on us, led by Grynenbaum, Farbstein, and Thon—all men who had discarded the dress and beard of the Orthodox Jew—and when I discovered that they were really authorized to represent that section of the Jews that had complained to the world of the alleged pogroms, I notified them that we were willing to give them several hours a day until they had completed the presentation of their case to their entire satisfaction. That programme was adhered to.

Besides their version of the excesses, they presented evidence of considerable political bad faith and much economic oppression on the part of a section of the Poles. Contrary to explicit understanding, an election had been set for the Jewish Sabbath; and there had been gerrymandering at Bialystok, so that in the municipal election the Jewish votes had been swamped by voters admitted from surrounding villages. We were told of the development of coöperative stores which both excluded the Jews as members and were pledged against patronizing Jewish wholesale merchants or manufacturers.

“But,” we asked, “you don’t expect to end these things by propaganda for an exodus to Palestine?”

They admitted that taking anything short of 50,000 Jews a year out of Poland would effect no noticeable decrease in the population there. They were afraid that the Government intended to treat the Jews in the old way and that they would not be given rights equal to those of other Polish citizens; if they could not go to Palestine, if they were to be regarded as a foreign mass in the Polish body politic, they wanted the privileges that they felt ought to be granted them, to offset the privations of such a situation. To that end they were employing the Zionist agitation.

“We want,” they said, “to be permitted to vote for Jewish representatives no matter what part of the country we or they live in. The Jews form fourteen per cent. of Poland’s population. We want a fourteen per cent. representation in Poland’s Parliament. That will give us fifty-six members instead of the eleven Jewish members there at present.”

They admitted that their fifty-six could sway legislation only in case of close divisions among the other parties.

Then there were the Assimilators, whose attitude was the extreme opposite of the Zionists. They invited us to a reception, and we found them very intelligent and deeply interested in the future of Poland—distinct in no detail of dress or speech, and holding membership in political parties on purely Polish principles, just as a Jew in America may be a Democrat or a Republican without reference to his religion. They regarded Judaism as a matter of faith. They were prosperous, many of them were professional men, and all of them mingled on a footing of social equality with the Christians.

The meeting of the old order with the new presented many a contrast. I recall particularly a reception of which the Countess Zermoysky, representing the ancient aristocracy, was one of the attractions. That was like an episode under Louis XIV transported untouched into the modern world. Amid ornate decorations, lavish refreshments, excellent music, and displays of fireworks, the pretty Countess presided with all the grace and charm of a lady of the court of the Grand Monarch; beside her towered General Pilsudski, the gruff and bluff Chief of State of the new Polish régime. The old aristocracy was flirting with the modern forces-in-power, and the modernists, more than a little flattered, were by no means repelling these charming attentions.

Nothing could have been more interesting. While Ambassador at Constantinople, I had seen the disintegration of Turkey. In Paris I had been present at the obsequies of the German and Austrian Empires; here I was attending a christening, with parents and god-parents, nursery governesses and prospective tutors and guardians, all discussing the child’s career.

Our escort, M. Skrzynski, the Acting Foreign Secretary, turned to me:

“In judging the Poles,” he said in that soft, musical voice of his, “you must remember that we are really a sweet and sentimental people. The new government has not yet assumed the full authority dropped by the Russians. We are still uncertain whether, if we tighten the reins, the horse may balk. Once the horse was the people; now the people are the drivers. We are wondering whether the bit will hurt the tender mouths of the aristocrats.”

He was a tall, handsome fellow, this Skrzynski, with the head of a Beethoven and the manners of a Chesterfield. He looked an amateur artist. He was one of those who came into the new government from the old aristocracy; but he never forgot his part as a loyal Republican and evinced an almost boyish pride in his work.

One evening we were asked to supper by a certain man of title. His manner was exceedingly cordial and broad-minded, and he had ransacked the entire neighbourhood to make his banquet a great success. He had invited some of the prominent Jews of his city. He showed us with great pride a statue of Napoleon by Houdon, and other fine works of art. Captain Goodhart, the counsel of the Commission, was sitting with the titled personage’s niece, a vivacious girl of about eighteen.

“Just look at uncle and aunt,” she whispered, “how charmingly they are treating the Ambassador. They are just loading him down with attentions. It seems strange to me, to see a Jew treated with such consideration in our home. You know, I just detest the Jews, don’t you?”

“Well, really,” he said, “I can’t possibly agree with you, because I am a Jew myself.”

The little Countess was all confusion.

“Don’t—don’t tell my uncle what I have said,” she begged, “he would never forgive me!”

Askenazy is another personage of those days whom I shall long remember. One of the great scholars of Lemberg University, he was known as the foremost historian of Central Europe; since then he has become a familiar international figure as Poland’s representative at the Geneva meetings of the League of Nations. An occasional attendant at the Synagogue, he was nevertheless a pronounced Assimilator and enormously proud of the fact that his family have lived in Poland since 1650.

