Part 5

 

THE  AMERICAN  JEW

 

AN  EXPOSE  OF  HIS  CAREER

 

 

by

Telemachus Thomas Timayenis

 

PROFUSELY  ILLUSTRATED

 

“Foul deeds will rise, 

Though earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes”

 

FIRST  EDITION  30,000  COPIES

NEW  YORK

THE  MINERVA  PUBLISHING  COMPANY

10 WEST 23D STREET, CORNER OF FIFTH AVENUE

 

COPYRIGHT, 1888,

BY THE MINERVA PUBLISHING COMPANY

 

Contents

 

 

Introduction.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1 His Arrival in America  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Chapter II The New-York Ghetto  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Chapter III The Jew at the Summer Hotel  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter IV The Jew in Wall Street  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Chapter V The Jew in the Tobacco Trade  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter VI The Jew in Politics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Chapter VII The Jew in Journalism  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter VIII “The Great American Journalist.”   . . . . 77

Chapter IX The Jew Lecher  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Chapter X The Criminal Jew  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter XI The Jew in Petroleum  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Chapter XII The Jew in His Relation to the Law  . . . . 135

Chapter XIII Customs and Habits of the Jews

— Religious Doctrines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Chapter XIV The Jew Summarized  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

 

 

 

CHAPTER XI.

 

 

THE JEW IN PETROLEUM.

 

 

 

“After having lived in this manner (the Christian faith) for nearly one hundred and fifty years, the Jews remained as faithful to their belief as on the day when they first set foot in France.”

 

— THE ORIGINAL MR. JACOBS.

 

 

 

THE petroleum business in the United States is virtually in the hands of one man in whose veins there unquestionably flows Semitic blood, as was demonstrated in “The Original Mr. Jacobs.” The career of the man who controls the petroleum business in the United States reminds us strongly of that of the Baron Hirsch, of the Rothschilds, and of many other well known Jew capitalists.

 

There is absolutely nothing in his life, that a parent would care to place before his sons as a model for them to emulate in their future career.

 

[Page 126]

 

“The Petroleum King,” as he is often called in accounts that from time to time appear in the newspapers, is about fifty years old. He was born in a little town in Central New York, where his father practised medicine.

 

In 1853 the family took up its residence in Cleveland, when the future “king” attended school for two or three years.

 

The “king” was not a promising student; in fact, he was not a student at all, which from his conversation is manifest to this day. It is to be doubted if the millionnaire oil “king” is able to write a common business letter. Still the “king” teaches a Sunday class; and it is as amusing as it is deplorable, to see the ignorant yet vain oil-magnate expounding the Scriptural verses to the young Baptists.

 

As he stands while expounding the Sunday-school lesson of the day, with his body slightly bent forward, and his hand uplifted in Jewish fashion, he, with his cunning eyes, sensual lips, dilating nostrils, and that mysterious, insinuating air that characterizes his every movement, looks like one of those money-grabbers of the Middle Ages described by the graphic pen of Michelet.

 

After leaving school, the “king” became a bookkeeper for a small commission house, and two or three years afterward he and another man went into the produce business on their own account. This partner ship continued until 1865; when the “king” sold his interest and went into oil-refining.

 

[Page 127]

 

At this time the “king” was twenty-six: years old; and the property he then possessed could not have been worth much more than five thousand dollars, and it was probably not all paid for.

 

From this humble beginning has grown the giant octopus, that abominable feudality that rests upon swindles, bad faith, and coalition; the monopoly, with its hundreds of offshoots and its more than seventy million dollars of capital, of which he is to-day the head. The “king” is tall, lanky, and has an ungainly strut in walking. He has a prominent nose, the head of a bully, a pair of eyes that are neither black nor blue, neither gray nor brown, but of a shade partaking of the color of pepper and salt. They are cruel, deceitful eyes, unerringly indicating the inner nature of the “king.”

 

When he distributes points as to the course of the petroleum-market, he assumes a patronizing, insinuating air, as he seeks to worm his way into the confidence of his listener. The “king” broaches the subject first lightly, in an offhand manner. “His position,” he is wont to declare, “is such that he could not speak of these matters out of the immediate circle of his associates.” He talks in a low voice, pronouncing his words slowly, one by one, as if waiting for his listener to supply here and there a phrase to complete his sentence. Next he will raise his hands in the peculiar Jewish fashion, throw forward his head, and, fastening his eyes upon you, whisper in your ear that he is about to inflict dire punishment upon the “bears.” His manner is impressive, his nostrils dilate, and his whole attitude is truly threatening.

 

[Page 128]

 

Before each meal the “king” offers a prayer; and usually after breakfast the family, which consists of three daughters and one son, pass into another room, where the “king” kneels and again offers a prayer. But, lest the reader may be unduly impressed by this religious exhibition, let it in confidence be said to him never to place any reliance in the promises of the “king,” never to follow his “points,” but always to do exactly the opposite of what he urges and advises. Copper him every time!

