Part 10
All the red tape of the American lodge was observed in this society, in which most of the members knew nothing of parliamentary law and had never taken part in debate. Unfortunately for the decorum of the ladies, there was a wedding ball in the room below, and the Polish mazurka kept their feet in motion and did not seal their lips. The President used the gavel freely, and, in spite of stamping feet and wild-measured music, the installation services were carried out. The personnel of this society is of some interest; its eighty members are drawn almost entirely from one district in the old country; with the exception of three or four men, they are all engaged in manual labour. The retiring President is a graduate of a gymnasium, speaks four languages poorly and English very well, is a Republican, is thoroughly Americanized, and, although not active in politics, is an influence for good in their affairs. He neither smokes nor drinks, and manages to save money from his meagre wages. The newly installed President is a wood-turner by trade, earns eighteen dollars a week, is also a Republican, not active in politics, but a conscientious citizen. The newly elected Vice-President is a cloak-presser, a strong Social Democrat, and would die for his political faith. He belongs to the Social Labour wing, and he hates the Social Democratic wing with a desperate hatred; he is a good speaker, honest though fanatical, and one who might be made to see the weakness of his political creed. The Secretary is a Polish Jew, a dealer in plumbers’ supplies, a Democrat not of the Tammany order, a stereotyped Anti-Imperialist and Free-trader, speaks English fluently although only ten years in this country, and is on the road to Harlem--that is, to wealth. The Treasurer is a Russian Jew, an “aprator,” earns eight dollars a week, speaks English very well, has been six years in the country but is not yet a citizen; he will be a Social Democrat first, and a Republican when he has a bank account. Of the eighty men present, fifteen were Republicans, twenty were Democrats, two were Socialists, and the rest were not yet citizens.
Most of them spoke English fairly well, and some could understand a few words although only four months in this country. Of the married women the fewest could speak English, but the young girls knew it well enough--slang, vaudeville songs, and all.
After the installation services there was much useless discussion (under the “good of the order”) upon minor points, so typical of such meetings outside the Ghetto. Characteristic of the “meetunk” was the fact that the leaders were all members of other lodges. Of the women who spoke for “the good of the order,” a “Daughter of Rebekah,” the wife of the President, made a capital speech. The “meetunk” adjourned for a banquet served in the basement, where a Hungarian stew and beer cheered and filled but did not inebriate or cause indigestion. National songs were rendered by the young people as the spirit moved them, and after the banquet the whole “meetunk” invited itself to the wedding ball up-stairs, where in the polka and mazurka they drove time away wildly, and prepared themselves badly for the next day’s hard labour.
In the Ghetto, Friday, the day before the Sabbath, is a day of agitation, of scrubbing, cooking, baking, and merchandizing; Saturday is the day of meditation, when the faces are solemn and the step is slow, and although many must work, there is a perceptible stillness everywhere. With shuffling step and pious mien the rabbis and members go to the synagogue, and with much wailing and lamentation praise and bless Jehovah.
The second generation of the immigrant Jew has lost its adherence to the solemn observance of the day of rest; eats and drinks whenever and wherever opportunity offers, and smokes cigars on the Sabbath (a most heinous sin). Americanization means to the Jew in most cases dejudaizing himself without becoming a Christian. There is a painful eagerness on the part of some of the younger generation especially to cast aside everything which marks it as Jewish, and I have heard some of the severest criticisms of the Jews from the lips of such people. The American Jew becomes over-conscious of the faults of his race, and not seldom hates the word Jew and feels himself insulted if it is applied to him. “I hate them all,” I heard a number of the younger Jews say, and there was no vice in the calendar of Hades which they did not ascribe to their own race.
If, as some people claim, the Jews are discriminated against in New York by the Gentile business firms, I have proof that there are a number of Jewish firms that do not employ any Jews and very many that prefer Gentile help. The Jews who come from various European countries hate one another on general principles, and a Hungarian or a German Jew looks down in the greatest derision on the Pole and the Russian. These latter two nationalities are mentally and physically stronger, their needs are smaller, their wits are sharper, and as getting ahead always starts calumny, the Russian Jew gets a good share of it. His is not a prepossessing nature; his form and face are often repulsive and his habits are none the less so, but he has an abundance of ambition and a superabundance of sharpness, which, when they are led into right channels, become an ennobling talent. East Broadway, the wholesale district of the Ghetto, suffers from overmuch such talent, and its capacity for shrewd trading and quick thinking cannot be excelled anywhere in New York outside of Wall Street.