Askenazy saw small benefit to anybody in the alleged privileges of educational separation granted the Polish Jews by the Treaty.

“If the Jews have their own schools,” he said, “that will only widen the difference between them and the Poles.”

I reminded him that the separation extended merely to the primary schools.

“It will be gradually applied to the high schools,” he insisted, “and then to the universities. In their primary schools, the Jewish children will of course be taught Hebrew or Yiddish; that will make it next to impossible for them to mix with the pupils of the higher grades when they get there.”

Very impressive was our visit to the chief synagogue of Warsaw. There must have been 25,000 people present. Outside the building, those clamouring for entrance literally jammed the square, and the streets for several blocks surrounding it, from house wall to house wall; inside, the crowd was so dense that every man’s shoulder overlapped his neighbour’s. The cries from the street made it imperative for us to show ourselves there, after the services, when we were almost mobbed. Some of the crowd wanted to pull our automobile to our home; others clamoured to carry us there on their shoulders, and something close to good-natured force had to be used to enable us to reach our car. Rubenstein came from Vilna for the meeting; there was a delegation from Posen; and Dr. Thon represented the Jews of the Parliament. An eminent nerve specialist from Posen, in his speech, stated that the nervous condition of the Jews should be attributed to “Halleritis”—a fear of what the Polish Army under General Haller might next do to them; while Poznansky, the Rabbi, in his address, laid stress on the Jews’ desire to be first class, and not second class, Polish citizens.

This is not the place to recapitulate all the details of our journey through Poland. In Vilna, where our calendar was overcrowded, we got through a really incredible amount of work, by running three tribunals, each with an investigator, interpreter, and stenographer. The accounts of the evidence—of the testimony concerning the outrages to which the Jews had undoubtedly been subjected—all the world has long since read. I shall touch only on three incidents: those at Stanislawa, Pinsk, and Vilna.

From Stanislawa, the Christian authorities had asked for a visit from our Commission to prevent a provocation of a pogrom by the Jews. When I arrived, the Burgomaster explained that the Jews’ sympathy with the Ukrainians might provoke an attack of the Polish citizens. I asked:

“How is your city governed?”

“By a representative committee of Christians and Jews.”

“How many Christians?”

“Sixty.”

“And how many Jews?”

“One.”

I said I should like to see that one.

“Well,” said the Burgomaster, “you see he wasn’t on good terms with the Zionists, and so he had to go.”

I sent for a committee of Jewish residents.

They told us of their fearful predicament. The governmental control of their city had changed six times in four years. Each time it changed, the new power, be it Austrian, Polish, or Ukrainian, would punish them for having been loyal to their predecessor. If they remained neutral, all would make them suffer. “What are we to do?”

I guessed now what the local authorities had been up to. They were anti-Jewish and, if the federal government had not sent somebody in answer to their request, they would have interpreted that as the sanctioning of further excesses. I therefore had the Burgomaster and his friends in again, and declared that the republic’s authorities realized that Poland’s standing with the outside world depended on her justice to the Jews.

“You are politicians, and I am a politician,” I concluded, “therefore we can talk in that language. You have been preparing for a pogrom. Now I want to tell you that your government is as anxious as I am to avoid further maltreatment of the Jews, and if any occurs in Stanislawa, you will be removed from office.”

After we had a friendly discussion of the plight in which the local Jews found themselves, the Burgomaster assured me that there would be no difficulties in his city, and there were none.

I wish that I could adequately describe the scene that I witnessed in Pinsk. It has haunted me ever since, and has seemed a complete expression of the misery and injustice which is prevalent over such a large part of the world to-day. A few months before our arrival, a particularly atrocious Jewish massacre occurred. A Polish officer, Major Letoviski, and fifteen of his troops had entered an assembly-hall where the leading Jewish residents had gathered, as a committee in behalf of the American Joint Distribution Committee, to distribute supplies of flour for the unleavened Passover bread. The Poles arrested these Jews and marched them hurriedly to the public square and in the dim light of an automobile lamp, placed thirty-five of them against the cathedral wall and shot them in cold blood.

A somewhat hazy charge had been made that these men were Bolshevists, but no trial was given them, and, indeed, the charge was subsequently shown to be untrue. Returning to the scene of execution on the next morning, the troops found that three of their victims were still breathing; these they despatched, and all the thirty-five corpses were then thrown into a pit in an old Jewish cemetery, without an opportunity for decent burial or religious exercises, and with nothing to mark the graves.

Up to the time that our Commission came, not a single Jew had been permitted to visit that cemetery; but I was allowed to inspect the scene of this martyrdom, and, when I entered, a great crowd of Jews, who had followed me, also went in. As soon as they reached the burial place of their relatives, they all threw themselves upon the ground, and set up a wailing that still rings in my ears; it expressed the misery of centuries.

