DR. ADLER'S "DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE"
THE American Jewish Historical Society issues, as its fifteenth number, Dr. Cyrus Adler's presidential address containing the diplomatic correspondence of the United States bearing on Jewish interests. The book contains all the published records and all those unpublished up to 1860. The documents are interesting as showing the many instances in which the United States has intervened on behalf of American Jewish citizens. The earliest record is concerned with the rights of American Jewish citizens to settle in Palestine. A great deal of diplomatic effort was spent in the endeavor to have several European governments honor the American passport without considering the religion of its holder.
While Zionists appreciate the importance of these negotiations, and value highly the humanitarian or political motives of American dip'omats. yet. from the view point of Jewish history, they are of interest mainly as showing the impossibility of securing international recognition of rights accorded to Jews in one country to the same Jews while travelling or sojourning in other countries. There may be additional value in these as precedents to be utilized later in the future "real" diplomacy of the Jewish nation, but in themselves they have little or no significance. Diplomatic history is not made of government action taken on behalf of helpless people. The fact is, every time the U. S. government intervenes for a Jewish citizen, the intent of the provo-
cant of the intervention is the benefit of the Jews in another sort of Ghetto, and therefore whatever action his government may take is gratuitous, spasmodic, and has no bearing on the actual diplomacy of the nation.
THE POLISH JEW
It is from Helen C. Baskerville, in her book “The Polish Jew,” we learn that Karl Marx was a German Zionist, and that the first Zionist Congress was held in 1879, the first a mistake of fact and the second probably a typographical error. But if Jews are seeking to learn the truth about Jewish conditions in Poland it is not from Miss Baskerville's work that they will get it. The author of this volume of misinformation and inaccurate analysis has lived for over seven years in Poland, and aside from certain facts observed by her there and from which she makes surprising deductions, she does not seem to have the least conception of the problems involved. The book is intended, however, as a guide to nations that intend to enact legislation against Polish Jewish immigration. That gives another aspect to the matter. “The Polish Jew” becomes by reason of this object. an orthodox anti-Jewish trac'.
—"The effect of our separateness will not be completed and leave its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a nationality.—MORDECAI OHEN in Daniel Deronda."