Chapter Ten

271My plan to work at the "Forverts" only until the noon hour and to devote the rest of the time to English literature turned out to be a dream. For the first several months I did not leave the editorial office before nine or ten o'clock at night, and even now I do not leave before six. I paid attention to every detail and introduced various news features, on which it fell to me to write myself. It was a mass of work.

As my secretary I appointed comrade Leon Gottlieb, who had earlier worked at the "Forverts" as a proofreader, and who is connected with the paper to this day. He and A. Frumkin, who used to help me out with translations and other editorial duties, were among my most devoted and most diligent collaborators.

The enchantment of literature had for a good while entirely yielded its place to the enchantment of building up the "Forverts."

There were again disturbances, clashes, [...]272[...] nothings. But it turned out as Lief had said. The circumstances were now entirely different; and instead of taking away my desire to work for the paper, the clashes poured oil onto the fire of my interest in the news features that I had introduced.

I became so absorbed in my "Forverts" work that for a long time I had absolutely nothing else on my mind. When the success of the reforms I had made at the "Forverts" began to be strongly noticed, Miller once made the following remark in a conversation with my wife:

"One of the causes of Cahan's success is his enthusiasm. When he takes up a thing, he becomes enthusiastic about it, and then he throws himself into it body and soul."

My interest in literature was not diminished. But I put off my literary work again and again.

In the paper I made fundamental changes, so fundamental that the opponents and the reading public were astonished.

"It is a completely different 'Forverts'!" — some said this as an expression of delight; others as an expression of protest.

This point is brought out clearly in the survey of the "Forverts" history which Hillel Rogoff published in the holiday issue of the paper in honor of its 25th jubilee, on the 22nd of April, 1922. Rogoff's article, which takes up two "Forverts" pa-273ges, was written on the basis of his personal acquaintance with the subject and of conversations he had with several of the older comrades.

"Cahan — Rogoff relates — believed that the 'Forverts' had to become a newspaper of the broad masses, that it must not be put out only for a select few, the narrow groups who lead the socialist and union movement. His basic theory on this question was the following:

"If the 'Forverts' wants to draw the masses to socialism, if it seeks to exert an influence over the masses, a socialist influence, it must first of all make the masses its readers. And in order to do that, one must print articles that interest the broad public, articles that contain a general human interest.

"Such articles had previously seldom appeared in the 'Forverts'; earlier it used to be believed that, since the 'Forverts' is put out to propagate socialism and to help the workers in their economic struggles, it should print nothing but articles about socialism and trade-unionism (about the new 'feeding'—the human-interest material—we are not speaking here). Cahan printed these articles just as before. Most of the leading articles and the other serious articles were, as before, purely socialist, and the general policy of the paper was just as strictly socialist as ever. But he also gave place to a new sort of article, to popular ones, to generally human ones.

"He poured much life into the paper. Under him it blossomed, came alive. It seethed with new things, with interest.

274"Wherever one stood and walked, people were talking about the 'Forverts.'

"Cahan's new policy aroused much opposition among the comrades. Not only members of the 'Forverts' Association protested, but also many outside party comrades and sympathizers. They declared that, while they had the highest respect for comrade Cahan, and while they also had the fullest confidence in his socialist devotion and in his fidelity to principle, they could not agree with him regarding his editorial policy. They held that the new sort of articles which Cahan had brought into the 'Forverts' must not appear in a socialist newspaper.

"And Cahan fought against this standpoint. He argued that the 'Forverts' must cease to be nothing more than an organ of socialists for socialists. It must be a socialist newspaper that embraces the whole of life. His opinion was that, when the 'Forverts' followed this path, it would draw the masses to itself and become a newspaper of the people. And being a newspaper of the people, it would be able to spread its socialist teachings among the masses and build up the socialist movement and the unions.

"And practice quickly proved that Cahan had been right in his contentions about drawing readers.