That same evening I attended divine service at the Pinsk synagogue. The building was crowded to its capacity, the men wedged into almost a solid mass. Those that could not enter were gathered outside. All the Jews of Pinsk were there. This was their first opportunity since April to express their grief in their house of worship. This huge mass cried and screamed until it seemed that the heavens would burst. I had read of such public expression of agony in the Old Testament, but this was the first time that I ever completely realized what the collective grief of a persecuted people was like. To me it expressed the misery of centuries and remains a pitiful memory and symbol of the cry for help that is still going forth from a great part of Europe.

Who were these thirty-five Victims? They were the leaders of the local Jewish community, the spiritual and moral leaders of the 5,000 Jews in a city, eighty-five per cent. of the population of which was Jewish; the organizers of the charities, the directors of the hospitals, the friends of the poor. And yet, to that incredibly brutal, and even more incredibly stupid, officer who ordered their execution, they were only so many Jews.

Something of the same sort happened at Vilna. There was fighting between the advancing Poles and the retiring Bolsheviki; shots were fired from private houses against the Polish troops, and the Poles, in the anger of their new-found authority, assumed that the Jewish houseowners were guilty. They did not stop to learn the fact that the Jews of Vilna were glad to get rid of Bolshevist rule: they slaughtered or deported all who were suspects—men like Jaffe, that Jewish poet who lived in a world of his own beautiful and harmless dreams, were treated shamefully.

These descriptions of the occurrences at Pinsk and Vilna are totally inadequate to describe the fearful plight of the Jews. Even the fuller accounts contained in my official report to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace—which is printed in full in the Appendix—does not adequately portray the sad conditions of these Jews in Poland at present. Giving harrowing details will not remedy the situation, and might be misconstrued and do harm to those suffering people. Hence, I have abstained.

It was in Vilna that we had a real show-down with the Chief of State of Poland. All this time we had been in the unpleasant position of a delegation of foreigners endeavouring to render a service to a country whose president openly resented our presence there.

“Pogroms?” Pilsudski had thundered when I first called on him. It was in the Czar’s summer palace near Warsaw that he was living, and he received me in the “library” where there was not a book to be seen. “There have been no pogroms in Poland!—nothing but unavoidable accidents.”

I asked the difference.

“A pogrom,” he explained reluctantly, “is a massacre ordered by the government, or not prevented by it when prevention is possible. Among us no wholesale killings of Jews have been permitted. Our trouble isn’t religious; it is economic. Our petty dealers are Jews. Many of them have been war-profiteers, some have had dealings with the Germans or the Bolsheviki, or both, and this has created a prejudice against Jews in general.”

At that meeting he stormed against the new school regulations; they would not only ghettoize the Jews, but, and here his real objection revealed itself, they were repugnant because forced upon the country from the outside.

“Russia,” he declared, “will return to autocracy: the Russians can survive even the privations of Bolshevism. But our problem is vastly different. We have become a free republic, and we propose to remain one, in spite of interference. The Poles and the Jews can’t live together on friendly terms for years to come, but they will manage it at last. In the meantime, the Jew will have all his legal rights. It is our own affair; our own honour is involved, and we are entirely able to guard it.”

Now our Commission was at Vilna, and Pilsudski came there; it was his birthplace, and here were we invading it with an American Commission. Etiquette required that Jadwin and I should call on him.

The president was quartered in the Bishop’s Palace. We were received with great formality and ushered through several vast rooms before we reached the audience-chamber. A storm was brewing, the light was dim. We found ourselves in a great big uninviting room, with long windows opening on a large court. War had stripped it of all its ancient hangings; the old furniture that belonged there must have vanished, in its stead were a few pieces of cheap and stiff modern manufacture. There was a desk at the far end, and at it was seated Pilsudski.

He was a huge, forbidding man. His uniform, buttoned tight to the base of his big neck, was unadorned by any orders—the uniform of a fighter. His square jaw was thrust out below thick lips firmly set; his face was abnormally broad, with cheekbones high and prominent; his cropped hair bristled and his snapping eyes glinted from under a thicket caused by his heavy eyebrows that met across his forehead.

He had evidently been reading the Anti-Semitic newspapers to advantage and was determined to give me a piece of his mind. The storm from heaven broke just as the verbal torrent began, and the patter of the rain on the stones of the old courtyard wove in and out like an orchestral obligato to the Wagnerian recitative of the Polish Chief-of-State. He spoke in German—a language excellently suited to his purpose—and soon the ancient rafters were ringing with his invective.

He declared that he was the chosen head of 20,000,000 people and would defend their dignity. He represented the Polish Government, the ruling power of a people that had been a nation when America was unknown, and here was a committee of Americans stepping between the elected Government of Poland and the Polish electors—positively belittling the former to the latter. He dismissed as unfounded the stories about bad treatment of prisoners. He asserted that, considering Vilna’s population of 150,000, civilian casualties in the three days’ fighting for its occupation had been comparatively few. Excesses? The exaggerations of the foreign press concerning what had happened to a relatively small number of Jews had been monstrous—one would think the country drenched with blood, whereas the occurrences had been mere trifles inevitably incident to any conquest.

