THE UNION FOR RESISTANCE TO ANTI-SEMITISM BY A. GUNDACCAR VON SUTTNER Vienna, July 21 Yesterday our Union came into existence as a legally recognized society, to begin action against that hostile movement which is aimed directly against a portion of our fellow-citizens. This is the object stated in section 2 of the constitution: in plain terms, to combat the Anti-Semitic movement, and to do this by public lectures, the dissemination of informatory literature, discussions, and, if necessary, the founding of an organ to represent the Union. Politics is excluded: primarily because our Union is not political, and in the next place because the matter in question is social in the strict sense of the word and has nothing to do with the conduct of state business. The proof of this lies in the fact that we reckon among our members persons of every shade of belief, that we welcome without exception every one who is in full enjoyment of his civic rights. A certain order of opponents who are never at a loss for false and mendacious allegations have already made the attempt to represent our Union as one that purposes to take the field against Christianity in favor of the Jews. Hostile attacks of this kind carry their own condemnation. As a proof of the falsity of their assertions stands the fact that we already number among our members priests of the two chief Christian denominations, and that we announce the distinct expectation of gradually enlisting all those who are first and foremost called to preach the word of peace, of love to our neighbors, of humanity. In a time when men are founding societies to protect dumb animals from cruelty—and that with absolute justification—it is, I think, only logical that we should at last take a stand also against cruelty to our fellow-men, all the more as the attacks have not been confined to assaults upon honor, but have taken the form of acts of violence which have given our Jewish fellow-citizens every reason to fear for the safety of their existence. I will mention only those suburban heroes who smashed the windows of Jewish women and shouted threats of murder at them; those soldiers who struck down an old man on the street; that schoolboy who thrust a knife into the eye of one of his Semitic comrades. These are individual cases out of many; a single one would have been enough to stir all right-thinking men to a great cry of indignation.