Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/30

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
4
RUSSIA AND THE JEWS

civilisation reached by the Western countries, for instance, by England.

"We must develop in ourselves a moral tidiness, and an aversion to all the manifestations of the brute principle in man, such as the wolfish, degrading hatred for people of other races. The hatred of the Jew is a beastlike, brute phenomenon; we must combat it in the interests of the quicker growth of social sentiments and social culture.

"The Jews are human beings, just like others, and, like all human beings, the Jews must be free.

"A man who meets all the duties of a citizen, thereby deserves to be given all the rights of citizenship.

"Every human being has an inalienable right to apply his energy in all the branches of industry and all the departments of culture, and the broader the scope of his personal and social activities, the more does his country gain in power and beauty."

There are a number of other equally elementary truths which should have long since sunk into the flesh and blood of Russian society, but which have not as yet done so.