“These little mishaps,” he said, “were all over, and now you come here to stir the whole thing up again and probably make a report that may still further hurt our credit abroad. The Polish people resent even the charge of ever having deserved distrust: how then can your activities have any other effect than to increase the racial antipathy that you say you want to end?”

He was most bitter when he referred to Article 93.

“Why not trust to Poland’s honour?” he shouted. “Don’t plead that the article’s concessions are few in number or negative in character! Let them be as small or as negative as you please, that article creates an authority—a power to which to appeal—outside the laws of this country! Every faction within Poland was agreed on doing justice to the Jew, and yet the Peace Conference, at the insistence of America, insults us by telling us that we must do justice. That was a public insult to my country just as she was assuming her rightful place among the sovereign states of the world!”

For fully ten minutes he continued his tirade. Nothing could have stopped him and I didn’t try. When he was quite out of breath, I said quietly:

“Well, General, you’ve made good use of your opportunity; you’ve gotten rid of all your gall. Now let’s talk from heart to heart.” I suited the expression of my face to my words!

The effect was surprising. He stared at me for a moment with unbelieving eyes and then threw back his head and burst into a giant laugh.

Then came my turn. I said that, in my official capacity, I was no Jew, was not even an American, but a representative of all civilized nations and their religions. I stood for tolerance in its broadest sense. I explained exactly what our Commission was after, told what we had done so far and made it clear that we were there not to injure Poland, but to help her. Pilsudski’s entire attitude changed; before I left him, he consented to release the Jewish prisoners still in custody since April, 1919, “as rapidly as each case can be investigated.”

On our return to Warsaw, Billinski, the Minister of Finance, told us that, in order to get the Orthodox Jews’ point of view, we should interview a Wunder Rabbiner. Inquiry convinced me that the outstanding of these, exercising a vast influence, was Rabbi Alter, of Gory-Kalavaria, and, unannounced, Jadwin and I visited him at a summer resort near Warsaw. A large number of students surrounded him, all gowned in their long black kaftans, and bearded in the extreme manner of their sect. He presented us to them and to his wife, and I found him anti-Zionistic and anti-Nationalistic, but much depressed because of the harsh treatment of the Jews. I asked him to visit me in Warsaw; he came, accompanied

by his son-in-law and two other Orthodox Rabbis, Lewin and Sirkis, and I had a stenographer take down our conversation.

Space will not permit the reproduction here of all that these leaders said, and I shall confine myself to repeating just a few of their remarks, and in considering them, it should be kept in mind that the Orthodox Jews number 80 per cent. of the Jewish population of Poland.

“Our principal conflict,” said Rabbi Alter, “is with Jews: our chief opponents at every step are the Zionists. The Orthodox are satisfied to live side by side with people of different religions.... The Zionists side-track religion.”

“We are exiled,” said Rabbi Lewin; “we cannot be freed from our banishment, nor do we wish to be. We cannot redeem ourselves.... We will abide by our religion [in Poland] until God Almighty frees us.”

And again: “We would rather be beaten and suffer for our religion [than discard the distinguishing marks of Orthodox Judaism, such as not cutting the beard, etc.].... The Orthodox love Palestine far more than others, but they want it as a Holy Land for a holy race.”

News of our proceedings had preceded us to Warsaw, and our purpose was beginning to be understood and appreciated, even by those who had formerly suspected and mistrusted us.

I had another talk there with Pilsudski. He said that the Poles and Jews must live together, that their relations could never be perfect, but that the Government would really do its best to avoid friction. Meantime, he hoped that there would be an end of official missions to inquire into the problem; he had no objection to private investigations, and, so far as our mission was concerned, he admitted it had already had a good effect. He hoped our report would satisfy the world enough to end such inquiries, for he did feel that interference from foreign nations was bad for the prestige of the government at home. He concluded by asking Jadwin and myself to meet his Cabinet at a luncheon which he had instructed Skrzynski to arrange.

Skrzynski opened the talk that followed the luncheon by praising our work and our evident inclination to spare Poland’s pride. I followed by saying that, though we would have to rap Poland’s knuckles and blame some of the Poles severely for certain excesses and economic persecutions, which I strongly condemned, we would present our conclusions with fairness to both sides. It was important not to forget that this was a matter in which all the world was interested and that only strict honesty would satisfy. The Polish authorities had adopted a contradictory defense, entering a general denial and yet pleading justification. They ought to have confessed that excesses had occurred, denied any official participation in them, frowned upon them, promised to prevent them in the future, and punished the culprits.

