To make matters worse, the men of the Ghetto
are the men who are left, a deteriorated stock left
to undergo still further deterioration. For a
hundred and fifty years, at least, they have been
drained of their best. The strong men, the men
of pluck, initiative, and ambition, have been faring
forth to the fresher and freer portions of the globe,
to make new lands and nations. Those who are
lacking, the weak of heart and head and hand, as
well as the rotten and hopeless, have remained to
carry on the breed. And year by year, in turn, the
best tftey breed are taken from them. Wherever a
man of vigor and stature manages to grow up, he
is haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as
Bernard Shaw has said, " ostensibly a heroic and
patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfor
tunate man driven by destitution to offer himself
as food for powder for the sake of regular rations,
shelter, and clothing."

This constant selection of the best from the
workers has impoverished those who are left, a
sadly degraded remainder, for the great part, which,
in the Ghetto, sinks to the deepest depths. The
wine of life has been drawn off to spill itself in
blood and progeny over the rest of the earth.
Those that remain are the lees, and they are segre
gated and steeped in themselves. They become
indecent and bestial. When they kill, they kill

[[221]]

p220 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p221w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p222

v?