"Under his editorship the circulation of the 'Forverts' at once began to rise and rise. In the Jewish quarters of New York and other cities people soon began to talk about the new articles that the 'Forverts' printed. Many of Cahan's opponents in time became convinced that he was right after all."

In 1897, when I was editor of the "For-275verts" in the first several months of its existence, I held this same standpoint, but then I did not have the possibility of carrying it through. At the meetings of the "Press Union," which later became the "Forverts Association," I always pointed out how impractical it was for the "Forverts" to occupy itself with attacks on De Leon — a name that the public was not even familiar with (see the third volume, 478–479). This was actually only an example which I used to bring forward to demonstrate my standpoint, that the paper should be for the broad public and not for a socialist sect. If I used this example more often than other examples, it was only because the De Leon question was in and of itself an important question for us, the most important in those days. But I would explain again and again that we must create a newspaper for the broad masses, for the general reader, and not for our own little circle.

"A newspaper for a little world, or for a great world?" — thus I used to pose the question; thus I used to express myself.

The more important of the news features, or "reforms," that I introduced were of three different sorts:

1) Regarding the character of certain articles which previously had not been printed and which I began to print.

2) Regarding the question of how the "Forverts" should conduct itself toward people who are not socialists, or not even freethinkers.

2763) Regarding the language of the paper and the general manner in which everything should be written.

We shall consider the three kinds of reforms in order.

I naturally printed serious articles, theoretical reflections on economic, political, and social matters, agitation articles for the unions and for the socialist movement. But earlier the "Forverts" used to give almost exclusively such articles. So besides them, I began to print "light articles," that is, ones that have no connection with political or social questions — simply articles about life, which are interesting to the public.

I introduced a system whereby the serious and the "light" articles should go "one above the other" — after the leading article should come a "light" one, then again a serious one, then again a light one.

And as for the serious ones, I made an effort that they should not be too abstractly theoretical, and that the subjects should be such as the masses can grasp and can take an interest in.

I brought along clippings (cuttings) of "light articles" or feuilletons that I had written for the "Commercial Advertiser" and for the "Sun" (the last few months). From them I used to select such as would interest our readers, and I had them translated. Usually I gave them to A. Frumkin, who was then a collaborator on the "Forverts" and who used to make the translations in a clear, Yiddish language.

The first such "light article" appeared in my first issue (Sunday, the 16th of March, 1902). Its headline was:

277In love with Jewish children.

Christians who convert to Judaism for the sake of girls^* or young people in the Jewish quarter.

Just a week earlier there had been a news item about the daughter of a melamed (teacher of young children) of 21 Rutgers Street, who had married a Greek. I made this into a kind of introduction. And then follows Frumkin's translation of my article about Irish or Italian young men who fall in love with Jewish girls (I became acquainted with these facts on my walks and explorations in the Jewish streets). There I tell the following:

An Italian barber (a shaver) fell in love with a Jewish girl who lived with her parents in the tenement house where his barbershop was. He was ready to convert to Judaism. And so there was a circumcision and a wedding. With regard to this case, I was chiefly interested in the convert's life after the wedding. I was told that his Jewish mother-in-law engaged a melamed for him, who taught him to pray, to lay tefillin (phylacteries) — "to be a Jew together with the Jews."

When he had learned to recite the Hebrew prayers properly,278the mother-in-law forced him to lay tefillin and pray every morning. Otherwise she would not give him any breakfast. He used to obey, unwillingly.

This Jewish woman had a son named Joe, an American boy, who likewise was too lazy to pray. But with him she could not prevail. Joe used to eat without praying.

The Italian convert would protest:

— Why does Joe eat without praying?

— Joe is a Jew! — she would answer.

The meaning of this was that Joe is a Jew anyway, whether he is pious or not. The Italian, however, is a Jew only when he keeps Jewishness; otherwise he is a goy (a Gentile).

When this article had been printed in the "Forverts," reports came from all sides that people were talking about the story. To the editorial office came letters with songs of praise, opinions, and questions. Some said that the mother-in-law was too strict; that if she went on like this, she would drive the Italian out of the house. Others simply condemned such marriages; still others praised them and preached the free idea. The questioners were curious to know what had become of it.

