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4
JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
Studies in History, Economics and Public Law
Edited by the Faculty of Political Science
of Columbia University
Volume LIX] [Number 4
Whole Number 145
JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
FROM 1881 TO 1910
by
SAMUEL JOSEPH
1914
To
MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER
PREFACE
In this survey of Jewish immigration to the United States for the past
thirty years, my purpose has been to present the main features of a
movement of population that is one of the most striking of modern
times. The causes of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, the course
of Jewish immigration to the United States and the most important
social qualities of the Jewish immigrants are studied, for the light
they throw upon the character of this movement. The method employed in
this investigation has been largely statistical and comparative, a
fact which is partly due to the kind of material that was available
and partly to the point of view that has been taken. Certain economic
and social factors, having a close bearing upon the past and present
situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe and frequently neglected in
the discussion of the various phases of this movement, have been
emphasized in the examination into the causes of the emigration of the
Jews from Eastern Europe and have been found vital in determining the
specific character of the Jewish immigration to this country.
I desire gratefully to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to Mr. A.S.
Freidus, head of the Jewish department of the New York Public Library,
for his ever-ready assistance in the preparation of this work. Thanks
are due as well to Dr. C.C. Williamson, head of the Economics
department of the library, and to his able and courteous staff; to
Professor Robert E. Chaddock for his many valuable suggestions and
aid in the making of the statistical tables and in the reading of the
proof; and to Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman for his painstaking
reading of the manuscript.
SAMUEL JOSEPH.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.--THE CAUSES OF JEWISH EMIGRATION.
PAGE
CHAPTER I
_Introduction._
1. Character of Jewish immigration 21
2. Eastern Europe 22
3. Distribution of Jews in Eastern Europe 22
4. Uniform character of East-European Jews 22
CHAPTER II
EASTERN EUROPE: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS.
I. _Russia._
1. Medieval past 27
2. Agricultural character 28
3. Emancipation of serfs 29
4. Reminiscences of serfdom 29
5. Changes since the emancipation 30
6. Epoch of transition 31
7. Social orders: classes, the church 31
8. Political order: autocracy, bureaucracy 32
9. Political struggle: Russian liberalism 32
10. Reaction since Alexander III 33
II. _Roumania._
1. Social-economic classes 34
2. Emancipation of the serfs: results 35
3. Development of industry and commerce 36
4. Growth of a middle class 36
III. _Austria-Hungary._
1. Reminiscences of medieval economy 37
2. Transitional nature of economic life 37
3. Organization of industry and commerce 37
4. Politico-economic struggles 38
5. Galicia: economic and social conditions 39
IV. _Summary._
CHAPTER III
THE JEWS IN EASTERN EUROPE: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POSITION
I. _Russia._
1. Economic characteristics 42
a. Occupational distribution of the Jews 42
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 42
c. Participation of the Jews in principal
occupational groups 43
d. Comparison of occupational distribution of Jews
and non-Jews in the Pale 43
e. Economic activities of the Jews 44
2. Social characteristics 46
a. Urban distribution of the Jews 46
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 46
c. Literacy: comparison with the non-Jews 47
d. Liberal professions: comparison with the non-Jews 48
II. _Roumania._
1. Economic characteristics 48
a. The Jews as merchants and entrepreneurs 48
b. The Jewish artisans 49
c. Participation of the Jews in industry and commerce 49
2. Social characteristics 49
a. Urban distribution of the Jews 49
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 49
c. Literacy: comparison with the non-Jews 50
III. _Austria-Hungary._
1. Economic characteristics 50
a. Occupational distribution of the Jews 50
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 51
c. Participation of the Jews in principal
occupational groups 51
Galicia 51
a. Occupational distribution of the Jews 51
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 51
c. Participation of the Jews in principal
occupational groups 51
d. Industrial and commercial position of the Jews
in East and West Galicia 52
2. Social characteristics 52
a. Urban distribution of the Jews 52
b. Comparison with the non-Jews 52
c. Liberal professions: comparison with the non-Jews 52
IV. _Summary._
CHAPTER IV
THIRTY YEARS OF JEWISH HISTORY
I. _Russia._
1. Treatment of the Jews after the partitions of Poland 56
2. Pale of Jewish Settlement: special Jewish laws 57
3. Attitude of Russian government toward the Jews 57
4. Alexander II and liberalism 58