 

Here we have a man who a few years ago was, comparatively speaking, a poor man, and who to-day counts his wealth by the millions; a man who boastfully claims that the profits of his business range from ten to eighteen million dollars annually; a man who commands unusual favors from the railroads; a man who owns all the oil-cars that run over the New-York Central and the Erie Railroads; a man who practically does what he likes with our legislatures and our congressional committees! Has the reader ever thought that it is acts such as those performed by the “king” that hasten the ruin of an entire community?

 

[Page 129]

 

Men like the “king” are mainly responsible for the violent deeds of the anarchists, the communists, the revolutionists; and one has only to examine the history of the world to prove the correctness of this assertion. The people who have the good of their country at heart ought to band together, and say to the “king,” and to men like him,

“Halt! The power that you wield is dangerous to our common interests; you cannot thus shamefully disregard the laws of the country.”

 

Our law-makers ought to find a way to suppress the acts of men like the “king,” acts that produce, as an old Greek author forcibly puts it, “a nursery of villains.”

 

If matters are allowed to continue in the present state, at no distant day we shall have riots in this country such as are now occurring in nearly every country in Europe.

 

Speaking of the millionnaire “king,” it may not be out of place to give a brief account of the prominent Jew millionnaires among us.

 

The Seligmans came from Bavaria with no capital, and made their money first as itinerant venders of notions, next as clothiers, and finally as bankers. Philip Heidelbach, of Heidelbach, Ickelheimer & Co., was also a native of Bavaria. He started life as a peddler. The Wormser brothers made their money in Sacramento, Cal., where they kept a clothing-shop on what is locally known as a “cheap-John” basis, for many years. Mayer and Emanuel Lehman, who are engaged in the cotton business, are natives of Wartzburg, Germany. Their mercantile career started at Montgomery, Ala., where they were dealers in notions. The Bernheimers were penniless on coming to America. They, too, commenced as peddlers, entered into the clothing business, and retired with millions.

 

[Page 130]

 

Adolph Scheftel, who is at the head of one of the largest leather establishments in New York, and who ranks among our millionnaires, started business — as nearly all the Jews do — with no capital at all, and trusting solely to “destiny,” in which all Jews believe. Solomon Loeb, of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., was a poor boy when he left his home in the Old World. His son-in-law, and junior member of the same firm, Jacob H. Schiff, came to New York at the age of eighteen. He brought with him — nothing, and is now one of the richest bankers in America. The following table shows the leading Jew millionnaires of New York, and the estimated wealth of each: —

 

Max Weil $9,000,000

Hallgarten estate $5,000,000

S. W. Glazier $4,000,000

Solomon Loeb $4,000,000

Henry Hart $4,000,000

H. Bernheimer $4,000,000

Isidor Wormser $3,000,000

Simon Wormser $3,000,000

A. S. Rosenbaum $3,000,000

Max Nathan. $2,000,000

James Seligman $2,000,000

Jesse Seligman $2,000,000

Jacob Schiff $2,000,000

A. Kerbs $2,000,000

M. Lazarus estate $2,000,000

David J. King $1,000,000

J. Schwarzschild $1,000,000

David Metzgar $1,000,000

E. Ballin’s estate $1,000,000

Benjamin Russak $1,000,000

M. H. Levin $1,000,000

H. Newstadter $1,000,000

A. Reitlinger $1,000,000

J. Reckendorfer $1,000,000

Adolph Scheftel $1,000,000

E. Rosewald $1,000,000

Joseph Andrade $1,000,000

Hyman Blum $1,000,000

Henry Liebman $1,000,000

B. Altman $1,000,000

J. Rothschild $1,000,000

 

[Page 131]

 

There are only about one hundred and twenty thousand Jews in New York, and their success in the business world is simply phenomenal. Of the four hundred buildings in Broadway from Canal Street to Union Square, the occupants of almost all are Hebrews; over a thousand wholesale firms out of a total of twelve hundred being of that race.

 

In fact, the business in many lines of trade is nearly monopolized by Jewish firms. In Maiden Lane and John Street, the centre of the wholesale and retail jobbing jewellery trade of the country, the name of the Hebrew is found right and left, above and below. There dishonesty reigns supreme. West of Broadway, in Broome, Mercer, White, Leonard, Greene, Grand, and other streets in New York comprising the great dry-goods and clothing districts, is a modern Jerusalem. Ninety-five per cent of the ladies’ cloaks and suits sold throughout the country come from New-York Hebrew houses. In the fur-trade, fifty per cent of the firms are Jewish, and the capital invested is fifteen, million dollars.

 

[Page 132]

 

The Jew controls exclusively the manufacture of hats, caps, and bonnets. He is also active in the tobacco, sugar, and wholesale liquor traffic, holding large interests in each.

 

Who is to blame for this material success of the Jew? The unsuspecting, the generous Aryan. Do our readers know that in what is called “the sweating business,” — a business controlled by the Jews, — about seventy-five thousand women are employed who work from early morning until late at night, but who do not earn more than three dollars per week? This is the usual generosity of the Jew toward his employee.

 

In the struggle for existence a considerable number of these poorly paid women fill our streets, our penitentiaries, the gilded palaces of the metropolis; and the number of prostitutes to-day in New York is proportionately greater than that of any city in Europe, Paris itself not excepted.

