  (From the "Maccabaein", June, 1920.) THE JEWS IN RUSSIAFrom town and village to a wood, stript bare, As they of their possessions, see them throng. Above them grows a cloud; it moves along, As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare. Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair, The looming of their life of cruel wrong For countless ages? No; their faith is strong In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer. A flash of light, and black the despot lies. What thunder round the world! 'Tis transport's strain Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise Into a cloud, and in the sky remain Till they draw lightening from Jehovah's eyes." The author of this superb little gem, like Homer, is blind; but, like Homer, his mental vision is clear, and broad, and deep. President Schurman, of Cornell University, commenting on Doyle once said: "It is as true today as of yore that the genuine poet, even though blind, is the Seer and Prophet of his generation." The poem here printed illustrates the point. Did we not know that it was published some fifteen years ago in a volume entitled But it is as a prophet of nationalism that this man compels our particular attention. The prophecy is embodied in a play entitled "The Comet, a Play of Our Times," brought out as far back as 1908. The play is a microcosm of American life. The chief character is a college president, and he it is that is chosen to expound the true nature of nationalism and to give voice and utterance to the principle of self-determination. (Is it merely a coincidence that at that time Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, or is it a case of poetic vision. Wilson, be it remembered, was already a national figure, and there were already glimmerings that he was destined to usher in a new era in politics.) According to the protagonist, America is not "a boiling cauldron in which the elements seethe, but never settle," but rather a college where every class is taught to translate— "Into the common speech of daily life The country's loftiest ideals—" and any body of citizens form a part of our republic only in so far— "As they contribute to its character As leader of the nations unto Right By thought or deed, in service for mankind." We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is freedom? "'Tis intelligence Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling Its native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes Heaved from the heart of man upon the earth, In ranges long as time and soul endure." What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation? It is to "wake and disabuse it of false hope"— "and urge it on To the development of its own powers, The culmination of its own ideals, The star seed sown by God,—the only means By which a tribe can thrive to its perfection." To make this possible, civilization must be given a more human content. It is therefore necessary to awake human intelligence, "the godlike genius," to a realization of the fact— "—that, on having brought This world from out the chaos dark Of waters and of woody wilderness, And shaped it into hills of hope for man, Must providence its beautiful creation With altruistic love and tenderness; So that all tribes of man, what'er their hue, Have each a hill where it can touch the star That it has followed with its mental growth." Such a program is rendered imperative by the inexorability of the law of race, which nullifies any attempts to force assimilation: "It is a foolish, futile thing To try to shape society by codes, Vetoed by Nature. Nature trumpets forth No edict, through the instinct of a race, Proclaiming certain territory hers And warning all encroaching powers therefrom, Without the ordering out of her reserves To see to it the edict is enforced. Let politics keep off forbidden shores." If any powers preserve in a policy of oppression, our duty is plain: "To teach the barbarous tribes throughout the globe, Christian or Turk, that all humanity Is territory sheltered by our flag; That butchery must cease throughout the world; That, having ended human slavery, Old glory has a mission from on high To stop the slaughter of the smiling babe, The pale, crazed mother, weak, defenseless sire, All places on the habitable globe." Finally to render feasible the ideal development of all peoples, and put an end to war, America must bring about a league of all nations. It develops on us— "To get the races by degrees together To talk their grievance over, in a voice As gentle as a woman's.... There is no education in the world Like human contact for mankind's advance; All differences, then, adjust themselves; But when two races are estranged by hate, They grow so deaf to one another's rights, That it soon comes to pass that either has To use the trumpet of artillery In order to be heard at all." Recently, Doyle wrote the following lines. Their application is obvious: "Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb The mountain and the star on trail of thee? Thy wing-flash beams toward man, and if it be True inspiration—whether thought sublime, Or fervor for the truth, or liberty— Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time." What wonder that from so lofty an outlook his searching eye should pierce the tragedy of "The Jews in Russia"—or elsewhere—should pierce even the revenges that Time would ring in, and rest on a vision of righteous peace! DAVID KLEIN, Ph.D. AUTHOR OF LITERARY CRITICISM, from the Elizabethian Dramatist. |
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