5. Reaction: antagonism to the Jews 59
6. Economic attack: the May Laws 60
7. Effect of the May Laws 61
8. Educational restrictions: the "percentage rule" 62
9. _Pogroms: pogroms of 1881-2_ 63
10. Expulsions from Moscow 64
11. Nicholas II: anti-Jewish agitation: Kishineff 64
12. War and revolution: effect upon the Jews 65
13. _Pogroms_ as counter-revolution 66
14. Results: economic and social pressure 67
15. Jewish policy of reactionary regime 68
II. _Roumania._
1. Early legal status of the Jews 69
2. Convention of Paris 69
3. Anti-Jewish activities of the government: Article VII 70
4. Berlin Congress 70
5. Article 44 of the Berlin Treaty 71
6. The revised Article VII 71
7. Legal status of the Jews fixed 72
8. Campaign of discrimination 73
9. Exclusion of Jews from economic activities 73
10. Educational restrictions: restrictions to
professional service 74
11. Political basis of anti-Jewish policy 75
12. Results: economic and social pressure 76
13. Jewish policy of Roumanian government: Hay's
circular note 76
III. _Austria-Hungary._
1. Early legal status of the Jews: emancipation 77
2. Jews attacked as liberals and capitalists 78
3. Rise of political antisemitism: its triumph: the
clericals 78
Galicia 78
1. Rise of a Polish middle class: displacement of Jews
in industry and commerce 79
2. Economic boycott of Jewish artisans and traders 79
3. Anti-Jewish activity of local authorities 79
4. Over-competition and surplus of Jews in industry and
commerce 80
5. Historical role of the Jews: antagonism of peasantry
and clergy 80
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
PART II.--JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
A. ITS MOVEMENT
CHAPTER I
DETERMINATION OF NUMBER OF JEWISH IMMIGRANTS
1. Construction of table: difficulties 87
2. Sources utilized: reports of Jewish societies 87
3. Rearrangement of numbers from 1886 to 1898 88
4. Determination of numbers by country of nativity:
methods used 88
5. Determination of numbers from 1881 to 1885: methods
used 90
6. Tendency to magnify numbers of Jewish immigrants 91
7. Results 92
CHAPTER II
IMMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM EASTERN EUROPE
1. Jewish immigration East-European 95
2. Summary by decades of Jewish immigration from Russia,
Roumania and Austria-Hungary 95
3. Annual contributions of Jewish immigration from
Russia, Roumania and Austria-Hungary 96
CHAPTER III
IMMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM RUSSIA
1. Russian Jewish immigration a movement of steady
growth 98
a. Summary by decades 98
b. Annual variations: effect of the Moscow expulsions 98
2. Participation of Jews in the immigration from Russia 101
a. Annual variations 101
b. Summary by decades 102
c. Relative predominance of Jewish in total 102
3. Intensity of Jewish immigration from Russia 103
a. Rate of immigration 103
b. Fluctuations of rate 104
CHAPTER IV
IMMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM ROUMANIA
1. Roumanian Jewish immigration a rising movement 105
a. Summary by decades 105
b. Annual variations 105
2. Participation of Jews in the immigration from
Roumania 107
a. Jewish and total synonymous 107
b. Annual variations 107
3. Intensity of Jewish immigration from Roumania 108
a. Rate of immigration 108
b. Fluctuations of rate 108
CHAPTER V
IMMIGRATION OF JEWS FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
1. Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary a rising
movement 109
a. Summary by decades 109
b. Annual variations 109
c. Comparison of Jewish with total
2. Participation of Jews in the immigration from
Austria-Hungary 110
a. Summary by decades 110
b. Annual variations 111
3. Comparison of immigration of Jews from Austria and
Hungary 111
a. Numbers 111
b. Participation in total 111
4. Immigration of Jews and other peoples from
Austria-Hungary 112
5. Rate of Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary 112
CHAPTER VI
JEWISH IMMIGRATION
1. Total movement one of geometrical progression 113
a. Summary by decades 113
b. Summary by six-year periods 113
c. Annual variations 114
CHAPTER VII
PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN TOTAL IMMIGRATION
1. Rise in proportion of Jewish to total 117
2. Summary by decades 117
3. Annual variations 117
4. Comparison of annual variations of Jewish and total
immigration 118
5. Rank of Jewish in total immigration 119
6. Rate of immigration 120
CHAPTER VIII
SUMMARY
B. ITS CHARACTERISTICS
CHAPTER I
FAMILY MOVEMENT
1. Importance of sex and age distribution 127
2. Proportion of females in Jewish immigration 127
a. Tendency towards increase 127
3. Proportion of children in Jewish immigration 128
4. Proportion of sexes in total and Jewish immigration 129
5. Proportion of children in total and Jewish
immigration 129
6. Comparison of composition by sex of Jews and other
immigrant peoples 130
7. Comparison of composition by age of Jews and other
immigrant peoples 130
8. Comparison of composition by sex and age of Jews and
the Slavic races 131
9. Comparison of composition by sex and age of Jews
from Roumania and Roumanians 131
10. Comparison of composition by sex and age of Jewish
and "old" and "new" immigration 132
11. Conclusion 132
CHAPTER II.