 

This may be news to most of our readers, but a consultation of statistics will establish the truth of this statement. It is the Jew, and the Jew alone, who is the cause of this degradation. The Jew who controls the various trades requiring the patient work of woman, by underpaying her while he hoards enormous profits, forces her down to the path of misery and despair.

 

[Page 133]

 

The Jew succeeds because the Aryan manufacturer pays higher wages than his Jew competitor. The Jew succeeds because his Aryan competitor has conscience, while the Jew has none. The Jew succeeds because in every thing that is manufactured by a Jew, without exception, poorer material is employed than by the Gentile competitor. It results that the Jew undersells the Gentile, and drives him out of the business field.

 

If the Gentiles in this country would combine, and refuse to deal with the Jews, if Gentiles would refuse to buy any goods manufactured by Jewish firms, if American women would absolutely refuse to patronize Jewish stores, these blood-sucking Shylocks would speedily be relegated to their natural sphere of action, “the old-clo’” business, and underpaid womanhood would no longer be forced to the streets for subsistence. Remember, by encouraging the Jew in business you indirectly promote vice, degrade womanhood, and dwarf the business prosperity of the country.

 

[Page 134]

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII.

 

 

THE JEW IN HIS RELATION TO THE LAW.

 

 

“A Jew never hesitates to sacrifice his reputation if he can by so doing acquire money.” — LACRETELLE.

 

 

THE profession of the law has ever been conceded to afford scope for the highest and grandest efforts of the human mind. The members of no other calling have equal opportunity or temptation to see, and, seeing, to profit by, the weakness of humanity and its innate proneness to go astray. Society therefore owes it to itself to see well to it that those who minister as priests at the sacred altar of justice are men above reproach, men fitted by birth, education, and training, to understand, appreciate, and fulfil the high duties and responsibilities of their position. It was the possession of these qualities which produced such jurists as Story, Kent, and Cooley, and an Eldon, a Mansfield, and a Blackstone.

 

[Page 135]

 

In this noble profession, as ministered under our free form of government, and more especially in the city of New York, what is the position and attitude of the Jew? Being free to enter its ranks, how does he comport himself when once installed there? The answer must sadden the heart of every true lawyer who has the welfare of his country and the honor of an ancient profession at heart.

 

With the Jew the practice of the law is not a profession; it is not a science; nor does it even, in his eyes, attain to the dignity of an art. It is to him simply a trade. It is only a means by which he hopes to wring dollars from his unfortunate clients, whose interests are never permitted for a single moment to stand in the way of his own. In the course of the orderly administration of justice he is not an assistant, but an obstruction. He does not suffer his mind to be enlightened and broadened by the contemplation and practical application of the great underlying principles of law or equity, principles which are founded upon eternal truth and justice. The atmosphere in which his legal mind lives, moves, and has its being, is never cleared and sweetened, and made wholesome and life giving, by the application of the Golden Rule. For him the law laid down by the ancient law-giver of his race, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” is still as applicable as when it was delivered to his remote ancestors, in the Mosaic Code, upon the plains of Asia.

 

[Page 136]

 

We read in Holy Writ (Exod. xii. 35),

“Anti the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses: and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment.”

 

And the veracious chronicler who has here recorded this first bit of legal advice given by that ancient Jew lawyer Moses to his clients, adds quite unnecessarily this sententious statement: “And they spoiled [i.e., despoiled] the Egyptians.” We thus have the significant and suggestive fact, that the first Jew lawyer, advising his clients in the gray dawn of history, urges them to the commission of acts which in this day and generation would lead to their incarceration in State’s prison. The mantle of Moses has certainly fallen upon many a Jew lawyer of the present day; and from that day to this the Jews have been engaged in the congenial work of “despoiling the Egyptians” — and everybody else who has come within the reach of their long fingers.

 

It has been said above, that with the Jew the profession of the law is a trade. It is even less than that. He is the scavenger of the ash-cans and garbage-bins of the law. His narrow and contracted mind is continually devoted to little things. His intelligence is limited in its range anti character; but his energies are all directed toward destruction, not construction.

 

[Page 137]

 

A Jew lawyer leaves his up-town home, and journeys toward his office. He purchases all the morning papers, and eagerly scans them. Is he trying to keep abreast of the current news, literature, or thought of the day? Not at all. He is simply reading each article carefully to see whether he can find one that may be libellous, and if his eye meet such an article, his “runner” is at once dispatched to induce the person mentioned to let his employer bring an action for damages, “on halves,” or on any other advantageous terms which can be secured. And thus often actions are commenced, not because anyone has suffered a wrong, but in order that a Jew lawyer may earn or extort a fee from one side or the other, plaintiff or defendant, it matters not which.

 

There is not a newspaper office in the city of New York but will bear out the assertion that nine-tenths of the actions of libel, which are brought against newspapers, are incited by irresponsible Jew lawyers, who have taken the cases as a speculation; and in the cases where recoveries are had, it is not the client, but the lawyer, who mostly profits thereby.

