Edgar Jadwin and Homer H. Johnson

“ It is by means of public schools that Poland will lose its approximate 85 per cent of illiterates, and teach its people not only common school subject, but also the great principle of liberty and the rights of man, and by raising the level of popular knowledge arrive at a point where it can draw its State officials from the people at large, who will, by association in their school years, have acquired a common understanding impervious to propaganda or prejudice. ”

“ Together with the other free peoples of the world, Poland must henceforth grapple not only with abuses of the outworn autocratic system but with political corruption, graft, party degeneracy, and yellow journalism joined with paid propaganda. The opportunity of the League of Nations for the comparative study of democratic methods and policies, reinforced by common aims, by the full development of international feeling and the free exchange of free ideas, will react not only upon Poland but to the general advantage of the entire world. ”

“ We were assured by many representative Jewish delegations that while they were disturbed by the anti-Jewish feeling still inconveniently and unjustly exhibited, they did not fear for their lives and liberty; that they recognize their full duty as Polish citizens with all the responsibilities and privileges that pertain thereto; that all citizens are subject to the rule of the majority in which any minority must acquiesce, and that the only remedy beyond this is the appeal to the conscience of the majority and its sense of justice and fair play. ”

“ In fact, protection afforded minorities such as before us in this investigation may well bring up the Russin condition where this problem is the protection of the majority against a minority based on a difference of social philosophy and wielding power by seizure of the instruments of war and by the use of most elementary forms of force and fear. Is not the duty of the nations as clear to determine the rule of the majority against despotism, whether one or many, thus preserving domestic tranquility as well as freedom from foreign invasion? ”

“ Until Russia is at peace Poland lacks her full field for trade and exchange and therefore can not regain her economic equilibrium, while an opportunity for emigration to an open and liberal Russia would provide an outlet for the surplus population of the Republic. With a stable government in Russia firmly allied in principle with the allied and associated powers, an end would be made to the German intrigue that is seeking to substitute Russia for Austria-Hungary as a field of exploitation and accordingly strives to discredit Poland as a dangerous competitor. ”

“ In accordance with President Wilson’s speech of January 8, 1918, Poland should be freed from the limitation of all economic barriers and raised to a position where it can profit by the quality of trade conditions to be established among nations. Since no country can be a good financial risk without domestic tranquility and freedom from invasion, the fear of which may lead to over expenditure and competitive armament, this security should be provided for the good of Poland and the peace of the world. ”

“ In short, once the military threat against Poland is removed and the territorial uncertainty of the Republic is ended, the nation will be able to concentrate its energies on internal problems and, by the course of natural development, create a governmental system insuring equality, protection, and prosperity to all elements of its population. ”

“ The coloring, the suppression, and the invention of news, the subornation of newspapers by many different methods, and the poisoning by secret influences of the instruments affecting public opinion, in short, all the methods of malevolent propaganda are a menace from which Poland is a notable sufferer. This applies to propaganda both at home and from abroad. While the Polish press as a whole may not be charged with irresponsibility, it has in general gone to the extreme of political propriety, and many of its organs have passed far beyond that limit, to the great detriment of their country. ”

“ We are of the opinion, in view of the previous training of the Polish soldiery in the German, Austrian, and Russian Armies, the eastern low valuation of human life, the want of food and clothing which had accompanied the breaking up of the Central Powers, and the universal tenseness of popular nerves worn by the vicissitudes of war, that the antagonism felt by the Polish military toward the Jews and resulting in depredation and violence against them is not a matter of surprise, reprehensible and regrettable as it is. ”

“ From American experience it is concluded that the public school, with universal instruction in the national vernacular, is one of the strongest forces toward the creation of a homogeneous body of citizens, speaking one language and expressing themselves on the basis of a common complex of social and political notions however much they differ on religious and cultural questions. In order that the Jew may fully enjoy his privileges and faithfully fulfill his obligations as a citizen, he must understand them in the same sense as his Polish neighbor. ”

“ It will be a difficult matter to reassure the citizens of Poland that the outside world will be as prompt and efficient in doing its duty - to make the world safe for Poland and all other struggling democracies. ”

“ While we are convinced that Poland will abide by its obligations to preserve order at home, the protection against external interference is the duty of the League of Nations. With political security, industrial peace, and an open market with no foreign debt not offset by foreign receivables, Poland, safeguarded by the League of Nations and abundantly provided as she is with natural asset in property and man power, becomes an excellent commercial risk for foreign capital. ”

“ The attention of Poland must be diverted from waging war, and the only means toward this end is the reestablishment of internal peace in Russia. Until this result is obtained, Poland remains with boundaries undetermined, forced to hold and administer a large territory, the inhabitants of which as yet have no fixed nationality. As long as Poland wages war, the Republic is a prey to militaristic methods and open to the peril of direct action. Until its army is reduced to a peace footing the problem of overpopulation and underemployment can not be solved. ”

“ To study the question of over population or under industrialization, not at all local to Poland but intimately connected with its future. It is not healthy for Poland to pursue a policy of summer emigration to other countries, nor is it desirable that it should continue a heavy emigration to America and elsewhere. It is a process from which the nation is still suffering, since it tends to take the strong and leave the less reliant. ”

