Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1906, (In two parts), Part II

Chargé Eddy to the Secretary of State.

American Embassy,
St. Petersburg, September 15, 1906.

No. 644.]

Sir: Referring to the department’s cabled instructions of July 31, 1906, whereby the embassy is directed to furnish, from time to time, information concerning the Jews throughout Russia, I have now the honor to give you the following facts, which I have gathered from Government documents, from conversations with men who are in a position to know the situation, and from the Russian law.

The number of Jews throughout the entire world is variously estimated at from 9,000,000 to 11,000,000, of which number 5,140,800 live in the Russian Empire. Of those who live in the Empire, 2,797,880 reside in European Russia, or about 3.2 per cent of the entire population; in Poland there are 815,443; in the Caucasus, 22,732; in Siberia, 11,941.

To understand the position of the Jew in modern Russia, it is first necessary to understand something of the laws dealing with, and directed against, him.

The Russian Government first began to take an interest in the Jews in the year 1772 when, for the first time, the latter were officially received as citizens of the Empire. In examining the contemporary Russian laws, it is seen that they divide the Jews into four categories:

(1) The “Caraime” Jews. These Jews have the same rights as other Russian subjects.

(2) The Polish Jews. These, according to the law of 1862, enjoy the rights of other subjects, but only within the limits of Poland itself. However, the law promulgated in 1891 forbids them to acquire and to cultivate, as their property, the land of the peasants.

(3) Foreign Jews. Those who are not Russian subjects are not permitted to enter the Russian Empire and there become naturalized. The right of temporary sojourn in Russia can only be granted by the minister of the interior or by the Russian embassies, legations, and consulates. (Law of Mar. 14, 1891.) It is hardly necessary to add that Russian representatives abroad never actually give permission to foreign Jews to enter the Empire, even for a short time, and that such permission must be obtained through the ministry of the interior. It is true that the Jews living in Central Asia have the right to enter Russia proper, to there transact their business, and even to become Russian subjects, provided they register themselves immediately in one of the merchant guilds. But the right of citizenship, even then, can only be obtained by the direct permission of the minister of the interior or of the governor-general of Turkestan.

(4) The Rabbinist Jews.

The right of domicile is granted only to Jews in Poland and in the Governments of Bessarabia, Vilna, Kieff (with the exception of certain parts of the city of Kieff), Taurida (with the exception of the city of Yalta), Kherson (with the exception of the town of Nikolaieff), Moghileff, Volhynia, Vitebsk, Grodno, Poltava, Ekaterinoslaff, Podolia, Tchernigoff, Minsk, and Kovno. No Jews have the right to live in Finland save those who have been domiciled there from time immemorial. In the Provinces of Kouban and of Terek those only have the right of domicile who have obtained a degree of arts or sciences. (Law of 1892.) In Siberia, according to the explanation of the law by the Senate, no Jews may make their home except those who have lived there for several generations. The question of the status of the Jews in Siberia has, however, not yet been fully defined. In Kurland the right of domicile is accorded only to those Jews (and their descendants) who have lived there before the revision of the law in 1835, and in the Caucasus only to those who were there before the subjection of that country.

Certain classes of Jews have the right to establish themselves anywhere throughout the Empire, some temporarily and others as permanent residents. Those having the right of permanent domicile are composed of:

(1) Merchants of the first guild who, according to the law of 1859, are allowed to establish themselves in the cities, where they are registered in a guild on the condition that they have been formerly merchants of the first guild within the Jewish pale.

(2) Those who have the degree of doctor of medicine, doctor of laws, or who are candidates for such degrees at the universities, and also all Jewish doctors as well as those who have graduated from the Polytechnical Institute of St. Petersburg, or from the Russian universities. (Law of 1879.)

(3) Jews who ended their military service before 1874, the year when universal conscription was put in practice throughout Russia. These have the right to settle with their families on the government lands.

(4) Artisans of the highest class. (Law of 1867.) But this latter law, though good in theory, amounts to very little in practice. The guilds are purely Christian institutions, and to produce a certificate of membership of the first guild within the pale is not an easy matter. Moreover, this certificate produced, the Jew must pass an examination and pay rather a large fee. If he succeeds up to this point and becomes a member of the guild in his new place of residence, he is forced to submit to annoyances by the authorities and especially by the police. The regulations are very hard on him; he can not trade in any place but the town in which he has settled; he can not change his trade; if he meets with an accident and is unable to work at his calling he must return within the pale.