 

Again, should his eye fall upon a newspaper record of some awful accident, a railroad or other collision, whereby a score of human beings have been tortured, mangled, or killed, does he stop to reflect upon the ineffable horror of such an occurrence, or the agony of the victims and their families? By no means. His imagination sees only fat verdicts or favorable settlements which he may wring from some unfortunate corporation or individual in an action for damages; and before the breath has left the victim, he will be at his bedside, striving to make the. most favorable contract he can obtain from his relatives for bringing an action for damages.

 

[Page 138]

 

These are not pictures of fancy. Every lawyer will at once recognize their accuracy, and scores of illustrations of their truth could be adduced from the register of every lawyer who has the legal business of a newspaper or a corporation entrusted to his care.

 

Again, two persons have a trifling difference, and in a heat of passion rush to their respective legal advisers. Are they advised to heal their differences, and become reconciled? No, no. That would interfere with the scheme of a legal contest waged “for costs” alone. The peace of families or the welfare of society are unmeaning terms to the Jew lawyer. He has no higher view of his functions than to make them contribute by every means which legal ingenuity can devise to his own pecuniary advantage.

 

Will anyone have the courage to assert that this picture is too highly colored? If so, let him turn his attention to the following extract from an opinion uttered less than two years ago by one of the ablest judges now on the bench in New York.

 

[Page 139]

 

“The action is for personal injuries, to wit, assault and battery, and has been called for trial. The parties are relatives; and the plaintiff states in open court that she has forgiven her trespassers, has renewed her friendships, and wants the further prosecution of the action stopped. The plaintiff’s attorney insists that the old feud be re-opened, and the fight go on to the end, that he may get his taxable costs in case a recovery is had. … 

The parties to a mere personal controversy should be allowed to settle their differences, even without the concurrence of their attorneys. The language of Holy Writ, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ accords with the maxim, Interest reipublicre ut sit finis litium*; and every principle of law, order, and propriety, agree that the peace of family now prevailing should not be broken up by the dark visage of intestine war, waged not for principle, but for costs.”

 

---

 

• Interest reipublicre ut sit finis litium: It concerns the commonwealth that there be a limit to litigation.

 

Again, in support of the position above taken in regard to negligence-actions, a striking illustration occurred in a recent case against a street-railroad company, where a jury had rendered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, which was set aside by the court, although the court stated that the power so to control verdicts. had only been exercised in that court twice in seven years, and added, —

“To those two, it is my duty to add a third. I do so with a firm confidence that I’ am arresting, for the time at least, a most iniquitous proceeding.”

 

The court then proceeded to consider the facts of the case, —, “which,” it said, “seemed to have been fabricated by a lawyer,” — and, after administering a sound judicial spanking to the plaintiff’s attorney, closed with quoting Judge Bronson’s words in a similar case:

“We do not often disturb the verdict of a jury on the ground that it is against evidence; but if it should not be done in a case like this, there is reason to fear that trial by jury would soon cease to be a blessing, and fall into discredit with the people.”

 

[Page 140]

 

Need it be added, that, in each of the above cases, the plaintiff’s attorney was a Jew?

 

An old man who has rounded out long years of honor in the community, and who, by his sterling worth and eminent business capacity, has amassed a large fortune, reaches the end of his career, and dies, full of years and honor. One of his children comes within the reach of a Jew lawyer, and straightway the history of that old man’s life is subjected to a microscopic search for something which may tarnish his fair name, and help to subvert his will. From New York to Michigan, a Jew lawyer prowls in search of fuel to feed the unholy flame. He delves into the secrets of the sick-room; he notes all the sickening details of his last agonies; he even reaches through the door of death, and into the portals of the tomb, and drags forth the secrets of the mortal remains, and flaunts them in the face of justice. And thus, week after week, and month after month, the mass of putrid details is spread upon the record of a will contest, until Justice herself almost sickens at the unfilial exhibition. Yet this is a fair picture of the contest over the will of Jesse Hoyt, the details of which are still fresh in the public mind and ill the public prints, and which was begun and urged on by a Jew lawyer.

 

[Page 141]

 

And for this ghoulish work this obscure Jew lawyer, who, by the way, was also an ex-pawnbroker whose license had been revoked by order of the mayor for irregular proceedings, sought to charge a fee of a size hitherto unknown to even the greatest lights of the bar.

 

In 1873, an old man died ill the city of New York. His children, aided by a Jew lawyer, bitterly opposed the probate of his will, because of certain provisions therein made for their stepmother. Thereupon arose one of the most hotly contested will-cases in the history of this State. The children sought to prove their dead father to have been an imbecile for a long time prior to his decease, and a disgusting array of facts were adduced in support of this allegation. Not content with aspersing the memory of their dead father, their attorney conceived the idea of making a flank attack upon his wife, and thereupon applied (and it is believed to have been the only instance of such an application in the judicial history of this State) for the issuance of the long-obsolete and barbarous common law writ de ventre inspiciendo* in order to compel her to submit to a humiliating examination of her person, to determine whether or not she was likely to become a mother. The application was denied in a manner which renders it most unlikely that another such effort will ever be made in the State of New York.