“ The traditional concentration of the Jews in their communities, due to the necessity of maintaining close connection with the synagogue, has given further impetus to the spirit of separatism and cleavage from the rest of the population, which aggravates the Jewish question at the moment. It is frequently alleged that even in the Middle Ages Jewish separatism, commercial competition, and acquisitiveness aroused a certain irritation among the Polish masses, which has persisted as an inherited prejudice to the present day. ”

“ It is not to the interest of the German State to allow Poland to become a powerful and prosperous competitor, since Poland is more favorably situated to act as a center of exchange between Russia and the west. There are also conservative elements among Russian statesmen who are equally anxious to prevent foreign financial aid to Poland and are using criticism of the Polish State as a weapon to forestall the assistance of the allied and associated powers. ”

“ To further the rapid development of Polish education. The safety of the masses from exploitation through the sophistries of monarchism or of anarchism depends on the degree of enlightenment they possess. It is therefore to the advantage of the League of Nations to see instituted a campaign of universal education toward a general understanding of the great ideals of democracy and for the protection of peoples against the agitator or the reactionary who deals in slogans that appeal to any populace untrained to estimate them at their proper value. ”

“ Notwithstanding the patriotic attitude assumed by many prominent Jews, the number of Hebrews employed by the German forces and occasional cases of denunciation by Jews, added fuel to the flame of prejudice. A sensitive Polish nationalism has been resentful of any self-assertion from a minority whose very language recalls the heavy hand of the oppressor. ”

“ The use of the country as a battle field by foreign armies, who requisitioned and plundered all available material, who made it difficult for the Jewish merchant, first, to secure goods with which to deal, and second, to charge other than high prices for them. When the merchant is able to secure a stock of goods the very fact that he has them in his possession, and that he is compelled to charge abnormal prices, lends to the popular conviction that he is a profiteer. ”

“ The Jews suffer from the fact that the Polish Government, substituting popular government for despotic rule, lacks the will or the power to protect them, and have been ready to invoke external aid in order to exact from the Polish authorities protection of themselves not as a minority, but because of their racial allegiance. Some representatives of the Jewish national movement who have been conspicuously active refuse to subordinate the Jewish question to the general needs of the Polish State. ”

“ The lack of opportunity for the Jew to engage in production drove him into small trading, a business already overflowing and incapable of providing a livelihood for even a small number of newcomers. Even before the war, the mass of Polish Jewry had to struggle for their daily bread, and in addition to commercial rivalry, popular resentment against them was further accentuated by their religious separatism and their difference in dress, dietary habits, and Shabbath observances. ”

“ The greatest need at this crisis is the domestic and international application of general principles of democratic governments tested by the use and beaten out on the anvil of experience. Its highest and broadest attribute is that force shall give way to thought - the rule of reason rather than the reign of terror. ”

“ If Poland, by her own initiative or through outside aid, can so speed up and direct her industrial policy as to absorb the potential labor supply, the Republic may solve the question under new conditions of political and economic freedom. ”

“ We feel that this doctrine of controversialism is founded on extremely dubious grounds, and that there should be no Jewish problem, aside from the general responsibility to the fundamental provisions which the Poles have agreed shall become part of their policy toward minorities. The ideal should be to have one and only one class of citizens politically with complete freedom in religious matters. ”

“ In spite of the existing anti-Semitism arising from very diverse factors we are convinced that religious differences as such play therein a relatively slight role, and that the Polish nation is disposed to religious tolerance and self-control in religious disagreements. The ending of the war, the removal of external menace, and the revival of industry will reduce the present common irritation caused by abnormal conditions. ”

“ The habits of military warfare still obtaining in the civil war in Russia, and these military excesses in Poland, aggravated as they were by civilian mobs, thoroughly justified the fear and anxiety expressed by many Jews lest the Poles had adopted Czarist and Bolshevik precedents of solving any question, including that of Jewish prejudice, by process of terror and extermination. ”

“ In Lithuania, with the exception of Wilna and environs, the proportion of Poles nowhere passes 25 per cent. In Wilna itself the Poles are variously estimated at 20 to 43 per cent, with some present claims as high as 55 per cent. In White Russia, on the contrary, the Polish population is extremely small, especially in the Province of Minsk, where it does not exceed 10 per cent, although the city of Minsk, has about 25 per cent. ”

“ Furthermore, with the present development of the world, and the beginning of new thoughts in the development of the world, and the beginning of new thoughts in the development of nationalism, if emigration from Poland is to be necessary, the question as to whither and under what conditions it shall be directed becomes peculiarly subject to international solution. ”

“ The fact that there were some non-Jewish establishments and that none of them were disturbed shows an intelligent and intentional discrimination on the part of the lawless element in the army disclosing a racial antipathy made more patent by the desire to rob and pillage, which was apparently felt not to be wrong or at least not to be severely punished by superiors. ”

“ Furthermore, the use of economic questions with racial attachments for political arguments contributes to perpetuating an issue which, as a result of passing circumstances, should disappear with renewed economic activity. ”

“ Out of 441 census divisions, there are about 13 in which the Jews exceed 20 per sent of the population. The old Russian provinces of Minsk and Volhynia have the largest percentage of Jewish inhabitants. In general, the percentage of Jews increases toward the eastward, and with the exception of Warsaw, Lodz, and some smaller cities in Congress Poland, is largest in the region running northeast from Warsaw to Wilna, and in the district extending south from Minsk across the Prypec toward the Dniester River. ”