super-sensitiveness of Jews and non-Jews concerning the whole matter.

There is probably not a newspaper in America, and certainly none of the

advertising mediums which are called magazines, which would have the-

temerity even to breathe seriously the fact that such a Question exists.

The Press in general is open to fulsome editorials in favor of everything

Jewish, while the Jewish Press, which is numerous in the United States,

takes care of the vituperative end.

WHAT IS "ANTI-SEMITISM?"

The idea seems to be fixed in the Jew by inheritance that any public

discussion of the Jewish Question is organized and inspired by a

Jew-hater. That idea is sought to be fixed in the Gentile by propaganda;

that any writing which does not simply cloy and drip syrupy sweetness

towards things Jewish is born of prejudice and hatred. It is, therefore,

"full of lies, insult, insinuation, and constitutes an instigation to

massacre." These terms can be found in current Jewish editorials.

Anti-Semitism is a term which is bandied about too loosely. If it

continues to be used indiscriminately and vituperatively about all who

attempt to discuss Jewish characteristics and Jewish world-power, it will,

in time, arrive at the estate of respectability and honor. It may be a useful

clearing of the ground to define what anti-Semitism is not:

I. It is not a recognition of the Jewish Question. If it were, then it

could be set down that the bulk of the American people are destined

to become anti-Semites, for they are beginning to recognize the

existence of a Jewish Question and will steadily do so in increasing

numbers as the Question is forced on them from the various

practical angles of their lives . The Question is here . We may be

honestly blind to it. We may be timidly silent about it. We may even

make dishonest denial of it. But it is here and in time all will have

to recognize it. In time the polite "hush. hush," of oversensitive or

intimidated circles will not be powerful enough to suppress it.

But to recognize that Question will not mean that we have gone over

to a national campaign of hatred and enmity against the Jews. It will

only mean that a stream of tendency which has been flowing through

our civilization has at iast accumulated bulk and power enough to

challenge attention, to call for some decision with regard to it, to

call for the adoption of a policy which will not repeat the mistakes

130 The International jew

of the past and, yet forestall any possible menace of the future.

1. The public discussion of the Jewish Question is not "anti-Semitism."

Publicity is sanitary. But the kind of publicity given to certain

aspects of the Jewish Question in this country has been very

misleading. It has been discussed more fully in the Jewish Press than

elsewhere, but not with candor or breadth of vision. The two

dominant notes- sounded over and over again with monotonous

regularity-are Gentile unfairness and Christian prejudice. It is

fortunate for the Jews generally that the Jewish Press does not

circulate very widely among Gentiles, for it is probably the one

established agency in the United States which, without altering its

program in the least, could stir up anti-Jewish sentiment by the very

simple expedient of a general reading among n~n-Jews. Jewish

writers writing for Jewish readers present unusual material for the

study of race consciousness and its accompaniment of contempt for

other races. ·

On the side of the daily Press, there has been no serious discussion

at all. When it mentions the Jews, it has stocked complimentary

phrases for the purpose. The publicity given to the Question in this

country consists in misrepresentative praise of the Jews by the

non-Jewish Press . An independent effort to give constructive

publicity cannot, therefore, be laid to anti-Semitism, even when

some of the statements which are made in the course of it arouse

resentment of Jewish readers.

1. Nor is it anti-Semitism to say that the suspicion is abroad in every

capital of civilization, and the certainty is firmly held by a number

of important men, that there is active in the world a plan to control

the world, not by territorial acquisition, not by military aggression,

not by governmental subjection, not even by economic control in the

scientific sense, but by control of the machinery of commerce and

exchange. It is not anti-Semitism to say that, nor to present the

evidence which supports that, nor to bring the proof of that. Those

who could best disprove it, if it were not true, are the International

Jews themselves, but they have not disproved it.

WHY DISCUSS THE JEWISH QUESTION

B ecause it is here, and because its emergence into public thought

should contribute to its solution, and not to a continuance of those