Besides "clippings" of ready-made articles, I had masses of notes from my observations and conversations in the Jewish streets. I drew from them for the "Forverts," and — as we shall soon see — I also made new walks and observations especially for the "Forverts." All this was a source of themes from the home life in the Jewish quarters — about marriages, divorces, jealousy stories, interesting happen-279ings with parents or relatives whom one brings over from the old country.

These "light articles" had an enormous success.

In the third volume of these "Pages" the "Yom Kippur balls" and other anti–Yom Kippur demonstrations that the anarchists used to hold were mentioned. I was always against this kind of spite-propaganda, and in the "Arbeiter Zeitung" I wrote articles against it. I would show that with such means one does not open the eyes of the believer; that one only angers him and drives him away from the enlightening word.

Such articles I had occasion to write eleven years earlier. Now I was eleven years more experienced. And now I felt that we socialists, too, were still too fanatical.

We were not believers, and the "Forverts," naturally, had an anti-religious character. But a great part of the Jewish working population was religious, and a workers' newspaper, I believed, must not confine itself to one class of the workers, to the freethinking ones. It must be the organ of all workers.

It is its duty to point out the difference between sincere piety and hypocrisy. And to the pious it must explain everything with friendly words, not with mockery and venom. And the best means of freeing a person from superstition is to give him popular science, to develop him, to enlarge his knowledge, to broaden his understanding.

280One of the first leading articles that I wrote in the "Forverts" since I had again become its editor bore the heading: "Comrades, have respect for the honest opinions of others."

The article contained the idea that has been expressed here. I preached tolerance, friendliness toward honest religious people and non-socialists, a polite tone, refined relations toward all sincere people, whether they belong to our camp or not.

The article made a real sensation among the comrades. They were not accustomed to that sort of talk in a socialist newspaper. My words sounded to them like "anti-revolutionary," "anti-socialist."

There the true meaning of the word "fanatic" is explained. I give the reader to understand that a freethinking person who is intolerant and narrow-minded in his anti-religious convictions is a fanatic in his free-thinking. I expressed here, actually, the same ideas as in that leading article, only in a different manner. I appealed to socialists that they should have patience toward the opinions of honest conservative and Orthodox Jews, hear them out, and enlighten them in a friendly manner.

Still later I again had an article on this theme. "Tolerance" was the headline.

Earlier we used to drive conservative Jews away from us. They used to read only the Orthodox "Tageblatt" — even workers from our unions. Now, after they had seen our policy of tolerance, after they281had read the friendly articles that we had addressed to them, they began to read our "Forverts."

On the other hand, many socialists protested against such articles.

"What are you making of our 'Forverts'?" — people shouted at me.

But I went my way.

In my tolerance articles I would always express our anti-religious standpoint. But that did not satisfy our fanatics.

I would remind them of the resolution of the German socialists, that "religion is a private matter," that is, that everyone may believe in this or that God, and yet be a good member of the socialist party. But that did not help either. Only a very small number of our comrades were more or less satisfied with these articles. The rest felt as though I had profaned the paper.

The highest point of agitation was reached when I printed an article about saying Kaddish.

To the editorial office came a letter from a young socialist with a question (a sheyle): may he say Kaddish for his just-deceased father in order to satisfy his mother? He asked whether he, as a freethinker, may "act against his conscience" in order to calm his grief-stricken mother. The widow knew that her son was a socialist and an apikoyres (heretic), that he never prays and does not keep the Sabbath.

282But it was terrible for her to imagine that no one would say Kaddish after her.

As he explained in his letter, it was hard for him to think that he should "act like a hypocrite" and say Kaddish. But he could not look on at the grief of his mother, who could not sleep nights over the matter.