 

---

 

* [De Ventre Inspiciendo is a Latin term which means ‘of or for inspecting the belly.’ This was a writ allowing a presumptive heir to summon a jury of matrons to verify the pregnancy of a widow suspected of feigning the pregnancy to produce a supposed heir. A widow may feign herself with child, in order to produce a supposititious heir to the estate. If, upon examination, the widow be found not pregnant, the presumptive heir shall be admitted to the inheritance.]

 

[Page 142]

 

The Jews being essentially a commercial race, it is in the domain of commercial law that the Jew lawyer finds a large field for his activity. Here his inherent dishonesty finds ample room for exercise and development. The books of law abound with cases of dishonest partnerships, fraudulent assignments, questions of accommodation business paper or accommodation indorsements, questions of guaranty and suretyship, questions arising upon the various phases of the law of sales, the statute of frauds, and all the various and complicated field of commercial law; and in them we may always expect to find, and do find, the Jew lawyer aiding and abetting his clients in the repudiation of their obligations, and in fleecing their business associates. So marked has this become, especially in the matter of fraudulent preferences in insolvent assignments, that it has crystallized in a witticism that whereas the Jews were formerly the “chosen” people, they are now the “preferred.” The facts bear out the statement.

 

[Page 143]

 

The records of the courts and the experience of the bar prove incontestably that nine-tenths of the fraudulent assignments are made by Jew clients acting under the advice and guidance of Jew lawyers. If only one-half the statements which are contained in scores of affidavits in attachment proceedings now on file in the New-York County Court House are true, they present an indictment of both the Jew in business, and of his legal advisers, before which the business community may well stand appalled. If the law register and papers of S. H. Kneeland, the legal adviser of the house of H. B. Claflin & Co., could be examined, and the details of that firm’s various legal struggles with their Jew customers and their Jewish legal advisers could be laid before the-public, that alone would furnish abundant confirmation, if any be needed, of the innate and total depravity of the commercial Jew and his legal cohorts. Bald, unblushing perjury, allied with ineffable impudence and brazen assertion, all marshalled and led by the low cunning of Jew lawyers, swagger through the halls of justice, until thinking men wonder where it will all end, and what must be the inevitable destiny of a commercial metropolis where such is the apparent standard of business honesty. n follows as inevitably as the day follows night, that a high standard of business honesty is impossible; and the moral tone of the business community is lowered, and is constantly, but surely, sinking lower still. The Aryan must fight fire with fire, or be worsted in the unequal contest. He most oppose cunning with cunning, and match the strategy of his antagonists with equal art, or retire from the field. Many prefer the latter course; and the writer knows of more than one instance where honorable merchants have been obliged to give up their business, because they could not and would not stoop to the business habits and practices of their Jewish competitors, but preferred to abandon-the field. Such is the true reason for the disappearance of such a merchant as Duncan A. Grant, whose honesty alone stood in the way of his making a fortune.

 

[Page 144]

 

A phase of Jewish character is well illustrated by an anecdote told by a former proprietor of a well-known Broadway eating-house. A Jewish firm, consisting of a father and several sons, carried on their business near him. They had been in the habit, for reasons of economy, of bringing a light lunch from home, and disposing of it at their place of business. One day, one of the sons happened into this eating-house at lunch-hour, and had his attention drawn to the custom there in vogue, and which was then a novelty in New York, by which each guest helped himself to what he wished to eat, and, after he had satisfied his hunger, stated to an attendant, stationed near the cashier’s desk, the amount of his indebtedness (the price of the viands being displayed in large figures), and received II. check for the sum he stated, which check he would pay at the cashier’s desk as he passed out. The quick intelligence of the young Hebrew comprehended at a glance the possibilities of the situation, as the proprietor had to depend upon each one stating truly the amount of his indebtedness. He thereupon proceeded to eat fifty cents’ worth, called for a fifteen-cent check, paid it, and walked out.

 

[Page 145]

 

The next day the whole family were on hand to take advantage of this “manna,” which had so providentially; as it seemed to them, been provided for them; and for three weeks they systematically and religiously ate enormous lunches at the expense of the proprietor, until they were discovered and unceremoniously ejected from the place. To them it seemed a perfectly proper and legitimate business transaction, and their only regret was at being caught so speedily.

 

Let us now turn to another branch of legal industry, and note what we can of the method pursued by the Jew in his legal forays.

 

On the threshold of this inquiry we pause to observe how faithfully the instincts inherited from his remote ancestors work out their legitimate results. During the centuries through which his race has been in subjection to the dominant Aryan of Asia and Europe, he came to lose the upright, straightforward, independent air and bearing so characteristic of the Aryan; his very physical appearance became apologetic and deprecating. His mental attitude toward the dominant race necessarily underwent a like change. From the fierce warrior, who swept with fire and sword over the plains of Judea, he became the weak, timid, and compliant subject of a stronger race.

