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The Southern Israelite
H. L. MENCKEN VIEWS ANTI-SEMITISM
(Continued from Page9)
was engaged by a Jewish impresario,
surrounded by Jewish attendants only.
Fhe “self-confessed” “anti-Semite”
followed my glance, and said: “Here I
have a Jewish publisher, a Jewish as
sistant, a Jewish proofreader, a Jewish
secretary. 1 hey all read my last book.
Not one of them felt offended. They
are not professional Jews.”
He stopped for a moment, stretched
like a wrestler preparing to tackle an
opponent, and continued: “I am for
free speech. So is the Jewish intelli
gentsia supposed to be. Free speech
means, above all, the privilege of being
wrong. I don t think Hoover is a great
man. I think the Americans are a silly
people. I sign my name to that. Your
Jews claim free speech. Why should
they be annoyed at me now for speak-
ink my mind?”
“No. I am not apologizing,” lie went
on. "I want to make that clear. Rut
some of my critics will enjoy that Jew
ish attack. Especially my Catholic
friends. They call me a Jew when they
want to call me names. They actually
believe I am one. I owe that to a
good friend of mine in Baltimore in
the old days. Meyer Rloch was his
name—he was a judge with a lot of
leisure on his hands. He used to sup
ply me with a vocabulary of Yiddish
words which I-used freely in my col
umn in the “Evening Sun.” Whenever
T wanted to get even with some hypo
crite T called him a paskudniak or a
shotah. That irritated him more than
the title of ‘imbecile’ or ‘idiot’ would
have done. He thought T was using
some mystical Semitic curse that would
bar his entrance to heaven. T never
answered these critics when they quali
fied me as belonging to that unpleas
ant race. If the Christians were to
make a pogrom on Jews T would be
out of luck. T suppose.”
T succeeded in getting a question in
edge-wise: “What modus vivendi do
vou propose for the Jews in America?”
The Nordic critic of the Nordics
hesitated for the first time. Then a
thought struck him : “The best thing
might be to import some Arabs and
have them do their stunt. They seem
unite efficient at throat-cutting. These
Mohammedans could also attend to
some of my Jesuitic friends. Rut it
would be an expensive process. To at
tend to New York alone one would
need millions of these blood-thirsty
Arabs. The easier way would be as
similation. T am for it. Of course, it
is feasible. Get your professional Jews
to lay down on their propaganda. Stop
them from convincing the Jews that
they’re different. I have watched as
similation work out perfectly. The Jews
can become an integral part of Ameri
can life and vet keep their identity if
they wish. But it should not be an ag
gressive identity which is the result of
an inferiority complex. German Jews,
who came here with a background of
Western civilization, adapted them
selves quite easily. The Russian Jews,
with their Slavic stamp, have a harder
time. But they get there. First they
intermarry with the German Jews, and
then they branch out among the goyim.
Intermarriage is a success. The only
unsuccessful intermarriage I know of
is that of mv friend Ludwig Lewisohn.
But then it was not due to any racial
discrepancy, but to the nature of the
case. His wife was too old, and a
inachashefeh besides.” ,
“You mention Lewisohn, I inter
posed. “He surely is an intellectual
who at first tried to assimilate, to in
tegrate into American culture, ^what
ever that may be. But he couldn t. T he
upstream struggle threw him right on
the Jewish banks. Besides, he is one
of your German Jews.
PL L. M. observed: “Friend Lud
wigs case is a peculiar one. If a Jew
fails in the literary field it does not
necessarily mean that lie failed as a
Jew. Ludwig was persecuted as a Ger
man. not as a Jew. I know that be
cause we were in the same boat in
those years. But Ludwig is a mystic.
He was too proud a German to believe
bis troubles were due to his German
descent. He preferred to see himself
as a rejected Jew. But as soon as he
raised the cry of Jewish persecution
he was saved. Oswald Garrison Vil-
lard, of “ Fhe Nation", could not coun
tenance free America discriminating
against a literary figure because he
was a Jew. And some of his new-
found Jewish friends mobilized to save
him. \\ ell. he is well off these days.
I visited him a few weeks ago in Paris.
His apartment is the richest home I
saw in France. A butler hovers about
and a chauffeur salutes when lie steps
into his car. His studio is crowded
with old menorahs and all kinds of
Jewish antiquities. Looks rather nice
—all that bric-a-brac. Ludwig has
grown fat on his kosher food, lie has
made a success of his Jewishness, but
lie would have done it even without
his kosher complex, once the war hys
teria was over and lie was freed of his
private troubles.
“That’s just the trouble. Mr. Mencken.
If we are Jews the goyim get mad, and
if we try to assimilate, they don’t ac
cept us,” I countered.
“I don’t believe it,” smiled H. L. M.
“Assimilation does not imply losing
your identity. Just try not to be un
pleasant and stop thinking that you're
’it.' You live in this country; try to
behave as others do.”
"That would be rather un-Mencken-
ian, Mr. Mencken. Do you want the
Jews to become self-satisfied Babbitts?”
“Ach! Quatch! Don’t go into fun
damentals. Things are much simpler.
1 don’t want you to bless prohibition
and to accept Hoover as the greatest
American. Just get along and keep
your identity as much as you like, but
don’t make petty cash out of princi
ples. You get my point. Don’t shout
that you’re different. If you are, you
can’t help yourself. But earlocks and
kosher food don’t make you the chosen
people. Zionism is different. If you
want to live differently and have your
own two-by-four country just like all
those Wilsonian creations in the Bal
kans, go right ahead. Tt’s not going to
last, anyhow. Nationalism is now on
its highest crest. It will break its back
before long. But then you have to
learn to accept the cry: ‘Go to Jeru
salem.’ as the Americans used to tell
the Germans to ‘go back to Berlin.’
“I am sick and tired of this national
ism, anyhow. That goes also for racial
ism. There is no pure race, the anthro
pologists tell us. So why not mix?
Why not get our bloods intermingled?
Something interesting might result. I
want to travel without visas, on one
passport, without crossing any fron
tiers. I am sick and tired of calling
a man a Catholic or a Jew.
“And when you write your interview
don’t put on the soft pedal. I don’t
apologize. I am entitled to my preju
dices. I don’t like the Danes, but I
do like the Swedes. What of it? I am
getting to like the Frenchmen. Yes
terday I dined with one and today I’m
going to have lunch with another. I
can get along with the Jews quite well.
With some of them, anyhow. Some
times I even serve them kosher food
when they visit me. If you want to
cull me an anti-Semite, you’re welcome
to it. There is one thing I want you
to remember, however. I am not half
as anti-Semitic as some of your own
Jews.
Thus spoke Henry Louis Mencken!
(Copyright, 1930, SAF Syndicate)
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