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Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance
Giulia Di Nunno  Bernt Øksendal
Editors

Advanced
Mathematical
Methods
for Finance
Editors
Giulia Di Nunno
Bernt Øksendal
CMA, Department of Mathematics
University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1053, Blindern 0316
Oslo, Norway
and
Norwegian School of Economics and
Business Administration
Helleveien 30
5045 Bergen, Norway
[email protected]
[email protected]

ISBN 978-3-642-18411-6 e-ISBN 978-3-642-18412-3

DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-18412-3
Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011925381

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 91Gxx, 91G10, 91G20, 91G40, 91G70, 91G80, 91B16,
91B30, 91B70, 93E11, 93E20, 60E15, 60G15, 60G22, 60G40, 60G44, 60G51, 60G57, 60G60, 60H05,
60H07, 60H10, 60H15, 60H20, 60H30, 60H40, 60J65, 60K15, 62G07, 62G08, 62M07, 62P20, 41A25,
46B70, 94Axx, 35F20, 35Q35

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting,
reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication
or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9,
1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations
are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not
imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Cover design: deblik

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Preface

The title of this volume “Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance,” AMaMeF
for short, originates from the European network of the European Science Foundation
with the same name that started its activity in 2005. The goals of its program have
been the development and the use of advanced mathematical tools for finance, from
theory to practice.
This book was born in the same spirit of the program. It presents innovations in
the mathematical methods in various research areas representing the broad spectrum
of AMaMeF itself. It covers the mathematical foundations of financial analysis,
numerical methods, and the modeling of risk. The topics selected include measures
of risk, credit contagion, insider trading, information in finance, stochastic control
and its applications to portfolio choices and liquidation, models of liquidity, pricing,
and hedging. The models presented are based on the use of Brownian motion, Lévy
processes and jump diffusions. Moreover, fractional Brownian motion and ambit
processes are also introduced at various levels. The chosen blending of topics gives
a large view of the up-to-date frontiers of the mathematics for finance. This volume
represents the joint work of European experts in the various fields and linked to the
program AMaMeF.
After five years of activity, AMaMeF has reached many of its goals, among which
the creation and enhancement of the relationships among European research teams
in the sixteen participating countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden,
Switzerland, Turkey, and United Kingdom.
We are grateful to all the researchers and practitioners in the financial industry
for their valuable input to the program and for having participated to the proposed
activities, either conferences, or workshops, or exchange research visits these may
have been. We are also grateful to Carole Mabrouk for her administrative assistance.
It was an honor to be chairing this program during these years and to have
worked together with an engaged team as the AMaMeF Steering Committee, whose
members, in addition to ourselves, have been (in alphabetic order): Ole Barndorff-
Nielsen, Tomas Björk, Vasili Brinzanescu, Mark Davis, Arnoldo Frigessi, Lane
Hughston, Hayri Körezlioglu, Claudia Klüppelberg, Damien Lamberton, Marco

v
vi Preface

Papi, Benedetto Piccoli, Uwe Schmock, Christoph Schwab, Mete Soner, Peter
Spreij, Lukasz Stettner, Johan Tysk, Esko Valkeila, and Michèle Vanmaele. We
thank them all for the important work done together and the cooperative and friendly
atmosphere.

Oslo Giulia Di Nunno

30th August 2010 Bernt Øksendal
Contents

1 Dynamic Risk Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Beatrice Acciaio and Irina Penner
2 Ambit Processes and Stochastic Partial Differential Equations . . . . 35
Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen, Fred Espen Benth, and Almut E.D. Veraart
3 Fractional Processes as Models in Stochastic Finance . . . . . . . . . 75
Christian Bender, Tommi Sottinen, and Esko Valkeila
4 Credit Contagion in a Long Range Dependent Macroeconomic
Factor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Francesca Biagini, Serena Fuschini, and Claudia Klüppelberg
5 Modelling Information Flows in Financial Markets . . . . . . . . . . 133
Dorje C. Brody, Lane P. Hughston, and Andrea Macrina
6 An Overview of Comonotonicity and Its Applications in Finance
and Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Griselda Deelstra, Jan Dhaene, and Michèle Vanmaele
7 A General Maximum Principle for Anticipative Stochastic Control
and Applications to Insider Trading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Giulia Di Nunno, Olivier Menoukeu Pamen, Bernt Øksendal, and
Frank Proske
8 Analyticity of the Wiener–Hopf Factors and Valuation of Exotic
Options in Lévy Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Ernst Eberlein, Kathrin Glau, and Antonis Papapantoleon
9 Optimal Liquidation of a Pairs Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Erik Ekström, Carl Lindberg, and Johan Tysk
10 A PDE-Based Approach for Pricing Mortgage-Backed Securities . . 257
Marco Papi and Maya Briani

vii
viii Contents

11 Nonparametric Methods for Volatility Density Estimation . . . . . . 293

Bert van Es, Peter Spreij, and Harry van Zanten
12 Fractional Smoothness and Applications in Finance . . . . . . . . . . 313
Stefan Geiss and Emmanuel Gobet
13 Liquidity Models in Continuous and Discrete Time . . . . . . . . . . 333
Selim Gökay, Alexandre F. Roch, and H. Mete Soner
14 Some New BSDE Results for an Infinite-Horizon Stochastic Control
Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Ying Hu and Martin Schweizer
15 Functionals Associated with Gradient Stochastic Flows and
Nonlinear SPDEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
B. Iftimie, M. Marinescu, and C. Vârsan
16 Pricing and Hedging of Rating-Sensitive Claims Modeled
by F-doubly Stochastic Markov Chains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Jacek Jakubowski and Mariusz Niew˛egłowski
17 Exotic Derivatives under Stochastic Volatility Models with Jumps . . 455
Aleksandar Mijatović and Martijn Pistorius
18 Asymptotics of HARA Utility from Terminal Wealth
under Proportional Transaction Costs with Decision Lag
or Execution Delay and Obligatory Diversification . . . . . . . . . . 509
Lukasz Stettner
Chapter 1
Dynamic Risk Measures

Beatrice Acciaio and Irina Penner

Abstract This paper gives an overview of the theory of dynamic convex risk mea-
sures for random variables in discrete-time setting. We summarize robust repre-
sentation results of conditional convex risk measures, and we characterize various
time consistency properties of dynamic risk measures in terms of acceptance sets,
penalty functions, and by supermartingale properties of risk processes and penalty
functions.

