"I cannot tell you more, but these meetings and these talks at various
times and in various places made my vacation on the East Side
delightful. Then there were lectures and meetings and social gatherings
of the comrades. The sun of new ideas rises on the East Side. Everywhere
you meet people who are ready to fight for what they believe in and who
do not believe in fighting. For a complete change and for pure air you
must go among the people who think about something, have faith in
something. Katz, Cahan, Gordin, Yanofsky, Zolotaroff, Harkavy, Frumkin,
Krantz, Zametkin, Zeifert, Lessin, Elisovitz, Winchevsky, Jeff,
Leontief, Lipsky, Freidus, Frominson, Selikowitch, Palay, Barondess, and
many other intellectual leaders, come into the cafés to pour out wisdom
and drink tea, and here comes also Hutchins Hapgood to get his
education. Each man bears his own particular lantern, it is true, but
each one carries a light and every one brings a man with him.
"There was that memorial mass-meeting in honor of Hirsh Leckert, the
Jewish shoemaker, who shot at the governor of Wilna, who took his life
in hand to avenge a hideous outrage perpetrated upon his fellow-workers
by a despicable despot. The Jewish working-people of Wilna organized a
peaceful procession, and at the behest of the governor hundreds of them
were mercilessly flogged--flogged until they fainted, and when revived,
flogged again. Then came this lowly hero, Leckert, and made a glorious
ascent on the scaffold. In the afternoon news reached the East Side
that Leckert was hanged. The same evening the working-people, just out
of their factories and sweat-shops, in overwhelming numbers assembled in
New Irving Hall, and the fervor and enthusiasm, the sobbing and the
sighing, the tear-stained faces and love-lit eyes--the soul-stirring
eulogies delivered--I shall never forget it. I tell you no man ever saw
anything greater or more inspiring on his vacation.
"Mr. Jacob Gordin gave me a memorable treat, took me to see his latest
and one of his best plays, 'Gott, Mensch, und der Teufel.' I have seen
many of his works and it is hard to decide which is the best because
they are nearly all so good. But this strange story of a Jewish Faust,
the pious, saintly Jew who, tempted by Satan's gold, step by step loses
his soul and cannot live without it; this wonderful blending of modern
realism and supernatural symbolism, this superb summary of man and the
new problem of life, the beauty and the strength of the work, is
remarkable, to say the least. 'As in times of yore,' says Satan, 'the
sons of Adam are divided into Abels and Cains. The former are constantly
murdered and the latter are the constant murderers. Gracious Lord, in
the new man there dwells the old savage Adam.' Sorry I cannot tell you
more about it now, but the last words of the play have been ringing
through my mind ever since I saw it.
'_All must die, all that is and lives;_
_Life alone is immortal._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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