I have made it an especial task to follow as closely as possible the career of a hundred Russian Jews with whom I have come in touch during my journeys and investigations. Although they did not pass into my field of observation together, and represent various ages and conditions, the following may be of interest: After five years, about forty per cent. had learned to speak English very well, and about fifteen per cent. could write it almost faultlessly, while more than sixty per cent. could read English newspapers. Of this number seventy-eight per cent. had become wage-earners and only fifteen per cent. of these had not materially improved their lot in life. Eighteen were citizens of the United States, three were Social Democrats of an intense type, five believed that way, but voted the Republican ticket, and the rest were divided on national questions about evenly between the two dominant parties. They voted as they pleased in local affairs, although they were strongly influenced first by Tammany and later by the Hearst movement which more and more dominates the east side of New York. Ninety-one per cent. has ceased to be orthodox in their religious practices, although in thirty-seven per cent. the “spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.” All the Social Democrats with the exception of one, had entirely drifted from their ancient moorings and were avowed atheists. As to their relation to Christianity I asked one of them, “Do you know anything about American Christians?” and he replied, “How shall I know anything about Christians on the East side?” Nearly all of them were saving some money and one of them had grown rich, at least in the estimation of his neighbours, and he was in the real estate business. Among all of them there has been an intellectual awakening. As one of them said: “They have room to think though they have but little leisure.”
Modifications and almost marvellous transformations had taken place in the features of many, and these were the men who had thought themselves most into our life. Whether there was growth in ethical conception it is hard to say, for one cannot easily reach beyond the exterior in sociological observations, and depths do not disclose themselves when one watches people by the hundred. Their business sense certainly has not grown less keen, and making money is as much an object in life as it always was. Perchance even a little more. The scale of things has changed. I find in most of them that they are more honest in little things, which comes from the fact that they need not be penurious. The real estate dealer is an unscrupulous sharper, I know, but in that he merely shares the unenviable reputation of his guild.