The Polish and Russian Jews are under strong suspicion of making money out of fires and bankruptcies, and the suspicion must be well founded, for the insurance companies discriminate against them and many of them refuse to take the risks. Great crimes are seldom laid to the charge of the Russian Jew, although too often he lends himself to rather shady business transactions, and the percentage of certain crimes is rapidly increasing. Taking him as a whole, however, he is honest, industrious, and frugal, and has, above all, the making of a man in him. It is true that he works for small wages, but he soon wants more; he lives on little money, but he soon spends more. He does not have as many faults as his enemies assert, and he has as many virtues as one might reasonably expect. He is to be feared, not for his weakness, but for his strength; not for his faults, but for his virtues: he is here to stay, he does not care to return to Russia, and he cannot if he wishes to. The Russian Government sees to that. If he wishes to return home for a visit, he changes his name, puts a big cross around the necks of his children, and says he is a Protestant; but he has a hard time to convince the officials, and often is forced to return without seeing his native village. The Ghetto is not an ideal dwelling-place; its nearness to the Bowery, the crowded condition of its tenement-houses, and its inherited weaknesses and sins are against it; yet I have never seen a drunken man on any of its streets and I have witnessed only one quarrel, but that was worth a great many of its kind in other places.
The Ghetto is a peaceful community if not a united one. For instance, the young man with whom I drifted into New York remained closely attached to the Jews from his own district in Russia, and consequently retained all the prejudices against the Jews who came from more or less favoured portions of the Czar’s domain. He was from Lithuania, and regarded himself and his kind as intellectually keener and more learned in the law than they; facts which were acknowledged by his neighbours, but who added to them less complimentary characteristics, such as exceptional unreliability and trickery in trade.
Not long ago, as I walked slowly up Second Avenue, I was met by a well-dressed man, whose face was shaven and whose trousers were creased after the manner of Americans. In good English although with a strong accent, he called my name and brought back to my memory a journey across the sea, and a start in life together on this side. “And how are you getting along, Abromowitz?” “Getting along like pulling teeth.” “What do you mean?” “I am learning to be a dentist with my father-in-law, who keeps a fine office.” “Where do you live?” “On Rivington Street, and you must come to see me.” I followed him into a tenement house of the better class, and found him rather well situated. The home which consisted of three rooms contained all the hall marks of American civilization. Carpets of various hues were upon the floor, coloured supplements of Sunday newspapers lined the walls, a huge plush album contained pictures of the friends left behind and the new ones made in America, and “last but not least” on the wall hung crayon portraits of himself and his bride in their wedding attire. They also possessed a phonograph on which they played for my special benefit the latest songs current in the variety theatres. The young husband told me of his increasing prosperity, and when I questioned him as to why he did not move into a better locality, he answered, that he had contemplated doing so, even having rented a flat out towards Harlem; but when he and his wife viewed the neighbourhood they found that it was peopled by Russian Jews not of their own native region, so they preferred to remain on Rivington Street. To them that street is only a suburb of Minsk; here the news drifts with every incoming steamer, and although it is almost always sad news, they thus keep in close touch with the weal and woe of their kindred and acquaintances.
I have made it an especial task to follow as closely as possible the career of a hundred Russian Jews with whom I have come in touch during my journeys and investigations. Although they did not pass into my field of observation together, and represent various ages and conditions, the following may be of interest: After five years, about forty per cent. had learned to speak English very well, and about fifteen per cent. could write it almost faultlessly, while more than sixty per cent. could read English newspapers. Of this number seventy-eight per cent. had become wage-earners and only fifteen per cent. of these had not materially improved their lot in life. Eighteen were citizens of the United States, three were Social Democrats of an intense type, five believed that way, but voted the Republican ticket, and the rest were divided on national questions about evenly between the two dominant parties. They voted as they pleased in local affairs, although they were strongly influenced first by Tammany and later by the Hearst movement which more and more dominates the east side of New York. Ninety-one per cent. has ceased to be orthodox in their religious practices, although in thirty-seven per cent. the “spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.” All the Social Democrats with the exception of one, had entirely drifted from their ancient moorings and were avowed atheists. As to their relation to Christianity I asked one of them, “Do you know anything about American Christians?” and he replied, “How shall I know anything about Christians on the East side?” Nearly all of them were saving some money and one of them had grown rich, at least in the estimation of his neighbours, and he was in the real estate business. Among all of them there has been an intellectual awakening. As one of them said: “They have room to think though they have but little leisure.”