I printed his letter, and added an editorial reply:

When he says Kaddish, this will not be any hypocrisy on his part. For he is deceiving no one. He conceals nothing from his socialist comrades. Here he is telling the whole story to everyone. And his mother he will likewise not deceive by saying Kaddish. She knows, after all, that he does not believe in it and that he is doing it only to calm her heart.

I rendered the ruling (pasak) that to free his unhappy mother from spiritual suffering is a more important duty than to observe the external form of the freethinking principle.

This article aroused a real storm against me.

Socialists were not the only ones who protested. One must bear in mind that young immigrants were mostly freethinking, full of a burning passion for freedom from religious chains — even those who, in the old country or here, did not belong to the socialist movement.

I will note here that Liessin supported me in this case, and L. Miller as well. Miller even wrote a leading article in which he defended my standpoint.

283I now come to the third kind of news features that I introduced into the "Forverts" — reforms "regarding the language of the paper and the general manner in which everything should be written."

I will again begin with an excerpt from Hillel Rogoff's sketch:

"Not with all of Cahan's policies were the opponents dissatisfied. Some of them praised these very ones to the skies. The one chiefly that pleased everyone was Cahan's reform regarding the language. Holding firmly to the principle that the 'Forverts' must become a newspaper for the great mass, Cahan demanded that the language in the 'Forverts' be a pure, genuine Yiddish.

"'Jewish Yiddish' he called it.

"In those years the writers used to use German and Hebrew words. They believed that they were writing for intellectuals, or else they had not at all kept in mind that the masses do not understand high-flown words, for which an education is required. Cahan did not let such words, which the simple worker cannot understand, into the 'Forverts.'

"He used to read every line, every word of the news, just as of the articles, and used to rewrite every difficult expression, every tangled phrase, every cumbersome word.

"He demanded above all that everything be explained plainly, easily — made clear to everyone.

"This very reform everyone praised with one voice, and this too was one of the chief reasons why the284'Forverts' at once began to gain great masses of new readers."

The number of intellectual people who read a Yiddish newspaper or a book was then very small. The Yiddish press was almost entirely for the masses, and our masses in those years were very little developed.

Why should one deceive oneself? Even today, a quarter of a century later, there are still tens of thousands of Jewish workers for whom reading does not come easily. It is, unfortunately, a fact that a great number of Jews can barely read through an article. They read over the big headlines, they snatch a line here, a line there. But to read through a whole article and understand it well, they are not able.

Naturally, the number of intellectual Jewish readers grows. Through reading itself, masses of people gradually become intelligent.^*

Today there is already a huge number of Jews who read easily; but only when the article is written easily, with ordinary words of the everyday Jewish language. And in 1902 there were such readers too, but not appreciably fewer than now.

My aim was, first, that those who can read through an article should not have any difficulties with it, and that therefore one should write in easy Jewish285"mame-loshn" (mother tongue), the natural language in which the masses speak. Second, my aim was to enlarge the number of Jewish readers in general. With the interestingness and ease of the light articles I strove to increase the desire to read. And indeed, it turned out that many people who had not read at all began to accustom themselves to reading. They had heard about the interesting things one finds in the "Forverts," so they too made an effort to read, and people who could not read taught themselves to read in order not to lag behind the "Forverts" readers.

This is what I meant by "Jewish Yiddish." The phrase became popular.

Some made it into a malicious joke. They used it as an insinuation that I "cheapen the printed word." In their opinion, a newspaper must be written in a higher language. And they shouted that I was making the newspaper language too commonplace. Such criticisms I used to hear from some of our intellectual comrades. But in just the same way our ignorant actors used to argue. They would hold forth that on the stage one must speak "Daytshmerish" (Germanized Yiddish), because Yiddish is "too coarse," that with their "Daytshmerish" they were educating the public (see the second volume, page 241).

But, as Rogoff says, most of my sharpest critics praised my "Jewish Yiddish."

"Jewish Yiddish," however, was only one part of this reform that I introduced. I demanded that every idea be made easy to understand, that it be popularized.

