The big relief-rally held Tuesday evening at the Blackstone Hotel was the greatest demonstration of Jewish solidarity and the greatest expression of Jewish philanthropy since the days of the Kishineff pogrom. Anyone who wanted to know how strong the sense of Jewish solidarity was, even among the so-called assimilated Jews, should have been present at the relief gathering at the Blackstone Hotel. When the speaker of the evening, Mr. Louis Marshall, at the end of a lengthy report about the condition of the Jews in Eastern Europe, exclaimed; "Shall we now--in the darkest and most tragic moment in Jewish history--declare our religious and racial bankruptcy,"all those present were shaken to the depths of their souls. Everybody understood what was at stake. Everyone realized that if we permitted the Jews in Eastern Europe to perish, then the days of the Jewish nation were numbered because the Jews of Eastern Europe are the backbone of the whole Jewish nation.

The Jewish instinct of self-preservation awoke, the Jewish self-consciousness became more pronounced, the Jewish heart began to beat faster, and only one thought was uppermost in everyone's mind. How can the unfortunates on the other side of the ocean be helped? How can we save the orphans? How can we help the healthy to become economically self-supporting? How can we succor the sick? Everyone, without exception, answered these questions by digging his hand deep into his pocket and giving as much as he could. A relatively small group of Chicago Jews, in the course of three hours gave one million dollars for relief.

This first million dollars, which is the first installment of the fourteen million dollar drive, must be considered as the greatest philanthropic achievement in Jewish history. Never in history has a small Jewish group given so much money for Jewish purposes on a single occasion, and there has never been, at any Jewish relief meeting, such a shower of thousands, of tens of thousands of dollars, as took place last Tuesday night at the Blackstone Hotel. The voice of Judaism has never spoken so loudly.

This mighty voice of Judaism will find strong echo in all parts of the country and will express itself in millions of dollars. With these millions of dollars we will try to save the one hundred thousand orphans in the Ukraine, the half-million refugees in Central Europe, the millions of starving in Russia and the economically oppressed in Poland and Lithuania.

If anyone, before Tuesday, doubted whether the fourteen million dollar relief campaign would be successful, today he can have no grounds for this doubt. At the meeting on Tuesday evening, when it began to rain tens of thousands of dollars, the quota for Chicago was raised from one and one-half million to two millions. The prospects are so favorable that optimism is justified. It is very likely that Chicago will give more than its quota because the Chicago Jews understand what is at stake--the destruction of East European Jewry. What Chicago has done, the entire Middle West will do--and what the Middle West will do, the other parts of the country will do. The Joint Distribution Committee will be in a position to carry through its relief program and to continue its work of salvation in the Jewish districts of Eastern Europe.

If the so-called German Jews have proven themselves to possess a strong feeling of Jewish solidarity, then "our Jews" have also responded nobly to the appeal of the relief workers. The way they have responded to the appeal has made a deep impression on the German Jews. Mr. S. J. Rosenblatt, acting chairman of the Joint Relief Committee, has not only turned over a check for one hundred thousand dollars (which check represents the money collected during the recent holidays at the Chicago synagogues), but also collected, in the banquet hall, an additional sum of fifty thousand dollars from "our" Chicago businessmen present at the banquet. Another fifty thousand dollars was given by some West Side businessmen, so that the total contribution to the Chicago quota from "our" Jews has already reached the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, and an additional one hundred thousand is expected to be raised during the campaign. As there are no millionaires among our West Side Jews, this contribution is truly a large one, a fact which was also noted by General Abel Davis, the chairman of the meeting. He spoke of this great philanthropic achievement of "our" Jews and said that he and his friends were more than satisfied with it.

The rolling stone keeps rolling, and it is rolling very fast. The first million dollars of the fourteen million dollar fund has already been collected; now we have to collect the second million. We are convinced that the second million will be collected, but as it will be contributed mainly by our middle class, a little more time and effort will be required to collect it. Everyone of us must now work very hard to assure the success of this campaign.

The German Jews have done their duty and we can be satisfied with what they have done. The few rich people among us, have also done their duty, but our large middle class has done very little up until now. It must now make an effort to fulfill its obligation. It is true that our middle class has suffered more than the rich class from the "hard times", but as yet it has no complaint to make against Uncle Sam. No matter how bad the times are, every Jew in Chicago can afford to give something for the relief [drive].

We have in Chicago a very large middle class, and if we could persuade every Chicago Jew to give only a minimum sum for the relief, then Chicago could raise 6the entire sum of two million dollars, thus confirming the tradition that it is the largest Jewish philanthropic center in the world. [Editor's note: The reference here to "our" Jews means the Jews coming from Russia, Poland, as distinguished from the German Jews. "Our" Jews lived on the West Side and were Orthodox; the German Jews lived on the South Side and were Reform.]