had defied, deposed and beheaded Charles I. When the time came they knew what power resided in themselves if they resolved to exercise it. And the men and women who are now reaching forth threatening hands against the Czar's sanctified office know the deeds of their comrades in the fight for liberty of a century ago by heart. They have conned their lessons well. And so it always happens, that while the despot on the throne is either ignorant of history or wishes to shut his eyes, the people study it eagerly, learn its lessons, and in due time throw themselves heart and soul, for life or for death, into the conflict, and win for they must win if right be right.
Peter Stuyvesant Athwart, the Jewish Advance.
You cannot cut into the history of any nation of any consequence without finding traces of the Jews. And historic characters whose names are as little associated in the minds of most people with Jews and Jewish affairs as are the names, say, of extinct animals like the mammoth or the Irish elk, are found at some time to have had to deal with the problem of the Jews. Now there is that crusty old one-legged Peter Stuyvesant, of whom we learned in our United States histories in school—a bad-tempered Dutchman we had always thought him, who had his troubles with Indians and Englishmen but who probably never saw a Jew. But now comes the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Jews on Manhattan Isdand, and we learn from the investigations of scholars that Peter Stuyvesant’s path too was crossed by the omnipresent people. They came to Manhattan from Brazil, and Peter passed an immigration law to meet them, requiring that each immigrant should have a certain sum of money before he could be admitted. The Jews overcame this difficulty and were allowed to land. But they were not allowed to be the equals of the other citizens. They were not given the same rights in trade and they were har-
assed in religious matters. Then they appealed to the authorities in Holland and crusty old Peter was rebuked and the Jews were given more rights and privileges. They increased in numbers and prosperity until now, if Peter's soul ever revisits the glimpses of the moon on the island, with which his name is so intimately associated, it must groan in anguish at the sight of the magnitude to which that first Jewish invasion has grown.
Mirabeau the Friend of the Jews.
THERE is that great French statesman Mirabeau who might have saved his country many tragic woes had he lived longer— he, too, contributes a few pages to Jewish history. Carlyle says of him that he was one of those men whose characters are recognized to be great and heroic in spite of the little they actually accomplish. When a young man he was wild and dissolute. His father had him put in prison for his reckless conduct. He came out a soberer man and threw himself in to the struggle for liberty that was just rising. He was a born leader and men recognized that fact as soon as they beheld his countenance, and heard him speak. Although a member of the nobility he offered himself as a candidate for deputy to the States General, to represent the common people of two provinces. The States-General was the convention of representatives from the whole French nation that was expected to bring relief to the country from the misery into which the monarchial government had plunged it. A couple of years before Mirabeau had visited Prussia, he had met Moses Mendelssohn and on his return had written ten a book on the Jews entitled “Moses Mendelssohn and Political Reform.” A Jewish friend asked Mirabeau before he was elected deputy what he would do at the assembly of the States-General. “I shall make a human being of you,” replied Mirabeau. He kept his word and advocated the emancipation of the Jews from their civil disabilities at every opportunity.