286I began to give a certain sort of leading articles, to which readers were even less accustomed than to the "light articles." I mean ones that have to do not with political or social questions, but with matters of daily life. Previously such a sort of reading material was unknown. The leading article was always about a political, trade-unionist, or general economic question, and often not even about a question of the day, but simply about a theoretical theme. There were even days when the theoretical leading article would end with the words: "Continuation follows."

Speaking about those "Forverts" days, A. Liessin, a few days before these lines were written, remarked: "There was no authority and no model. One column would wage war against another column in the same issue. There was a time when the one who wrote the editorials and many other articles used to draw all his ideas from a single source: a few articles by a certain writer who had once had influence in Russia, but who even there had long since been forgotten."

Often several issues would go by in a debate between a "Bernsteinian" and a "Kautskyan" over Marxist theory.

It goes without saying that the broad public, the working mass, did not begin to understand such articles and did not even try to read them.

Under my editorship there were, of course, given leading articles on political or other social questions of the day (they used to be written by Miller, Lie-287sin, Peskin, and me); but leading articles of a secular character were also often printed.

By rights this reform ought to have been designated separately, as "news feature No. 4." But one can say that it belongs to the same class as the "light articles," that is, to a general plan of bringing into the paper interests of daily life, and not confining it to political and social questions and theoretical discussions.

I chose such a sort of subject for my first leading article, which appeared in my first issue, the 16th of March, 1902 (let me mention in passing a technical change: previously the leading articles used to run in single columns, like the rest of the reading matter. I introduced that they should run in double columns, in order to distinguish them from the other articles).

For my first editorial family-affair I took the fact that masses of children from our worker-families sacrifice themselves to make their children into educated people, that they are not content with letting them go through the ordinary public school, but send them to college.

The City College of New York was already then full of Jewish boys, and the Normal College of Jewish girls, and most of these were children of poor Jewish families.

Irish, German, or American families of this class send their children to work, to help the father make a living. But Jewish families toil and keep their children at study until nineteen or twenty years of age.

And the article was written not at all in the usual leading-article style. It began with a little picture, a scene of how, after three o'clock in the afternoon, one sees on Second Avenue dozens of groups of Jewish boys,288each with a bundle of books. They walk along and chat cheerfully. They go into the tenement houses of the Jewish quarter. There is their home. Their parents are poor workers.

Then it is told how the parents save out of their own mouths in order to give their children a good education.

And the moral (sholem) of the leading article is that such parents must see to it that their children make no shameful use of their education; that they should not serve the corrupt politicians and the capitalist class, but the interests of the working class, to which their fathers belong.

The whole article was written in an easy language, with simple words. Its conclusion was a purely socialist one, and yet it read like a "light article." Its content and its form appealed to the broad public. It was read by thousands of people who never used to read leading articles.

The editorial made an impression and provoked debates. There were comrades who were dissatisfied with it. "Too light for a leading article," they said.

Next to the leading article about the Jewish workers who send their children to college, there ran in my first issue the mentioned "light article" about Christians who convert to Judaism for the sake of Jewish girls.

The third article (also mine) bore the heading "One's Own and Strangers." It consisted of289notes of various kinds: an amusing bit of news, a joke, a psychological vignette, a socialist remark about two murder trials, a love-scene. One of the notes contained the following:

"In the life of a freethinker one can mark three chapters: 1) when he passes a synagogue, he grinds his teeth; 2) when he passes a synagogue, he gives a smile; 3) when he passes a synagogue, he feels like giving a sigh that the world is still so dark; and at the same time he is interested in the moments when people stand together, absorbed in a feeling that has nothing to do with egoistic life^*.

The joke was taken from a writing of the old country. It consisted of the following:

One person asks another: "Can you name five days in a row, in whose names the word 'day' does not occur?"

The answer is: "The day before yesterday, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow." (In Yiddish: eyer-nekhtn, nekhtn, haynt, morgn, iber-morgn.)

The headline on the fourth article was: "Percentniks in the shops," and the byline was: "A. L." (A. Liessin).

