Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/189

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
PROBLEM OF RUSSIAN JEW
173

not created by the Jews. It is not the Jew who separated the provinces of political economy from that of morality and religion. It is civilized Europe which, having based political economy on impious and inhuman principles, reproaches the Jew because they follow their principles."


XII

The worst of the present legislation against the Jew is that it defeats its purpose. It is not only odious; it is gratuitous. It is futile. It is politically insane. We are told that the Jew must be denied access to the land for the protection of the helpless moujik, but the present legislation by preventing the Jew from owning land, from becoming an independent farmer, makes him instead a constant menace to the independent farmer, dooms him to the odious profession of a usurer and a publican. The Jew may not own land, but he may lend money at usurer's interest to the peasant who owns the land, and may thus have the peasant and landowner at his mercy.

We are told that if the Jew were admitted in any large numbers to the Liberal Professions,