Dmowski, Paderewski and American Jews (A Documentary Compilation)

Summary

Jewish-Polish relations in the United States deteriorated substantially during and after the First World War, and as the author of an article on ‘Jewish-Polish Amity in Lincoln's America’ I was determined to find the roots of this animosity which has not yet abated. Thanks to the kindness of Professor Piotr Wandycz of Yale University I was able to acquire revealing documents in this crucial matter in the form of Louis Marshall's bitter correspondence in 1918 with President Wilson and Ignacy Paderewski. At that time, Marshall was serving as the first President of the newly created but already powerful American Jewish Committee. In both Dr. Wandycz's The United States and Poland and the late Professor Sukiennicki's East-Central Europe During World War One I came across1 descriptions of the Dmowski-Marshall encounter and Paderewski's uneasy reaction to his compatriot's foolishly provocative behaviour in New York. This in tum drew my attention to Paderewski's correspondence published in 1973 in Poland and to Dmowski's own account of his second visit to the United States. From all this, a clear picture emerges of the disastrous confrontation of these two strong-willed men, an encounter which had fateful consequences for the relations between Poles and Jews in the United States.

While his main antagonistJózef Pilsudski was interned by the Germans in the Magdeburg fortress, Roman Dmowski - the foremost Polish nationalist politician - was instrumental in organizing, first in Lausanne and then in Paris, the Polish National Committee, which was politically dominated by his National-Democratic colleagues ('Endeks’) and other personalities involved before the war in the National League (Liga Narodowa). Their representative in America was the virtuoso pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who had established excellent relations during his long sojourn in the United States not only with his admiring Polish compatriots but also with influential Jews. It was a wise choice on the part of Dmowski because the great performer, endowed with unusual charisma, was able to befriend such important public figures as Herbert Hoover and Colonel Edward M. House, establishing through the latter close contacts with President Wilson himself.

Informed about Dmowski's pending visit to the United States, Paderewski asked the President in a letter full of compliments to grant him an opportunity to introduce the Polish leader.