United States concludes its treaties with foreign states for the
equal protection of all classes of American citizens. It can make
absolutely no discrimination between them, whatever be their origin
or creed. So that they abide by the laws, at home or abroad, it
must give them due protection and expect like protection for them.
Any unfriendly or discriminatory act against them on the part of a
foreign power with which we are at peace would call for our earnest
remonstrance whether a treaty existed or not. The friendliness of
our relations with foreign nations is emphasized by the treaties
we have concluded with them. We have been moved to enter into
such international compacts by considerations of mutual benefit
and reciprocity, by the same considerations, in short, which have
animated the Russian Government from the time of the noble and
tolerant declarations of the Empress Catharine in 1784 to those
of the ukase of 1860. We have looked to the spirit rather than to
the letter of these engagements, and believed that they should be
interpreted in the broadest way; it is, therefore, a source of
unfeigned regret to us when a government, to which we are allied by
so many historical ties as to that of Russia, shows a disposition
in its dealing with us to take advantage of technicalities, to
appeal to the rigid letter and not the reciprocal motive of its
international engagements, in justification of the expulsion from
its territories of peaceable American citizens resorting thither
under the good faith of treaties and accused of no wrong-doing or
of no violation of the commercial code of the land, but of simple
adherence to the faith of their fathers."
OFFICIAL DISPATCH OF AMBASSADOR WHITE TO SECRETARY OF STATE GRESHAM.
LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ST. PETERSBURG, JULY 6, 1893.
(Received July 27.)
SIR:--Your telegram, presumably of May 17, was received on the morning
of May 18, and answered at once.
Since telegraphing you I have made additional inquiries with reference
to your question, and am persuaded that there has been no new edict
banishing Israelites from Poland, as was stated in some of the
papers of Western Europe; but for some time past the old edicts and
regulations against them have been enforced in various parts of the
Empire with more and more severity.
Soon after my arrival at this post it was rumored that there was to
be some mitigation in the treatment of them, but the hopes based on
this rumor have grown less and less, and it is now clear that the
tendency is all in the direction not only of excluding Israelites more
rigorously than ever from parts of the Empire where they were formerly
allowed on sufferance, but to make life more and more difficult for
them in those parts of the Empire where they have been allowed to live
for many generations.
As you are doubtless aware, there are about 5,000,000 Israelites in
Russia, forming, it is claimed, more than half of the entire Jewish
race, and these are packed together in the cities and villages of what
was formerly Poland and adjacent governments, in a belt extending
along the western borders from northwest to southeast, but which for
some years past has been drawn back from the frontier about forty
miles, under the necessity, as it is claimed, imposed by the tendency
of the Israelites in that region to conduct smuggling operations. In
other parts of the Empire they have only been allowed to reside as a
matter of exceptional favor. This alleged favor, under the more kindly
reign of Alexander II, was largely developed and matured into a sort
of _quasi_ right in the case of certain classes, such as Israelites
who have been admitted to the learned professions, or have taken a
university degree, or have received the rights of merchants of the
first or second guild, paying the heavy fees required in such cases.
Certain skilled artisans have also been allowed to reside in certain
towns outside the Jewish pale, but their privileges are very uncertain,
liable to revocation at any time, and have in recent years been greatly
diminished. Besides this, certain Israelites are allowed by special
permits to reside as clerks in sundry establishments, but under the
most uncertain tenure. This tenure can be understood by a case which
occurred here about a month since.
At that time died an eminent Israelite of St. Petersburg, a Mr. ----
----, who had distinguished himself by rescuing certain great companies
from ruin by his integrity and skill in various large operations, and
by the fact that, while he made large and constant gains for those
interested in these companies and operations, he laid up for himself
only a moderate competence. He had in his employ a large number of
Jewish clerks, and it is now regarded here as a matter of fact that at
the expiration of their passes, say in a few months, all of them must
leave St. Petersburg.
The treatment of the Israelites, whether good or evil is not based
entirely upon any one ukase or statute; there are said to be in
the vast jungle of the laws of this Empire more than one thousand
decrees and statutes relating to them, beside innumerable circulars,
open or secret, regulations, restrictions, extensions, and temporary
arrangements, general, special, and local, forming such a tangled
growth that probably no human being can say what the law as a whole
is--least of all can a Jew in any province have any certain knowledge
of his rights.
From time to time, and especially during the reign of Alexander II,
who showed himself more kind to them than any other sovereign had ever
been, many of them were allowed to leave this overcrowded territory,
and, at least, were not hindered from coming into territory and towns
which, strictly speaking, they were not considered as entitled to
enter; but for some time past this residence on sufferance has been
rendered more and more difficult. Details of the treatment to which
they have been subjected may be found in the report made by Mr. J.
