Jagello was elected.
The leading men in Russian Poland, who, as a matter of fact, through the
whole new century, had fought against the Jews, although secretly, for
fear they should forfeit the sympathy of the intellectual aristocracy of
Europe, used this electoral victory of the Jews, which had been forced
upon them, to throw off the mask and openly act as their passionate
enemies. The so-called co-operative movement developed during the last
twelve years, and in itself nothing but a fight against the Jewish
commerce, under a different name, now changed into a systematic and
cruelly effected boycotting of the Jewish population. In private as in
public life, the openly pronounced password was: not to buy from Jews,
not to associate with Jews.
At the head of this movement marched the intelligence of Poland, among
others some of its most famous authors, avowed free thinkers as
Nemojewski, nay, as Alexander Swientochowski. Literary life presents
many changes, metamorphoses, which in thoroughness are not very much
inferior to those of Ovid. A good deal is necessary to make one who for
one-half century has witnessed the want of character among writers feel
even the slightest surprise. But I should willingly have sworn that I
should never have lived to see Alexander Swientochowski a nationalist,
he the most uncompromising adversary of nationalism, who endured a good
deal for his conviction, to see the poet of "Chawa Rubin" an
anti-Semitic chief.
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