The classes of Jews who enjoy the right to travel about and to reside temporarily in different parts of the Empire are:

(1) Merchants of the first guild, registered in the cities within the pale, have the rights of sojourn in other governments for a period not to exceed six months each year; and merchants of the second guild have the same right for a period of three months each year. (Law of 1879.)

(2) Those who have graduated from schools and gymnasia and wish to enter universities and other higher schools have the right of domicile in all cities where there are universities and schools of the higher order.

A significant fact is that the right of universal domicile and temporary sojourn is a personal right and does not apply to the wife or children of the possessor.

There are two forms of public service theoretically open to the Jews: (a) Service by appointment and (b) service by election.

(a) Such Jews are nominally admitted to the public service who have received a higher education and have obtained scientific degrees. But none the less many departments do not admit their participation, as, for example, the ministry of justice.

(b) According to the law of 1870, the number of Jews in the village councils and in the councils of municipalities must not exceed one-third of the number of the Christian members of the said council. Mayors of villages must be Christians. According to the laws of 1890 and 1892, Jews can not take part in assemblies for election beyond the Jewish pale, and the same laws forbid them to hold office under the municipalities outside the pale. Furthermore, in courts of justice, whatever the religion of the plaintiff or defendant, there must be more Christians than Jews in the jury and the foreman of the jury must be a Christian.

Professional careers are not very restricted, so far as the Russian Jews are concerned, most occupations of this nature are as free to them as to the Gentile. But to be a practicing lawyer, the Government demands of the Jew that he shall, after passing the necessary examinations, obtain the permission of the minister of justice. Furthermore, according to the law of 1894, the number of Jews practicing law is limited to 10 per cent of the entire number of lawyers throughout the Empire, so that it is rather difficult for a Jew to obtain admission to this calling. However, owing largely to the efforts of the lawyers and to the influence of more modern ideas, the above restrictions are now being taken in the broadest possible sense, and the admission of Jews to the Russian bar is daily becoming more easy.

The profession of teaching is forbidden to Jews, whether in government institutions of learning or in private schools.

According to the census of 1892, more than 35 per cent of the Israelite population are earning a living in cities as (a) artisans, and as (b) workmen.

(a) In 1897 there were registered in 1,200 districts a total of 500,986 Jewish artisans, who composed in themselves 13.2 per cent of the population of these 1,200 districts,

	Master workmen.	Skilled workers.	Apprentices.	Total.
Men	229,485	115,784	79,169	424,438
Women	29,911	24,744	21,893	76,548
Total	259,396	140,528	101,062	500,986

Other statistics show that, within the Jewish pale, there are 15 Jewish artisans for every Christian artisan. If we suppose that two members of each family are artisans and that the average family is composed of five members, we find that about 1,400,000 live by artisan labor, or nearly 30 per cent of the entire Jewish population within the pale. The statistics of the town of Mogileff show that the average salary of an independent Jewish artisan amounts to as much as 500 rubles ($250) yearly; that of an artisan who is not independent is about 240 rubles ($120) a year. The working day for the former is from eleven to thirteen hours; for the latter anywhere from fifteen to eighteen hours. Such a number of working hours seems almost impossible, and yet it is the life lived by most of the poorer Russian Jews. The fact that they are none the less a fairly healty and long-lived class speaks highly for the stamina of the race.

The greater part of the Jewish working class (as distinguished from the artisans) is employed in domestic service. Of this class there are about 170,000 men and women. There are also about 100,000 day laborers, of whom 32,000 are engaged in quarrying and as teamsters, 30,000 as bearers of burdens and porters, 20,000 as woodcutters, sawyers, terrace makers, pavers of streets, etc., and 13,000 are employed on farms or live in small towns and seek their employment in the surrounding fields. The number of Jews employed in factories within the pale, including Poland, approaches 50,000.

