“But in the flush of their triumph, the Jews, or rather their spokesmen at the Conference, were not satisfied with equality.  What they demanded was inequality to the detriment of the races whose hospitality they were enjoying and to their own supposed advantage.  They were to have the same rights as the Rumanians, the Poles, and the other peoples among whom they lived, but they were also to have a good deal more.  Their religious autonomy was placed under the protection of an alien body, the League, which is but another name for the Powers which have reserved to themselves the governance of the world.  The method is to oblige each of the lesser states to bestow on each minority the same rights as the majority enjoys, and also certain privileges over and above.  The instrument imposing this obligation is a formal treaty with the Great Powers which the Poles, Rumanians, and other small states were summoned to sign.  It contains twenty-one articles.  The first part of the document deals with minorities generally, the latter with the Jewish elements.  The second clause of the Polish treaty enacts that every individual who habitually resided in Poland on August 1, 1914, becomes a citizen forthwith.  This is simple.  Is it also satisfactory?  Many Frenchmen and Poles doubt it, as we do ourselves.  On August 1st numerous German and Austrian agents and spies, many of them Hebrews, resided habitually in Poland.  Moreover, the foreign Jewish elements there, which have immigrated from Russia, having lost—­like everybody else before the war—­the expectation of seeing Polish independence ever restored, had definitely thrown in their lot with the enemies of Poland.  Now to put into the hands of such enemies constitutional weapons is already a sacrifice and a risk.  The Jews in Vilna recently voted solidly against the incorporation of that city in Poland.[363] Are they to be treated as loyal Polish citizens?  We have conceded the point unreservedly.  But to give them autonomy over and above, to create a state within the state, and enable its subjects to call in foreign Powers at every hand’s turn, against the lawfully constituted authorities—­that is an expedient which does not commend itself to the newly emancipated peoples.”

The Rumanian Premier Bratiano, whose conspicuous services to the Allied cause entitled him to a respectful hearing, delivered a powerful speech[364] before the delegates assembled in plenary session on this question of protecting ethnic and religious minorities.  He covered ground unsurveyed by the framers of the special treaties, and his sincere tone lent weight to his arguments.  Starting from the postulate that the strength of latter-day states depends upon the widest participation of all the elements of the population in the government of the country, he admitted the peremptory necessity of abolishing invidious distinctions between the various elements of the population there, ethnic or religious.  So far, he was at one with the spokesmen of the Great