Billinski replied for the Cabinet. A man of more than seventy, he had held the portfolio of Finance under the Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria and was typical of the old Continental bureaucracy. He, too, felicitated us on the pleasant ending of our work, concerning which, he said, he and his colleagues had entertained such grave doubts. Poland, he said, wanted no more “polemics”; the desire of the government was to quiet things. Any admission of mistakes they thought had better be decided by Paderewski. He hoped that our report would call attention to Poland’s thousand years of culture, which had made her the advance post of civilization in eastern Europe; would mention that she had ever been tolerant toward the Jew and welcomed his arrival and that she did not forget how, in the Revolution of 1863, the Jews had loyally fought against Russia. They would not have done that, he argued, had the Poles been persecuting them. He said it was unfortunate that, in the recent war, some Jews had informed against the Poles in Galicia and thereby created the prejudice against them.

“The Pole,” he concluded, “must live side-by-side with the Jew and wants to do it in peace.”

What, in this question of Anti-Semitism, were the feelings of that member of the government who is best known to all the world? Ignace Paderewski is not only not an Anti-Semite: he is infinitely the greatest of the modern Poles.

After my experience at the synagogue in Warsaw, to which I have already referred, I asked Paderewski if he would not accompany me to service some Friday. I said that he was charged with being Anti-Semitic.

“How ridiculous!” he answered.

“M. Paderewski,” I explained. “I know you are not Anti-Semitic, and you know that you are not—but how are the people to be convinced of it?”

Paderewski at once saw the point. He was anxious to refute the charge against him, yet his caution prompted him to consult his political associates, who advised against his adoption of my suggestion.

“Never mind,” he reassured me: “I’ll find another way.”

That way he found when Hoover came to Warsaw. I was then about to visit Pinsk, and he requested me to postpone it for a day or two.

“I am giving a state dinner for Mr. Hoover at my official residence,” said he, “I want you to come to that and let the doubters see how you will be one of the Premier’s most honoured guests.”

That dinner was a gorgeous affair. Everybody of political, financial, and social importance was there; the representatives of the old aristocracy, the makers of the new republic. The table was a sort of squared horseshoe, its head the outside centre of the crosspiece, its foot the inside centre. Paderewski had personally arranged the seating: on his right sat Gibson, at his left Jadwin; Mme. Paderewska was at the table’s head; Hoover sat at her left; General Pilsudski, as Chief-of-State, sat at her right; and at his right was the place that the Premier had given me.

Few knew at that time of any change in General Pilsudski’s attitude toward the Commission. All the guests supposed him still firm in his opposition to us. From my seat beside him, I saw many inquisitive eyes fixed on us, and showing their surprise at my sitting next to him. We were conversing intimately and almost incessantly. It was evident that everybody was wondering what passed between us.

And what did?

The terrible Chief-of-State was telling me, quite simply, the story of his adventurous life: how he had fought always for Polish liberty, how he had suffered imprisonment at Magdeburg.

“But, even when there seemed no hope for either my country or me,” he declared, “I never lost my faith. A marvellous gypsy palmist had assured me that I was destined to be dictator of Poland.”

I looked at him in amazement. It seemed incredible that this hardened soldier should be speaking seriously.

“The palmist,” he continued, with the simplicity of a child, “found that the lines at the base of my right forefinger formed a star. That is a sure sign that the lucky bearer is to rise to mastery.”

He held out his hand to me. I could almost hear the rustle of excitement among the watching guests to whom, of course, his words were inaudible.

The star was there. Then, inquisitively, I looked at my own right hand, and to my great surprise I also found a star!

“I have the mark as well as you,” I laughingly proclaimed, “but the nearest approach I ever made to a dictatorship was when the British were expected in Constantinople in 1915, and I was to be in control of the city between the departure of the Turks and the British occupation.”

News of what Pilsudski and I were doing spread rapidly. Many guests unsuccessfully looked for a star in their own hands, and then came up to look at the General’s and mine.

Shoulder to shoulder with me sat this man trained to fighting. Opposite to him was Paderewski, with his wonderful head, with its fine, high brow, from which flowed that magnificent shock of hair, and showing those piercing eyes whose expression had puzzled so many, and whose whole education had been directed toward the evoking of harmony. For years, American music lovers had listened to this great virtuoso and been entranced by his vigorous and yet delicate interpretation of many of the most difficult and intricate classics. Now, he was no longer living amid clouds of harmonies and études, but was second only to Pilsudski in the council of this budding republic. There sat this sheer genius—this unstarred master. He needed no mark on his palm, no divining gypsy’s prophecy to prove that he would excel in any sphere to which he might direct his talent. Twelve or fifteen years ago, there was a picture painted of him and hung in the Lemberg Gallery: it showed him as Orpheus quieting the wild beasts with his lyre. It was of this that he irresistibly reminded me that night. He had undertaken the almost impossible task of reconciling the contending factions of his native land, and was eliminating race hatred itself. From a chance post of vantage, I could not help watching the court he held during the reception that followed the dinner. It equalled that of Pilsudski. Princes and politicians vied with each other for an opportunity to approach him, and to each he gave, with a perfect grace, an absorbed attention.