 

[Page 146]

 

By an inexorable law of nature, his mental decadence followed swiftly and surely upon the heels of his physical degradation. Unable to withstand the overmastering Aryan will, he opposed its strength with his cunning, he matched its power with his subtlety. Against Aryan force he strove with Semitic craft and ingenuity. Fighting always on the defensive, he met the lion-like spirit of the Aryan with the wily astuteness of the crawling serpent. And so it came to pass, that, after centuries of such training, his mind became so habituated to moving in devious ways and by crooked paths, that he continued to so pursue his object even after the necessity for it had passed away. He had become so accustomed to crawling, that he had lost the art of walking upright. His mental operations were always quick and serpentine, his mind alert and active; but it lacked the nerve, the vigorous and healthful force, and the sinewy strength of the Aryan intellect. It had developed according to the law of its environment; and, having been thus forced into tortuous channels, it pursued the same sinuous course through the powerful coercion of inherited instincts.

 

[Page 147]

 

The history of all ages proves the universal truth that such must inevitably become the physical and mental condition of an inferior and subjugated race. We find it exemplified to-day in the cases of the nations of British India, after only a comparatively short period of English supremacy. The fierce warriors of the Himalayas, who were subjugated by Lord Clive and Warren Hastings, have given place to the timid, vacillating, and almost invertebrate Hindoo, whose very weakness is his only strength, and with whom the ability to tell the truth is a lost art. Thus it was that Sir James Stephens, in framing a code of evidence for the British Empire in India, confessed that by reason of the peculiar mental constitution of the Hindoo, he was compelled to insert many regulations, restrictions, and amendments, which would be totally inapplicable to a European nation.

 

We find the foregoing truths abundantly illustrated when we come to consider the Jew as a practitioner of the law. Here his peculiar mental constitution finds ample room in which to display itself. In the orderly administration of the law, it has been found necessary to establish many minute and detailed regulations of the forms of procedure, the intricacies of which are often puzzling to a well-trained lawyer, and which to a layman are simply bewildering. In the mazy, devious windings of our codes of procedure, and the thousands of reported cases construing and elucidating the same, together with the minute regulations laid down in rules of practice adopted by the various courts, his supple and subtle mind runs riot.

 

[Page 148]

 

He abounds in technicalities, and clings always to the forms of the law, while he ignores the substance. To him is especially applicable the legal maxim, Qui haeret in litera hreret in cortice.* Nothing delights him so much as to ambush his opponent by some nice question of pleading or practice, upon which he may get a preliminary decision in his favor, — always with ten dollars costs. Motions of all conceivable kinds are made. Motions to make a pleading more definite and certain, or to strike out as irrelevant, or for judgment on alleged frivolous pleadings; motions for bills of particulars, or for security for costs, or to compel an adversary to accept a pleading; applications for examinations before trial, for orders of an’est or attachment or injunction, — fly thick and fast; demurrers and counter-claims, set-off and reply; motions to strike from the calendar or to restore to the calendar, to advance a cause or to postpone it to a future term; applications for a stay of proceedings, for writs of habeas corpus and certiorali, mandamus or prohibition. And at every opportunity an interlocutory judgment or decree, followed by frivolous appeals taken upon fraudulent bonds or undertakings executed by worthless bondsmen. In all the intricate learning of executions, and the proceedings in aid of or supplementary thereto, the Jew is an expert. And in every instance he will worry the court, always haggling for his bill of costs, disputing over trifles, and blocking the wheels of justice by every petty device known to the law. The Fabian policy of the Jew lawyer is a by-word and reproach among the members of the profession. This is true, generally, of his practice in all the courts. But especially is it true of the inferior courts in the city of New York, such as the district courts and the city court.

 

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* [Qui haeret in litera, haeret in cortice is a Latin maxim. It means ‘he who clings to the letter, sticks in the bark’. The maxim denotes that, if the interpretation of a writing is too literal, it does not reach the heart or core of the transaction. A person who sticks to the mere words of an instrument cannot arrive at its meaning or substance.]

 

[Page 149]

 

The last-named court is a court of record, but possessing a limited and inferior jurisdiction. It has come to be known as the peculiar stamping-ground of the Jew lawyer; and the result is that the term “city-court lawyer” has, in civil practice, about the same significance that the term “Tombs lawyer” has in criminal practice, both appellations conveying to the. professional mind the notion of the lowest depths of depravity, chicanery, trickery, and fraud, masquerading under the forms of law, and perverting the machinery of justice into a means of defeating the very purposes for which alone courts exist. Why these birds of prey should have chosen this particular court for their nesting-place, is not quite clear. Whether it be that the limited time within which its functions are exercised, and the consequent rapid strategic movements thus made possible, appeal to his subtle Oriental mind as a more suitable battle-field, or whether it be that the fact that its deliberations are conducted by judges of inferior attainments, and sometimes of his own race, leads him to believe that his peculiar tactics will be more successful there than in the superior courts of record, are questions that need not be dwelt upon. The fact that is of consequence in the present discussion is that the Jew lawyer, by some or all of the methods above indicated, has succeeded in dragging the reputation of the court down to his own level, despite the strenuous efforts of its chief justice, than whom no more learned or upright expounder of the law has ever adorned the bench of this great metropolis.

 

[Page 150]

 

Instances ad nauseam could be cited to support the verity of these statements. Let a few suffice.

