Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/109

Rh fields of endeavour which suit them best and would greatly benefit the country by furthering the process of its industrialisation. Under present circumstances they are crowded in one place and overburden the commerce and the industry of the Pale of Settlement. As a result, the struggle for existence among them is so keen and desperate that in some sections they are undoubtedly on the way to degeneration. In the West, Galicia and Roumania excluded, the Jews are well represented in the wealthy classes; in Russia an overwhelming portion of them are proletaries, "free like birds," poverty-stricken people who literally do not know to-day by what they are going to live to-morrow. Heart-rending pictures are painted by impartial observers of the life of the Jewish poorer classes, of all these tradesmen, factory workers, petty merchants and peddlers. They literally starve and cripple both mind and body in the slums of cities and towns. The natural result is that in their eager search for means of livelihood they are forced to have recourse to all sorts of expedients. Hence, all this talk about the "criminal features" of the Jewish character and their