Hutchins Hapgood

“ The ideal situation for this young Jew would be that where he could become an integral part of American life without losing the seriousness of nature developed by Hebraic tradition and education. At present he feels a conflict between these two influences: his youthful ardor and ambition lead him to prefer the progressive, if chaotic and uncentred, American life; but his conscience does not allow him entire peace in a situation which involves a chasm between him and his parents and their ideals. ”

“ Although as compared with the American or German-Jew financier who does not a hair at the gain or loss of a million, and in personal manner maintains a phlegmatic Napoleonic calm which is almost the most impressive thing in the world to an ordinary man, the young fellow of the Ghetto seems a hesitant little "dickerer," yet, of course, he is a rising business man, and as compared to the world from which he has emerged, a very tremendous thing indeed. ”

“ English becomes his most familiar language. He achieves a growing comprehension and sympathy with the independent, free, rather sceptical spirit of the American boy; he rapidly imbibes ideas about social equality, contempt for authority, and tends to prefer Sherlock Holmes to Abraham as a hero. ”

“ The orthodox parents begin to see that the boy, in order to "get along" in the New World, must receive a Gentile training. Instead of hoping to make a rabbi of him, they reluctantly consent to his becoming an American business man, or, still better, an American doctor or lawyer. The Hebrew teacher, less convinced of the usefulness and importance of his work, is in this country more simply commercial and less disinterested than abroad; a man generally, too, of less scholarship as well as of less devotion. ”

“ Other things besides business are open to him in this country, and he is improving his chance for the higher education as devotedly as he has improved his opportunities for success in business.
There are a small number of young Jews who have already attained a synthesis not lacking in the ideal. I know a young artist, a boy born in the Ghetto, who began his conscious American life with contempt for the old things, but who with growing culture has learned to perceive the beauty of the traditions and faith of his race. ”

“ Jews, have very large practices already, and some of them belong to solid firms on Wall Street; although as to business and financial matters they have not yet attained to the most spectacular height. Then there are innumerable boys' debating clubs, ethical a clubs, and literary clubs in the east side; altogether there is an excitement in ideas and an enthusiastic energy for acquiring knowledge which has an interesting analogy to the hopefulness and acquisitive desire of the early Renaissance. It is a mistake to think that the young Hebrew turns naturally to trade. ”

“ The orthodox Jewish influences, still at work upon him, are rapidly weakened. He grows to look upon the ceremonial life at home as rather ridiculous, His old parents, who speak no English, he regards as "greenhorns." English becomes his habitual tongue, even at home, and Yiddish he begins to forget. He still goes to "chaider," but under conditions exceedingly different from those obtaining in Russia, where there are no public schools, and where the boy is consequently shut up within the confines of Hebraic education. In America, the "chaider" assumes a position entirely subordinate. ”

“ Socialism as it is agitated in the Jewish quarter consists in a wholesale rejection, often founded on a misunderstanding, of both American and Hebraic ideals. The socialists harp monotonously on the relations between capital and labor, the injustice of classes, and on that school of literature, the Russian, at the bottom of which there is a strongly anarchistic and reactionary impulse. ”

“ If he was born in this country or in Russia, — most east-side Jews came from Russia, — the earliest years of the son of orthodox parents are passed in a family atmosphere where the whole duty of man is to observe the religious law. He learns to say his prayers every morning and evening, either at home or at the synagogue. At the age of five, he is taken to the Hebrew private school, the "chaider," where, in Russia, he spends most of his time from early morning till late at night. ”

“ At this tender age he may even begin to black boots, gamble in pennies, and be filled with a "wild surmise" about American dollars.
With his entrance into the public school the little fellow runs plump against a system of education and a set of influences which are at total variance with those traditional to his race and with his home. The religious element is entirely lacking. The educational system of the public schools is heterogeneous and worldly. ”

“ He learns to feel that he is greatly superior to his parents. In the struggle between the two sets of influences, that of the home becomes less and less effective. He runs away from the supper table to join his gang on the Bowery, where he is quick to pick up the very latest slang; where his talent for caricature is developed often at the expense of his parents, his race, and all "foreigners"; for he is an American, he is "the people," and like his glorious countrymen in general, he is quick to ridicule the stranger. ”

“ Then, too, these Jews who are now prominent in Wall Street, have been in this country much longer than their Russian brethren. They are frequently are the sons of Germans who in the last generation attained commercial rank. If they were born abroad, they came many years before the Russian immigration began and before the American Ghetto existed, and have consequently become thoroughly identified with American life. ”

“ In the next generation, when in business matters also he will be an instructive American, he will become as big a financial speculator as any of them, but at present he is pretty well content with his growing business on Broadway and his fine residence up-town. ”

“ The little fellow who starts out on this laborious climb is a model of industry and temperance. His only recreation, outside of business, which for him is a pleasure in itself is to indulge in some simple pastime which generally is calculated to teach him a type of the university settlement student. ”

“ He is an acquisitive little fellow, and seldom enjoys himself unless he feels that he is adding to his figurative or literal stock.
The cloak and umbrella business in New York is rapidly being almost monopolized by the Jews who began in the Ghetto; and they are also very large clothing merchants. ”

“ Higher, however, than a considerable merchant in the world of business the little Ghetto boy, born in a patriarchal Jewish home, has not yet attained. The Jews who as bankers, brokers, and speculators on Wall Street control millions never have been Ghetto Jews. They came from Germany, where conditions very different from what they are in Russia, Galicia, and Roumania, and where, through the comparatively liberal education of blessing the candles. a secular character which they were able to obtain, they were already beginning to have a national life outside of the Jewish traditions. ”

“ The father is, in this country, less able to make an economical place for himself than is the son. The little fellow sells papers, blacks boots, and becomes a street merchant on a small scale. He speaks English, and his parents do not. There is a tendency for the father to respect the son. ”

“ It is not strange, therefore, that this progressive merchant, while yet a child, acquires a self-sufficiency, an independence, and sometimes an arrogance which not unnaturally, at least in form, is extended even toward his parents. ”

“ He feels that the trend and weight of things are against them, that they are in a minority, but yet in a real way the old people remain his conscience, the visible representatives of a moral and religious tradition by which the boy may regulate his inner life. ”

“ The numerous religious holidays are observed the same way, with special ceremonies of their own in addition. The important thing to notice is that the boy's whole training and education bears directly on ethics and religion, in the study of which he is encouraged to spend his whole life. ”

“ He also shows cleverness in translating for his parents what I say in English. When he finds that I can speak Yiddish and therefore can converse heart to heart with the old people, he is delighted. His face beams, and he expresses in every way that deep pleasure which a person takes in the satisfaction of honored protégés." The third considerable influence in the life of the Ghetto boy is that of the socialists. ”

“ He puts into his paintings of the types of Hester Street an imaginative, almost religious, idealism, and his artistic sympathy seems to extend particularly to the old people. He is reconciled to the spirit of his father without ceasing to be an American. ”