Its content consists of the following: some bosses lend their workers money at bloody interest. When the worker is in great need — when his wife is ill, or it is winter and he has nothing with which to redeem his overcoat from the pawnshop — the boss lends him some-290a few dollars until "pay-day," and for those few days he charges him a dollar for a dollar.

I gave Liessin this article to write up, because I needed it for my general plan; he wanted to help me, and he wrote it up. There came out an interesting four columns, rich in content and serious, and at the same time light.

This was actually again a "light article," but of such a sort that the strictest critics of my reforms would have nothing to object to against it.

The next article was by S. Peskin under the title "Socialist Program Questions."

My second issue (March the 17th) contained a leading article against the vulgar, indecent songs that are sung in the Jewish music halls, and about how the public is taught to drink there.

At the end there is a note:

"The 'Forverts' is not an organ only for socialists. It is a socialist paper for the whole Yiddish-speaking people."

The second article is a column of notes (of a political character) by M. W. (Morris Winchevsky).

The third article is a "light article" with a comic scene from Ellis Island, where one goes to receive the "greenhorns."

Next it is explained that we want to give the readers a possibility of writing short articles. As our first theme we announce:

"What is mazl (luck)?"

The editors invite the public to send in answers to this question.

291Then comes a popular explanation of a natural-science subject, by M. Yaffe (Marcus Jaffe).

The seventh article is about the socialist cooperative store.

The leading article in my third issue (the 18th of March) shows the difference between the vulgar music halls and decent singing societies, and how one can spend one's time both with pleasure and decently. I praise the "Halevi Singing Society"^*, and I advise our socialist organizations to introduce singing groups as well.

At the end of this editorial there are two notes — one a reminder that it is the 18th of March, the day on which the Commune fell in Paris. The second note contains the following words:

"About eight years ago, while America and the whole world were hearing about our Jewish workers' movement in New York, it was quiet among the Jews in Russia. Now the Jewish artisans are playing a remarkable role in the freedom struggle of Russia, and here in America it is quiet."

The note touches on the "Bund" (articles about the "Bund" — by A. Liessin — could be found in the "Forverts" already several months earlier).

Second article — "One's Own and Strangers" (original belletristic sketches and interesting little items from newspapers).

Third article — about Jewish young men who bring292over from Russia their brides or wives (two columns full of interesting facts).

Fourth article — "They flatter the bosses" (about a worker who organized a collection in the shop to buy a watch for the boss for his birthday. Types of workers who are loyal union men, and when there is a strike, and who become lackeys to the bosses when the strike ends).

Fifth article — a survey (without a byline) of the latest issue of "Der Yud" (The Jew)^*. It is mentioned that in it there is a poem by A. Liessin, a Kasrilevke story by Sholem Aleichem (a melamed says what he would do if he were a Rothschild), and "The Teacher," a story by Abraham Reisen.

Seventh article — about the talented Russian writer Amfiteatrov, and why he was exiled to Siberia.

The leading article in the next issue — "The Fallen Women" (about the causes that lead to prostitution) is by L. Miller. The same issue contains a story ("Dragged out of the water") by Z. Libin, and an article "Can one get along without poverty in the world?" by Ab. Cahan. In the same issue I renew my feuilletons "From one word a quart," and in the next Sabbath issue — my "Sedres" (weekly Torah portions).

293On the theme "What is mazl (luck)?" letters with answers soon began to arrive. Already in the fourth issue that I edited there are two columns with such answers (of a few lines each), and so they went on every day.

It had been explained earlier that, after the "contest" was closed, the readers would vote on which answer was the best.

The contest aroused a great interest. Everywhere people talked about it, compared the answers, marked them down, prepared for the voting.

Against such a task the comrades, naturally, did not protest. For it had a connection with the question about superstition, and also with private enterprise and profit on the one hand, and socialism on the other. At the same time, however, it was a pastime, and the interest was an interest in a word that is used every minute.

