Concerning the Jews by Mark Twain — Read

Some months ago I published a magazine article(1) descriptive of a remarkable scene in the Imperial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have received from Jews in America several letters of inquiry. They were difficult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were asking. By help of this text I will do the best I can to publicly answer this correspondent, and also the others -- at the same time apologising for having failed to reply privately. The lawyer's letter reads as follows:

'I have read "Stirring Times in Austria. " One point in particular / is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including myself, / being a point about which I have often wanted to address a question / to some disinterested person. The show of military force in the / Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, was not / introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that body. No Jewish / question was involved in the Ausgleich or in the language / proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In short, no Jew was / doing any mischief toward anybody whatsoever. In fact, the Jews / were the only ones of the nineteen different races in Austria which / did not have a party -- they are absolute non-participants. Yet in / your article you say that in the rioting which followed, all classes / of people were unanimous only on one thing, viz., in being against / the Jews. Now, will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the / Jews have thus ever been, and are even now, in these days of / supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities? / I dare say that for centuries there has been no more quiet, / undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen, as a class, than that same / Jew. It seems to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone / account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.