 

In a recent case, where a Jew litigant had imposed upon the court a fraudulent surety upon an undertaking given upon an appeal, the court said, in fining and imprisoning the fraudulent surety, that he,

“was an incompetent and worthless surety, and his conduct in appearing in open court and insisting on his sufficiency under oath was a fraudulent imposition on the court, to the prejudice of the plaintiff, and presents a case of gross contempt.”

“Courts cannot permit the course of justice to be stayed or prevented by fictitious or fraudulent bail; and where an imposition has been successfully practised, the court owes it to the injured party and to the due administration of justice, that its dignity be asserted, and the fraudulent surety punished by fine, to the end that the loss occasioned be made good if possible.”

 

Ex uno disce omnes.* In the instance cited, it happened by the merest accident that the fraud was discovered and punished. In how many instances does it pass undetected and unwhipped!

 

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* [Ex uno disce omnes. From one person learn all persons. From one we can judge the rest.]

 

[Page 151]

 

Again, in a recent case where a party had been decoyed into the jurisdiction of the court by a deceitful letter, and then served with process, the court annulled and set aside such service so obtained, in the following vigorous and breezy English: —

“The defendant, supposing that some party desired a business interview, attended; and the writer of the letter served upon him the summons and complaint, which service the defendant now moves to set aside. It would be an affront to any ordinary intelligence, to assume that the writer of the letter did not intend to deceive defendant, or that defendant was not thereby misled…. The decisions are uniform, that such deceit vitiates the service of legal process; but if there were no precedent exactly in point, the court would not hesitate to make a precedent of the case at bar.”

 

As an example, in still another direction, take a recent case which arose out of a sale of chattels on what is properly known as the “instalment plan.” This is a very popular method with the Jews, of committing highway robbery under the forms of law; and an extensive business is done among the poorer classes, in a manner on which the courts have on several occasions set the seal of decided disapproval. The modus operandi* is for the vendor to induce some poor person (widows preferred) to purchase some article of household use or adornment, under smooth promises of accepting the purchase money in “instalments” of small sums, payable weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly, as the case may be.

 

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* [modus operandi: a method of procedure; especially :  a distinct pattern or method of operation that indicates or suggests the work of a single criminal in more than one crime. The term is used to describe someone’s habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations. In English, it is often shortened to M.O.]

 

[Page 152]

 

A small sum is paid down, and the stipulated “instalments” perhaps nearly paid up, when through some mishap she is obliged to miss a payment and make default. Then, in comes the Jew seller, backed by his Jew lawyer; and under the iron-clad terms of a chattel mortgage, or a contract of sale which they have induced the poor woman to sign “just as a matter of form,” they seize her furniture and chattels, making her forfeit all she has paid thereon, and proceed to sell the same goods upon the same terms to some new victim. And in this way they will often obtain a large percentage of the purchase price of an article three or four times over. In one case a woman had paid seventy-eight per cent of the purchase price when the property was violently seized and carried away by the seller. But it chanced that he had overstepped the limits of the law in his zeal, and a jury mulcted him in heavy damages for trespass and conversion.

 

The court castigated him in the following language:

“In the present case the entry was without right, and was unlawful, and, whether malicious or. otherwise, it was certainly intentional, and the injury as great as if malice had been associated with the intent with which the trespass was committed. The damages recoverable in a case like the present must, in the nature of things, rest largely in the discretion of the jury; and while they awarded substantial damages, we cannot say that they were so excessive as to require a new trial and a re-assessment.”

 

[Page 153]

 

Take still another glaring instance, where the court decided that a party to a pending action (a Jew, of course) had committed wilful and corrupt perjury in swearing to an answer which he knew to be false.

 

The court says,

“From the affidavits and papers submitted, it plainly appears that the denial contained in the answer herein before referred to was false and untrue, and was known to the defendant to be so false and untrue at the time he verified his pleading….”

“The defendant contends that he may deliberately commit perjury in order to obtain sufficient delay to put his property out of the reach of the plaintiff, and then defy the latter to collect his judgment. Is this court powerless to punish such outrageous conduct?”

 

The court concluded it was not powerless, and proceeded to fine the perjurer and commit him for contempt.

 

[Page 154]

 

In view of such evidence, taken not from hearsay, not from the lips of irresponsible persons, but from the records of the courts, is it not speaking soberly and within bounds to say that the Jew has done all in his power to bring the practice and administration of the law into disrepute? And does not such a showing rationally explain and account for the growing distrust which the people are beginning to evince in the efficacy of the courts, and their ability to do equal and exact justice between man and man? It is the common experience of lawyers, that clients are becoming more and more averse to taking their disputes into court; preferring to either arbitrate their differences, compromise their claims, or lose them altogether, rather than submit themselves to the annoying, oft times degrading, and invariably tedious, troublesome, and expensive trial of their rights, in the courts as now constituted. The daily newspapers ring with diatribes upon this point, suggesting and demanding the application of various remedies and connections of the existing state of things. In a recent number of the “Forum,” Mr. Justice Barrett of the New-York Supreme Court, a far-seeing and sagacious judge, has a thoughtful article, treating of one branch of the difficulty, and suggesting some remedies. But all the suggested remedies only serve to lop off a few branches of the evil. They do not strike at its root. The true cause lies far deeper, and is to be found in the personal character and disposition of those amici curiae* who figure (or rather disfigure) in the halls of justice, and who might much more appropriately be termed “amici sibi” or “hastes curiae.” It is idle to ignore, though it may be politic so to do, the evil influence which the low moral tone, the pettifogging, and the obstructive method of practice of the Jew lawyer, exercise, not only upon the morale of the courts, but upon the community at large.

