HELP FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE RUSSIAN MASSACRES IN 1903 AND 1905.
OTHER PROOFS OF SYMPATHY.
The Kishinev massacre――Official solicitude and general sympathy――
Protest meetings and collections――The “Kishinev Petition” and
its fate――Less publicity given to the later pogroms, whose
victims were helped by “landsleut” from this country――The
influence of pogroms on immigration――The frightful massacres
in Russia in the fall of 1905, and the assistance rendered by
this country――A Resolution of sympathy adopted in Congress――The
250th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the United
States――Relief for Moroccan Jews proposed by the United
States――Oscar S. Straus in the Cabinet.
While the correspondence about the Jews of Roumania was still carried
on by our State Department, the civilized world was shocked by the
reports of the brutal massacre of Jews in Kishinev in the three
days of April 19–21, 1903. This massacre which is still within every
one’s memory, aroused the press and the people of the United States
more than the riots of 1881. “Almost from the first, the world’s
indignation centered in the United States. Served by a vigorous press,
whose liberal spirit voices the prevailing attitude; animated by
a humanitarianism which lies at the foundation of all our public
institutions; realizing also that America was the chief refuge of all
victims of persecution; the people of the United States became, again,
the world’s logical leaders in a campaign of humanity.”[54] President
Roosevelt’s opening remark in his speech to the Executive Committee
of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith on June 15, 1903, when he
said: “I have never in my experience in this country known of a more
immediate or a deeper expression of sympathy for the victims and of
horror over the appalling calamity that has occurred,” was fully
justified.
The news filtered very slowly through the usual channels, and more than
a week passed before the enormity of the Russian crime became fully
known. On the 29th of April the following dispatch was sent by our
Department of State:
McCormick, Ambassador, St. Petersburg:
It is persistently reported upon what appears to be adequate
authority that there is great want and suffering among Jews
in Kishinev. Friends in this country would like to know if
financial aid and supplies would be permitted to reach the
sufferers.
Please ascertain this without discussing political phase of the
action.
HAY.
Ambassador McCormick replied, ten days later, that it is
“authoritatively denied that there is any want or suffering among Jews
in Southwestern Russia and aid of any kind is unnecessary.” But the
people here understood that the Ambassador reflected the official view
of the Russian Government, and efforts to raise money for the thousands
of families which were left destitute by pillage, and for the hundreds
of widows and orphans of the martyrs, were soon made, and large sums
were collected in New York, as well as in many other places. More than
seventy-five meetings of protest and indignation were held in fifty
localities in twenty-seven States (and the District of Columbia) during
the months of May and June, the most notable of which was the one held
in New York, May 27, where Mayor Seth Low presided and ex-President
Grover Cleveland was the principal orator. Among the largest meetings
of the other places were those of Baltimore (May 17), of Philadelphia
(June 3) and of New Orleans (June 13). In the most cases the prominent
non-Jewish citizens, including high officials and ministers of religion,
delivered addresses or expressed their sentiments in letters. Numerous
sermons against Russia were preached in various churches and hundreds
of editorial articles appeared in all sorts of periodicals. Public
opinion was again, as it was twenty-two years before, practically
unanimous in condemning Russia, and in encouraging every enterprise
for the assistance of the sufferers from its barbarity.
The response to the appeals for material help was quick and generous.
The contributions were sent either directly to the central office
of the “Alliance Israelite Universelle” at Paris or to one of three
agencies in New York――to the Relief Committee of which Emanuel Lehman
was chairman and Daniel Guggenheim, treasurer, and which was in
communication with the “Alliance”; to the Relief Committee of which
K. H. Sarasohn was chairman and Arnold Kohn, treasurer, and which was
in communication with the Central Relief Committee at Kishinev; or to
Mr. William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers, in New York, Chicago
and San Francisco, did much to arouse the public to the gravity of the
situation, and who forwarded the money collected by them to Treasurer
Arnold Kohn. The sum sent to Kishinev from the United States through
all these agencies was set down in a report made on June 7, 1903,
by the Central Relief Committee at Kishinev to the “Hilfsverein der
deutschen Juden” at Berlin, at 192,443 roubles (somewhat less than
$100,000). It is about half of the sum which was collected in Russia
itself, and a fourth of what was contributed by all the countries of
the world.
It was generally understood that little could be accomplished by
representations or remonstrances to Russia, but the desire to do
something more than collect alms was very strong, and the sentiment
naturally crystallized itself in an effort to ask the Government of the
United States to use its good offices in behalf of the Jews of Russia.
A petition was framed by the Executive Committee of the Independent
Order of B’nai B’rith and submitted to the President of the United
States with the request that it be transmitted to the Emperor of
Russia. The President received the Committee cordially, and said at
the conclusion of his remarks: “I will consider most carefully the
suggestion that you have submitted to me, and whether the now existing
conditions are such that any further official expression would be of
advantage to the unfortunate survivors, with whom we sympathize so
deeply.”