Keywords Dynamic convex risk measure · Robust representation · Penalty

function · Time consistency · Entropic risk measure

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010) 91B30 · 91B16

1.1 Introduction
Risk measures are quantitative tools developed to determine minimum capital re-
serves that are required to be maintained by financial institutions in order to ensure
their financial stability. An axiomatic analysis of risk assessment in terms of capital
requirements was initiated by Artzner, Delbaen, Eber, and Heath [2, 3], who intro-
duced coherent risk measures. Föllmer and Schied [23] and Frittelli and Rosazza

Financial support from the European Science Foundation (ESF) “Advanced Mathematical
Methods for Finance” (AMaMeF) under the exchange grant 2281 and hospitality of Vienna
University of Technology are gratefully acknowledged by B. Acciaio.
I. Penner was supported by the DFG Research Center M ATHEON “Mathematics for key
technologies.” Financial support from the European Science Foundation (ESF) “Advanced
Mathematical Methods for Finance” (AMaMeF) under the short visit grant 2854 is gratefully
acknowledged.
B. Acciaio ()
Department of Economy, Finance and Statistics, University of Perugia, Via A. Pascoli 20,
06123 Perugia, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

I. Penner
Institut für Mathematik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin,
Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

G. Di Nunno, B. Øksendal (eds.), Advanced Mathematical Methods for Finance, 1

DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-18412-3_1, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
2 B. Acciaio and I. Penner

Gianin [25] replaced subadditivity and positive homogeneity by convexity in the

set of axioms and established the more general concept of a convex risk measure.
Since then, convex and coherent risk measures and their applications have attracted
a growing interest both in mathematical finance research and among practitioners.
One of the most appealing properties of a convex risk measure is its robustness
against model uncertainty. Under some regularity condition, it can be represented
as a suitably modified worst expected loss over a whole class of probabilistic mod-
els. This was initially observed in [3, 23, 25] in the static setting, where financial
positions are described by random variables on some probability space, and a risk
measure is a real-valued functional. For a comprehensive presentation of the theory
of static coherent and convex risk measures, we refer to Delbaen [15] and Föllmer
and Schied [24, Chap. 4].
A natural extension of a static risk measure is given by a conditional risk measure,
which takes into account the information available at the time of risk assessment.
As its static counterpart, a conditional convex risk measure can be represented as
the worst conditional expected loss over a class of suitably penalized probability
measures; see [6, 12, 18, 26, 29, 34, 37]. In the dynamical setting described by some
filtered probability space, risk assessment is updated over the time in accordance
with the new information. This leads to the notion of dynamic risk measure, which
is a sequence of conditional risk measures adapted to the underlying filtration.
A crucial question in the dynamical framework is how risk evaluations at differ-
ent times are interrelated. Several notions of time consistency were introduced and
studied in the literature. One of today’s most used notions is strong time consistency,
which corresponds to the dynamic programming principle; see [4, 7, 12, 13, 16–18,
22, 26, 29] and references therein. As shown in [7, 16, 22], strong time consistency
can be characterized by additivity of the acceptance sets and penalty functions, and
also by a supermartingale property of the risk process and the penalty function pro-
cess. Similar characterizations of the weaker notions of time consistency, so-called
rejection and acceptance consistency, were given in [19, 33]. Rejection consistency,
also called prudence in [33], seems to be a particularly suitable property from the
point of view of a regulator, since it ensures that one always stays on the safe side
when updating risk assessment. The weakest notions of time consistency considered
in the literature are weak acceptance and weak rejection consistency, which require
that if some position is accepted (or rejected) for any scenario tomorrow, it should
be already accepted (or rejected) today; see [4, 9, 35, 41, 43].
As pointed out in [21, 28], risk assessment in the multiperiod setting should also
account for uncertainty about the time value of money. This requires to consider en-
tire cash flow processes rather than total amounts at terminal dates as risky objects,
and it leads to a further extension of the notion of risk measure. Risk measures for
processes were studied in [1, 4, 10–13, 27, 28, 34]. The new feature in this frame-
work is that not only the amounts but also the timing of payments matters; cf. [1, 12,
13, 28]. However, as shown in [4] in the static and in [1] in the dynamical setting,
risk measures for processes can be identified with risk measures for random vari-
ables on an appropriate product space. This allows a natural translation of results
obtained in the framework of risk measures for random variables to the framework
of processes; see [1].
1 Dynamic Risk Measures 3

The aim of this paper it to give an overview of the current theory of dynamic
convex risk measures for random variables in discrete-time setting; the correspond-
ing results for risk measures for processes are given in [1]. The paper is organized
as follows. Section 1.2 recalls the definition of a conditional convex risk measure
and its interpretation as the minimal capital requirement from [18]. Section 1.3 sum-
marizes robust representation results from [8, 18, 22]. In Sect. 1.4 we first give an
overview of different time consistency properties based on [40]. Then we focus on
the strong notion of time consistency in Sect. 1.4.1, and we characterize it by su-
permartingale properties of risk processes and penalty functions. The results of this
subsection are mainly based on [22], with the difference that here we give charac-
terizations of time consistency also in terms of absolutely continuous probability
measures, similar to [8]. In addition, we relate the martingale property of a risk
process with the worst-case measure, and we provide explicit forms of the Doob
and Riesz decompositions of the penalty function process. Section 1.4.2 generalizes
[33, Sects. 2.4 and 2.5] and characterizes rejection and acceptance consistency in
terms of acceptance sets, penalty functions, and, in case of rejection consistency, by
a supermartingale property of risk processes and one-step penalty functions. Sec-
tion 1.4.3 recalls characterizations of weak time consistency from [9, 41, 43], and
Sect. 1.4.4 characterizes the recursive construction of time consistent risk measures
suggested in [12, 13]. Finally, the dynamic entropic risk measure with a nonconstant
risk aversion parameter is studied in Sect. 1.5.

