Part 4

Belittled his own novels.

"Have you read my book What To Do?" he suddenly asked me. I was obliged to answer "No." I have read it since, and several times, and profitably, too, but, though I had read quite a number of his books before I met him, it was exceedingly embarrassing to be questioned concerning the particular book which I had not read. Not to appear altogether ignorant of his writings, I proceeded to tell him that I had read his "War and Peace," "Anna Karénina," etc., etc., and started telling him how much I admired them, when, with an impatient look and gesture, he interrupted me, saying "These works are all chaff, chaff, play-toys, amusing gilded youth and idle women. It is my serious writings which I want the world to read. I have ceased publishing novels because readers do not know the meaning of them. They look for entertainment and not instruction, and even though I write only for the uplift of man, for the purification of society, they, like the hawk, seek out only the carrion. They neither recognize themselves under the fictitious name I adopt, nor do they see their share in the wrongs and vices and injustices depicted, neither do they perceive that it is for their co-operation that the novelist appeals when he pleads for the kingdom of heaven on earth."

Spoke of his book What To Do.

Returning to his book What To Do, he said, "even if you have not read it, you have read the Prophets, and having read them, you know my teachings. The book is an appeal for pity for the submerged, for justice for the wronged, for liberation of the oppressed and persecuted, and for the application of the only remedy--a return to the simple life and labor on the soil. As our subsistence comes from the soil so can justice and right and happiness come from it alone. Help can never come from wealth, for wealth is the creator of poverty and inequality and injustice. It can not come from the government for that exists largely for the purpose of keeping up inequality and injustice. It cannot come from the church, for she fears the Czar more than she fears God. It cannot even come from the schools which tend to train a class of people who think themselves too good for manual labor."

Saw solution of Jewish problem only in agriculture.

"Your plan to lead your people back to the soil," he continued, "back to the occupation which your fathers followed with honor in Palestinian lands, is of some encouragement to me. It shows that the light is dawning. It is the only solution of the Jewish problem. Persecution, refusal of the right to own or to till the soil, exclusion from the artisan guilds, made traders of the Jew. And the world hates the trader. Make bread-producers of your people, and the world will honor those who give it bread to it."

Made a request of me.

"There is little chance at present," he continued, "for a Jewish colonization scheme in Russia. The government does not want to see the Jews rooting themselves on Russian soil, and spreads the report that they are unfit for agricultural labor, though I have been reliably informed that in the few Jewish agricultural colonies that have been tolerated on the steppes from the time of Alexander I they are as successful farmers as are the best." And he asked me as a favor that I make a special trip to those colonies and report to him, preferably in person, the result of my observations. I was only too anxious to consent to his request.

And yet another promise he asked of me, and which I gave no less cheerfully. But of this I shall speak in my next discourse.

My Visit to Tolstoy.

(Continued.)

A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL, BY RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.

Philadelphia, December 25th, 1910.

RESUMÉ--Discourse I: Reasons for my visit to Russia and for my calling on Tolstoy. His appearance and personality. Some of his views on Russia, its statesmen, religion, misgovernment. A pause under the Poverty Tree--his burial place.

Discourse II: Recalled food-relief for famine-stricken in Russia from Philadelphia and from Jewish congregation in California. Admired Quakers for their opposition to war. Blamed schools for many social wrongs. Severely criticised political and economical evils of our country. Ascribed them to growth of cities and to farm-desertions. His relationship with wife and family. His working-room. Against lawyers. Belittled his novels. Spoke of his book What To Do? Saw solution of Jewish problem in agriculture only.

Tolstoy suggests school for training American lads in agriculture.

