TWAIN, MARK (S. L. Clemens). 19th century American writer.
"In the U.S. cotton states, after the war… the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the Negroes' wants on credit, and at the end of the season was the proprietor of the Negro's share of the present crop and part of the next one. Before long, the whites detested the Jew. (1)
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed. The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant stood no chance against his commercial abilities. The Jew was always ready to lend on a crop. When settlement day came, he owned the crop; the next year he owned the farm - like Joseph. (2)
In the England of John's time everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered all lucrative enterprises into his hands. He was the King of Commerce. He had to be banished from the realm. For like reasons, Spain had to banish him 400 years ago, and Austria a couple of centuries later.
In all ages Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a trade, the Christian had to retire from it. If he set up as a doctor, he took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other farmers had to get at something else. The law had to step in to save the Christian from the poor-house. Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways to make money. Even to get rich. This history has a most sordid and practical commercial look. Religious prejudices may account for one part of it, bit not for the other nine.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics - but they did not take their livelihoods away from them. Catholics have persecuted Protestants - bit they never closed agriculture and the handicrafts against them. I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much to do with the world's attitude toward the Jew; that the reasons for it are much older than that event …
I am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not in any large degree due to religious prejudice. No, the Jew is a money-getter. He made it the end and aim of his life. He was at it in Rome. He has been at it ever since. His success has made the whole human race his enemy.
You will say that the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. When I read in the Cyclopedia Britannica that the Jewish population in the United States was 250,000 I wrote the editor and explained to him that I was personally acquainted with more Jews than that, and that his figures were without doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. People told me that they had reasons to suspect that for business reasons, many Jews did not report themselves as Jews. It looks plausible. I am strongly of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish population in America. I am assured by men competent to speak that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics. ("Concerning the Jews," Harper's Monthly Magazine, September 1899)