1.2 Setup and Notation

Let T ∈ N ∪ {∞} be the time horizon, T := {0, . . . , T } for T < ∞, and T := N0
for T = ∞. We consider a discrete-time setting given by a filtered probability space
(Ω, F , (Ft )t∈T , P ) with F0 = {∅, Ω}, F = FT for T < ∞, and F = σ ( t≥0 Ft )
for T = ∞. For t ∈ T, L∞ ∞
t := L (Ω, Ft , P ) is the space of all essentially bounded
Ft -measurable random variables, and L∞ := L∞ (Ω, FT , P ). All equalities and in-
equalities between random variables and between sets are understood to hold P -
almost surely, unless stated otherwise. We denote by M1 (P ) (resp. by Me (P )) the
set of all probability measures on (Ω, F ) that are absolutely continuous with respect
to P (resp. equivalent to P ).
In this work we consider risk measures defined on the set L∞ , which is un-
derstood as the set of discounted terminal values of financial positions. In the dy-
namical setting, a conditional risk measure ρt assigns to each terminal payoff X
an Ft -measurable random variable ρt (X) that quantifies the risk of the position X
given the information Ft . A rigorous definition of a conditional convex risk measure
was given in [18, Definition 2].

Definition 1.1 A map ρt : L∞ → L∞ t is called a conditional convex risk measure

if it satisfies the following properties for all X, Y ∈ L∞ :
(i) Conditional cash invariance: For all mt ∈ L∞
t ,

ρt (X + mt ) = ρt (X) − mt ;
4 B. Acciaio and I. Penner

(ii) Monotonicity: X ≤ Y ⇒ ρt (X) ≥ ρt (Y );

(iii) Conditional convexity: for all λ ∈ L∞t , 0 ≤ λ ≤ 1,
 
ρt λX + (1 − λ)Y ≤ λρt (X) + (1 − λ)ρt (Y );

(iv) Normalization: ρt (0) = 0.

A conditional convex risk measure is called a conditional coherent risk measure if
it has in addition the following property:
(v) Conditional positive homogeneity: for all λ ∈ L∞
t , λ ≥ 0,

ρt (λX) = λρt (X).

In the dynamical framework one can also analyze risk assessment for cumulated
cash flow processes rather than just for terminal payoffs, i.e., one can consider a
risk measure that accounts not only for the amounts but also for the timing of pay-
ments. Such risk measures were studied in [1, 10–13, 27, 28]. As shown in [4] in
the static and in [1] in the dynamical setting, convex risk measures for processes
can be identified with convex risk measures for random variables on an appropriate
product space. This allows one to extend results obtained in our present setting to
the framework of processes; cf. [1].
If ρt is a conditional convex risk measure, the function φt := −ρt defines a con-
ditional monetary utility function in the sense of [12, 13]. The term “monetary”
refers to conditional cash invariance of the utility function, the only property in
Definition 1.1 that does not come from the classical utility theory. Conditional cash
invariance is a natural request in view of the interpretation of ρt as a conditional
capital requirement. In order to formalize this aspect, we first recall the notion of
the acceptance set of a conditional convex risk measure ρt :
  
At := X ∈ L∞  ρt (X) ≤ 0 .

The following properties of the acceptance set were given in [18, Proposition 3].

Proposition 1.2 The acceptance set At of a conditional convex risk measure ρt is

1. conditionally convex, i.e., αX + (1 − α)Y ∈ At for all X, Y ∈ At and
Ft -measurable α such that 0 ≤ α ≤ 1;
2. solid, i.e., Y ∈ At whenever Y ≥ X for some X ∈ At ;
3. such that 0 ∈ At and ess inf{X ∈ L∞
t | X ∈ At } = 0.
Moreover, ρt is uniquely determined through its acceptance set, since
  
ρt (X) = ess inf Y ∈ L∞  X + Y ∈ At . (1.1)
t

Conversely, if some set At ⊆ L∞ satisfies conditions (1)–(3), then the functional

ρt : L∞ → L∞ t defined via (1.1) is a conditional convex risk measure.

Proof Properties (1)–(3) of the acceptance set follow easily from properties (i)–(iv)
in Definition 1.1. To prove (1.1), note that by cash invariance ρt (X) + X ∈ At for
1 Dynamic Risk Measures 5

all X, and this implies “≥” in (1.1). On the other hand, for all Z ∈ {Y ∈ L∞
t |
X + Y ∈ At }, we have

0 ≥ ρt (Z + X) = ρt (X) − Z,

and thus ρt (X) ≤ ess inf{Y ∈ L∞t | X + Y ∈ At }.

For the proof of the last part of the assertion, we refer to [18, Proposition 3]. 

Due to (1.1), the value ρt (X) can be viewed as the minimal conditional capital
requirement needed to be added to the position X in order to make it acceptable at
time t. Moreover, (1.1) can be used to define risk measures; cf. Example 1.8.

1.3 Robust Representation

As observed in [3, 24, 25] in the static setting, the axiomatic properties of a convex
risk measure yield, under some regularity condition, a representation of the min-
imal capital requirement as a suitably modified worst expected loss over a whole
class of probabilistic models. In the dynamical setting, such robust representations
of conditional coherent risk measures were obtained in [6, 8, 18, 22, 29, 37] for
random variables and in [12, 34] for stochastic processes. In this section we mainly
summarize the results from [8, 18, 22].
The alternative probability measures in a robust representation of a risk measure
ρt contribute to the risk evaluation to a different degree. To formalize this aspect, we
use the notion of the minimal penalty function αtmin , defined for each Q ∈ M1 (P )
as
αtmin (Q) = Q-ess sup EQ [−X|Ft ]. (1.2)
X∈At

The following property of the minimal penalty function is a standard result that
will be used in the proof of Theorem 1.4.

Lemma 1.3 For Q ∈ M1 (P ) and 0 ≤ s ≤ t,

 
EQ αtmin (Q)Fs = Q-ess sup EQ [−Y |Fs ] Q-a.s.
Y ∈At

and in particular

EQ αtmin (Q) = sup EQ [−Y ].
Y ∈At

Proof First we claim that the set

  
EQ [−X|Ft ]  X ∈ At
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than the possible best, and never throw away the possible best
because it is not the ideal best.” Maxims, those, for the young man
who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Happily for the
world, the young man who does not is rare.
 JACOB VAN DER ZEE
“The Hollanders of Iowa,” by Jacob Van der Zee, was
published at Iowa City in 1912 by the State Historical
Society of Iowa. The following facts regarding the author
and his book are given in the introduction of the editor,
Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh:—
“The author of this volume on ‘The Hollanders of Iowa’
was admirably fitted for the task. Born of Dutch parents in
The Netherlands and reared among kinsfolk in Iowa, he
has been a part of the life which is portrayed in these
pages. At the same time Mr. Van der Zee’s education at
The State University of Iowa, his three years’ residence at
Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and his research work in The
State Historical Society of Iowa have made it possible for
him to study the Hollanders objectively as well as
subjectively. Accordingly, his book is in no respect an
overdrawn, eulogistic account of the Dutch people.
“The history of the Hollanders of Iowa is not wholly
provincial: it suggests much that is typical in the
development of Iowa and in the larger history of the
West: it is ‘a story of the stubborn and unyielding fight of
men and women who overcame the obstacles of a new
country and handed down to their descendants thriving
farms and homes of peace and plenty.’”
The selection here given comprises chapter four of the
book.

