_The Jew._ Let us step in and visit an old Jewish tailor, a saintly man
who worships devoutly after the manner of his fathers. I am very careful
not to give him any work on Saturday as it grieves him to disoblige his
friends, and yet he will not work on his Sabbath day. He says, as do many
others of the Jewish race: “I pray every day; my son prays once a week;
my grandson does not pray at all.” This old tailor speaks such broken
English, we will let his daughter tell the story. “My father is almost
eighty years of age; he never worked with his own hands until he came to
America. He was for many years the tailor of a Russian regiment, making
all the uniforms for the officers and having a number of men employed
under him; we were well-to-do, the officers loved my father, but when the
riots arose it was all they could do to save his life and all we had was
destroyed. Now he is an old man, he should not toil any more, but,” as
she shrugs her shoulders, “who will give us bread?”
A kindly-faced man is sitting in my office. He speaks such good English
you can tell he is a foreigner only by the peculiar way he pronounces
some words. He says “dough” for though. Just imagine yourself sitting
quietly by and listening, then you will know why many thousands come to
us from one part of Europe. “We were friendly with all the people of
our town. My ancestors had been in the same business for generations.
All the Russians trusted us and although we were Jews they would rather
deal with us than with their own countrymen. One day there had been
many murmurs around us; the people had looked less friendly; they were
ignorant, superstitious people, and they were miserably poor. Few of them
could read or write. The nobility had fleeced them for centuries, but the
nobility was too strong to be reached and so as scapegoats for the nobles
we were pointed out as the cause of their wretchedness. We went to sleep
that night, peaceful, prosperous and unsuspecting. At midnight our house
was in flames. I never again saw father, mother, brothers, or sisters
alive. I escaped in the night and was hidden by some friendly Russians.
High above the roar of the flames and the din and slaughter rose the
hoarse cry of the peasants—Our Daddy, the Tzar, wants it. Our Daddy, the
Tzar, wants it.” Multiply that scene by thousands and you have a Russian
_pogrom_. Oppression brings many Jews.
_The Russian._ The Russian does not leave his land because of the winter
cold. He leaves it because he dare not speak out against the wrong he
sees. He is always fearful of some police spy making charges against
him, shutting him up in prison, and sending him to Siberia. No one is
safe from these spies. The Russian comes to America because here he can
think aloud and here he can worship according to the voice of his own
conscience. America is his hope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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