I remember how a comrade said to me:

— Do you think I don't understand? You are ostensibly giving the readers an opportunity to write their opinions about a serious question. But in truth you have in mind that there should be a commotion and that readers should be added.

— And if so, is it costing you your grandmother's inheritance?

— another comrade who was standing by defended me — as long as the public takes an interest in such an important question.

The contest ended at the beginning of April. On the sixth of April the result was announced.

294The greatest number of votes was received by A. Wishnewski, of 63 East 3rd Street, New York. His answer was:

"Mazl is the misfortune of another."

This was the shortest of all the answers.

As the second-best answer was recognized the following (by Boylin, Atlantic City):

"Mazl is the opposite of brains, the excuse of the rich, the patience of the poor, the weapon of religion, the lazy man's coat of arms, an old-fashioned plague upon weak minds."

As the next theme I announced: "How I freed myself from superstition."

In a special note it was explained that each person should tell how he came to reason, and what happened in the process.

This theme too aroused a great interest. It was, naturally, confined to the more intellectual readers, and yet interesting answers came in from quite ordinary workers as well.

I wrote leading articles in which I preached civilized manners at the table. I explained that a woman should understand how to dress, and I wrote special articles to show that not only may one write about such things in a socialist newspaper, but that it is very important to write about them.

One leading article of mine bore the heading "Handkerchiefs" (fatsheylkes). It was addressed to mothers — that before they send the children off to school, they should295provide them with clean, fresh handkerchiefs. The article explained how important it is to raise them in a tidy home, with tidy habits.

Many of the comrades used to ask: how do such questions belong in leading articles?

About the article "Handkerchiefs" I received a letter, with a protest, asking why I occupy a socialist newspaper with such things. I reprinted the letter and set under it a question: "Since when is socialism against clean noses?"

Once I received a letter from a Jewish pupil at a high school (gymnasium). He complained about the uncivilized conduct in his father's house at meals. There were no plates. They all ate from one bowl. (The family had immigrated from a Romanian village far from any town.) Thus he had been raised. But now he sees how primitive this is. He visits his comrades, and at their homes people conduct themselves in a civilized manner. So he suffers pain from his uncivilized home. His father bleeds himself white to give him an education. Yet, when he begs of him that each should eat from a separate plate, the father shouts at him for wanting to teach him, his father, derekh-eretz (good manners).

The father was an enthusiastic adherent of the "Forverts." And the boy was certain that a word from us would have an effect on him. So he begged me to write in the "Forverts" a few lines to his father and advise him to introduce plates.

Earlier, before my "news features" had been introduced into the "Forverts," it would not have occurred to the boy at all to write to us about such things. How does that belong in a socialist newspaper? But now he felt296that one should turn precisely to the editor of the "Forverts" with such matters.

I wrote up a leading article about it. I gave the father a compliment for the education he was giving his son; and then pointed to the progress of each younger generation, and with very friendly words appealed to him to allow plates to be bought.

A few weeks later I received from the boy a letter with the warmest expressions of gratitude, for plates had already been introduced in the home. Then I wrote up a leading article with the heading: "Plates in the home already!" The story made a furor. Everywhere people talked about it. And indirectly it had a civilizing effect on many other little-developed families.

To give articles that would be interesting to read for our masses, to see to it that the language be a simple, easy "Jewish Yiddish," and that everything be written popularly — all this had been my principle already as editor of the "Arbeiter Zeitung" (see the third volume, page 47 and page 198).

Even "light articles" I had in it too, chiefly in 1895, when I introduced the series "From a Hester Street Reporter" (see the third volume, page 409–410). There I described the dancing schools, for example. Yet these articles aroused no dissatisfaction among our comrades. But then this was the only sort of such articles, whereas now, in 1902, the "light articles" were part of a whole system. In any case, in 1895 I297had not systematically preached tolerance toward religious people. And this sort of article now aroused more dissatisfaction than all the light articles put together.

I was seven years older, and in those seven years I had learned a great deal.