WHY DUTCH EMIGRANTS TURNED TO

AMERICA
Such was the condition of things in The Netherlands that thousands
of people lived from hand to mouth, the prey of poverty and hunger,
stupefied by the hopelessness of securing the necessities of life, and
barely enabled through the gifts of the well-to-do to drag out their
wretched lives. At the same time many of these unfortunate persons
were hopeful and eager to find a place where they might obtain a
livelihood, lead quiet lives of honesty and godliness, and educate
their children in the principles of religion without let or hindrance.
The leaders of the Separatists looked forward to a life of freedom in
a land where man would not have to wait for work, but where work
awaited man, where people would not rub elbows by reason of the
density of population, and where God’s creation would welcome the
coming of man.
When social forces such as these, mostly beyond human control,
began to operate with increasing power, the Dutch people were not
slow to recognize the truth that emigration was absolutely
necessary. The seriousness of the situation dawned upon all thinking
men,—especially upon state officials, who feared that unless the
stream of emigration could be directed toward the Dutch colonies,
their country would suffer an enormous drain of capital and human
lives. Accordingly the attention of prospective emigrants was called
to the Dutch East Indies,—chiefly to the advantages of the rich
island of Java, “that paradise of the world, the pearl in Holland’s
crown.”
The religion of the Dissenters, however, was responsible for turning
the balance in favor of some other land. To them Java was a closed
door. Beside the fear of an unhealthful climate towered the certainty
of legislation hostile to their Christian principles and ideals. Moreover,
could poor men afford the expense of transportation thither, and
could they feel assured of getting land or work in Java? State
officials, men of learning, and men of business from several parts of
the country were summoned to an important conference at
Amsterdam to discuss the whole emigration movement. The
Separatist leaders were asked why they should not remain
Netherlanders under the House of Orange by removing to the
colonies just as the people of the British Isles found homes in the
English colonies. Two Separatist ministers appealed to the
government to direct the flood of emigration toward Java by
promises of civil and religious liberty. But the attempt to secure a
free Christian colony in Java produced only idle expectations.
Then it was that the people turned their eyes away from the East
toward the United States of North America,—a land of freedom and
rich blessings, where they hoped to find in its unsettled interior
some spot adaptable to agriculture, and thus rescue themselves
from the miseries of a decadent state. To the discontented,
ambitious Hollander was presented the picture of a real land of
promise, where all things would smile at him and be prepared, as it
were, to aid him. It was said that “after an ocean passage of trifling
expense the Netherlander may find work to do as soon as he sets
foot on shore; he may buy land for a few florins per acre; and feel
secure and free among a people of Dutch, German and English birth,
who will rejoice to see him come to increase the nation’s wealth.”
Asserting that they could vouch for the truthfulness of this picture,
as based on the positive assurances and experiences of friends
already in America, the Separatist clergyman-pamphleteers openly
declared that they would not hesitate to rob Holland of her best
citizens by helping them on their way to America.
Of the people and government of the United States, Scholte, who
was destined to lead hundreds of his countrymen to the State of
Iowa, at an early date cherished a highly favorable opinion, which he
expressed as follows:—
“I am convinced that a settlement in some healthful region there will
have, by the ordinary blessing of God, excellent temporal and moral
results, especially for the rising generation.... Should it then excite
much wonder that I have firmly resolved to leave The Netherlands
and together with so many Christian relatives adopt the United
States as a new fatherland?
“There I shall certainly meet with the same wickedness which
troubles me here; yet I shall find also opportunity to work. There I
shall certainly find the same, if not still greater, evidence of unbelief
and superstition; but I shall also find a constitutional provision which
does not bind my hands in the use of the Sword of the Spirit, which
is the Word of God; there I can fight for what I believe without being
disobedient to the magistrates and authorities ordained by God.
There I shall find among men the same zeal to obtain this world’s
goods; but I shall not find the same impulse to get the better of one
another, for competition is open to all; I shall not find the same
desire to reduce the wages of labor, nor the same inducement to
avoid taxation, nor the same peevishness and groaning about the
burden of taxation.
“There I shall find no Minister of Public Worship, for the separation
of Church and State is a fact. There I shall not need to contribute to
the support of pastors whose teachings I abhor. I shall find no
school commissions nor school supervisors who prohibit the use of
the Bible in schools and hinder the organization of special schools,
for education is really free. I shall find there the descendants of
earlier inhabitants of Holland, among whom the piety of our
forefathers still lives, and who are now prepared to give advice and
aid to Hollanders who are forced to come to them.”
Scholte, however, never claimed to be a refugee from the oppression
of the Old World. He left Europe because the social, religious, and
political condition of his native country was such that, according to
his conviction, he could not with any reasonable hope of success
work for the actual benefit of honest and industrious fellow-men.
Very many members of Scholte’s emigrant association felt certain
that they and their children would sink from the middle class and
end their lives as paupers, if they remained in Holland.
Later emigration to America was in no small degree due to a cause
which has always operated in inducing people to abandon their
European homes. After a period of residence in America, Hollanders,
elated by reason of their prosperity and general change of fortune,
very naturally reported their delight to friends and relatives in the
fatherland, strongly urging them to come and share their good luck
instead of suffering from want in Holland. They wrote of higher
wages, fertile soil, cheapness of the necessities of life, abundance of
cheap land, and many other advantages. If one’s wages for a day’s
work in America equalled a week’s earnings in Holland, surely it was
worth while to leave that unfortunate country. Such favorable reports
as these were largely instrumental in turning the attention of
Hollanders to the New World as the one great land of opportunity.
 EDWARD BOK
Although it was impossible to include in this volume
selections from “The Americanization of Edward Bok,”
recently published, it seems that some mention should be
made of this delightfully reminiscent autobiography and of
its author, who came to this country in 1870 as a little
Dutch boy of six years.
There are entertaining chapters on his passion for
collecting autographs from famous people, on his visit to
Boston and Cambridge to see Holmes and Longfellow and
Emerson, on his relations with prominent statesmen and
other notable men of his time, and on his experiences as
editor of an influential and successful magazine; but most
pertinent to the purpose of this work are the last two
chapters of the book, “Where America Fell Short with Me,”
and “What I Owe to America,” which should be read by all
those actively interested in the Americanization of the
foreign-born. In the first of these he points out that
America failed to teach him thrift or economy; that the
importance of doing a task thoroughly, the need of quality
rather than quantity, was not inculcated; that the public
school fell short in its responsibility of seeing that he, a
foreign-born boy, acquired the English language correctly;
that he was not impressed with a wholesome and proper
respect for law and authority; and that, at the most critical
time, when he came to exercise the right of suffrage, the
State offered him no enlightenment or encouragement.
Yet, in spite of all this, he is able to say: “Whatever
shortcomings I may have found during my fifty-year
period of Americanization; however America may have
failed to help my transition from a foreigner into an
American, I owe to her the most priceless gift that any
nation can offer, and that is opportunity.”
 OSCAR SOLOMON STRAUS
Oscar S. Straus, formerly United States Ambassador to
Turkey, was born in Bavaria. Besides the degree A.B. from
Columbia University, he has received honorary degrees
from various institutions. He was appointed a member of
the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, 1902,
and Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of
President Roosevelt, and has held many other prominent
positions in civil and political affairs.
His chief writings are: “The Origin of Republican Form of
Government in the United States,” 1886; “Roger Williams,
the Pioneer of Religious Liberty,” 1894; “The American
Spirit,” a collection of various addresses, published in one
volume by the Century Company in 1893. The address
selected for quotation here is that delivered at the
banquet of the American Hebrew Congregations, in New
York, January 18, 1911.

