There was nothing too unimportant to draw forth Mr. Marshall’s protest. To take care of protests alone, he must have a large organization.
And yet with all this high-tension pro-Jewish activity, Mr. Marshall is not a self-advertising man, as is his law partner, Samuel Untermyer, who has been referred to as the arch-inquisitor against the Gentiles. Marshall is a name, a power, not so much a public figure.
As an informed Jew said about the two men:
“No, Marshall doesn’t advertise himself like Sam, and he has never tried to feature himself in the newspapers for personal reasons. Outside his professional life he devotes himself exclusively to religious affairs.” That is the way the American Jew likes to describe the activities referred to above—“religious affairs.” We shall soon see that they are political affairs.
Mr. Marshall is short, stocky, and aggressive. Like his brother-in-law, Rabbi Magnes, he works on the principle that “the Jew can do no wrong.” For many years Mr. Marshall has lived in a four-story brownstone house, of the old-fashioned type, with a grilled door, in East Seventy-second street. This is an old-time “swell” neighborhood, once almost wholly occupied by wealthy Jews. It was as close as they could crowd to the choice Fifth Avenue corners, which had been pre-empted by the Vanderbilts, the Astors, and other rich families.
That Mr. Marshall regards the whole Jewish program in which he is engaged, not in its religious aspect alone, but in its world-wide political aspect, may be judged from his attitude on Zionism. Mr. Marshall wrote in 1918 as follows:
“I have never been identified and am not now in any way connected with the Zionist organization. I have never favored the creation of a sovereign Jewish state.”
BUT—