Part 15

In the towns of Janow and Krasnik the Jews were accused of having put out mines to destroy the Russians. The Jews, and among them many children, were hanged on the telegraph poles, and the two towns destroyed.

The town of Samosch was conquered by the Austrian Sokol troops, those beautiful slender people whom you do not forget when once you have seen them train in the capital of Galicia. When they were driven away from the Russian Army the Poles accused the Jews of the town of having been the accomplices of the Austrians. Twelve Jews were arrested. When they denied the charge they were sentenced to death. Five of them had been already hanged, when in the middle of the execution a Russian priest, carrying an image of the Virgin in his hand, appeared and with his hand on this image took the oath that the Jews were innocent and that the accusation was all an outcome of Polish hatred of the Jews. He proved that the Poles of the town themselves had supported the Austrians and that even a telephone connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven Jews were then set free; five had already been hanged.

In the town of Jusefow, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells through which hundreds of Cossacks had lost their lives. Seventy-eight Jews were killed, many women were ravished, and houses and shops plundered.

Similar events happened and still happen daily by hundreds. Greater or smaller pogroms with murder, rape, and plunder have thus taken place in the districts of Warsaw, Random, Petrikow, and Kelts.

Only a few Russian Governors, such as Korff, in Warsaw; Kelepowski, in Lublin, and the Governors of Wilna, Petrikow, and Grodno have spoken, although too late, against the pogroms, but neither the Government nor the Poles take these warnings seriously.

Eyewitnesses have told me about Jewish soldiers in the different lazarets who have turned mad, not through the unavoidable horrors of the war, but because of the pogroms they have witnessed in the towns they have passed. They mistake those they have seen murdered for their own relations; they imagine they see their own mothers, sisters, or beloved ones in that plight. They are always raving about the same thing.

The pursuit of the Jews by the Russian-Polish anti-Semites is the more invidious under these circumstances, as 300,000 Jewish soldiers, among them many volunteers, are serving in the Russian Army, and as the self-sacrifice of the army and the Red Cross hitherto has been immeasurable. In the great congregations are special hospitals for Russian soldiers--regardless of their creed--founded by Jews and with Jewish money. Not a few Jewish soldiers have already won the highest military distinctions, nay, a few of them have even received them from Mr. Rennenkampf, the Commander in Chief himself, who used to be a zealous anti-Semite, as the Russian Court on the whole is passionately anti-Semitic. The manifesto from the Czar To my dear Jewish subjects, which has been printed in the French newspapers, has never been anything but a fabrication.

While the usual accusation against the Jews in Russian Poland was that of sympathizing with the Russians--for which they have no special reason--Mr. A. Warinski, who in Russia is classed among the black ones, also called the true Russians--in "Politiken" has made the charge against them that the German attempts of gaining the Poles "have only had the effect desired on the Russian and Polish Jews, as these elements, because of psychological relation with the Prussians, feel disposed to place themselves at the side of Germany." This accusation and the arguments for it might express the culmination. The Jew shall and must be Judas. If it cannot be accomplished in one way the opposite way is tried. Mr. Warinski does not say one word about how many Jews have gone into the war as volunteers out of pure enthusiasm for Poland. They have not been able to believe, as I for my part cannot believe, that the last outcrop of nationalism in Russian Poland is more than a temporary epidemic.

How could Russian Poles in the long run be unfaithful to the only powers they have been able to appeal to, the only powers which took an interest in them? How can they who are fighting for their liberty after so many years' ill-treatment be willing to seize an opportunity to ill-treat the only people who (to its misfortune) is in their power, the only people who have suffered far more and twenty times as long as they themselves; and the only ones who are too strong to be destroyed through any ill-treatment? How can the Poles, who were at times ruined as a State through the treachery of their own men, want to fling out the accusation of treason against a tribe which has never betrayed itself and which even in the deepest abasement never betrayed the only Slavic tribe who in the Middle Ages gave a refuge to its children?

I suppose that the Poles will maintain against this appeal to them that I, whom the Ruthenians could never bring to make any attack on them, am now, because of my descent, speaking in favor of a matter, which is very unpleasant to them. My personal descent has so little influenced my proceedings and way of thinking that during the whole of my public life I have been subject to continual attacks in national Jewish periodicals and newspapers as the man who denied community of descent and supposed community of faith.

This Spring during my stay in America I was continually attacked in the American Jewish papers as the callous denier of the Jews. It was nonsense, as is most of that which appears in print, but it proves at least that it is not on behalf of my blood but on behalf of my mind that I speak on this occasion. My sympathy is not with the Jews as Jews, but as the suppressed and ill-treated.

I am the man who a generation ago wrote: "We love Poland, not in the same way that we love Germany or France or England, but as we love liberty. For what is to love Poland but to love liberty, to feel a deep sympathy with misfortune and to admire courage and combative enthusiasm? Poland is the symbol of all that which the supreme among mankind have loved and for which they have fought."

These were my words and hitherto I have adhered to them.

Shall I have to feel ashamed of having written them, now that Poland's future is being decided?

GEORG BRANDES.

Commercial Treaties After the War

By P. Maslov.

For reasons beyond my control, I am unable as a member of the Free Economic Association to participate in the discussion of the methods of raising money by taxation for the war expenditures. The political group to which I belong may not give full expression to its views. What follows is my personal opinion shared by several men.

The attack by Germany is not only a menace to the democracy of France and Belgium, it not only threatens a political dictatorship by the Prussian nobility over Europe, but is a danger of far greater magnitude than these. For the first time Europe is in peril of having her commercial treaties determined by the sword. Up to this time even the smaller countries have been saved from such a violent course, and European capital has been obliged to restrict itself to the oppression of Asiatic countries. Now for the first time--in case of a German victory--Europe stands in danger of having her commercial arrangements forced upon her by an iron hand, and is threatened with being turned into a German colony. For in the case of a German victory no power in Europe will be able to withstand Germany. And Germany will deal without ceremony even with Austria.

On the other hand, in case of German defeat, the foremost capitalistic country, Great Britain, may not menace Europe for two reasons: First, Great Britain holds to the policy of free trade; second--and this is the main point--she cannot support with armed force her policy as against her allies.

In the meantime the danger indicated above threatens economically backward Russia; her agricultural population may be ruined, her industries may be destroyed. An unprecedented situation has arisen for Russia. All the social classes of the empire are deeply interested in the repulse of the armies of the Kaiser. The working class is just as much interested in the existence of Russian industries as are the employers. The peasants are in no lesser degree interested in the development of agriculture; the killing of industries and agriculture like that committed by England in Ireland centuries ago is a gloomy prospect for all classes of society. If France and Belgium are threatened with a political oppression then Russia is threatened with an even more terrible economic subjugation. Such is the situation.

The poorest classes of the people are taking part in this fight with what they have, with their blood. It is but natural that they should expect that the material burdens of the war will fall not upon their shoulders, but upon big business.

It seems to me that in discussing the sinews of war the Free Economic Association has not considered fully the psychology of the masses. And yet this psychology has a decisive influence upon the war, and is bound to be unfavorable to the war, if the masses of the people feel that the financial burdens of the war are to be placed upon the weakest shoulders.

Considering that at the present moment our supreme duty is to repel the German invasion at all costs, I think that this duty will be better performed by putting the economic burden of the war upon the shoulders of the well-to-do classes, for we have to reckon not only with the taxpaying capacity of the mass of the people, but also with their psychology.

I regard it as a great mistake that the important problem of the most economical methods of spending money raised by taxation has not been considered.

P. MASLOV.

THE WOMAN'S PART.

By MAZIE V. CARUTHERS.