AMERICA AND THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN

JUDAISM
The spirit of American Judaism first asserted itself when Stuyvesant,
the Governor of New Amsterdam, would not permit the few Jews
who had emigrated from Portugal to unite with the other burghers in
standing guard for the protection of their homes. When the tax-
collector came to Asser Levy to demand a tax on this account, he
asked whether that tax was imposed on all the residents of New
Amsterdam. “No,” was the reply, “it is only imposed upon the Jews,
because they do not stand guard!” “I have not asked to be
exempted,” replied Asser Levy. “I am not only willing, but I demand
the right to stand guard.” That right the Jews have asserted and
exercised as officers in the ranks of the Continental Army and in
every crisis of our national history from that time until the present
day.
The American spirit and the spirit of American Judaism were
nurtured in the same cradle of Liberty, and were united in origin, in
ideals, and in historical development. The closing chapter of the
chronicles of the Jews on the Iberian peninsula forms the opening
chapter of their history on this Continent. It was Luis Santangel, “the
Beaconsfield of his time,” assisted by his kinsman Gabriel Sanches,
the Royal Treasurer of Aragon, who advanced out of his own purse
seventeen thousand florins which made the voyages of Columbus
possible. Luis de Torres, the interpreter as well as the surgeon and
the physician of the little fleet, and several of the sailors who were
with Columbus on his first voyage, as shown by the record, were
Jews.
Looking back through this vista of more than four centuries, we have
reason to remember with justified gratitude the foresight and signal
services of those Spanish Jews who had the wisdom to divine the
far-reaching possibilities of the plans of the great navigator, whom
the King and the Queen, the Dukes and the Grandees united in
regarding as merely “a visionary babbler” or, worse than this, as “a
scheming adventurer.” The royal patrons were finally won over by
the hope that Columbus might discover new treasures of gold and
precious stones to enrich the Spanish crown. But not so with the
Jewish patrons, who caused Columbus, or, as he was then called,
Christopher Colon, to be recalled, and who, without security and
without interest, advanced the money to fit out his caravels, since
they saw, as by divine inspiration, the promise and possibility of the
discovery of another world, which, in the words of the late Emilio
Castelar—the historian, statesman, and one time President of Spain
—“would afford to the quickening principles of human liberty a
temple reared to the God of enfranchised and redeemed conscience,
a land that would offer an unstained abode to the ideals of
progress.” Fortunately, the records of these transactions are still
preserved in the archives of Simancas in Seville.
It is idle to speculate upon hypothetical theories in the face of the
facts of history. Of course, America would have been discovered and
colonized had Columbus never lived; but had the streams of the
beginnings of American history flown from other sources in other
directions, it would be futile even to make an imaginative forecast of
the effect they would have produced upon the history and
development of this Continent. The merciless intolerance of an
ecclesiastical system and the horror of its persecutions stimulated
the earliest immigration, and subsequently brought about the
Reformation in Saxon and Anglo-Saxon lands, and the same spirit
drove to our shores the Pilgrim and the Puritan fathers; which chain
of circumstances destined this country from the very beginning to be
the land of the immigrant and a home for the fugitive and the
persecuted.
The difference between government by kings and nobles and
government under a Democracy is, that the former rests upon the
power to compel obedience, while the latter rests essentially upon
the sacrifice by the individual for the community, based upon the
ideals of right and justice. If the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the
Huguenots brought with them, as they certainly did, the
remembrance of sufferings for ideals and the spirit of sacrifice, how
much longer was that remembrance, and with how much greater
intensity did that spirit glow in the souls of the Jews, whose whole
history is a record of martyrdom, of suffering, and of sacrifice for the
ideals of civil and religious liberty; concerning whom it has been
said: “Of all the races and nations of mankind which quarter the
arms of Liberty on the shields of their honor, none has a better title
to that decoration than the Jews.”
The spirit of Judaism became the mother spirit of Puritanism in Old
England; and the history of Israel and its democratic model under
the Judges inspired and guided the Pilgrims and the Puritans in their
wandering hither and in laying the foundation of their
commonwealths in New England. The piety and learning of the Jews
bridged the chasm of the Middle Ages; and the torch they bore
amidst trials and sufferings lighted the pathway from the ancient to
the modern world.
“The historical power of the prophets of Israel,” says James
Darmesteter, “is exhausted neither by Judaism nor by Christianity,
and they hold a reserve force for the benefit of the coming century.
The twentieth century is better prepared than the nineteen
preceding it to understand them.” While Zionism is a pious hope and
a vision out of despair in countries where the victims of oppression
are still counted by millions, the republicanism of the United States is
the nearest approach to the ideals of the prophets of Israel that ever
has been incorporated in the form of a state. The founders of our
government converted the dreams of philosophers into a political
system,—a government by the people, for the people, whereunder
the rights of man became the rights of men, secured and
guaranteed by a written constitution. Ours is peculiarly a promised
land wherein the spirit of the teachings of the ancient prophets
inspired the work of the fathers of our country.
American liberty demands of no man the abandonment of his
conscientious convictions; on the contrary, it had its birth, not in the
narrowness of uniformity, but in the breadth of diversity, which
patriotism fuses together into a conscious harmony for the highest
welfare of all. The Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew, each and all
need the support and the sustaining power of their religion to
develop their moral natures and to keep alive the spirit of self-
sacrifice which American patriotism demands of every man,
whatever may be his creed or race, who is worthy to enjoy the
blessings of American citizenship.
I do not wish to be misunderstood as claiming any special merit for
the Jews as American citizens which is not equally possessed by the
Americans of other creeds. They have the good as well as the bad
among them, the noble and the ignoble, the worthy and the
unworthy. They have the qualities as well as the defects of their
fellow-citizens. In a word, they are not any less patriotic Americans
because they are Jews, nor any less loyal Jews because they are
primarily patriotic Americans.
The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this
continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any
race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other
aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at
the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim
Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.
 FELIX ADLER
Felix Adler, lecturer and writer on moral and ethical
subjects, was born in Alzey, Germany, in 1851. He
received the degree A.B. from Columbia University, and
continued his studies at Berlin and at the University of
Heidelberg. From 1874 to 1876 he was professor of
Hebrew at Cornell University. Since 1902 he has been
professor of political and social ethics at Columbia. He has
produced numerous works on moral and ethical topics. In
1915 there was published his book, “The World Crisis and
its Meaning,” the third chapter of which is here quoted in
part.
Adler’s keen interest in international ethics has been
expressed in several addresses delivered before the New
York Society of Ethical Culture, which was founded by him
in 1876. Among other things he pleads for altruism among
the nations, and truthfulness, and believes in a purified
nationalism instead of anti- or inter-nationalism.