Modifications and almost marvellous transformations had taken place in the features of many, and these were the men who had thought themselves most into our life. Whether there was growth in ethical conception it is hard to say, for one cannot easily reach beyond the exterior in sociological observations, and depths do not disclose themselves when one watches people by the hundred. Their business sense certainly has not grown less keen, and making money is as much an object in life as it always was. Perchance even a little more. The scale of things has changed. I find in most of them that they are more honest in little things, which comes from the fact that they need not be penurious. The real estate dealer is an unscrupulous sharper, I know, but in that he merely shares the unenviable reputation of his guild.
I should say that many of the surface vices born of certain economic conditions have disappeared, although I do not see that any great virtues have taken their places or that at the present time any great ethical movement is apparent. The synagogue is sterile in that direction, and the average Rabbi among this class is no ethical factor.
The public schools, which of course reach only the children, are much too crowded and have such a superabundance of raw material to work upon that it is impossible for them to reach deep enough into the crowded life of the Ghetto. Great ethical factors are the Jewish Alliance already mentioned, Cooper Institute, with its many lectures and Sunday afternoon services, and some of the settlements in which many honest attempts are made and splendid results achieved.
But “Salvation is still from the Jews,” still from within, and the best thing which can be done for the Russian Jews of New York, and for all the Jews in America, is to make them more truly Jewish, and that is a task at which happily both Jew and Christian may work, and for that task we all need the larger vision which comes partially, at least, from knowing one another.
XII
THE SLAVS AT HOME
Nearly the whole eastern portion of Europe is Slavic territory, and although here and there broken into by other races, it is the Slav’s own world which he inhabits. A world which is constantly growing larger in spite of the fact that his advance in Asia has been checked.
One need not travel longer than a few hours from the German cities of Berlin, Leipsic, from the Austrian capital, Vienna, or from Venice, in Italy, to find himself far from German speech, habits and customs.
On the Baltic and on the Adriatic, as well as on the Black Sea, the Slav holds complete possession, although politically he may not everywhere be the master. He undoubtedly differs in many ways from his close neighbours, but just where that difference lies is hard to tell, because the portrayal of the characteristics of a race seems perilous, the danger being to ascribe to a nation, as traits, the agreeable or disagreeable impressions gathered from individuals during visits of shorter or longer duration. Inherited prejudices play no little part in such judgments; and, again, we too often hear nations given praise or blame which is based upon an indigestible dish, a disagreeable day, a good glass of wine, or joyous _camaraderie_.
To characterize the Slav is doubly difficult, because he has managed in the last twenty years to start many conflicts, and therefore has made enemies, who are apt to ascribe to him uncomplimentary characteristics. The Englishman has disagreeable notions of the Slav in the East, the German has his Polish problem, the Austrian has the belligerent Czech, the Italian on the Adriatic has the assertive Illyrian; the Turk doesn’t think very highly of his Slav neighbours, the Bulgarians and Montenegrins. It is not only hard not to be prejudiced against the Slav, but it is hard to be informed about him; first, because he has written very little about himself, with a few notable exceptions, and, secondly, because there are so many Slavic tribes which have remained isolated one from the other, have developed upon different lines, or have been influenced by the stronger race to which they happened to be neighbours, so that many characteristics which we ascribe to them are often the borrowed virtues, or more frequently the sins, of their neighbours.
The Wends, Poles, and Bohemians show in speech and life influences of their German neighbours; the Slovak in Hungary has a strong Magyar taint; the Croatian, Servian, Bulgarian, and the Montenegrin come dangerously near the Turk; the Dalmatian on the Adriatic, in spite of his resistance against it, shows influences of Venice, not only in the magnificent architecture of his churches, but also in language and character; while the Slovene of the Alps has received much good from his brave Tyrolese neighbours whom of course he in turn has influenced.
The only Slavic people who present an unbroken surface for observation are the Russians, who, undivided by high mountains or other natural difficulties, have blended their differences to some extent, and have become a vast nation, with a common language, a common faith, and certain characteristics which have become the common possession of all the people. But to generalize even about the Russian is impossible, inasmuch as there are at least two well-defined types, divided geographically, and differing not only in outward appearance, but in nearly everything about which one is sorely tempted to write in general terms.
The Great Russian, who occupies the largest part of his native land, is undoubtedly of mixed blood, the Finnish extraction manifesting itself in the flattened features and the protruding cheek-bones; while his enemies say that you need not scratch him long before you strike the Tartar. He is rather roughly made, his features are anything but delicate, the nose is heavy and inclined to be pugnacious (this may be taken as the general tendency of the Slavic nose), his eyes are brown or pale blue, and friendly, and the face is suffused by a health-betraying glow. The colour of the hair is seldom or never black, and shades all the way from a light brown to a definite red, and from that to a rather indefinite blond.