B. Weber and his associate commissioners entitled, "Report of the
Commissioners of Immigration upon the Causes which incite Immigration
to the United States," Government Printing Office. I must confess that
when I first read this report its statements seemed to me exaggerated,
or at least, over-colored, but it is with very great regret that I say
that this is no longer my opinion. Not only is great severity exercised
as regards the main body of Israelites here, but it is from time to
time brought to bear with especial force on those returning to Russia
from abroad. The case was recently brought to my notice of a Jewish
woman who, having gone abroad, was stopped on her return at a frontier
station, and, at last accounts, had been there three days, hoping that
some members of her family in Russia might be able to do something to
enable her to rejoin them.
Israelites of the humbler classes find it more and more difficult to
re-enter Russia, and this fact will explain the case of Mrs. Minnie
Levin, referred to in Mr. Wharton's dispatch No: 60 as being refused
a visa at the Russian Consulate-General in New York, and it will also
throw light on various cases we have had in which the legation has been
able to secure mitigation of the application of the rules.
On this latter point we have been successful in obtaining such
mitigation in cases of many Israelites who have been subjected to
annoyance by over-zealous local authorities.
It may appear strange that any nation should wish to expel a people
who, in other parts of the world, have amassed so much wealth. The fact
is that but a very small fraction of them in Russia are wealthy; but
few even in comfortable circumstances. The vast majority of them are in
poverty, and a very considerable part in misery--just on the border of
starvation.
Nearly forty years ago, when, as an attaché of this legation, I was
for seven days and nights on the outside of a post coach between St.
Petersburgh and Warsaw--there being then no railway to the frontier--I
had an ample opportunity to see something of these Israelites and
of the region in which they live. They exist for the most part in
squalor, obliged to resort to almost anything that offers, in order to
keep body and soul together. Even the best of them were then treated
with contempt by the lowest of the pure Russians. I myself saw two
Israelites, evidently of the wealthier class and richly clad, who had
ventured into the enclosure in front of the posthouse to look at the
coach in which I was, lashed with a coach whip and driven out of the
enclosure with blows by one of the postilions--evidently a serf.
A very few millionaire Israelites are to be found among the merchants
of the first guild in some of the larger cities, but there is no such
proportion of wealthy men among them as in the United States, Great
Britain, France, and Germany. In the smaller towns, in some of which
they form the majority of the residents, their poverty is so abject
that they drag each other down, making frequently a ruinous competition
with each other in such branches of business as they are allowed to
pursue. This is now even more the case than ever before, since recent
regulations have swept the Israelites living in many rural districts
into the towns.
A case was a few days since mentioned to me in which a small town of
8000 or 10,000 inhabitants had recently received into its population
nearly 6000 Israelites from the surrounding country.
The restrictions are by no means confined to residence; they extend
into every field of activity. Even in the parts of the Empire where the
Israelites are most free they are not allowed to hold property in land,
or to take a mortgage on land, or to farm land, and of late they have
even been, to a large extent, prevented from living on farms, and have
been thrown back into the cities and villages.
As to other occupations, Jewish manufacturers have at times, even under
the present reign, been crippled by laws or regulations forbidding them
to employ Christian workmen, but these are understood to be not now in
force. They are relics of the old legislation which, in the interest of
the servant's soul, forbade a Jew to employ a Christian servant under
pain of death, and which, in a mitigated form, remained on the statute
book until 1865, when it was abolished by Alexander II.
There are also many restrictions upon the professions considered more
honorable. A few Israelites are allowed to become engineers, and they
are allowed to hold 5 per cent of the positions of army surgeons,
but no more; and this in spite of the fact that from the Middle Ages
until how their race has been recognized as having a peculiar aptitude
for medicine and surgery. As a rule, also, they are debarred from
discharging any public functions of importance, and even as to lesser
functions, a Jew can not be elected mayor of a village or even member
of its council.
Not more than one man in ten of those summoned to do jury duty can be
a Jew, and even in the cities within the pale, where the Jews form the
great majority of the population, they can not hold more than one-third
of the places on a municipal council.
Perhaps the most painful of the restrictions upon them is in regard
to the education of their children. The world over, as is well known,
Israelites will make sacrifices to educate their sons and daughters,
such as are not made, save in exceptional cases, by any other people.
They are, as is universally recognized, a very gifted race, but no
matter how gifted a young Israelite may be, his chances of receiving an
education are small.
In regions where they are most numerous, only 10 per cent of the
scholars in high schools and universities are allowed to be Jews, but
in many cases the number allowed them is but 5 per cent, and in St.
