One hundred years ago
THE strength of the feeling against Jews in Vienna is a little perplexing. On the 18th inst., seventeen elections to the Municipal Council were held, and eleven Councillors were returned avowedly as anti-Semites. There are now no less than twenty-four anti- Semites in the Council, and the corres- pondent of the Times affirms that the main cause of the Conservative reaction is feeling against the Jews. The fact of hatred seems clear, but what is its cause? The people of Vienna are very easy-going Catholics, and the electors had some years ago a special liking for Jews, as the least likely of all men to be influenced by the priests. We strongly suspect that the vote is a Socialist one, the Socialists regarding Conservatives and Liberals with equal distaste, and voting against the Jews not as politi- cians, but as of all classes the most conspicuously and offensively rich. A similar feeling has long been manifested in Prussia, and is beginning to appear in France, where hitherto the Jews have enjoyed more honour than in England, rising easily to the first positions in the State. Nothing ever goes wrong finan- cially in Paris without the workmen attributing it to the malice of the Roth- schilds, and it is in the Chamber de- clared that they ought to pay the whole losses of the Copper Ring.
The Spectator, 23 March 1889
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