The New York Times/1918/11/11/Tell of Jew's Part in Conduct of War
TELL OF JEWS' PART IN CONDUCT OF WAR
American Committee Points Out That 200,000 Serve in United States Forces Alone.
ASK GUARANTEES IN POLAND
Treaty Providing for Equality of All Inhabitants Not Sufficient, Report Declares.
A report of the war activities of the Jews, with a summary of political conditions affecting Jews in European countries, was presented yesterday at the twelfth annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee in the Hotel Astor. Louis Marshall presided, and in presenting the report it was pointed out that the committee was established in 1906 "to prevent the infraction of the civil and religious rights of the Jews throughout the world."
The report said that from 150,000 to 200,000 Jews were serving in the American armed forces, or about 130,000 in the army and about 20,000 in the navy and Marine Corps. The records of about 65,000 have been classified, and of that number 4,910 are commissioned officers. Up to Nov. 1 there were 2,502 casualties among the Jews whose names had been classified, or about 3.9 per cent. It is pointed out also in the report that while the infantry comprises about 44 per cent. of the total strength of the army the percentage of Jews in that arm is about 69.
"The committee also prosecuted the correlative task of guarding the rights of the Jews by combatting all manifestations of racial or religious discrimination," said the statement of the committee. "In the course of this activity the committee had correspondence with almost every branch of the Government and all the authorities exhibited every disposition to have the matters complained of fairly and justly settled and recurrence of them made impossible."
In its report upon the political conditions in Europe the committee pointed out that it had covered the countries that were "the homes of 10,000,000 of the 15,000,000 Jews of the world.2 The report praises the approval of the British Government given to the plan to establish in Palestine "a national home for the Jewish people," and reviews conditions in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Rumania, Courland, Lithuania, Serbia, Greece and Turkey.
Suffer Under Bolshevism.
In Russia the Bolshevists have substituted an economic persecution for the religious persecution of the Czars, the report says. In speaking of the machinations of the Bolshevists and the attitude of the Russian Jews toward them it says:
"Although a large number of the Jews of Russia are the victims of the Bolshevists, a great proportion being engaged in trade and the professions and thus coming under the ban of the Bolshevists, yet, because several of the leaders of this group are Jews, the impression has been created in many quarters that the Jews of Russia are overwhelmingly identified with the Bolshevists and their excesses. From information which your committee has been able to secure of the state of affairs in that distracted country it can say with confidence that this report is entirely unfounded and that the Jews of Russia to an overwhelming extent are ranged on the side of those who are struggling for the restoration of decency and order and who are patriotically striving to deliver Russia from its present unhappy condition."
It will not be sufficient for the security of the Jews in Poland, the report says, if the Allies, in establishing the sovereign state, "merely make stipulations for the equality of all inhabitants, in a treaty or protocol." The report adds that some effectual guarantee must be added to the stipulations of the Polish charter. It continues:
"Will the new Poland be controlled by enlightened and broadminded men who will administer it as a great civilized State upon the basis now recognized to be the foundation of all modern civilized nations, or will the new State be the victim of those extreme Chauvinists whose motto has been publicly proclaimed as 'Poland for the Poles,' and who propose to arrive at this ideal by sending half of the Jews of Poland to America and the half to Palestine?"
Problems in Rumania.
A parallel of the possible status of the Jew in Poland is found in Rumanaia, the report says in pointing out that the Rumanian "oligarchy found no difficulty in circumventing the provision of the treaty of Berlin guaranteeing civil and political equality to all inhabitants irrespective of creed." The recent treaty of Bucharest provided for the naturalization of Jews born in Rumania, but the report asserts that the difficulty in the claiming of citizenship was that birth registrars there were not kept before 1866 and were irregular until 1880, so that Jews more than 15 years old whose parents were born in the country could not claim privileges of citizenship.
The probably addition to Rumania of the territories of Bessarabia, Transylvania, and Bukowina will increase the difficulties, and the report adds: "The Rumanian Jewish question is likely to assume the magnitude of the Polish Jewish question, and its solution in both cases must be the same—treaty stipulations and guarantees of their observance."
Louis Marshall was re-elected President of the committee, with Dr. Cyrus Adler and Julius Rosenwald as Vice Presidents. Abram I. Elkus and Albert D. Lasker of Chicago were elected members of the Executive Committee, on which are Dr. Cyrus Adler, Judge Mayer Sulzberger, Louis Marshall, Jacob H. Schiff, Oscar S. Strays, Cyrus L. Suizberger, Samuel Dorf, Professor Jacob H. Hollander, Isidor Sobel, Colonel Harry Cutler, A. Leo Weil, and Julius Rosenwald.