Another of his many sides I came to know. Poland’s financial plight seemed to me, the more I studied it, not so desperate as feared. If prompt and decisive help were offered, I believed, the Poles would rally and work out their own salvation. As it was, the idle people were losing their self-respect and were drifting toward militarism, simply through their inactivity. I thought a plan could be devised by which they could be aroused from their lethargy and given a start toward becoming a vigorous, self-supporting people. I had great faith in Paderewski who, I felt, did not subscribe to the militaristic views of Pilsudski, and I thought there was a good chance for working out a plan for the economic salvation of his country.

In Vilna, I spoke to a number of prominent business men, irrespective of religion, in regard to this matter. I asked them whether, if America would help to organize a great corporation which would endeavour to finance Poland, they would be ready to subscribe to some of the stock. I was somewhat surprised at their prompt acquiescence.

“But,” I pointed out, “you will probably be expected to subscribe in gold. Have you got it?”

“Oh, yes,” they answered.

Gold in ravished Poland! “Where?” I asked.

“In the Agrarian Bank.”

I said that I didn’t know the institution.

Then they smilingly explained. The Agrarian Bank was a hole in the ground. At the outbreak of the World War these thrifty Poles had buried their gold, hence, these men of Vilna were ready to subscribe generously.

When I returned to Warsaw, I discussed this plan with my associate Johnson, who had had business experience, and he became enthusiastic about it. I then presented it in detail to Paderewski, and his only criticism was that the Poles would want a majority of the stock at once. I told him that there was not the slightest objection to that, but that I could devise a method by which they could eventually secure all of it, and I doubted if it were wise to take too much at first. He then said that there must be an American at the head of this corporation, and that he must be one that was not connected with Wall Street, but who would have the confidence of the entire American community. I proposed several names, and we finally agreed that Franklin K. Lane was the best man.

Paderewski asked me to put the full details of this plan in a letter to him. I asked Colonel Bryant, who was an expert stenographer, whether he would be willing to forget his military rank for a short time and revert to his former activities by acting as my secretary. He readily assented, and to escape the constant interruptions at our headquarters, we automobiled five miles outside of Warsaw, gave the chauffeur a package of cigarettes and told him to disappear; and there on the highway, I dictated in an American automobile to an American colonel a letter which will be found in the Appendix.

I handed this letter to Paderewski, and stressed my views that the mere announcement of such a corporation being contemplated would more than double the value of the mark at once. Paderewski thought for a minute and then said:

“Mr. Morgenthau, that is absolutely true, and I am afraid that that is going to prevent our adopting the scheme.”

I was extremely puzzled, and was dumbfounded as he continued:

“We cannot afford to have our marks rise too rapidly. We have sold too many at this low price, and it would bankrupt us to redeem them at the higher value which this scheme would give them. We must find some way of disregarding the present value of the mark, and start a new currency system.”

He had evidently given this some thought, because he asked me how long it would take in America to prepare new plates and print for them a new currency, and he told me that they would have piastres and pounds. I said I thought one of the banknote companies could do it in three months, perhaps less. Finally, he said to me:

“Don’t speak to any one about this plan, because I don’t want any one to know that the suggestion comes from you until it is put into effect.”

Two days later, when I met him again, he pulled out my letter and said:

“Here I am carrying your letter, and am still giving attention to your scheme.”

I still think that a corporation of that kind would have put Poland on her feet.

The time now approached for our Commission’s departure. Our investigations were ended, our work was done. We considered our final decision.

There was no question whatever but that the Jews had suffered; there had been shocking outrages of at least a sporadic character resulting in many deaths, and still more woundings and robberies, and there was a general disposition, not to say plot, of long standing, the purpose of which was to make the Jews uncomfortable in many ways: there was a deliberate conspiracy to boycott them economically and socially. Yet there was also no question but that some of the Jewish leaders had exaggerated these evils.

There, too, were malevolent, self-seeking mischiefmakers both in the Jewish and Polish press and among the politicians of every stripe. Jews and non-Jews alike started out with the presumption that there could be no reconciliation. Our Commission had to deal with people, most of whom could not conceive of the possibility of disinterested regard for their welfare. Their experiences with the Russian courts had taught them always to over-state the facts and when one realizes that there is a conflict of testimony, and in most of them perjury is committed, it made us quite patient when we found them just a little less truthful than our American litigants.

We found that, among the Jews, there was a thoughtful, ambitious minority, who, sincere in their original motives, intensified the trouble by believing that its solution lay only in official recognition of the Jew as a separate nationality. They had seized on Zionism as a means to establish the Jewish nation. To them, Zionism was national, not religious; when questioned, they admitted that it was a name with which to capture the imagination of their brothers whose tradition bade them pray thrice daily for their return to the Holy Land.

