Carl Schurz

“ But it must be admitted that when they arrive here from Russia or Poland they enter a world which is entirely new to them; that the teaching by example to which they are exposed in such great business centres as New York is by no means in all respect what it should be; that the new-comer may easily look upon the sharp or crooked, and frequently successful, practices he observes, as the custom of the country, and that he may just as easily be seduced to adopt and follow what he has thus learned to regard as the custom of the country for his own profit. ”

“ This will be the surest way for them to make themselves trusty and useful citizens of this republic, to secure the esteem and confidence of all the people surrounding them, and to disarm the mischievous prejudices and contemptible malignities which stand in their way. ”

“ Nothing could be more natural than that those who in their native lands have been kicked and cuffed by a despotic power should most keenly enjoy the freedom of action and movement, the security of their rights, and the large opportunities for bettering their condition which they enjoy here—more keenly indeed than those blessing are appreciated by many persons that have never experienced anything else. I have frequently observed the same kind of fervid American patriotism among other classes of foreign-born American citizens. ”

“ But all the more necessary it is for the Jews to abandon that clannishness to the best of their ability, and to identify themselves as completely as possible with the rest of the community as to their notions of interests and rights, where the persecution forcing them into clannishness does not exist, and where in fact the interests and rights of all are the same. ”

“ Such teachings accompanied by seductive example are most dangerous to new-comers in distorting their moral vision and to lead them into paths discreditable not only to themselves individually, but to the class to which they belong—for it is well known as one of the most wanton and cruel forms of the injustice you have to suffer is that any wrong done by any of your people is charged not merely against the guilty individual but against your race. ”

“ I say, therefore, to my Jewish citizens as their sincere friend, that they cannot give the people under their care any more wholesome and necessary counsel and admonition than this: that in their political action they should most carefully abstain from doing anything that might look like an attempt to form a Jewish party, or like the consolidation of the Jewish vote on the ground of separate Jewish interests ”

“ The inculcation in people's minds of sound notions as to what true honesty in all the various relations of life, and genuine success, success to be morally proud of, really consist in, will do more to steady the character of a population, and prepare it to gain the confidence and esteem of others, than any other kind of instruction. ”

“ The freedom they find here presents with great opportunities also great temptations, and some of those temptations are of a very dangerous kind—especially dangerous at the earliest period of their presence here to just such people as the great mass of the Jewish immigrants are—quick-witted, sober, industrious, I might almost say indefatigable, and restlessly ambitious to better their condition and to rise in the world. ”

“ If there are 700,000 Hebrews living in this city of Greater New York, they constitute will nigh one-fifth of its population. They can exercise a great political power, a power that in the decision of great public questions may be decisive in this city, and through this city in this State, and through this State in the whole republic. ”

“ It is an old experience that when wild populations first come into bodily contact with civilized life they are usually inclined to adopt the vices rather than the virtues of civilization. I am, of course, very far from meaning to put the Jewish immigrants in any sense upon the same level with savage tribes. ”

“ It should not be forgotten that the moral success achieved and the position won by the Jewish population of New York, where it appears far stronger in numbers and more conspicuous than anywhere else, may have a most important effect upon the fortunes of the Jewish race throughout the world ”

“ Jerome—make the remark that if we wished to come into contact with true and ardent American patriotism, we must go not to Fifth Avenue, but to the Jewish quarter on the East side, because the people living there, who were fugitives from the most cruel persecution, felt and appreciated the blessings of American liberty more keenly than native Americans, who had enjoyed those blessings from the cradle up, possibly could appreciate them. ”

“ There are, unfortunately, occurrences visible in American life from which the lesson may be deduced that, as to the acquisition of wealth, the shortest way is always the best, and that it will not do to be too squeamish in the choice of means. ”

“ It should be—and, no doubt, largely it is—the natural desire, the highest hope, and the most earnest endeavor of such people to do the best they can towards preserving the free institutions and the beneficient opportunities to which they owe such invaluable benefactions. ”