The following table gives an idea of the employment of Jews within the pale with the exception of Poland. The percentages given indicate the proportion of Jews among the entire number of workers:

Products.	Governments of northwest.	Southwest.	South.
	Per cent.	Per cent.	Per cent.
Glove makers	100.0	100.0
Matches	95.2	12.0
Soap	84.7	81.1	63.6
Sweetmeats	62.4	100.0
Distilleries	25.4	4.2	21.4
Foundries	14.9	15.2	.2
Mechanics	4.2
Bricklayers	49.4	8.8	3.0

It is especially noteworthy that the number of Jews engaged in planting tobacco and in the cigar and cigarette manufactories is everywhere greater than the number of Christians so employed. For example, in 1899 the total number employed in the tobacco plantations amounted to 3,720, of which number 3,431 were Jews, or 92.3 per cent. The number of women and children employed is, in general, greater than the number of men; for example, in 1899 in the government of Grodno the women and children composed 74 per cent of the total, and in the government of Ekaterinoslaff the percentage was 91.

In regard to agriculture in its more general form the Jews are discriminated against. The law of 1804 allowed them to cultivate and own the unoccupied lands belonging to the Crown, and the enjoyment of these rights were on very advantageous conditions.

After 1850 the Government began to organize agrarian colonies on a large scale, but the lands which were available were not very fertile, and the sums of money appropriated for the purpose were insufficient; now these agrarian colonies have a very hard life of it. Many of them have ceased to exist, for the conditions imposed for the right to cultivate the crown lands are so severe for the Jews that they no longer dare to enter into any agreement. The poverty among this class is unbelievable, their food consists largely of cabbage soup and a sort of broth made out of grain. Meat is almost an unheard-of luxury. One wooden spoon has to suffice for an entire family, as the cost of one for each member of the family can not be borne; and yet a wooden spoon can be bought for 3 kopecks (1½ cents). While traveling through the country in a sleigh on a shooting expedition I once threw away a piece of newspaper which had been used as wrapping for a parcel. This happened in a village, and those of the inhabitants who were standing about almost fought one another for it. On inquiry I found that they wished the piece of old newspaper to make cigarettes of and “to wrap things in.” There is a lying-in hospital supported by charity in St. Petersburg itself, where it is a common occurrence for women to wrap up their newly born children in newspapers when leaving the hospital for their homes, simply because they can not afford to buy even a piece of flannel cloth suitable for the purpose. My own experiences have all been within 100 miles of St. Petersburg, but I have seen enough poverty, even in this prosperous section of the country, to give a good idea of what the condition must be of the poorer Jewish agricultural people within the pale.

In the Jewish agricultural colonies above mentioned there are within the pale 13,000 families, making in all 76,000 persons, who are in possession of 98,000 arpents of land. Of this land, only 17,000 arpents are the personal property of the Jews. Seventy-eight thousand arpents compose the land ceded by the state and 3,000 arpents are rented.

Jews have the free right to acquire property in all the towns and villages within the pale, with the exception of certain parts of the cities of Keiff, Yalta, and Sebastopol.

The law of 1903 forbids Jews to acquire real estate outside of towns and villages beyond the pale.

The conditions for holding real property and for the renting of lands are more favorable to the Jews in Poland than anywhere else. The law of 1862 allowed them to buy and to rent land, except (law of 1891) the land belonging to the peasants. The following table shows the proportion of land belonging to Jews within the pale and within the Kingdom of Poland:

	The 15 governments of the pale.		The 10 governments of Poland.		Outside of the pale.	Total.
	Number of arpents.a	Precentage of total.	Number of arpents.	Percentage of total.	Number of arpents.
Real property owned	411,108	0.58	240,273	2.13	718,160	1,369,541
Rented lands	521,649	.74	37,765	.33	53,807	613,221
Total	932,757	1.32	278,038	2.46	b771,967	1,982,762

The Russian Government first took up the question of Jewish public education at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Jewish question first claimed their attention. The law of 1804 stated that “all children of Jews are to be received and educated, without any discrimination whatever between them and children of Christians, in the Russian schools, gymnasia, and universities.” This law also stated that “no one shall be turned from his or her religion under any pretext whatsoever,” and further “the degrees which shall be conferred upon Jews, as a recompense for their personal efforts, shall be fully recognized.”

