Volume II Part 30 (1/2)
Solovyov addressed an impa.s.sioned appeal to Alexander III., but received through one of the Ministers the impressive advice to refrain from raising a cry on behalf of the Jews, under pain of administrative penalties. In these circ.u.mstances, the plan of a public protest had to be abandoned. Instead, the following device was resorted to as a makes.h.i.+ft. Solovyov's teacher of Jewish literature, F. Goetz, was publis.h.i.+ng an apology of Judaism under the t.i.tle ”A Word from the Prisoner at the Bar.” Solovyov wrote a preface to this little volume, and turned over to its author for publication the letters of Tolstoi and Korolenko in the defence of the Jews. No sooner had the book left the press than it was confiscated by the censor, and, in spite of all pet.i.tions, the entire edition of this innocent apology was thrown into the flames. In this way the Russian Government succeeded in shutting the mouths of the few defenders of Judaism, while according unrestricted liberty of speech to its ferocious a.s.sailants.
3. THE GUILDHALL MEETING IN LONDON
The cry of indignation against Jewish oppression, which had been smothered in Russia, could not be stifled abroad. The Jews of England took the initiative in this matter. On November 5, 1890, the London _Times_ published a letter from N.S. Joseph, honorary secretary to the Russo-Jewish Committee in London, pa.s.sionately appealing to the public men of England to intercede on behalf of his persecuted coreligionists.
The writer of the letter called attention to the fact that, while the Russian Government was officially denying that it was contemplating new restrictions against the Jews, it was at the same time applying the former restrictions on so comprehensive a scale and with such extraordinary cruelty that the Jews in the Pale of Settlement were like a doomed prisoner in a cell with its opposite walls gradually approaching, contracting by slow degrees his breathing s.p.a.ce, till they at last immure him in a living tomb.
The writer concludes his appeal in these terms:
It may seem a sorry jest but the Russian law, in very truth, now declares: The Jew may live here only and shall not live there; if he lives here he must remain here; but wherever he lives he shall not live--he shall not have the means of living. This is the operation of the law as it stands, without any new edict. This is the sentence of death that silently, insidiously, and in the veiled language of obscurely worded laws has been p.r.o.nounced against hundreds of thousands of human beings.... Shall civilized Europe, shall the Christianity of England behold this slow torture and bloodless ma.s.sacre, and be silent?
The appeal of the Russo-Jewish Committee and the new gloomy tidings from Russia published by the _Times_ decided a number of prominent Englishmen to call the protest meeting which had been postponed half a year previously. Eighty-three foremost representatives of English society addressed a letter to the Lord Mayor of London calling upon him to convene such a meeting. The office of Lord Mayor at that time was occupied by Joseph Savory, a Christian, who did not share the susceptibilities which had troubled his Jewish predecessor. Immediately on a.s.suming office, Savory gave his consent to the holding of the meeting.
On December 10, 1890, the meeting was held in the magnificent Guildhall, belonging to the City of London, and was attended by more than 2000 people. The Lord Mayor who presided over the gathering endeavored in his introductory remarks to soften the bitterness of the protest for the benefit of official Russia.
As I hear--he said--the Emperor of Russia is a good husband and a tender father, and I cannot but think that such a man must necessarily be kindly disposed to all his subjects. On his Majesty the Emperor of Russia the hopes of the Russian Jews are at the present moment fixed. He can by one stroke of his pen annul those laws which now press so grievously upon them and he can thus give a happy life to those Jewish subjects of his who now can hardly be said to live at all.
In conclusion, the Lord Mayor expressed the wish that Alexander III. may become the ”emanc.i.p.ator” of the Russian Jews, just as his father Alexander II. had been the emanc.i.p.ator of the Russian serfs.
Cardinal Manning, the warm-hearted champion of Jewish emanc.i.p.ation, who was prevented by illness from being present, sent a long letter which was read to the meeting. The argument against interfering with the inner politics of a foreign country, the cardinal wrote, had found its first expression in Cain's question, ”Am I my brother's keeper?” There is a united Jewish race scattered all over the world, and the pain inflicted upon it in Russia is felt by the Jewish race in England. It is wrong to keep silent when we see six million men reduced to the level of criminals, particularly when they belong to a race ”with a sacred history of nearly four thousand years.”
The speakers who followed the Lord Mayor pictured in vivid colors the political and civil bondage of Russian Jewry.
The first speaker, the Duke of Westminster, after recounting the sufferings of Russian Jewry, moved the adoption of the protest resolution, notwithstanding the fact that the ”great protest of 1882”
(at the Mansion House meeting)[1] had brought no results. ”We read in the history of the Jewish race that 'G.o.d hardened the heart of Pharaoh so that he would not let the people of Israel go'; but deliverance came at last by the hand of Moses.”
[Footnote 1: See p. 288 et seq.]
After brilliant speeches by the Bishop of Ripon, the Earl of Meath, and others, the following resolution was adopted:
That in the opinion of this meeting the renewed sufferings of the Jews in Russia from the operation of severe and exceptional edicts and disabilities are deeply to be deplored, and that in this last decade of the nineteenth century religious liberty is a principle which should be recognized by every Christian community as among the natural human rights.
At the same time a second resolution was adopted to the following effect:
That a suitable memorial be addressed to his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, respectfully praying his Majesty to repeal all the exceptional and restrictive laws and disabilities which afflict his Jewish subjects; and begging his Majesty to confer upon them equal rights with those enjoyed by the rest of his Majesty's subjects; and that the said memorial be signed by the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, in the name of the citizens of London, and be transmitted by his Lords.h.i.+p to his Majesty.
A few extracts from the memorandum may be quoted by way of ill.u.s.trating the character of this remarkable appeal to the Russian emperor:
We, the citizens of London, respectfully approach your Majesty and humbly beg your gracious leave to plead the cause of the afflicted.
Cries of distress have reached us from thousands of suffering Israelites in your vast empire; and we Englishmen, with pity in our souls for all who suffer, turn to your Majesty to implore for them your Sovereign aid and clemency.
Five millions of your Majesty's subjects groan beneath the yoke of exceptional and restrictive laws. Remnants of a race, whence all religion sprung--ours and yours, and every creed on earth that owns one G.o.d--men who cling with all devotion to their ancient faith and forms of wors.h.i.+p, these Hebrews are in your empire subject to such laws that under them they cannot live and thrive....
Pent up in narrow bounds within your Majesty's wide empire, and even within those bounds forced to reside chiefly in towns that reek and overflow with every form of poverty and wretchedness; forbidden all free movement; hedged in every enterprise by restrictive laws; forbidden tenure of land, or all concern in land, their means of livelihood have become so cramped as to render life for them well-nigh impossible.
Nor are they cramped alone in s.p.a.ce and action. The higher education is denied them, except in limits far below the due proportion of their needs and aspirations. They may not freely exercise professions, like other subjects of your Majesty, nor may they gain promotion in the Army, however great their merit and their valour....
Sire! we who have learnt to tolerate all creeds, deeming it a principle of true religion to permit religious liberty, we beseech your Majesty to repeal those laws that afflict these Israelites.