The petition was couched in courteous terms, extolling the Czar
personally and pleading that “he who led his own people and all others
to the shrine of peace, will add new luster to his reign and fame by
leading a new movement that shall commit the whole world in opposition
to religious persecution.” The petition was circulated in thirty-six
States and Territories, and 12,544 signatures were obtained. Among
the signers were Senators, Members of the House of Representatives,
Governors (22), high judicial officers, State Legislators, Mayors
of cities (150), clergymen of all denominations, including three
Archbishops and seven Bishops, a large number of other officials,
and many prominent men in the professional and the business world.
President Roosevelt consented to transmit the petition, but the Russian
Government declined to receive it, and the matter was thus ended.
By permission of the President, the separate sheets of the petition
bearing all the signatures, suitably bound and enclosed in a case
provided for the purpose, have been placed in the archives of the
Department of State.[55]
It was impossible to arouse the general public and even the general
Jewish public at the recurrent pogroms and massacres at near intervals
after Kishinev. But as is always the case with Russian or Galician or
Roumanian cities when they suffer from fires, it became now the custom
for all natives of an afflicted city to form some sort of organization
in the rather rare occasion when there existed no synagogue or
benevolent society of the “landsleut,” and to collect funds for the
succor of the unfortunate families of the victims at home. Each of
the riots and massacres between Kishinev and the terrible October
days, the largest of which occurred at Homel (September 10–14, 1903)
when eight Jews were killed and nearly one hundred injured; at Bender
(May 1, 1904), and at Zhitomir (May 6, 1905), where twenty-nine were
killed――each of these riots was a miniature Kishinev among the natives
of the stricken place or its vicinity in this country. America became
for the suffering Jews of Russia the Egypt of the time of the Patriarch
Jacob, and the Russian immigrant who settled here before was the
prosperous brother Joseph whom God sent to the New World before them
to preserve life. To the emissaries from Palestine and from religious
institutions in Russia, especially the Talmudical Academies or Yeshibot,
who were coming regularly to the United States for many years to make
collections among the conservative immigrants who prospered here, were
now added emissaries from the radical or revolutionary parties from
Russia, who were enthusiastically received by the working classes and
the radical element in general, and their appeals for funds were seldom
in vain.
The most substantial and most beneficial form of assistance sent from
here to Russia was, however, not in response to appeals through Jewish
newspapers or through personal representatives of causes, of parties
or of institutions, but to requests made by members of families, by
relatives or by friends to be taken out of Russia as soon as possible.
While public appeals were made for charity of various kinds and for
defense funds and similar objects, private correspondents solicited
only one thing――steamship tickets. And the private responses, while
they attracted less attention, were more generous, and in many
instances verged on self-sacrifice. This can be deduced from the
results, i. e., from the increased Jewish immigration, which was easily
absorbed and little burdensome to the general Jewish public or to the
larger charities, because most of the new arrivals had near relatives
or friends who took care of them in the short time which elapsed until
they could find employment. The increase of Jewish immigration on
account of the pogroms can best be seen by a comparison of the number
of Jewish arrivals at the Port of New York, where nearly nine-tenths
of them arrive, with the general immigration for the five years 1903–07
(each ending June 30). The figures for 1903 are: Jews 58,079, total
immigration, 857,046; for 1904: Jews 80,885, total 812,870; for 1905:
Jews 103,941, total 1,027,421; for 1906: Jews 133,764, total 1,100,735;
for 1907: Jews 117,486, total 1,285,349. It is seen that while
general immigration in 1904 was about 45,000 less than in 1903, Jewish
immigration was about 22,000 more. On the other hand, while general
immigration rose to an unprecedented height in 1907, and was larger
than the preceding year by 185,000, the number of Jews arriving in
New York was about 16,000 less. The Jewish immigrant is not the man
who fails at home or the adventurer who cares for no home; he could
get along very well where he is if he were not molested, and Jewish
immigration from Russia would become as insignificant as Jewish
immigration from Germany if the former country could rise to the
political and social conditions of the latter.
* * * * *
The small pogroms which were designated above as miniature Kishinevs,
and even Kishinev itself, were soon forgotten or began to look very
small in comparison with the frightful massacres of the last day of
October and the first days of November, 1905, with which the Russians
inaugurated their quasi-constitutional regime. This time there were
about a thousand Jews killed, the wounded numbered many thousands, the
losses by destruction of property amounted to hundreds of millions.
