The house of representatives of the State of Illinois, has adopted the kosher meat bill, and there is no doubt in our mind that the senate will pass the bill too, and then after the Governor will have signed it, it will become a law of the State of Illinois. The bill provides for honesty in kashruth. If a Jewish butcher sells treifah meat for kosher, he violates a state law and can be fined or sent to jail or both. Butchers who sell both kosher and treifah meat have to say so on their signs across the window, and failing to do this they also [are] liable to get in trouble. The passing of the bill by the house and senate does not mean that all the Jewish butchers in Chicago whose honesty was very much doubted in the past will turn overnight into honest men. A law 2is a dead letter unless it is executed, and the carrying out of the law in practice is up to the authorities of the Orthodox Jewish community of Chicago. It goes without saying that the state cannot engage detectives to watch the Jewish butchers. They must be watched by the agents of the Rabbinate. The law only strengthens the hands of the Rabbinate in enforcing honesty in dealing with kashruth. No butcher will from today on dare to oppose a Rabbi or to insult a Rabbi upon entering his butcher shop and asking for certain inspection. The Rabbi surely is the only authority to deal with the butcher and the latter has to submit to the Rabbi.

There are several hundred Jewish butchers in Chicago. All of them pretend to sell kosher meat only. Not all of them do it, and the bill just passed by the house of representatives of the State of Illinois will only then be of value if the Orthodox Rabbinate of Chicago establishes some agency to bring the law into operation. It is needless to say that the Rabbis cannot 3go from meat market to meat market and make investigations. This can be done either by a body of laymen established for that purpose, or by higher kashruth supervisors, called mashgichim, and the one or the other necessitates a certain organization. Unless this organization is established, the kashruth bill will mean very little, and those Jewish butchers who in the past sold treifah meat for kosher will do so in the future too. If these butchers will know that there is nobody to supervise them, they will continue their dubious dealings and all efforts of the well-meaning Rabbis and laymen who have been instrumental in framing the bill will have been in vain.

But even if an organized body of men consisting of either volunteers or hired men should be established to watch the suspected Jewish butchers, the new Illinois state law, regulating the sale of kosher meat, will prove to be a temporary measure only. If the Orthodox Jewish community of Chicago were well organized, the bill would have been superflous, because an organized 4community could bring pressure to bear on the butchers not to sell treifah meat for kosher. A special bill had to be introduced in the house of representatives because of the crying conditions in the Orthodox Jewish community of Chicago. There were any number of Orthodox Rabbis, but no Rabbinate; there were any number of presidents of Orthodox congregations, but no organized Jewish community; there were any number of Hebrew educational establishments, but no communal board of education; there were and still are trees, but no forests, and it was because of the absence of regulating forces within the Jewish community that those who mean it well with Orthodoxy in Chicago deemed it advisable to resort to the asking of state help.

To us the passing of the kosher meat bill by the state legislature has a different meaning altogether. To us it means that it will call forth organizing forces and that these organizing forces will in the end organize the Orthodox Jewish community of Chicago. Of course we do not underestimate 5the benefit of the bill. We believe that it will work advantageously and will prevent and suppress a whole lot of dishonesty in kahruth, but it is also our candid opinion that a well-organized Jewish community will make this bill superflous, and therefore we consider the bill a temporary measure only. It can only be understood in connection with the prevailing conditions in the Jewish community of Chicago, deplorable and lamentable conditions, and it is by no means an ideal state of affairs that the Jewish community of Chicago should have to depend on state help in such matters as kashruth. But the bill had to be submitted to the state legislature because there was no other way out of the present difficulties. We hope, however, that the authorities of the Orthodox community will make the best of the Bill, will suppress dishonesty in kashruth and will do it by establishing a special organization to operate the law. Once such an organization is established, the need for other central organizations to regulate other phases of Jewish life will also be established, and therein really consists the merit of the 6bill. It is a temporary measure, it is true, but its consequences will by no means be temporary. It will be instrumental in establishing the destinies of Jewish Orthodoxy in Chicago in the future.