 

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*[amici curiae: Literally, friend of the court. A person with strong interest in or views on the subject matter of an action, but not a party to the action, may petition the court for permission to file a brief, ostensibly on behalf of a party but actually to suggest a rationale consistent with its own views. Such amicus curiae briefs are commonly filed in appeals concerning matters of a broad public interest; e.g., civil rights cases. They may be filed by private persons or the government. In appeals to the U.S. courts of appeals, an amicus brief may be filed only if accompanied by written consent of all parties, or by leave of court granted on motion or at the request of the court, except that consent or leave shall not be required when the brief is presented by the United States or an officer or agency thereof.]

 

[Page 155]

 

It is a fact, that no Jew lawyer has ever attained, in this Republic, acknowledged eminence and superiority in any branch of the law. The race has not produced, and from the foregoing considerations it is plain that it cannot produce, such constitutional lawyers as Evarts or Edmullds, such jury lawyers as Conkling or Choate, such corporation lawyers as Dillon or McCreery. No Jew occupies It place upon the bench of the United-States Supreme Court, or the bench of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York. Among all the forty-four justices of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, scattered throughout its eight judicial districts, not one is a Jew. In all the great array of American writers of textbooks upon the law, you will not find a single Jew, with the possible exception of Judith P. Benjamin. We search in vain among the high and honorable places in the law, for the Jew. He has no standing there. He has the eye of the mole, not of the eagle. He burrows in the dust-heaps of the law. He does not soar into the blue empyrean of legal thought, or survey the domain of legal science from an intellectual altitude such as will enable him to comprehend its vast scope. His mental vision is microscopic, not telescopic. He is concerned with little things, not great principles. In a word, he originates nothing. He is neither guide, philosopher, nor friend. He adds nothing to the stock of human knowledge, happiness, or usefulness; and the world is never the better for his having lived in it.

 

[Page 156]

 

That the commercial instinct so strong with all the children of Israel is not lost in the Jew lawyer, is attested by that well-known Milesian limb of the law, Counsellor N ——. He summed up his views of the Jew lawyer, in a recent conversation with a prominent New-York ex-judge, as follows:

“Thim haythin Jews,” quoth he, “have demoralized the fees of the purfeshin. Time was, when a man could happen into the Court of General Sessions, and get mayhap, fifteen dollars, or ten dollars, or five dollars, for defending some poor devil. But now, them miserable Jews will defend a man for a dollar or for fifty cents, if they can’t get any more, and a reputable number of the purfeshin has no show at all.”

 

[Page 157]

 

Thus we have endeavored to truthfully portray the Jew as regards his attitude toward the law and its practice. And the irresistible conclusion is that he, with the practices which he fosters and encourages both by precept and example, ought to be swept from the temple of justice which he only profanes. The Jew should only be permitted to obey the law. He should have no share or part in making, expounding, or administering it, in an Aryan government. For that he is unfitted by nature, by instinct, and by his practices. Thus only can the streams of our jurisprudence escape contamination at the fountainhead. Thus alone can we be enabled to transmit to our descendants, unpolluted and untarnished, that great structure of raw and equity which is the pride and glory of the Anglo-Saxon race, upon which, have been expended the highest efforts of the noblest minds of seven centuries, and which constitutes the richest inheritance we can bestow upon generations yet unborn.

 

[Page 158]

 

 

 

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Notes

 

* The cover, the ‘Le Happy Merchant’ image and Table of Contents are not part of the original book.

• Notes enclosed in [square brackets] and marked with an asterisk (*) symbol are not in the original text.

• On page 55 on the original scan half the text is missing. If anyone has the complete text please paste it in the comment section of my blog. Thanks.

• Page numbers in this document are the page numbers in the original book.

 

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Click to go to >>

The American Jew – Part 1: His Arrival in America — The New-York Ghetto — The Jew at the Summer Hotel

The American Jew – Part 2: The Jew in Wall Street — The Jew in the Tobacco Trade

The American Jew – Part 3: The Jew in Politics — The Jew in Journalism — “The Great American Journalist.” — The Jew Lecher

The American Jew – Part 4: The Criminal Jew

The American Jew – Part 5: The Jew in Petroleum — The Jew in His Relation to the Law

The American Jew – Part 6: Customs and Habits of the Jews — Religious Doctrines

The American Jew – Part 7: The Jew Summarized

 

 

 

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The American Jew — An Expose of His Career (1888) – Part 5

 

 

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Version 4: Jun 6, 2020 — Re-uploaded images and PDF for katana17.com/wp/ version.

 

Version 3: Dec 4, 2016 — improved formatting.

 

Version 2: Jun 18, 2015 — improved formatting.