re seemingly
immune from all such perilous race problems. The calculable, to say
nothing of the unascertained, elements of the question might well cause
responsible statesmen to be satisfied with the feasible. The Jewish
elements in Europe, for centuries abominably oppressed, were justified
in utilizing to the fullest the opportunity presented by the
resettlement of the world in order to secure equality of treatment. And
it must be admitted that their organization is marvelous. For years I
championed their cause in Russia, and paid the penalty under the
governments of Alexander II and III.[365] The sympathy of every
unbiased man, to whatever race or religion he may belong, will naturally
go out to a race or a nation which is trodden underfoot, as were the
ill-starred Jews of Russia ever since the partition of Poland. But
equality one would have thought sufficient to meet the grievance. Full
equality without reservation. That was the view taken by numerous Jews
in Poland and Rumania, several of whom called on me in Paris and urged
me to give public utterance to their hopes that the Conference would
rest satisfied with equality and to their fear of the consequences of an
attempt to establish a privileged status. Why this position should exist
only in eastern Europe and not elsewhere, why it should not be extended
to other races with larger minorities in other countries, are questions
to which a satisfactory response could be given only by farther-reaching
and fateful changes in the legislation of the world.

One of the statesmen of eastern Europe made a forcible appeal to have
the minority clauses withdrawn. He took the ground that the principal
aim pursued in conferring full rights on the Jews who dwell among us is
to remove the obstacles that prevent them from becoming true and loyal
citizens of the state, as their kindred are in France, Italy, Britain,
and elsewhere. "If it is reasonable," he said, "that they should demand
all the rights possessed by their Rumanian and Polish fellow-subjects,
it is equally fair that they should take over and fulfil the correlate
duties, as does the remainder of the population. For the gradual
assimilation of all the ethnic elements of the community is our ideal,
as it is the ideal of the French, English, Italian, and other states.

"Isolation and particularism are the negative of that ideal, and operate
like a piece of iron or wood in the human body which produces ulceration
and gangr