None the less, the Jews did not place their children in Russian institutions of learning, where everything would have been strange to them—customs, language, and even the studies themselves. During the intervening forty years the Jews, with the permission of the Government, founded only three private schools; in 1822 at Ouname, in 1826 at Odessa, in 1830 at Vilna. In 1835, according to the government statistics, there were only 11 Jews in all the Russian universities, and in 1840 only 72 Jews in all the Russian government schools. But at present there are an appreciable number of Israelite students in the universities. In the St. Petersburg University there are 140, or 3.64 per cent of the total number; at Kharkoff 395, at Kieff 363, at Novo-Rossisk 255, at Tomsk 140, at Warsaw 170, at Kazan 64. The total proportion in all Russian universities is about 10.6 per cent Christians for every Jew. As the number of Christians in Russia is about fourteen times the number of Jews, it will be seen that the proportion of Jews desirous of obtaining an education is greater than that of the Christians. It may be added that the Israelite students in the universities, though somewhat addicted to socialistic and anarchistic doctrines are, for the most part, very intelligent, and take a fairly high rank in the examinations. They specialize largely in the learned professions, medicine and law having the greatest number of followers.

In 1844 the Emperor Nicholas I promulgated a law according to which it was decided to establish special schools for Jewish children in all the towns and villages within the pale. These schools were to be of two classes, a higher and a lower. For school teachers there were provided certain training schools; but these institutions did not gain very much sympathy from the Jews, and therefore measures were taken to cause the Jews to enter their children in them. The authorities simply demanded the parents to cause their children to attend; but it was only after Jews had been appointed as inspectors of these schools that the new movement began to obtain Jewish approval. But in 1873, for some unknown reason, these schools were all closed, and the result was that the number of Jews in the government schools and universities was greatly increased. In 1887 the then minister of public instruction, M. Delianoff, decided to limit the number of Jewish students. This measure was carried into effect and the number of Jews was reduced to a certain percentage of the total number of students in the different localities. For the institutions within the pale this was fixed at 30 per cent; outside of the pale, 5 per cent; and at St. Petersburg and Moscow, 3 per cent. Moreover, there were a certain number of institutions where Jews were not received at all. After this the number of Jewish students began to diminish as follows:

	Number of Jews in 1881.	Number of Jews in 1894.
	Per cent.	Per cent.
Preparatory schools	12	6.2
High schools	8	5.2
Total	20	11.4

In the universities the same results followed; in 1886 the Jews composed 12.7 per cent and in 1899 4.4 per cent of the entire student body. In the higher technical schools a limit was also placed; the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology received 3 per cent, the St. Petersburg School of Mines 5 per cent. Some of the higher institutions were entirely closed to the Jews, such as the St. Petersburg School of Electrical Engineering, the Military School of Medicine, the St. Petersburg School of Civil Engineers, etc.

After placing these limits on the government schools in general, the minister of education began the opening of the present plan of Jewish public education, which has resulted in the following system:

In the cities and towns within the pale there are 800 Jewish schools with 600,000 pupils, but this number of schools is really insufficient, as more than two-thirds of the villages remain without schools. The state schools compose altogether one-fifth of the entire number of Jewish schools, the public schools one-fifth, and the private schools three-fifths. Beyond this there are 25,000 Jewish schools which are not under state control, with a total of 300,000 scholars. Unfortunately there is a dearth of capable instructors, as the two institutions for the training of teachers are entirely inadequate.

The special taxes paid by the Jews in Russia, apart from the taxes which they pay in common with all other subjects of the Empire, are divided into two classes, which are known as general taxes and special taxes. The former are taxes on all animals killed for food and are known as the “koróbotchny sbor.” Each animal killed is taxed; on beef this amounts to about 1 cent per pound. Each chicken, killed after the Jewish custom, is also taxed. Then there is the special payment to the Government for the right to sell meat which has been killed and prepared in accordance with the Hebrew customs. This tax falls very heavily upon certain classes of the Jews. By those who do not observe the strict teachings of the Mosaic creed it is not felt at all, while those who live up to their religion with all its usages are very much affected.