THE AMERICAN IDEAL

The American ideal is that of the uncommon quality latent in the
common man. Necessarily it is an ethical ideal, a spiritual ideal;
otherwise it would be nonsense. For, taking men as they are, they
are assuredly not equal. The differences between them, on the
contrary, are glaring. The common man is not uncommonly fine
spiritually, but rather, seen from the outside, “uncommonly”
common. It is therefore an ethical instinct that has turned the
people toward this ethical conception.
It is true that in Germany and in England, side by side with the
efficiency and the mastery ideals, there has always existed this same
spiritual or religious ideal; side by side with the stratification and
entitulation of men, the labelling of them as lower and higher, as
empirically better or worse, there has always been the recognition
that men are equal,—equal, that is to say, in church, but not outside,
equal in the hereafter, but not in this life. If we would fathom the
real depth and inner significance of the democratic ideal as it
slumbers or dreams in the heart of America, rather than as yet
explicit, we must say that it is an ideal which seeks to overcome this
very dualism, seeks to take the spiritual conception of human
equality out of the church and put it into the market place, to take it
from far off celestial realms for realization upon this earth. For men
are not equal in the empirical sense; they are equal only in the
spiritual sense, equal only in the sense that the margin of
achievement of which any person is capable, be it wide or narrow, is
infinitesimal compared with his infinite spiritual possibilities.
It is because of this subconscious ethical motive that there is this
generous air of expectation in America, that we are always
wondering what will happen next, or who will happen next. Will
another Emerson come along? Will another Lincoln come along? We
do not know. But this we know, that the greatest lusters of our past
already tend to fade in our memory, not because we are irreverent,
but because nothing that the past has accomplished can content us;
because we are looking for greatness beyond greatness, truth
beyond truth ever yet spoken. The Germans have a legend that in
their hour of need an ancient emperor will arise out of the tomb
where he slumbers to stretch his protecting hand over the
Fatherland. We Americans, too, have the belief that, if ever such an
hour comes for us, there will arise spirits clothed in human flesh
amongst us sufficient for our need, but spirits that will come, as it
were, out of the future to meet our advancing host and lead it, not
ghosts out of the storied past. For America differs from all other
nations in that it derives its inspiration from the future. Every other
people has some culture, some civilization, handed down from the
past, of which it is the custodian, and which it seeks to develop. The
American people have no such single tradition. They are dedicated,
not to the preservation of what has been, but to the creation of
what never has been. They are the prophets of the future, not the
priests of the past.
I have spoken above of ideals, of what is fine in a nation, of fine
tendencies. The idea which a people has of itself, like the idea which
an individual has of himself, often does not tally with the reality. If
we look at the realities of American life,—and, on the principle of
corruptio optimi pessima, we should be prepared for what we see,—
we are dismayed to observe in actual practice what seems like a
monstrous caricature,—not democracy, but plutocracy; kings
expelled and the petty political bosses in their stead; merciless
exploitation of the economically weak,—a precipitate reduction of
wages, for instance, at the first signs of approaching depression, in
advance of what is required,—instead of respect for the sacred
personality of human beings, the utmost disrespect. Certainly the
nation needs strong and persistent ethical teaching in order to make
it aware of its better self and of what is implied in the political
institutions which it has founded.
But ethical teaching alone will not suffice. It must be admitted that a
danger lurks in the idea of equality itself. The danger is that
differences in refinement, in culture, in intellectual ability and
attainments are apt to be insufficiently emphasized; that the
untutored, the uncultivated, the intellectually undeveloped, are apt
presumptuously to put themselves on a par with those of superior
development; and hence that superiority, failing to meet with
recognition, will be discouraged and democracy tend to level men
downward instead of upward. This will not be true so much of such
moral excellence as appears in an Emerson or a Lincoln,—for there is
that in the lowliest which responds to the manifestations of
transcendent moral beauty,—but it will hold good of those minor
superiorities that fall short of the highest in art and science and
conduct, yet upon the fostering of which depends the eventual
appearance of culture’s richest fruits.
In order to ward off this danger we must have a new and larger
educational policy in our schools than has yet been put in practice.
Vocational training in its broadest and deepest sense will be our
greatest aid.
Democracy, the American democracy, is the St. Christopher. St.
Christopher bore the Christ child on his shoulders as he stepped into
the river, and the child was as light as a feather. But it became
heavier and heavier as he entered the stream, until he was well nigh
borne down by it. So we, in the heyday of 1776, stepped into the
stream with the infant Democracy on our shoulders, and it was light
as a feather’s weight; but it is becoming heavier and heavier the
deeper we are getting into the stream—heavier and heavier. When
we began, there were four or five millions. Now there are ninety
millions. Heavier and heavier! And there are other millions coming.
When we began we were a homogeneous people; now there are
those twenty-three languages spoken in a single school. And with
this vast multitude, and this heterogeneous population, we are trying
the most difficult experiment that has ever been attempted in the
world,—trying to invest with sovereignty the common man. There
has been the sovereignty of kings, and now and then a king has
done well. There has been the sovereignty of aristocracies, and now
and then an English aristocracy or a Venetian aristocracy has done
well—though never wholly well. And now we are imposing this most
difficult task of government, which depends on the recognition of
excellence in others, so that the best may rule in our behalf, on the
shoulders of the multitude. These are our difficulties. But our
difficulties are also our opportunities. This land is the Promised Land.
It is that not only in the sense in which the word is commonly taken
—that is to say, a haven for the disadvantaged of other countries, a
land whither the oppressed may come to repair their fortunes and
breathe freely and achieve material independence. That is but one
side of the promise. In that sense the Anglo-American native
population is the host, extending hospitality, the benefactor of the
immigrants. But this is also the land of promise for the native
population themselves, in order that they may be penetrated by the
influence of what is best in the newcomers, in order that their too
narrow horizon may be widened, in order that their stiffened mental
bent may become more flexible; that festivity, pageant and song
may be added to their life by the newcomers; that echoes of ancient
prophecy may inspire the matter-of-fact, progressive movements,
so-called, of our day.
America is the Wonderland, hid for ages in the secret of the sea,
then revealed. At first, how abused! Spanish conquerors trampled it;
it was the nesting place of buccaneers, adventurers, if also the home
of the Puritans—bad men and good men side by side. Then for
dreary centuries the home of slavery. Then the scene of prolonged
strife. And now, on the surface, the stamping ground of vulgar
plutocrats! And yet, in the hearts of the elect,—yes, and in the
hearts of the masses, too,—inarticulate and dim, there has ever
been present a fairer and nobler ideal, the ideal of a Republic built
on the uncommon fineness in the common man! To live for that
ideal is the true Americanism, the larger patriotism. To that ideal, not
on the field of battle, as in Europe, but in the arduous toil of peace,
let us be willing to give the “last full measure of devotion.”
 MARY ANTIN
With the publication in 1912 of Mary Antin’s “The
Promised Land,” a new interest was awakened in the
experiences of the foreign-born, and since then several
important autobiographies of immigrants have appeared.
Miss Antin, who was born in Polotzk, Russia, in 1881, and
came to America in 1894, was educated in the public
schools of Boston, later attending Teachers’ College and
Barnard College, Columbia University. Many an American
boy and girl is familiar with her fine tribute to the part of
the public school in her Americanization.
In 1914 she published “They Who Knock at Our Gates,” “a
complete gospel of immigration,” in which she aims to
refute the material and selfish arguments of the
restrictionists, basing her plea for a nobler and more
liberal treatment of the immigration question upon the
fundamental principles of the Declaration of
Independence. It is from this volume and “The Promised
Land” that the following selections are taken.

