Nationality of Czolgosz Again

     Czolgosz, the assassin, does not find any of our foreign contingents in this country ready to admit that he is one of their number. In our issue for September 21 we said that “current reports have represented that he is of Polish blood, tho of American birth,” but added that “a number of Polish societies and journals of this country have repudiated the idea of his Polish nationality, claiming that he is a Russian Hebrew.” This claim is now disputed by a Cleveland rabbi, who encloses clippings from the Cleveland papers to show that the assassin’s parents are Polish Catholics, born in Prussia. The brother of the assassin, as reported in an interview in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, says: “We are of Polish descent, altho some people are trying to make out that we are Russians”; and his father says that he was “born and raised at Innowraclaw, County of Posen, in Western Prussia.” The assassin himself was born in Detroit. The Jewish papers speak very feelingly in regard to the insinuation that Czolgosz is a Hebrew. The American Israelite (Cincinnati), for example, says:

     “While no one will blame the Poles for trying to prove that the assassin was neither their countryman nor a coreligionist, their action in stating that he was a Russian Jew, when they were in absolute ignorance of the facts, was detestable—their silence since they have become well-informed is vile. Their failure to come forward like men and admit their mistake is cowardly and will not easily be forgotten. We speak of this subject once more, as we want to warn the Jews of America first and then all honest people that an attempt is being made to falsify history, to put upon those of the Jewish faith a part of the odium of the infamous act of the assassin, without the slightest warrant in fact as an excuse for doing so. Let it be remembered that not only is Czolgosz not a Jew, but also that none of those who are [459][460] being mentioned as prominent Anarchists are Jews. The foreign sound of Polish, Russian, Slavonic, Galician, etc., names is misleading. None of this canaille is part or parcel of American Jewry.”