Anderson in NY Times, March 20, 1910

[The Good Michael]

Howard,

Right. It wasn't Jews. It was whatever whipping boy was handy. He was quite British.

Mike

[Sam Flynn]

I doubt for a nanosecond that Anderson would have hesitated to say the same about "low class Irish" in the same vein.

... or even "low-class Englishman" if, say, his pet suspect were William Bury, James Kelly or Joe Barnett.

[Chris]

Where did the "only low class Jews" come from ? Thank you.

Because Anderson said he concluded, on the basis that the killer must have been shielded by "his people" (i.e. the people he lived with), that he was a "low-class Jew". Clearly, that conclusion would depend on the assumption that only low-class Jews would shield a killer.

As for whether Anderson would have said something different if a different suspect had taken his fancy, who knows? I can only go by what he did say, and clearly what he did say is evidence of prejudice against "low-class Jews".

[perrymason]

Mike:

The term "low class" if applied by a person who happens to be Jewish to a person or group of people who happen to be Jews...which is one of several I have seen and others have as well....is no different than a White person looking down on Whites and labelling them "trailer trash" or "White trash". Even blacks differentiate between Whites who exemplify the lifestyle of the great unwashed and those who don't. Its not such a big deal if SRA made an honest assessment in a similar way regarding the same people that Jewish leaders did and not in isolated incidents or obscure places. The following is the source which I realize now that I omitted before:

Salt Lake Tribune
1890-01-02
Page 3

There is no proof in any of Anderson's writings that he was anti-Semitic. I have a running wager with anyone who can prove otherwise. It should be easy for people since Anderson wrote often and was quoted frequently..but it will not materialize.

Mike....one possible antidote to the problem people have with the Anderson statement,in the original and within the revised and fully explained intention behind his original comments...is that SRA did not claim that the people who he alleges harbored the Ripper knew for certain that he, the harbored man, was indeed the Ripper...rather they may have, for all we know, had suspicions which they were not willing to divulge due to an uncertainty over the matter. This is and has always been left out of this whole brouhaha over a mere statement which winds up with us avoiding creative thinking about the situation at hand and taking it a little further and lightening up in regard to the remark that even leaders of the Jewish community made from time to time.

Put yourself in the shoes of a person or persons who have suspicions over quirks or even aberrant behavior in a family member and how often do these people, some often affected by the actions of the individual, go immediately to the authorities for help ? Thats right...sometimes years go by before someone puts their foot down and takes command of the situation.

Several wives of serial killers have come forward over the years and discussed their husband's behavior...some feigning ignorance...some expressed suspicions...and almost all decided to not alert the authorities. Gacy,Baumeister,Ridgeway, on down the line.... all had wives and it seldom gets more intimate than that relationship...and yet most decided to let things go for whatever reason.

If the "low class" Polish Jew did not display aberrant behavior or a change in his behavior to any significant degree within the four walls of his house...but had somehow made his way to the list of likely suspects that came across Anderson's desk...we must remember that the ONLY way the police could have put him or any other individual in the docket was to catch him redhanded. This was unlikely to happen if the best of what the people surrounding the suspect had was mere suspicion and not tangible proof...like a uterus in the desk drawer or bloody knives under his bed.

As it turned out, Anderson may very well had....whether right or wrong in his general assessment of Jews of a particular class...like "low class" Irish...like low class Germans...if the suspect had been one of those ethnic affiliations....ascertained that the people surrounding the Ripper "should have come forward" but obviously didn't to his satisfaction.

I agree that SRA is a perplexing individual,Mike...in some of his assessments of other crimes and in other areas....but this whole issue of anti-foreigner sentiment clouds the real issue about the suspect... which, if I may be so bold, is the example I have provided above....a situation where SRA felt that those surrounding the Ripper "just knew" what he felt they should have known...but didn't come forward and lived up to his expectations of low class "people", period.

Later...

Always a thoughtful response Howard, I shall think upon it.

My best regards mate

[Howard Brown]

Thanks Mike...thats the best we can hope for,pal...to sift through everything and se all sides to the issue.

Dear Chris...

You replied:

Because Anderson said he concluded, on the basis that the killer must have been shielded by "his people" (i.e. the people he lived with), that he was a "low-class Jew". Clearly, that conclusion would depend on the assumption that only low-class Jews would shield a killer.

I guess we'll have to disagree simply because Anderson's suspect was Jewish and the opportunity or condition didn't materialize where a member of any other low class community would find one of their people under suspicion in the same way the Polish Jew was suspected. I doubt that SRA was suggesting only a low class Jew would be shielded by his people or that any other low class coterie would be any different. The man was an elitist in my view. He at no time stated that this condition of the lower class of Jewry was endemic to Jews and Jews alone.... Thanks for the reply.

Here's one clipping which mentions poor Jews ( read: low class ) and the highlighted higher class of Jews....



...and another from a well know figure in the Case, Montagu Williams...providing just one example of contemporary opinion on "classes" of Jews.

