Volume II Part 23 (1/2)
The pogroms of 1881, and the indignation they aroused among the American people induced the United States Government to adopt a more energetic form of protest. In his dispatch to the United States Minister at St.
Petersburg, dated April 15, 1882, the new Secretary of State, Frederic T. Frelinghuysen, takes account of the prevailing sentiment in the country in these words: ”The prejudice of race and creed having in our day given way to the claims of our common humanity, the people of the United States have heard with great regret the stories of the sufferings of the Jews in Russia.” He therefore notifies the Minister ”that the feeling of friends.h.i.+p which the United States entertains for Russia prompts this Government to express the hope that the Imperial Government will find means to cause the persecution of these unfortunate beings to cease.” [1]
[Footnote 1: _Executive Doc.u.ment_ No. 470, p. 65.]
A more emphatic note of protest was sounded in the House of Representatives by Samuel S. c.o.x, of New York, who, in his lengthy speech delivered on July 31, 1882, scathingly denounced the repressive methods practiced by the Russian Government against the Jews, and, more particularly, the outrages which had been perpetrated upon them during the preceding year. [1] He makes the former directly responsible for the latter. In his opinion the pogroms were not merely a spontaneous and sudden outburst of the Eussian populace against the Jews, but rather the slow result of the disabilities and discriminations which are imposed upon the Jews by the Russian Government and are bound to degrade them in the eyes of their fellow-citizens:
[Footnote 3: _Congressional Record_, Vol. 13, part 7, _Appendix,_ p. 651 et seq. The speech is accompanied by an elaborate tabulated statement of the pogroms and a map of the area in which they had taken place.]
Is it said that the Russian peasantry, and not the Government, are responsible, I answer: If the peasantry of Russia are too ignorant or debased to understand the nature of this cruel persecution, they have warrant for their conduct in the customs and laws of Russia to which I have referred. These discriminate against the Jews. They have reference to their isolation, their separation from Russian protection, their expulsion from certain parts of the Empire, and their religion. When a peasant observes such forceful movements and authoritative discriminations in a Government against a race, it arouses his ignorance, and inflames his fanatical zealotry. Adding this to the jealousy of the Jews as middlemen and business-men, and you may account for, but not justify, these horrors. The Hebraic-Russian question has been summed up in a few words: ”Extermination of two and one-half millions of mankind because they are--Jews!” [1]
[Footnote 1: loc. _cit_., p. 653.]
After giving an elaborate account of the horrors which had taken place in Russia during 1881, he wound up his speech with the following eloquent appeal:
This people is one of the survivors, with Egypt, China and India, of the infancy of mankind. It is at the mercy of the cruel despot of the North. With a lineage unrivalled for purity, a religious sentiment and ethics drawn out of the glory and greatness of Mount Sinai ... with an eternal influence from its law-givers, prophets, and psalmists never vouchsafed to any language, race or creed, It outlives the philosophies and myths of Greece and the grandeur and power of Rome. It is this race, broken-hearted and scattered, to which the Czar of all the Russias adds the enormities of his rule upon the victims of the ignorance and slander of the ages. The birthright of this race is thus despoiled; and, Sir, have we no word of protest? Struggling against adversities which no other people have encountered, do they not yet survive--the wine from the crushed grape? [1]
[Footnote 1: _loc. cit_., p. 656.]
The resolution introduced by him on that occasion was to the following effect:
Whereas the Government of the United States should exercise its influence with the Government of Russia to stay the spirit of persecution as directed against the Jews, and protect the citizens of the United States resident in Russia, and seek redress for injuries already inflicted, as well as to secure by wise and enlightened administration the Hebrew subjects of Russia and the Hebrew citizens of the United States resident in Russia against the recurrence of wrongs; Therefore
Resolved, That the President of the United States, if not incompatible with the public service, report to this House any further correspondence in relation to the Jews in Russia not already communicated to this House.” [1] [Footnote 1: _Congressional Record_, Vol. 13, p. 6691.]
The resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, was finally pa.s.sed by the House on February 23, 1883.