Pilsudski, in a moment of diplomatic aberration, had said that the Jews made a serious error in forcing Article 93; quoting that utterance, these Nationalists now asserted that neither the Polish Government, nor the Roumanian for that matter, ever would carry out the spirit of the Treaty concessions, and so they aimed at nothing short of an autonomous government and a place in the family of nations. Meanwhile, they wanted to join the Polish nation in a federation having a joint parliament where both Yiddish and Polish should be spoken: their favourite way of expressing it was to say that they wanted something like Switzerland where French, German, and Italian cantons work together in harmony.

Unfortunately, they disregarded the facts in the case. In Switzerland, generally speaking, the citizens of French language live in one section, those of German language in another, and so on, whereas these aspiring Nationals, of course, wanted the Jews to continue scattered throughout Poland. They wanted this, and yet wanted them to have a percentage of representation in Parliament equal to their percentage in the entire Polish nation! Finally, they took no account of the desires of the Orthodox Jews, who form about 80 per cent. of their number, who were content to remain in Poland and suffer for their religion if necessary, and whom the Polish politicians were already coddling and beginning to organize politically as a vote against the Nationalist-Zionists.

The leaders of these Nationalist-Zionists were capable and adroit, but they were like walking delegates in the labour unions, who had to continue to agitate in order to maintain their leadership, and their advocacy of a state-within-the-state was naturally resented by all. It was quite evident that one of the deep and obscure causes of the Jewish trouble in Poland was this Nationalist-Zionist leadership that exploited the Old Testament prophecies to capture converts to the Nationalist scheme.

Here, then, was Zionism in action. We had seen it at first hand in Poland. I returned home fearful that, owing to the extensive propaganda of the Zionists, the American people might obtain the erroneous impression that a vast majority of the Jews—and not, as it really was, only a portion of the 150,000 Zionists in the United States—had ceased considering Judaism as a religion and were in danger of conversion to Nationalism.

CHAPTER XIX

ZIONISM A SURRENDER, NOT A SOLUTION[2]

ZIONISM is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history. I assert that it is wrong in principle and impossible of realization; that it is unsound in its economics, fantastical in its politics, and sterile in its spiritual ideals. Where it is not pathetically visionary, it is a cruel playing with the hopes of a people blindly seeking their way out of age-long miseries. These are bold and sweeping assertions, but in this chapter I shall undertake to make them good.

The very fervour of my feeling for the oppressed of every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it professes to be leading them to the heights.

Zionism is a surrender, not a solution. It is a retrogression into the blackest error, and not progress toward the light. I will go further, and say that it is a betrayal; it is an eastern European proposal, fathered in this country by American Jews, which, if it were to succeed, would cost the Jews of America most that they have gained of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

I claim to speak with knowledge on this subject. I have had occasion to know the Jew intimately in all the lands where he dwells in numbers, and to study his problems on his own ground, with the intensity and sympathy which were required by my duty to help in each place to formulate the plans for his immediate assistance. I was born among the Jews of Germany, and by natural association with German Jews in New York, and by repeated visits to Germany, am familiar with their life and problems. As an American of fifty-five years’ residence, as a director of the Educational Alliance and of Mt. Sinai Hospital, as president of the Bronx House and the Free Synagogue for more than ten years, and as one who has travelled on speaking tours from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to New Orleans on behalf of the American Jewish Relief Committee, I became thoroughly familiar with the American Jews. As American Ambassador to Turkey, I came into daily official contact with the Jews from all parts of the Near East, not only the Jews of Turkey and of the Turkish Protectorate in Palestine itself, but also the Jews of Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Roumania, and Bulgaria, to say nothing of the accredited representatives of the Zionist Party in Constantinople. As the head of President Wilson’s Commission, which was sent to investigate the alleged pogroms of the Jews of Poland following the Armistice in 1919, I spent several months on the ground in Poland and Galicia, and talked with thousands of Jews in every walk of life in that greatest centre of Jewish population in the world. They told me their troubles; the indignities and the perils they endured; the hatred of their neighbours because of their religion; the deliberate efforts that were being made to stifle their economic life; the political discriminations to which they were subjected; and the social barriers which did not permit them to enjoy a full life as members of their community.

I speak as a Jew. I speak with fullest sympathy for the Jew everywhere. I have seen him in his poverty—despised, hated, spat upon, beaten, murdered. My blood boils with his at the thought of the indignities and outrages to which he is subjected. I, too, would find for him, for me, the way out of this morass of poverty, hatred, political inequality, and social discrimination.

But is Zionism that way? I assert emphatically that it is not. I deny it, not merely from an intellectual recoil from the fallacy of its reasoning, but from my very experience of life: as a seeker after religious truth, as a practical business man, as an active participant in politics, as one who has had experience in international affairs, and as a Jew who has at heart the best interests of his co-religionists.

First, let me trace briefly the origins of Zionism. I shall not attempt to give a complete résumé of these origins, but shall sketch only a broad picture of the facts.