[Howard Brown]

Sorry for the shoddy editing:

"He at no time stated that this condition of the lower class of Jewry was endemic to Jews and Jews alone--

Translated into English:

Anderson at no time intimated that this condition of avoiding the authorities was limited to low class Jews...only that it was a remarkable fact that low class Jews did as much.

Thank you.

[Chris]

Anderson at no time intimated that this condition of avoiding the authorities was limited to low class Jews...only that it was a remarkable fact that low class Jews did as much.

Anderson doesn't state it in so many words, but that belief is obviously implicit in his statement that the police had concluded, from the fact that they'd eliminated men who lived alone, that the murderer and his people were "low class Jews".

Unless he had believed that "low class Jews" were unique in this respect, all he could logically have concluded was that the murderer and his people belonged to one of a number of groups that would "refuse to give up one of their number" [etc].

[Howard Brown]

Anderson doesn't state it in so many words, but that belief is obviously implicit in his statement that the police had concluded, from the fact that they'd eliminated men who lived alone, that the murderer and his people were "low class Jews".

One counterpoint to the position above I would offer is that the police had recieved a less than cooperative response from more than just one family or group of Jews during their search and considering that the probable majority of elements in the vicinity which contained single men were of a low class or recently arrived Jewish background that the sentiments expressed by SRA were a result of the minimal/considerably uncooperative assistance they provided.

Unless he had believed that "low class Jews" were unique in this respect, all he could logically have concluded was that the murderer and his people belonged to one of a number of groups that would "refuse to give up one of their number"

I would still argue that the absence of any evidence pointing towards SRA believing in a palpable reluctance on the part of any other "low class" elements in the vicinity to assist the police in a manner which lived up to SRA's standards doesn't exclude the possibility that he didn't feel the same way about other elements or view them in much the same light ...but rather the fact that the suspect was from the ethnic element with the majority of low class people in the area that were canvassed , that this, above all else, was the stimulus for the position he maintained in print. In short, he may not have had the opportunity to be openly critical of other low class sectors as he provided with the one that he did. I would still argue that he was an elitist...and his positions on the Mylett murder and West End murder of 1895 indicate a tendency on Anderson's part to appear as much.

For me, Anderson's reply to Mentor satisfactorily explained his original position...one of an elitist who delineated groups or ethnic entities in much the same way we do in our day to day existence but seldom in a situation of importance such as was found in his utterings.

The problem,to me and many others I suppose, is that Anderson has been accused of claiming that people would harbor the murderer with definite knowledge that said person in their midst was the Whitechapel murderer....

I think we might want to or need to reevaluate that particular position since this element or people from within the sector of immigrant Jewry he singles out on may not have had the same sort of moral certainty Anderson is known to have relied on...and as a result of any possible reluctance on their part to come forward, Anderson visioned this reluctance as being symptomatic of the lack of cooperation between police and immigrant communities which did exist...essentially lumping the WM with all other instances of disengagement with the police on the part of lumpen Jewry.

Thanks for the reply, CP.

[Bob Hinton]

Stick with me for a minute..

A bit off topic but concerning Anderson. I have two books for sale. One is “The Lighter Side of My Official Life” and the other is “Sir Robert Anderson & Lady Agnes Anderson” by his son A P Moore Anderson. The latter contains several rarer photographs of Sir Robert. Before putting them on Ebay I would like to offer them here to our readers. Both are in 1st Class condition and I’m open to offers. By the way what do you think of Ebays new tactic of not letting you charge for post and packing for books?

[jason_c]

The most likely reasons Anderson singled out low class Polish Jews were:

1. Kosminski's family.
2. Joseph Lawende, born on 9 February 1847 in Warsaw.

Two plausible reasons (according to Anderson) of low class Polish Jews unwilling to give the killer up to Gentile justice.

[Howard Brown]

Jason:

Would Lawende have been considered low class or from the lower class even in 1888 ?

[Simon Wood]

When did Lawende refuse to give up a Jewish killer to Gentile justice?

[DVV]

This, I don't know, Simon.

I know he refused to give up one or two sailors, though not a sailor himself.

Amitiés,
David

[Scott Nelson]

When did Lawende refuse to give up a Jewish killer to Gentile justice?

He didn't, since Lawende wasn't the witness.

[Chris]

The most likely reasons Anderson singled out low class Polish Jews were:

1. Kosminski's family.
2. Joseph Lawende, born on 9 February 1847 in Warsaw.

Two plausible reasons (according to Anderson) of low class Polish Jews unwilling to give the killer up to Gentile justice.

But the point is that Anderson was clearly claiming that he had deduced from general considerations - namely, that men living alone had been eliminated, so that the murderer must have been protected by the people he was living with - that the killer was a "low class Jew", and that (later on) the result proved that his diagnosis was correct.

So, according to his claim, he singled out "low class Jews" before he knew about Kozminski, or the alleged identification.