The Jewish Question exists wherever Jews appear, says Theodor Herzl, because they bring it with them. It is not their numbers that create the Question, for there is in almost every country a larger number of other aliens than of Jews. It is not their much-boasted ability, for it is now coming to be understood that, give the Jew an equal start and hold him to the rules of the game, and he is not smarter than anyone else; indeed, in one great class of Jews the zeal is quenched when opportunity for intrigue is removed.
The Jewish Question is not in the number of Jews who here reside, not in the American’s jealousy of the Jew’s success, certainly not in any objection to the Jew’s entirely unobjectionable Mosaic religion; it is in something else, and that something else is the fact of Jewish influence on the life of the country where Jews dwell; in the United States it is the Jewish influence on American life.
That the Jews exert an influence, they themselves loudly proclaim. One is permitted to think that they really claim a stronger influence than they possess, especially in those higher regions where excellent and determinative influences have been at work. The Jews claim, indeed, that the fundamentals of the United States are Jewish and not Christian, and that the entire history of this country should be rewritten to make proper acknowledgment of the prior glory due to Judah. If the question of influence rested entirely on the Jewish claim, there would be no occasion for doubt; they claim it all. But it is kindness to hold them to the facts; it is also more clearly explanatory of conditions in our country. If they insist that they “gave us our Bible” and “gave us our God” and