America again responded nobly, and a committee, of which Oscar
S. Straus was chairman and Jacob H. Schiff, treasurer, collected
considerably more than a million dollars, from Jews and non-Jews,
mainly through the same agencies and by the same methods as the funds
for the sufferers from Kishinev were collected. There were again
mass-meetings at which prominent non-Jews spoke words of sympathy
for the martyrs and their families and condemned the government
which permitted such carnage. The general press was as friendly and
sympathetic to the Jews as on former occasions. When the great march of
Jewish mourners after the martyrs took place through the streets of New
York, in which nearly one hundred thousand participated (December 4,
1905), several Christian churches tolled their bells in expression of
sympathy with the weeping masses which passed by.
Illustration: Hon. Jacob H. Schiff.
Photo by Dupont, N. Y.
There was also an official expression of sympathy from Congress.
Representatives Henry M. Goldfogle and William Sulzer introduced into
the House resolutions to that effect, and a third one as a substitute
was introduced by Representative Charles A. Towne, who, like the
former two, represented a New York City District. The House Committee
on Foreign Affairs granted a hearing, on February 8, 1906, to those
interested in the passage of the resolutions. In its final form the
joint resolution was introduced into the Senate by the late Anselm J.
McLaurin of Mississippi, and in the House by Robert G. Cousins of Iowa,
and read as follows:
_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled._ That the
people of the United States are horrified by the reports of
the massacre of Hebrews in Russia, on account of their race
and religion, and that those bereaved thereby have the hearty
sympathy of the people of this country.
This resolution was adopted without debate, and unanimously, by both
houses on June 22, and approved by the President on June 26, 1906.
On two other occasions about the same time the friendly disposition
of the people and the Government of the United States towards the Jews
was manifested to the world. The first occasion was only semi-official,
when the Jews of the country celebrated the Two Hundred and Fiftieth
Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the United States, on
Thanksgiving Day (November 30), 1905. Meetings and special services
were held in more than seventy localities between November 24 and
December 10, but the principal celebration was in New York on the
above mentioned date, in Carnegie Hall, where notable addresses were
delivered by former President Grover Cleveland, Governor Francis W.
Higgins of the State of New York, Mayor George B. McClellan of New
York City, and Bishop David Greer. Cordial letters were received
from President Roosevelt and Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks.
The principal oration at that memorable meeting was delivered by
Judge Mayer Sulzberger of Philadelphia. Our present Ambassador to
Russia, Curtis Guild, Jr., who was at that time Lieutenant-Governor
of Massachusetts, was one of the speakers at the celebration meeting
which was held in Boston, a day before the New York meeting.[56]
The second occasion attracted less attention, but was strictly
official. The International Conference about Morocco, which was held in
Algeciras, Spain, from January 6 to April 7, 1906, was participated in
by the United States, and its first delegate, Henry White (Ambassador
to Italy), received instruction by a special letter from Secretary of
State (now Senator) Elihu Root to work for the protection of the Jews
of Morocco. These instructions were accompanied by a letter received
by Secretary Root from Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, setting forth the pitiable
condition of the Jews of that country and enumerating the legal
restrictions to which they were subject. Through the exertion of Mr.
White, a provision was inserted, on April 2, in the treaty, with which
the Conference was concluded, according to which the signatory nations
guarantee the security and equal privileges of the Jews in Morocco,
both those living in the ports and those living in the interior. (See
“American-Jewish Year Book” for 5667, pp. 92–98.) The chief value of
this provision, however, consists only in its indication of the good
will of the Government of the United States. Its practical value for
the Jews of Morocco, as far as protection from riots and massacres
are concerned, is hardly more than that of the well known “Article 44”
of the Treaty of Berlin regarding the Jews of Roumania. The Jews of
Morocco probably never heard of that provision, and the credit of
ameliorating their condition rightfully belongs to France, which has,
according to the latest agreement among European Powers, become the
protector, or ruler of the Shereefian Empire.
Illustration: Hon. Oscar S. Straus.
Near the end of the same year (1906) President Roosevelt appointed
Oscar S. Straus, the author and diplomatist, Secretary of Commerce and
Labor. The first Jew to be thus honored with a seat in the Cabinet has
served twice as minister plenipotentiary (and since he left the Cabinet,
again as Ambassador) to Turkey, and also succeeded the late Benjamin
Harrison, former president of the United States, as a member of the
Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. His oldest brother,
Isidor Straus (b. in Bavaria, 1845; a. 1854; drowned with the “Titanic”
April 15, 1912), was a well known merchant and philanthropist in New
York, who was a member of the Fifty-third Congress, and has been for
many years President of the Educational Alliance. Another brother,
Nathan Straus (b. in Bavaria, 1848: a. 1854), who is also known as a
philanthropist and served as Park Commissioner, and, for several months,
as President of the Board of Health of New York, is two years older
than the former Cabinet Minister.