Petersburgh and Moscow only 3 per cent. Out of the seventy-five young
Israelites who applied for admission to the University of Dorpat in
1887 only seven were allowed to enter. A few days since the case was
brought to my notice of a well-to-do Israelite who wished to educate
his son, whom he considered especially gifted, but who could not
obtain permission to educate him in St. Petersburg, and was obliged
to be satisfied with the permission to enter him at one of the small
provincial universities remote from the capital.
To account for this particular restriction it is urged that if freely
allowed to receive an advanced education they would swarm in the high
schools, universities, and learned professions; and, as a proof of
this, the fact is mentioned that some time since, in the absence of
restrictions, at Odessa from 50 to 70 per cent of the scholars in
sundry Russian colleges were Jews.
As to religious restrictions, the general policy pursued seems to an
unprejudiced observer from any other country so illogical as to be
incomprehensible. On the one hand great powers are given to the Jewish
rabbis and religious authorities. They are allowed in the districts
where the Israelites mainly live to form a sort of state within the
state, with power to impose taxes upon their co-religionists and
to give their regulations virtually the force of law. On the other
hand, efforts of zealous orthodox Christians to proselyte Israelites,
which must provoke much bitterness, are allowed and even favored. The
proselytes, once brought within the orthodox Russian fold, no matter by
what means, any resumption of the old religion by them is treated as a
crime.
Recent cases have occurred where Jews who have been thus converted and
who have afterwards attended the synagogue have been brought before the
courts.
So, too, in regard to religious instruction it would seem to an
unprejudiced observer, wishing well both to Russia and to the
Israelites, that the first thing to do would be to substitute
instruction in science, general literature, and in technical branches
for that which is so strongly complained of by Russians generally--the
instruction in the Talmud and Jewish theology. But this is just what is
not done, and indeed, as above stated not allowed.
The whole system at present in vogue is calculated to make Talmudic
and theological schools--which are so constantly complained of
as the nurseries and hotbeds of anti-Russian and anti-Christian
fanaticism--the only schools accessible to the great majority of gifted
young Israelites.
As to the recent interferences of which accounts have been published
in the English newspapers and especially as to a statement that a
very large number of Jewish children were, early during the present
year, taken from their parents in one of the southern governments of
Russia and put into monastic schools under the charge of orthodox
priests, this statement having been brought to my notice especially
by letters addressed to me as the representative of the United
States, I communicated with our consuls in the regions referred to
and also obtained information from other trustworthy sources, and the
conclusion at which I arrived was that the statement was untrue; it
probably had its origin in the fact that much anxiety has recently
been shown by certain high officials, and especially ecclesiastics, to
promote education in which orthodox religious instruction holds a very
important part.
In justification of all these restrictions various claims are made.
First of all it is claimed that the Jews lend money to peasants and
others at enormous rates of interest. But it is pointed out, in answer
to this, that sundry bankers and individuals in parts of Russia where
no Jews are permitted have made loans at a much higher rate than Jews
have ever ventured to do; while it is allowed that 100 per cent a year
has not unfrequently been taken by the Israelites, there seems to be
no doubt of the fact that from 300 to 800 per cent, and even more
sometimes, has been taken by Christians.
This statement seems incredible, but it is unimpeachable. In a general
way it is supported by the recent report of a Russian official to Mr.
Sagonof; and a leading journal of St. Petersburg, published under
strict censorship, has recently given cases with names and dates where
a rate higher than the highest above named was paid by Russian peasants
to Christian money lenders.
Those inclined to lenity towards the Jews point to the fact that none
of them would dare take any such rates of interest as Christians
may freely demand; that to do so would raise against the Israelites
in their neighborhood storms which they could not resist, and it is
argued that, as their desire for gain is restricted in this way, their
presence in any part of Russia tends to diminish the rate of interest
rather than to increase it. On the other hand it is claimed that they
will not work at agriculture and, indeed, that they will do no sort of
manual labor which they can avoid.
As to the first of these charges, the fact is dwelt upon, which has so
impressed Mr. Mackenzie Wallace and other travelers, that the Jewish
agricultural colonies founded by Alexander I, in 1810, and by Nicholas
I, in 1840, have not done well.
But in answer it may be stated as a simple matter of history that,
having been originally an agricultural people they have been made
what they are by ages of persecutions which have driven them into the
occupations to which they are now so generally devoted; that in Russia
they have for generations been incapacitated for agricultural work by
such restrictions as those above referred to; that even if they are
allowed here and there to till the land, they are not allowed, in the
part of the Empire which they most inhabit, to buy it or even to farm
it, and that thus the greatest incentive to labor is taken away.
As to other branches of manual labor, simply as a matter of fact, there
are very large bodies of Jewish artisans in Poland, numbering in the
aggregate about one-half the entire adult male Israelite population.