AN IMMIGRANT’S TRIBUTE TO THE PUBLIC

SCHOOL AND TO GEORGE WASHINGTON
The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the
country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is
mine to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be
glad to hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the
growth of your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters
from the far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting
of your armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be
glad to hear of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of
your own experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts
have felt.
How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American?
By the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth
grade. When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the
life of Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution,
and the early days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my
reading and study had been idle until then. The reader, the
arithmetic, the song book, that had so fascinated me until now,
became suddenly sober exercise books, tools wherewith to hew a
way to the source of inspiration. When the teacher read to us out of
a big book with many bookmarks in it, I sat rigid with attention in
my little chair, my hands tightly clasped on the edge of my desk; and
I painfully held my breath, to prevent sighs of disappointment
escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the parts between bookmarks.
When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice shook and the
book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the name of
George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never had
I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most Holy,
in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple
sentences of my child’s story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration at
the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see them
with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had
bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person,
parading my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with
pride when a teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew
humble all at once, seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.
As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save
himself from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of
my sins. Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the
Day of Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my
elders. I had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of
escaping punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my
teachers in Polotzk—all my world, in fact—strove together, by
example and precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new
incarnation in about every third person I knew. I did respect the
saints, but I could not help seeing that most of them were a little bit
stupid, and that mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness,
as I had known it, was respectable, but not necessarily admirable.
The people I really admired, like my Uncle Solomon and Cousin
Rachel, were those who preached the least and laughed the most.
My sister Frieda was perfectly good, but she did not think the less of
me because I played tricks. What I loved in my friends was not
inimitable. One could be downright good if one really wanted to.
One could be learned if one had books and teachers. One could sing
funny songs and tell anecdotes if one traveled about and picked up
such things, like one’s uncles and cousins. But a human being strictly
good, perfectly wise, and unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I
had never heard or dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington
was as inimitable as he was irreproachable. Even if I had never,
never told a lie, I could not compare myself to George Washington;
for I was not brave,—I was afraid to go out when snowballs whizzed,
—and I could never be the First President of the United States.
So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of
my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of
dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person
of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was
more nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and
friends who were notable people by the old standards,—and I had
never been ashamed of my family,—-but this George Washington,
who died long before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and
he and I were Fellow-Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow-
Citizens in the patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew
from my father how he was a Citizen through the process of
naturalization, and how I also was a Citizen by virtue of my relation
to him. Undoubtedly I was a Fellow-Citizen, and George Washington
was another. It thrilled me to realize what sudden greatness had
fallen on me, and at the same time sobered me, as with a sense of
responsibility. I strove to conduct myself as befitted a Fellow-Citizen.
Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and
daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a
glutton pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I
lived with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alterations of
the sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington
and the American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on
the Common after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung
on fence rails, my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off
to the yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I
was no longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the
lane crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.
What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read
how the patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their
sons to die in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing
people set up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was
meant by my country. The people all desiring noble things, and
striving for them together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives
for each other,—all this it was that made my country. It was not a
thing that I understood; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it,
as I told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could
say “my country” and feel it, as one felt “God” or “myself.” My
teacher, my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington
himself, could not mean more than I when they said “my country,”
after I had once felt it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and I
was a citizen. And when we stood up to sing “America,” I shouted
the words with all my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the
world my love for my new-found country.