Zionism is based upon a literal acceptance of the promises made to the Jews by their prophets in the Old Testament, that Zion should be restored to them, and that they should resume their once glorious place as a peculiar people, singled out by God for His especial favour, exercising dominion over their neighbours in His name, and enjoying all the freedom and blessings of a race under the unique protection of the Almighty. Of course, the prophets meant these things symbolically, and were dealing only with the spiritual life. They did not mean earthly power or materialistic blessings. But most Jews accepted them in the physical sense; and they fed upon this glowing dream of earthly grandeur as a relief from the sordid realities of the daily life which they were compelled to lead.

Zionism arose out of the miseries of the Jews. It was offered as a remedy, a release, a plan of action which would provide a road to happiness. This is the secret of its hold upon its adherents. The promises which it offers are so dazzling that Jews everywhere have rushed to embrace its faith without stopping to examine them closely or to calculate whether they can be made good.

Zionism is not a new idea, but it gained a fresh impetus following the outbreak of wholesale massacres in Russia beginning with Kiev and Kishineff, and all through that ghastly trail of bloodshed following the recrudescence of Anti-Semitism. The Jews, in their agony and peril, sought afresh for a path toward safety. Zionism was then restated as the remedy. Theodore Herzl gained new power as its fiery apostle, and Jews the world over embraced the doctrine as a drowning man grasps at a straw. This largely accounts for the present intense agitation of the Zionists.

Let me now define Zionism more fully. To the average Jew, unread in other histories than his own, ignorant of the great currents of world progress in science, industry, and the art of government, it is a blind and simple faith in the imminence of realization of the dream I have just described of the reërection of Zion as an earthly Kingdom. By those intellectual leaders of Jewish thought who have embraced this fallacy of a panacea, Zionism is defined in more subtle and in more plausibly rational terms. There are, first, those intellectual Jews who conceive of “Zion” (that is, Jerusalem restored to the Jews) as being a physical symbol of spiritual leadership, lifted up before their eyes and inspiring them all to a common purpose; as a demonstration of Hebraic civilization; a centre from which should proceed instruction and exhortation to the Jews of all the world.

This analogy, however, is not complete. For these leaders conceive the Jews to be, not merely a religious congregation, but, besides, a nation. They think that not merely should spiritual power be centralized in Zion, but temporal power as well. In their view, the discrimination against Jews in other countries will greatly diminish, once there is erected a Jewish state in Palestine.

This nation is to be, in their theory, not only the seat of a religion and the fostering home of distinctive racial culture. It is to be, as well, an actual political entity, with territorial boundaries and a capital city, maintaining a temporal government with a ruler accrediting ambassadors to foreign courts and capitals, dealing with other governments on an equality as a sovereign state, and seeking to use the familiar instruments of diplomatic pressure to redress the wrongs of its citizens who happen to reside under the jurisdiction of “foreign” nations.

I say that this is the programme of the Zionists: perhaps I should say was. It is true that they have, for the moment, altered the structure of their dream, to accept the compromise held out to them by the Balfour Declaration. They have stepped down from their plans for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine: they now accept the ideal of a “National Home for the Jewish People”—to quote the words of that declaration. This is, however, only a temporary compromise—a truce. Nothing short of the full glory of their Zion will long content the ambitious apostles of Zionism.

It is worth while at this point to digress for a moment from my main argument, to point out that the Balfour Declaration is itself not even a compromise. It is a shrewd and adroit delusion.

The Balfour Declaration is: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, nor the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The plain sense of these plain words has been woefully misunderstood by some of the Zionist leaders, and wilfully distorted by others. They contain no promise of a Jewish state: they offer no recognition of a Jewish nation. They do, it is true, apply the obscure but pleasant name of “Jewish Home Land” to the land which the Declaration then accurately defines by its political name as “Palestine”; but it guarantees to the Jews in their Home Land only those familiar assurances of security of person and property which are the common possessions of British subjects the world over.

I have been astonished to find that such an intelligent body of American Jews as the Central Conference of American Rabbis should have fallen into a grievous misunderstanding of the purport of the Balfour Declaration. In a resolution adopted by them, they assert that the Declaration says: “Palestine is to be a national home land for the Jewish people.” Not at all! The actual words of the Declaration (I quote from the official text) are: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” These two phrases sound alike, but they are really very different. I can make this obvious by an analogy. When I first read the Balfour Declaration I was making my home in the Plaza Hotel. Therefore I could say with truth: “My home is in the Plaza Hotel.” I could not say with truth: “The Plaza Hotel is my home.” If it were “my home,” I would have the freedom of the whole premises, and could occupy any room in the house with impunity. Quite obviously, however, I could not occupy the rooms of any other of the guests of the hotel whose leases long antedated mine.

These men would gladly entertain me as a visitor, but how they would resent and legally fight so unjustifiable an attempt as my trying forcibly to enter their premises and displace them and make their quarters my home.