The other pronounced type is that of the Little Russian, who occupies nearly all the southern portion of the country, and differs from his more numerous brothers in physique and habits as the southern people usually differ from the northern. The Little Russians are, generally speaking, smaller, the face more delicately chiselled, complexion and hair darker, their women vivacious and handsome, and they claim to be of purer Slavic blood, although you do not have to scratch them at all to find the Tartar.
The Slav has moved from the Dnieper as far east as the Ural, and has moved beyond it as fast as steam could carry him. He has entered the heart of Europe, is at the doors of the German capital, and has almost supplanted the native Austrian in Vienna. In the Alps, on its southern slopes, he has built his huts within nature’s citadels, and faces Italy on the Adriatic. In the Balkans he has asserted himself, has shaken off the yoke of Islam, and is destined to be the master of the Bosphorus; while the Karpathians, which, like a crescent, wind about Hungary, are the stronghold of the ever-increasing Slav.
In a larger measure the other Slavic tribes on non-Russian soil differ one from another; thus, the Dalmatian is the giant among them, and he of the Boche de Cattaro is a veritable Slavic Apollo, measuring, on an average, six feet three inches. He is dark-skinned, and graceful in his movements. But size and beauty decrease as one travels northward through Bulgaria and Servia into Hungary, Bohemia, and Poland.
One despairs of designating as a race, or even as a nation, a people which differs more widely than one can tell within the limits of a chapter; people who have neither a history nor a literature in common, and whose language, although philologically one, varies so that if they undertook to build a tower or an empire, the confusion of the Biblical Babel would find a parallel in modern history.
And yet these differing tribes or nationalities have some things in common, especially in the social life and organism. There is, first of all, a temper which is among all of them impassive, seldom aroused even under the influence of drink. This explains the ease with which they have been conquered by other races, seldom coming to independence, only the nature of their country having compelled the Russians to make a Russia, which they were a long time in making. This also explains the despotism of the Czar, the patience with which it has been borne, and the long stretches of years without revolution or reformation. But now his wrath is kindled and the oppression of years has aroused his fury. The Slav is not a builder of empires, because he is not a citizen but a subject--a severe master or a submissive servant. As a rule, he bears oppression patiently, shrinks from overcoming obstacles, is seldom inquisitive enough to climb over the mountains which lock in his native village to see what is beyond them, never cares much for the sea and its perils, the Russian’s desire for harbours being a political necessity rather than a natural want. Even a democratic institution, such as the “mir” in Russia, which borders strongly upon communism, and is by some scholars urged as an indication of the Slavs’ independent spirit, is to me a proof of their lack of that spirit. Any one who has been at a meeting of the “mir” knows that the one or the few never dissent; things go just as they come, and the strong rascal (and there are such among the Slavs) rules “mir” or “bratstvo” at his own pleasure, and no one says, “Why do ye so?”
The family bears among the Slavs strong archaic forms, especially among those of the south, where the bratstvo (brotherhood) is still the unit. A bratstvo occupies, according to its size, one or more villages; and church, cemetery, meadows, and mills are held in common. Besides these peaceful possessions, they have every quarrel in common, and every member of the bratstvo is most ready to avenge the honour of his people. These are characteristics visible in their colonies in America. In Montenegro, the Herzegovina, and also in some parts of Dalmatia, blood vengeance is still practiced, and it not seldom happens that, to avenge one life, war is waged until there is not one male member left who can carry a gun; then the quarrels are continued by the next generation. The bratstvo is ruled by an elder, elected by all its male members. He is their justice of the peace, the presiding officer at all meetings, and in case of war is the captain of his company. The members of a bratstvo consider themselves blood relatives, intermarriages were formerly prohibited, and even now are not common. The aristocratic spirit shows itself in the fact that mechanics, especially blacksmiths, are expelled from it and share none of its privileges or responsibilities. The elder of the bratstvo, or household, is an embryo Czar, and the honours shown to him by all its members express the reverence which the Slav always shows to those in authority. He can withhold permission for smoking, dancing, or playing; no one touches the food until he has tasted it, no one is seated in his presence until he has permitted it; he is the one member of the household who has an individual spoon, which may not be used in the cooking; and yet from experience I know that he may sometimes play the Czar too much, and that there is temper enough left in the household, if not in the men at least in the women, to make it decidedly uncomfortable for him, and to remind him of his plebeian origin and his democratic relatives.