The sentiments of the broad ma.s.ses of the American people had found utterance somewhat earlier at a big protest meeting which was held in February, 1882, in the city of New York, where the first refugees from Russia had begun to arrive. [1] A resolution was adopted protesting ”against the spirit of medieval persecution thus revived in Russia” and calling upon the Government of the United States to make energetic representations to St. Petersburg. One of the speakers at the New York meeting, Judge Noah Davis, said, amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience:
[Footnote 1: The meeting was held on Wednesday, February 1, 1882, on the same day as the Mansion House Meeting in London. The chair was occupied by the Mayor, William R. Grace. See the _American Hebrew_ of February 3, 1882, p. 138 et seq.]
Let them come! I would to Heaven it were in our power to take the whole three million Jews of Russia. The valley of the Mississippi alone could throw her strong arms around, and draw them all to her opulent bosom, and bless them with homes of comfort, prosperity, and happiness. Thousands of them are praying to come. The throne of Jehovah is besieged with prayers for the powers of escape, and if they cannot live in peace under Russian laws without being subject to these awful persecutions, let us aid them in coming to us. [1]
[Footnote 1: See _Proceedings of Meetings held February 1, 1882, at New York and London, to Express Sympathy with the Oppressed Jews in Russia_. New York, p. 20 et seq.]
These words of the speaker, uttered in a moment of oratorical exultation, voiced the secret wish cherished by many enthusiasts of the Russian ghetto.
3. THE PROBLEM OF EMIGRATION AND THE POGROM AT BALTA
In Russia itself a large number of emigration societies came into being about the same time, which had for their object the transfer of Russian Jews to the United States, the land of the free. The organizers of these societies evidently relied on some miraculous a.s.sistance from the outside, such as the _Alliance Israelite_ of Paris and similar Jewish bodies in Europe and America. Under the immediate effect of Ignatyev's statement to Dr. Orshanski in which the Russian Minister referred to the ”Western frontier” as the only escape for the Jews, the Russian-Jewish press was flooded with reports from hundreds of cities, particularly in the South of Russia, telling of the formation, of emigrant groups. ”Our poor cla.s.ses have only one hope left to them, that of leaving the country. 'Emigration, America,' are the slogans of our brethren”--this phrase occurs at that time with stereotyped frequency in all the reports from the provinces.
Many Russian-Jewish intellectuals dreamed of establis.h.i.+ng Jewish agricultural and farming colonies in the United States, where some batches of emigrants who had left during the year 1881 had already managed to settle on the land. A part of the Jewish youth was carried away by the idea of settling in Palestine, and conducted a vigorous propaganda on behalf of this national idea among the refugees from the modern Egypt. There was urgent need of uniting these emigration societies scattered all over the Pale of Settlement and of establis.h.i.+ng central emigration committees to regulate the movement which had gripped the people with elemental force.
Unfortunately, there was no unity of purpose among the Jewish leaders in Russia. The intellectuals who stood nearer to the people, such as the well-known oculist, Professor Mandelstamm, who enjoyed great popularity in Kiev, and others like him, as well as a section of the Jewish press, particularly the _Bazsvyet_, insisted continually on the necessity of organizing the emigration movement, which they regarded as the most important task confronting Russian Jewry at that time. The Jewish oligarchy in St. Petersburg, on the other hand, was afraid lest such an undertaking might expose it to the charge of ”disloyalty” and of a lack of Russian patriotism. Others again, whose sentiments were voiced by the Russian-Jewish periodical _Voskhod_ and who were of a more radical turn of mind, looked upon the attempt to encourage a wholesale emigration of Jews as a concession to the Government of Ignatyev and as an indirect abandonment of the struggle for emanc.i.p.ation in Russia itself.
In the spring of 1882, the question of organizing the emigration movement had become so pressing that it was decided to convene a conference of provincial Jewish leaders in St. Petersburg to consider the problem. Before the delegates had time to arrive in the capital, the sky of South Russia was once more lit up by a terrible flare. Balta, a large Jewish center in Podolia, where a Jewish emigration society had had sprung into being shortly before the catastrophe, became the scene of a frightful pogrom.
It was shortly before the Russian Pa.s.sover, the high season of pogroms, when the Russian public was startled by a strange announcement published towards the end of March in the _Imperial Messenger_ to the effect that from now on it would accurately report all cases of ”Jewish disorders”
in accordance with the official information received from the governors.
The announcement clearly implied that the Government knew beforehand of the imminence of new pogroms. Even the conservative _Moscow News_ commented on the injudicious statement of the official organ in emphatic and sarcastic terms: