glorious period of our past, when opposition was considered an often desirable attitude. A man’s weight was accounted equal, whether computed by the num¬ ber of his enemies or his friends. But a softening change has come over us. We have grown to like applause. Hisses used to stir our fathers; hisses cow their sons. Public speech has thus grown flabby; the Press has thus become neutral; we have grown pudgy and futile in our program of “helping the weak,” so pudgy and futile that we no longer have gristle to attack the strong who have brought weakness upon the others.
As a people, we have passed the “bunk” around so habitually; we have enervated our judgment and moral THE PRESENT STATUS OF THE JEWISH QUESTION 245 convictions so seriously by our fake “philosophy of Boost,” we have become so accustomed to measure the effectiveness of work by the applause it immedi¬ ately provokes, that we have lost all stomach for courses that call for contest, unless it be those spurious contests of the political arena which are all managed from the same Great Headquarters, or those verbal assaults against “Big Business” which bring no reaction. We have lost all taste for tangible foes who have a ready retaliation.