26 apr 1916 anni - LETTER: Louis Brandies to Richard Teller Crane in regards to a memorial titled "Palestine for the Jews" presented to President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. (Blackstone Memorial 1895) Letters of Louis D. Brandeis. Vol. 4 (1916-1921)

Descrizione:

To Richard Teller Crane
April 26, 1916 Boston, Mass. [Brandeis Mss, Z 203]

MY DEAR MR. CRANE: There has just come to my attention a copy of a memorial presented to President [Benjamin] Harrison under date of March 5, 1891, entitled, "Palestine for the Jews," in which the petitioners request the President and Secretary [James G.] Blaine to use their good offices with all the leading Governments of Europe "to secure the holding at an early date of an international conference to consider the conditions of the Israelites and their claims to Palestine as their ancient home, and to promote in all other just and proper ways the alleviation of their suffering conditions."
The memorial originated in Chicago, and presumably with William E. Blackstone of Oak Park, Illinois. It is signed by the leading newspapers, clergymen and other public men of Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.¹
If there is no objection, will you kindly let me know what action was taken on this petition, and let me have copies, so far as proper, of all communications in relation thereto? The document appears to me to be one of great importance at the present time.²
And would there be any objection to my having photostats of the memorial and other papers? Very cordially yours,

Sub-notes:
1. According to one historian, no nineteenth century document dealing with the Jewish question and Palestine, even including Herzl's Jewish State, evoked as much editorial comment in this country as did the memorial presented by William E. Blackstone (18411935), a Chicago businessman, to President Harrison. Blackstone's millenarian theology posited the restoration of Palestine to the Jews as a precondition for the second coming of Jesus. Moreover, motivated by the suffering of the Jews under the Czars, he secured 413 signatures to a document calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine as a humane method of ending twenty-four centuries of persecution. Among the signers of the document were Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, then-Congressman William McKinley, several other Congressmen and Senators, numerous lower level officials, clergymen, rabbis, and newspapers. Discussion of the memorial and the editorial reaction to it can be found in Marnin Feinstein, American Zionism, 18841904 (New York, 1965), ch. 3.
2. Although Harrison was sympathetic to the substance of the memorial, there was little that he could do in actually effecting the plan, and the United States took no official action on it. See LDB to William E. Blackstone, 22 May 1916.

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