Persecution weeds out certain types of people in still other ways. When massacres are carefully organized, as were those of the Armenians in Turkey, the first people to be killed are the ones who stand out boldly for their rights or are known as military or political leaders. When massacres are carried out by unorganized mobs, as in the Russian " pogroms," the mobs generally consist of the lower elements of the population. They massacre their neighbors while the able Jews who live in the better parts of the cities have more chance to escape. Thus ,the weaker elements of the persecuted race are killed off. A similar selection takes place in deportations. For instance, it is estimated that about a million Armenians were transported to the Syrian Desert `from Armenia during the Great War. About 750,000 died and 250,000 ? 'wandered back. Red Cross physicians in charge of relief work say that in spite of their terrible sufferings and their months of semi-starvation the returning refugees were surprisingly strong and healthy. The weak had died,—not only the weak in body but those with less competent brains. The people who survived were those wio had tough physiques, who had the wit to pick up a living on the long, hard march to the desert, who bowed submissively when necessary but knew how to wheedle their persecutors into sparing or helping them. Thus the tendency of persecution and deportation is to weed
out the military and political leaders on the one hand and the weak types on the other. This tends to create a strong, tenacious, geneous race with the qualities which we have described as most char acteristic of the Jews. No race save one that has already acquired a strong fiber either through living apart in a relatively difficult environ ment or in some other way, can stand such persecution. And such persecution is likely to happen where one conquering race after another is forced into a land as has happened in western Asia. Thus the contri bution of southwestern Asia to modern business conditions in America has been made through the Jews far more than through any direct commerce. If we add to this the effect of the Bible in raising the standards of business few countries have had a greater influence than Palestine.