“I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills.”

Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square,—all was hallowed

ground to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold
exercises in honor of Washington’s Birthday, the halls resounded at
all hours with the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model
of the attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as
I strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class
rehearsing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If the doors happened to
open, and the chorus broke out unveiled,—

“O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?”

delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with
suppressed enthusiasm.
Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What
heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been
unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was
goluth—exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to
lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the
words, “Next year, may we be in Jerusalem.” On childish lips, indeed,
those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew
syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still
not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash
of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the
spiteful treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin
who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good
reason to pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not
history to me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution
was. It was more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the
effect of cutting me off from the actual world, by linking me with a
world of phantoms. Those moments of exaltation which the
contemplation of the Biblical past afforded us, allowing us to call
ourselves the children of princes, served but to tinge with a more
poignant sense of disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our
life. In very truth we were a people without a country. Surrounded
by mocking foes and detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the
persons of my people’s heroes or the events in which they moved.
Except in moments of abstraction from the world around me, I
scarcely understood that Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth,
where once the Kings of the Bible, real people, like my neighbors in
Polotzk, ruled in puissant majesty. For the conditions of our civil life
did not permit us to cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of
worship that was grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the
Pale by no means included the right to set up openly any ideal of a
Hebrew State, any hero other than the Czar. What we children
picked up of our ancient political history was confused with the
miraculous story of the Creation, with the supernatural legends and
hazy associations of Bible lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk
had no national expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and
there hoped to die in Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my
father, first making sure of our audience, “Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not
forever is it lost,” we did not really picture to ourselves Judæa
restored.
So it came to pass that we did not know what my country could
mean to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to
love. It was by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the
House of Romanoff became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in
our eyes. Even a child would know how to hate the flag that we
were forced, on pain of severe penalties, to hoist above our
housetops, in celebration of the advent of one of our oppressors.
And as it was with country and flag, so it was with heroes of war. We
hated the uniform of the soldier, to the last brass button. On the
person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of tyranny; on the person of a
Jew, it was the emblem of shame.
So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded
and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was
set down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love
her new country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a
great worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more
than the adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the
adoption of America by the immigrant.
 THE LAW OF THE FATHERS: A VIEW OF THE
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
If I ask an American what is the fundamental American law, and he
does not answer me promptly, “That which is contained in the
Declaration of Independence,” I put him down for a poor citizen. He
who is ignorant of the law is likely to disobey it. And there cannot be
two minds about the position of the Declaration among our
documents of State. What the Mosaic Law is to the Jews, the
Declaration is to the American people. It affords us a starting-point
in history and defines our mission among the nations. Without it, we
should not differ greatly from other nations who achieved a
constitutional form of government and various democratic
institutions. What marks us out from other advanced nations is the
origin of our liberties in one supreme act of political innovation,
prompted by a conscious sense of the dignity of manhood. In other
countries advances have been made by favor of hereditary rulers
and aristocratic parliaments, each successive reform being
grudgingly handed down to the people from above. Not so in
America. At one bold stroke we shattered the monarchical tradition,
and installed the people in the seats of government, substituting the
gospel of the sovereignty of the masses for the superstition of the
divine right of kings.
And even more notable than the boldness of the act was the dignity
with which it was entered upon. In terms befitting a philosophical
discourse, we gave notice to the world that what we were about to
do, we would do in the name of humanity, in the conviction that as
justice is the end of government, so should manhood be its source.
It is this insistence on the philosophic sanction of our revolt that
gives the sublime touch to our political performance. Up to the
moment of our declaration of independence, our struggle with our
English rulers did not differ from other popular struggles against
despotic governments. Again and again we respectfully petitioned
for redress of specific grievances, as the governed, from time
immemorial, have petitioned their governors. But one day we
abandoned our suit for petty damages, and instituted a suit for the
recovery of our entire human heritage of freedom; and by basing
our claim on the fundamental principles of the brotherhood of man
and the sovereignty of the masses, we assumed the championship of
the oppressed against their oppressors, wherever found.
It was thus, by sinking our particular quarrel with George of England
in the universal quarrel of humanity with injustice, that we emerged
a distinct nation, with a unique mission in the world. And we
revealed ourselves to the world in the Declaration of Independence,
even as the Israelites revealed themselves in the Law of Moses.
From the Declaration flows our race consciousness, our sense of
what is and what is not American. Our laws, our policies, the
successive steps of our progress,—all must conform to the spirit of
the Declaration of Independence, the source of our national being.
The American confession of faith, therefore, is a recital of the
doctrines of liberty and equality. A faithful American is one who
understands these doctrines and applies them in his life.
 ABRAHAM MITRIE RIHBANY
An intense seriousness is one of the prominent
characteristics of the writings of the immigrant; for
immigration is a serious and often a hazardous
undertaking, as the immigrant best knows. But that he
has not failed to appreciate the amusing side of the
readjustment period is evidenced by the many touches of
humor in his accounts of his relation to his new
environment. One of the most pleasing and inspiriting of
these accounts is “A Far Journey,” by Abraham M. Rihbany,
who was born in Syria in the year 1869, and who came to
the United States with little money, but with much native
intelligence and an open and receptive mind and soul,
eager for the very best that America has to give.
The bad effects of the gregariousness of the foreigner in
America have frequently been pointed out and deplored;
most writers on immigration have failed to see or mention
any of its benefits. It is interesting to know the opinion on
this vexing question of one who has himself passed safely
through a critical transition period. Speaking of his own
experience he says that the Syrian colony in New York
“was a habitat so much like the one I had left behind me
in Syria that its home atmosphere enabled me to maintain
a firm hold on life in the face of the many difficulties
which confronted me in those days, and just different
enough to awaken my curiosity to know more about the
surrounding American influences.” Impelled by the
question, “Where is America?” and longing for “something
more in the life of America than the mere loaves and
fishes,” he determined to leave New York and “seek the
smaller centers of population, where men came in friendly
touch with one another, daily.”
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