The special taxes comprise many small ways of collecting money from the Jews; e. g., the tax paid by Jews for the right to rent houses, shops, etc., as well as the tax on factories owned by them. The collection of these taxes is farmed out by the government of each province.

Another special tax is what is known as the “candle tax.” (Law of Jan. 17, 1848.) By this law there is a special payment to be made for every candle which is burned by the Jewish families on Friday evenings. The revenue from this is divided between the public instruction of the Jews and the administration. At the present day, however, this candle tax exists only in name. It has been found more easy to take a fixed sum each year from the “koróbochny sbor” for both objects named above (public instruction and the administration).

According to the law of 1862 the Jews have the right to open publishing houses for the printing exclusively of Jewish books. Permission for this is obtained only through the minister of the interior. Each printing press is taxed according to its size. Small presses pay 20 rubles ($10) a year, while large rotary presses pay up to 240 rubles ($120) yearly.

In 1874, when universal conscription was introduced in Russia, no particular regulations were laid clown in regard to military service for the Jews. But two years later many restrictions were instituted, chief among which are the following:

(1) Jews can not serve in the regiments of the guards, in the frontier guards, in the gendarmerie, or in the navy.

(2) No Jew can attain the rank of officer in the army or navy. No matter what his capacity may be, he can not be admitted to the examinations for a commission.

(3) The families of Jews who have fled from the country to avoid military service must pay a fine of 300 rubles ($150).

These regulations, however, have failed to attain their end. For each year the number of Jews who do not materialize for military service increases in a startling manner. It is almost impossible to obtain accurate statistics on which to base a statement as to how many young men should yearly be called upon to perform military service. During the past twenty years more than a million Jews have emigrated from Russia to America alone, of which number two-thirds have been men. But if we take the census of 1897 as a basis, we find that the Jewish population of Russia was 4.13 per cent of the whole, and as the number of young males of 21 years of age is nearly always the same among all peoples, we are safe in saying that the corelation between the male Jews of 21 and the male Christians of 21 is also

4.13. However, the following statement gives an entirely different result:

	Christians and Jews.	There should have been of Jews (at 4.13 per cent)—
There were called upon to serve	1,053,572	43,512
Number taken for service	320,832	13,250
	Number of Jews taken.	Difference between section 2 and section 3.
There were called upon to serve	58,635	15,123
Number taken for service	19,911	6,661

According to official reports there were taken Jews less	1,970
And nevertheless there were actually taken	4,691

The Russian point of view is briefly about as follows:

A Jew comes to a Russian village in which the peasants have been living in peace and quietness. The peasant is by nature a good-natured, stupid, hard-working individual, who has never thought it possible for himself to gain more than enough to keep himself and his family in food, clothes, and fuel, with a more or less solid roof to cover them. In a short time the Jew, by his keener intelligence and greater energy, begins to get money by perfectly lawful buying and selling. Then the Jew lends money, taking as security the land or house or personal property of the peasant. Then comes the foreclosures and the consequent enmity, which lead in many cases to violence. The Jew is unwilling to relinguish what he has got hold of by legal means. The peasant considers himself wronged, and tries to even things up in his own way. The Jewish point of view is well given in a statement of their case which was made as a memorial from 32 Jewish communities in Russia, presented to the committee of ministers on March 9, 1905. A translation of this memorial reads as follows:

The measures taken in the last quarter of a century dealing with Russian Jews have directly tended to drive them to beggary and to leave them without means of subsistence, the benefits of education, and human dignity. A continuous system of persecution was artfully devised and regularly put into force. When the common people massacred the threatened Jews in the towns, the bureaucracy judged it proper to take away the right to live in the country districts and to acquire any property there. By law and by means of administrative measures, not only was further settlement in the villages prohibited, but at the same time crowds of people, settled in the fifty-verst zone and provinces outside the pale, were driven into the towns, and the very limits of the pale were narrowed. In the government outside the pale certain privileged localities were created where only persons who had completed their studies were allowed to come (Moscow, the Government of Moscow, the military provinces, etc.). Finally, one part of the Empire (Siberia) was closed to all Jews but convicted criminals.

In consequence of these measures and the forced migration of a mass of people, the population of the pale increased. In spite of considerable emigration beyond the ocean and to European countries, there are actually 4,200,000 Jews inclosed within the walls of towns, and only 700,000 in the villages of this great district.

