But Dr. Carter made a mistake—perhaps two. It is always difficult to tell just where the line falls between fear of giving offense and fear of being unfair. In any event, Dr. Carter gave every evidence of, let us say, fear of being unfair. But it is fear, and a Jew scents fear a long way; the man who fears even though he fear to be unfair is already marked by the Jew who may happen to be stationed to watch him.
So Dr. Carter, to avoid giving offense by this part of his lecture, did the usual thing which has always drawn sneers from the Jewish press; he began to pay compliments to the Jews on their good points. He spoke of their contributions to Art, Science, and Philosophy; to Statesmanship, Religion, and Philanthropy. He lauded their distinguished men by name, such as Disraeli, Rubinstein, Schiff, Kahn, even Rabbi Wise! He referred to his pride in counting many Jews among his personal friends. With all respect to Dr. Carter, it was the same old stuff usually handed out in such circumstances. Madison C. Peters made it unjustly famous, and American clergymen have been spouting it ever since.
If Dr. Carter will study the alleged contributions of the Jews to the Arts and Sciences, study this as carefully as he did the immigration theme, he may omit the praises from future lectures. And he may also revise his list of great Jews. But that is neither here nor there.
“As we have found bad elements in these other peoples,” said Dr. Carter in this portion of his lecture, “so they are to be found in the Jew, and as the majority of these 143,000 Jews who came here the year before the war were from Russia, or Russian countries, let us not forget that the Jews themselves admit the Russian Jew is the worst of his race.”
Apparently the audience remained unshocked. The question period came round and two Jews, a woman and a man, asked the lecturer why he had picked out the Russian Jew in particular for criticism. Dr. Carter replied that he had only given the evidence of the Jews themselves, that