Almost every branch of manual labor is represented among them, and well
represented. As stone masons they have an especially high reputation,
and it is generally conceded that in sobriety, capacity, and attention
to work they fully equal their Christian rivals.
Complaint is also made that they, as far as possible, avoid military
service. This is doubtless true, but the reasons for it are evident.
For the Jewish soldier there is no chance of promotion, and when
he retires after service, he is, as a rule, subject to the same
restrictions as others of his race. In spite of this fact the number of
them in the conscription of 1886 was over 40,000.
I find everywhere in discussing this subject, a complaint that the
Israelites, wherever they are allowed to exist, get the better of the
Russian peasant. The difficulty is that the life of the Israelite is
marked by sobriety, self-denial and foresight; and, whatever may be the
kindly qualities ascribed to the Russian peasant, these qualities are
rarely, if ever, mentioned among them.
It is also urged against the Israelites in Russia that they are not
patriotic, but in view of the policy pursued regarding them the wonder
is that any human being should expect them to be patriotic.
There is also frequent complaint against Jewish fanaticism, and
recently collections of extracts from the Talmud have been published
here as in western Europe, and even in the United States, to show
that Israelites are educated in bitter and undying hate of Christians,
and taught not only to despise but to despoil them; and it is insisted
that the vast majority of the Israelites in Russia have, by ages of
this kind of instruction and by the simple laws of heredity, been made
beasts of prey with claws and teeth especially sharp, and that the
peasant must be protected from them.
Lately this charge has been strongly reiterated, a book having appeared
here in which the original Hebrew of the worst Talmudic passages, with
translations of them, are placed in parallel columns. It seems to be
forgotten that the Israelites would be more than human if such passages
did not occur in their sacred writings. While some of these passages
antedate the establishment of Christianity, most of them have been the
result of fervor under oppression and of the appeal to the vengeance
of Jehovah in times of persecution; and it would be but just to set
against them the more kindly passages, especially the broadly and
beautifully humane teachings which are so frequent in the same writings.
An eminently practical course would be to consider the development of
Judaism in the United States, Great Britain, and other countries where
undeniably those darker features of of the Talmud have been more and
more blotted out from Jewish teaching, and the unfortunate side of
Talmudic influence more and more weakened.
But this charge of Talmudic fanaticism is constantly made, and
Russians, to show that there is no hatred of Israelites, as such, point
to the fact that the Karaites, who are non-Talmudic, have always been
treated with especial kindness.
To this the answer would seem to be that the Karaites are free from
fanaticism because they have been so long kindly treated, and that
this same freedom and kindness which has made them unobjectionable to
Russian patriotism would, in time, probably render the great mass of
Israelites equally so.
There is no need of argument, either in the light of history or of
common sense, to prove that these millions of Israelites in Russia are
not to be rendered less fanatical by the treatment to which they are
subjected.
To prove that the more bitter utterances in the Talmud complained of do
not necessarily lead Israelites to hate Christians, and indeed to show
that the teachings which the Israelites receive in countries where they
have more freedom lead to a broad philanthropy of the highest type,
I have been accustomed, in discussing the subject with Russians, to
point to such examples of the truest love for human kind as those shown
by Judah Touro in the United States, Sir Moses Montefiore in England,
Nathan de Rothschild in Austria, James de Rothschild and Baron Hirsch
in France, and multitudes of other cases, citing especially the fact of
the extensive charities carried on by Israelites in all countries, and
the significant circumstance that the first considerable contribution
from the United States to the Russian famine fund came from a Jewish
synagogue in California, with the request that in the use of it no
discrimination should be made between Jews and Christians. Cases like
these would seem to do away effectually with the idea, that Jewish
teachings necessarily inculcate hostility to people of other religious
beliefs.
There is also a charge closely connected wtth the foregoing which
undoubtedly has much to do with the present severe reaction. It is
constantly repeated that, in spite of the fact that the late Emperor
Alexander II had shown himself more kindly toward the Israelites than
had any of his predecessors--relaxing the old rules as to residence,
occupation, education, and the like, and was sure, had he lived, to go
much farther in the same direction, probably as far as breaking down
a mass of the existing barriers, and throwing open vast regions never
before accessible to them--the proportion of Israelites implicated
in the various movements against him, especially in the Nihilistic
movement, and in the final plot which led to his assassination, was far
beyond the numerical proportion of their race in Russia to the entire
population. This feeling was certainly at the bottom of the cruel
persecutions of the Israelites by the peasants just after the death
of the late Emperor, and has no less certainly much to do with the
prejudices of various personages of high influence as well as of the
vast mass of the people which still exist.