he right to suffer,
and they must in addition pay the price of that suffering. As we think
of all these circumstances, is it not proper and meet that we should
ponder the whole situation in which we Jews find ourselves today?

I believe that it is eminently the moment to do so. We refuse to
believe that the great waste of human life and energy now going on in
Europe is a waste pure and simple. We refuse to believe that some
purification is not to result from the fire through which mankind is
passing, and that some sanity in handling human affairs is not to
follow the evident insanity with which we are now confronted.
Something a little more stable because a little more reasonable must
appear at the end to replace the inconstancy and unrest which have up
to now characterized the relations of peoples to each other. And as we
hope this for the world at large, we are hopeful too that full
attention will be given to those problems which concern the Jews
specifically. I wish then to indicate the chief among these problems,
in order that we may ourselves see clearly the road that must be
taken.

_The Prospect in Russia and Poland_

First and foremost, of course, rank the questions that concern the
Jews in Russia. Quite apart from any consideration of the general
problems affecting that country, the case of the Jews in Russia and
Poland demands a settlement that shall make existence bearable for
them, and which at the same time shall not run counter to the real and
vital interests of the Russian people. Nay more; such existence must
not only be bearable. It must be of a kind that will place the Jews
upon a level with the other inhabitants of the Empire and will give
them the necessary opportunity to develop whatever talents or
capabilities they possess. It is not for us to prescribe in what
manner and by what means this shall be accomplished; and I use the
word "must" not in the sense that any compulsion is to be applied to
Russia in this respect, but rather as an expression of the certainty
that the trial through which the Czar's land is now passing is of such
a kind as to purge her necessarily of all traces of national and
religious intolerance. This feeling cannot be expressed in better
words than those used by M. Bourtzeff, the well-known reactionary,
when he said, "We are convinced that after this war there will no
longer be any room for political reaction and Russia will be
associated with the existing group of cult