Vol. V. No. 37
TORONTO, ONT., JULY 11, 1924
TEN CUNTS THE COPY 13-00 THE YEAR
THE NORDIC CRAZE GROWING
A scientific association of German "racialists" proposed a plan for a new State into which only those who are ''purely Nordic" will be admitted. These scientist^?) declare that a blood test would enable one to distinguish between the "purely Nordics" and tin: mixed breed.
Mr. Arthur Brisbane in commenting upon ihi- plan in the New York American, writes, "That new 'Nordic State, by the way, would exclude the founder of Christianity, whose mother was a Jewess." He certainly was not "purely Nordic." Mr. Brisbane forgets that these self-same racialists in Germany (who are like many on this continent obsessed \)\ the Nordic craze, which we believe is a new form of dementia) recently broke up a Chinese service because the name of Jesus was mentioned in the service. They object to the dominant place Hebraic influences still exercise in modern Christianity. It is not �) many years ago that Houston Stewart Chamberlain, the renegade Englishman whom we regard as one of the early exponents of the Nordic craze, in his "Foundations of the XlXth Century," tried to prove that Jesus was the offspring of a Roman soldier and a Hebrew mother, thus making him at least half Aryaji. It is well known that facts are no cure or antidote to popular hysteria such as the Nordic craze is. They work like all psychoses, solely on the basis of emotions and prejudices. Nevertheless it is worth while from time to time to reiterate the scientific facts. It is universally conceded by all anthropologists and students of races and cultures that Nordic races are a pure figment of the imagination, that there is absolutely no scientific warrant for it. The races of Europe are a conglomerate of races from all over the world, representing a veritable melting pot of peoples. No less an authority n racial questions than Prof. Ripley says: It may smack of heresy to assert in the face t our text books on geography and history '.hat there is no single European or white : ace of men and yet that is the plain truth "f the matter." Anthropologists all agree 'hat there are no superior races and no backward races so far as mental or cultural a pa city are concerned. All depends on opportunity and environment. The culture acquired by the most advanced modern races is attainable by any race on earth, given the proper opportunities, TKat of such neanle as those who found themselves.
on the Mediterranean basin, instancing the Greeks, was due not to superior brain capacity but to their peculiar location on the sea, which united and challenged man but was not so wide as to terrify him. The glory which belonged to Greece came to it at a time when it was the center of trade and commerce, which afforded a means of exchange of ideas with every civilization then existing in the world. Whereas the forests of Africa, the dense swamps and scarcity of navigable rivers, impeded the course of development of the African blacks. Dr. Wordsworth, a great psychologist has said, after considerable experimentation and mental testing, "We are probably justified in inferring from the results that the sensory and motor processes and the elementary brain activities though differing in degree from one individual to another, are about the same from one race to another."
It remains only to conclude that the nature of man is everywhere the same and a study of comparative religion and history reveals the fact too that with small modifications due to differences in climate and environment the common nature of man tends to express itself in similar religious social institutions and forms of social and cultural life. Races show nothing but skin-deep differences, which are accidental and due to a peculiar historical evolution. The time has come for people to recognize that thay have many more elements in common than they have differences. Let each race cultivate ^a spirit of brotherhood based on the things it has in common and yet develop our differences so that the picture which the races of mankind form by co-operation and brotherhood may be rich and colorful. We are not much worried over the Nordic craze, because we believe it is a type of hysteria that cannot long endure. Mankind must and will come to its senses.
A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
A unique appeal has been received from a Chicago man by the League of Nations. In a letter to the Secretariat of the League he declares that he is a pacifist and against all war and fighting. For that reason he insists that he can swear allegiance to no country. But as he cannot live permanently in any country without becoming a citizen, he begs for the protection of the League of which he desires to become a "subject."
The League has not yet issued its decision on this curious case but as conditions are, we dare to predict that the League will deny the wishes of the man to become its "sub-iect." He will, therefore, he forced acrain^f
from one port to some conn-They promise
his own wishes to remain a subject of the IT S. A. and, in case of war, will be compelled to obey its laws or go to prison as a "conscientious objecter."
In this instance we have a man who deliberately wishes to renounce his citizenship and be a man without a country. PTate is a strange thing. In Europe there are hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who would like to he citizens of some country, but post-war conditions have dictated otherwise. They are refugees, wandering in the thousands to another seeking admission try which will shelter them, to become good citizens and to obey the laws. They have fought on every front in the war and sacrificed their substance and blood, yet they are deprived of the opportunities of life and liberty. They are Jews�Jews escaped from the massacres of the Ukraine and Bolshevistic Russia--Jews from Poland; they are citizens of that country, who, to; secure a vise permitting them to emigrate from an anti-Semitic country, were compelled to forfeit the right of return. Xow they find the doors of the United States shut in their faces. These Jews from Ukraine, Russia and other countries are men without a country-- -but not by choice, hut from acts of hostility. And when you ask the reason for this hostility, the answer is "They &rc Jews" Seven thousand of them are in Havana, Cuba, where there are only some 31 Sephardic Jewish families to care tor them. No opportunities exist there for the support of these refugees who waited patiently for a year to make their application for admission to the Ignited States and now they find that they have waited in vain. All the ports of Europe harl>or these homeless Jews. Canada is the only country that has acted humanely. Through the liberality and broad humanitarian qualities of the Canadian Immigration authorities, five thousand of these people without a country may find a home in Canada under the protection of the Union Jack and the Maple Leaf. Already 1,325 Ukrainian Jewish refugees from Rou-mania have found admission in Canada. 611 of them or 6% are in the East, -408 are in Ontario, Toronto alone having absorbed 235. and the West has 306. These refugees are becoming rapidly self-supporting and being absorbed in the economic life of the nation. The help which each Jewish community has supplied them on their arrival, they will pay back some day with interest, not perhaps in terms of dollars and cents -though we hope many will do that too�but in terms of service which they and their children will render by enriching Jewish communal life.