Jew and Jew

"Greek wars with Greek; Jew helps Jew ..." a procurator wrote to his Emperor, Trajan. He was not the first to observe what he expressed so pithily: the racial loyalty of the Jewish people, a loyalty that has kept them together, like a colossal freemasonry, while other nations light the world for a while, then crumble down. For some weeks past the Jews in various IT. S. cities, animated by this tradition, have been working to raise money for the relief of the Jews in Eastern Europe.

Felix Warburg, Louis Marshall, William Fox and other rich Jews are on the committee which, with headquarters in Biltmore Hotel, Manhattan, has sent its representatives and its publicity up and down the country -- the most intense activity being in Greater New York. "There is one hope for the Jews in Eastern Europe," great posters state; "that hope is in the drive for fifteen million dollars. . . ." Speakers have outlined the purposes, the causes of the campaign:

"Women and children are dropping dead of hunger on the streets in Bessarabia.* Many others are found dead in their homes in Poland. A horrible scourge of typhus is sweeping over the Jews in both lands. . . Children eat what they can find in garbage cans . . . sleep in alleys, in cellars. . . . Hundreds are killing themselves . . . the Jews of America must respond. . . ."

To emphasize this appeal, posters in streetcars, on the pillars of subway stations, the billboards of vacant lots, present the picture of a woman in a shawl. Her chin is pressed to the pivot of her wrist; her eyes are smeared with black. She might be any age, this sad, sharpened Jewess; the thing that has pointed her bones and thinned her flesh is not age but weariness; she is the incarnation of the most desolate of physical woes, fatigue. "Are You Tired of Giving?" asks the caption. "You Don't Know What It Is to Be Tired. . . ."

Money came in fast. Felix Warburg gave $400,000, Herbert Lehman, Mrs. S. W. Straus, Mortimer Schiff gave $50,000 each; Louis Marshall, William Fox, Benjamin Winter made big contributions, and a disabled veteran sent $28 (government allowance for war wounds). Advertisers, art-goods makers, bag-makers, bankers, butter, egg, and dairy firms; chain stores, crockery companies, cloak and suit houses; the dental, the funeral, the grocery, the hosiery, the laundry, millinery, musical and neckwear trades; opticians, pawnbrokers, petticoat cutters, physicians, rubber-goods makers, rabbis, underwear and umbrella manufacturers -- all were appraised for definite amounts, all came near to filling their quotas.

Adolph S. Ochs, genius of the New York Times, by many revered as the greatest U. S. newspaper proprietor and the greatest U. S. Jew, swung into the campaign handsomely. His paper advocated the fund far more than any other Manhattan journal, exhorted, reported extensively, published stimulating daily lists of contributors.

Nor were Jews the only people to help Jews. Onetime Ambassador James Gerard spoke at a meeting, and a bellboy contributed $5 that he had won on a baseball game. Senator James W. Wadsworth composed a plea, Governor Alfred Smith of New York sent a check by messenger, a Negro elevator man gave two dollars, and Thomas Burke, editor of the official organ of the Irish Temperance Society, wrote "I'm an Irishman . . . but I've advised my race to imitate the good qualities of yours."

Meanwhile, reflective Jews and Gentiles asked: "What is the matter with the Jews in Eastern Europe? Are they any worse off than the Christians there? Do they really need 15 million dollars?"

They do need their $15,000,000 and untold millions more.* Indeed, when the leaders of the Fund Campaign and of the cooperating organizations/- realized that the sum fixed would be oversubscribed in the two weeks allotted (April 25 -May 9), they raised the goal to $25,000,000 and extended the formal collection period another week, well knowing that the donation momentum would continue. The whole country and Canada besides have contributed -- not only the cities of close Jewish concentration -- New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia -- but also the hamlets where a stray Jewish family persists in traditional pioneering. The whole $25,000,000 more than the original goal was not reached, yet was approximated. There will be no cessation of ingathering or of giving.

*Fertile lands, of high Jewish concen tration appropriated after the War from Tsarist Russia by Roumania.

*In the past $60,000,000 have been do nated and spent for East European Jews.

/-Chairmen are David A. Brown, United Jewish Campaign (National) ; Felix M. Warburg, Joint Distribution Committee, which will look after the wise distribu tion of monies ; Leon Kamaiky, Central Relief Committee ; Louis Marshall, Amer ican Jewish Relief Committee ; Alexander Kahn, People's Relief Committee.