Measures were taken to prevent Jews from entering middle and high schools; to counteract their wish to learn, percentage restrictions were imposed. Jews were admitted to middle schools with the greatest difficulty; thousands were not admitted. Only units entered the high schools. These few fortunate ones had not the right to enter the public service; they could only become lawyers with the permission of the minister of justice, and for fifteen years this permission was never accorded.

Without exaggeration it might be said that the whole machine of state aimed at making it impossible for Jews to exist in Russia. Every department had something to say on the Jewish question. It seems improbable, but it is certain, that not long ago every measure was the more popular the more it was intended to persecute and destroy the people who were considered the enemies of God and man. It was, in short, even a short time back, found necessary to forbid Jews to acquire real estate in the interior of Russia, in spite of the fact that only in three governments is property held by Jews more than 1 per cent of the entire amount. The bureaucracy has persecuted the Jews by all means and in all their aspirations. It has gone so far that, even in creating savings banks, Jewish founders were not allowed to elect directors from among their coreligionists, and Jew workmen, united for mutual help, were obliged to intrust their affairs to casual and disinterested persons.

A large percentage of Jews settled in the towns of the pale (in some 60 per cent, and calculated on the payment of municipal rates, 90 per cent), have no right to take part in municipal administration, and their needs are provided for by persons who are not interested in the town, and are ignorant of the needs of the local population.

It would be difficult to summarize all those legal and administrative restrictions which hamper the Russian Jew from his birth to his death. Wherever he lives—within or without the pale—he is not guaranteed either from material ruin or moral outrage at the caprice of the authorities. He is at the mercy of the police.

The aim of the administration has been achieved even in a greater degree than those responsible for this system would wish. Among the Jews of the pale, who for the most part consist of a half-starving crowd, a fifth are dependent on charity, and in the large towns, such as Wilna and Berdicheff, as much as a fourth and even a third. Such a percentage of paupers can not be equaled in any country in Europe.

Living side by side with this mass of paupers is a proletariat of workmen and artisans. The only condition—writes an inquirer into the conditions of the Jewish working class—which makes it possible for a workman to toil otherwise than as a slave is the right to move from one place to another, and Jewish workmen are, in fact, subjected to severe restrictions or are without this right. If they do not wish to die of hunger, or to go begging, they must submit to every condition. On the other hand, Jewish capitalists are subjected to many restrictions, and it is difficult for them to be in touch with the extensive markets and purchasers outside the pale.

The disabilities of the Jews have also influenced the economical prosperity of the Christian population; the removal of Jews from participation in economic life hampers trade and also imposes restrictions on Christians in the domain of credit and the free disposal of property. An eloquent proof of this is the attempt of many Christian landowners to evade these restrictions by fictitious leases or deeds of sale.

Restrictive laws demoralize the authorities who carry them out. The Government has latterly recognized that everlasting deportations of Jews are only a temptation to the police authorities, and have a demoralizing effect on a nation. Under such influences the authorities look upon the Jews as a people outside the law, for whom there are no courts and no protection. It leads to innocent people being persecuted, ruined, and even murdered, as is shown by the Kishineff, Gomel, and Moghileff massacres.

The only way to improve the sad lot of the Jewish population in Russia is to give them the same rights as the rest of the nation, as has been done in all European states.

Beyond the right of taking part on an equal footing with other citizens in political and social life, justice demands that they should have the elementary rights of citizenship—freedom of action, freedom of profession, the rights to acquire property, the right to be educated. Freedom of movement and freedom of occupation are closely connected with, and are indispensable to, a well-ordered state. These rights give a man the possibility to develop and apply his capacity and strength to gain the means of existence in those occupations which he finds congenial and in the place which is congenial. These are the elementary rights of every human community, and every obstacle to freedom of movement, of occupation, and the acquisition of property are felt as being a cruel persecution and an encroachment on the rights of humanity. The struggle of life is already hard enough without creating further obstacles in the way of earning a living, whether physical or intellectual. On the contrary, initiative and independence must be encouraged. For this purpose all races and creeds must be allowed free development.