At the conclusion of my last discourse I made mention of yet another request count Tolstoy made of me. It was in connection with his prediction that the Russian government would not look favorably upon my proposition to colonize Russian Jews upon unoccupied farm-lands in the interior. "If the plan cannot be entered upon in Russia," he asked, "why can it not be made successful in the United States? What are you, Americans, doing to prevent a Jewish problem in your own country? How long before the evils that are harrowing your people in the old world may be harrowing them in the new? Your people are crowding into your large cities by the thousands and tens of thousands. You have built up Ghettoes worse than those of Europe. There is excuse for it in Russia; there is no excuse for it in the United States. Yours is the right to own land and the best of it, and to till as much of it as you please. Granted that ages of enforced abstention from agricultural labor have weaned the elder generation from a love of country life and farm-labor, why may not a love for it be instilled in the young? Lead your young people to the country and to the farm. Start agricultural schools for them. Teach them to exchange the yard-stick for the hoe, the peddler's pack for the seed-bag, and you will solve the problem while it may yet be solved. You will see the lands tilled by them overflow, as of old, with milk and honey. You will see them give of their plenty to the people of the land, and receive in return goodly profit and esteem. And once again there will arise from among Jewish husbandmen prophets, lawgivers, inspired bards and teachers to whom the civilized world will do homage."

At yet greater length he spoke on this subject, and the more he spoke the more he quickened within me the resolve to do as he wished it to be done.

Founding of Farm School promised.

And there, under The Poverty Tree, it was where I gave Tolstoy the solemn promise that upon my return home the earliest task I would enter upon would be the establishment of an agricultural school for Jewish lads, and other lads. And the existence of the National Farm School, near Doylestown in this state, is testimony that I kept my promise. I had gone to Russia to see the Czar, and I saw a greater man instead. I had gone with a plan for colonizing Russian Jews in Russia, and I returned with a plan for teaching agriculture chiefly to Russian Jewish lads in the United States. Verily, "man proposes and God disposes." And the hundreds of young men who have received their agricultural training at the National Farm School, and the hundreds of others, young and old, who, directly and indirectly, have been encouraged by that school to forsake the congested cities and to take up the farmer's life, owe their escape from the miseries of the Ghetto, and their enjoyment of health and happiness, to the promise asked of me by that noblest of all farmers, count Tolstoy.

Promise kept under difficulties.

The establishment of the school was not an easy task, nor is its maintenance easy even now, notwithstanding the excellent record it has made. The bulk of our people have not yet acquired that profound grasp of the seriousness of our problem, and of its only possible solution, that Tolstoy had, sixteen years ago. Therefore is the support of that school still so meagre. Therefore has it still less than a hundred students in attendance when it easily could have a thousand, and more, if it had the means. And, therefore, are our Ghettoes more crowded than ever, and a greater drain than ever on our charities. That despite indifference and even hostility the school has persevered is due, to a very large extent, to the determination to keep sacred a promise solemnly given to one of the best of men.

Parting from Tolstoy.

It was late that night when I took leave of the count and of some of the members of his family. Before departing, it was agreed that I enter at once upon my journey to the Jewish agricultural colonies in the interior, that I might see them at work during the height of their harvesting, and a peasant and his wagon were engaged to take me on that trip. The count bade me a hearty God-speed, and repeatedly urged me to make my report personally to him, and I promised that I would avail myself a second time of his proffered hospitality, if my way should lead me back again to Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Never heard from him again.

Unfortunately, after my inspection of the Jewish agricultural colonies, which fully confirmed the favorable reports the count had received of them, my investigations led me to the Southern and Polish provinces, and consumed so much of my limited time that a return North was impossible. And so I never got to see the count again. And I never heard from him. Neither my report, which I sent to him in writing, nor my other communications to him, written in Russia and outside of it, have brought from him a reply. Never a line from him even in answer to the information sent him that the National Farm School, which he had so strongly urged, had been founded. Never an acknowledgment from him of the early annual reports of the School that were sent him to show the headway it was making.

Probable reason of silence.

The heartiness of his reception of me, his almost affectionate farewell, his deep interest in my mission and his earnest invitation that I repeat my visit to him, preclude the thought that I was forgotten by him or became indifferent to him after my departure. There is but one explanation--an explanation strengthened by similar experiences of others in connection with him--none of my communications ever reached him. I was not wanted in Russia. I was a persona non grata to the government; my name was blacklisted, and my mail fell under the ban of the censor.