“When the object is to better the lot of a people, then small means have less than small results; they have no effect at all.” This is a truism which no one denies. A gradual change, which only prolongs the evil, has already been condemned by the Russian statesman, B. N. Chicherin, with special reference to the Jewish question. “Restriction of rights,” he declares, “is a kind of punishment. If I am convinced that the man is being punished wrongfully, why is it necessary to gradually change his punishment?”

Such a gradual change is not only unjust, but it is ineffectual. The Jewish people in all its ills feel profoundly, not only physical and material wants, but also the moral outrage of their degraded position. Half measures are no reparation for an injury. A people of many millions, aroused to consciousness of its right to existence, can not indefinitely remain a race of suspects.

Most of the legislative and administrative enactments concerning the Jews of the last twenty-five years have been based on the danger they are supposed to represent to the prosperity and greatness of the country This idea has been spread by certain sections of the press to draw attention from the real evils of Russia; it was proclaimed by the bureaucracy because the “pernicious “aspirations and activity of the Jews seemed to be a convenient explanation of all our misfortunes. “Russia for the Russians.” This formula justified and explained everything, excluding from the number of Russians the followers of all foreign creeds, although they had been settled in the country for centuries. But is the unity and stability of a great empire really guaranteed by narrowing the foundations? Not only in their present trials, but when they have passed, the thoughts of the Russian people should be directed to reconstituting their internal strength. Union is only possible by unity of interests and sentiment. Restrictive laws condemning the Jews to poverty and demoralization paralyze all their efforts toward normal activity, having driven hundreds of thousands of energetic, laborious persons beyond the seas, and have sapped at the root the intellectual strength of a people of many millions, to the detriment of the whole country.

All Jews in Russia are at present animated by one thought: that the cruel force of endless limitations and restrictions is sapping the very foundation of their existence; that such an existence is no longer tolerable. Wearied by the past, seriously anxious for the future, the Jews are waiting for the complete restoration of their strength and a final abrogation of all exclusive laws, in order that, free and equal with other citizens of a great country, they may labor for its welfare and prosperity.

With this feeling on both sides, it seems hopeless to try to arrange matters satisfactorily. The religion of the member of the Orthodox Greek Church teaches him that the Jew is not to be looked upon as is a fellow Christian, and the severe tenets of the Christianity of three centuries ago still hold the people in this Empire, from the highest to the lowest. It is true that the faith of the people in the governing class has recently been practically broken. But their faith in their church has practically remained unchanged, and in considering the Jewish problem in Russia it must not be forgotten that the Russian point of view is, at bottom, a religious feeling, while the point of view of the Jew is purely ethical.

The Jews are not taking the ill treatment and oppression with peace and resignation. This is a point which should be well understood in considering their position. During the past twenty years their opposition, while unorganized and misdirected, has none the less been so strong and so unquenchable that neither prison, nor bodily suffering, nor the whips of the Cossacks, nor transportation to the farthest limits of Siberia, nor even the death penalty itself, has been able to keep them quiet.

It is said by many writers on this subject (Christians as well as Jews), that the Russian Government, unable to cope with the question themselves, have been stirring up the minds of the uneducated masses against the Jews to an extent which has resulted in the unfortunate massacres at Kisheneff and elsewhere. It is not asserted by reasonable men that the St. Petersburg Government had a hand in these massacres. What is meant is that the Government is trying to make it harder and harder for a Jew to remain in Russia, and are prejudicing the people against the Jews to that end.

When Boulyguin gave it out that Jews were not to have representatives in the Douma, the entire Jewish population came out with so strong a protest that the Government saw they must drop the matter for the time being at least. This shows conclusively that the united voice of the Jews in Russia carries weight enough to change the plans of the Government in some respects—a state of affairs which would have been considered absurd twenty or even ten years ago. So it is possible to believe that the condition of the Jewish population, bad as it is, is also no worse than it has been, and it seems just to hope that the near future will bring the same betterment of conditions to them as it bids fair to bring to the Russian people generally.

I have, etc.,

Spencer Eddy.

1. An arpent is equivalent to about 550 square yards.
2. Outside the pale: European Russia, 745,646; Caucasus, 5,072; Siberia, 18,753; Central Asia, 2,496; total, 771,967.