PERMANENT SETTLEMENT
1. Emigration of Jews compared with immigration of Jews 133
2. Comparison of return movement of total and Jewish
immigration 134
3. Comparison of return movement of Jews and other
immigrant peoples 134
4. Emigration tendency of Jews from Russia, Roumania
and Austria-Hungary 135
5. Comparison of return movement of Jews and Poles
from Russia and Austria-Hungary 136
6. Comparison of return movement of Jewish and "old"
and "new" immigration 137
7. Comparison of return movement of Jews and other
immigrant peoples, 1908 137
8. Response of Jewish immigration to economic
conditions in the United States 138
9. Comparison of Jews and other immigrant peoples who
have been previously in the United States 138
10. Conclusion 139
CHAPTER III
OCCUPATIONS
1. Occupational distribution of Jewish immigrants 140
2. Jewish immigrants reporting occupations 141
a. Number and percentage of occupational groups 141
3. Skilled laborers 141
a. Garment workers 141
b. Other important groups 142
4. Participation of Jews in occupational distribution
of total immigration 142
5. Comparison of occupational distribution of Jews and
other immigrant peoples 143
6. Comparison of occupational distribution of Jews and
Slavic peoples 144
7. Comparison of occupational distribution of Jewish
and "old" and "new" immigration 144
8. Conclusion 145
CHAPTER IV
ILLITERACY
1. Illiteracy of Jewish immigrants 146
2. Influence of sex upon illiteracy of Jewish
immigrants 146
3. Illiteracy of Jewish male and female immigrants 147
4. Comparison of rate of illiteracy of Jews and other
immigrant peoples 147
5. Comparison of rate of illiteracy of Jewish and
"old" and "new" immigration 147
6. Comparison of rate of illiteracy of Jews and
East-European peoples 148
7. Comparison of rate of illiteracy of each sex among
Jews and East-European peoples 148
8. Conclusion 148
CHAPTER V
DESTINATION
1. Factors influencing destination 149
2. Proportion of Jewish immigrants destined for
divisions 149
3. Proportion of Jewish immigrants destined for
principal states 149
4. Comparison of destination of Jews and other
immigrant peoples 150
5. Participation of Jews in the immigration destined
for divisions 150
6. Final disposition of Jewish immigrants 151
CHAPTER VI
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
STATISTICAL TABLES
PAGE
IA. Participation of Jews in occupations in the
Russian Empire, 1897 158
IB. Participation of Jews in occupations in the Pale
of Jewish Settlement, 1897 159
II. Jewish immigration at the ports of New York,
Philadelphia and Baltimore, July to June, 1886 to
1898 159
III. Jewish immigration at the port of New York, July,
1885 to June, 1886, by month and country of
nativity 159
IVA. Jewish immigration at the port of Philadelphia,
1886 to 1898, by country of nativity 160
IVB. Jewish immigration at the port of Baltimore, 1891
to 1898, by country of nativity 160
V. Jewish immigration at the ports of New York,
Philadelphia and Baltimore, 1886 to 1898, by
country of nativity 161
VI. Jewish immigration to the United States, 1881 to
1910 93
VII. Percentage of annual Jewish immigration to the
United States, contributed by each country of
nativity, 1881 to 1910 94
VIII. Jewish immigration to the United States, 1881 to
1910, absolute numbers and percentages, by decade
and country of nativity 162
IX. Jewish immigration from Russia, 1881 to 1910, and
percentage of total arriving each year 162
X. Jewish immigration from Russia, 1881 to 1910, by
decade and percentage of total arriving each decade 163
XI. Jewish immigration from Russia at the port of New
York, January 1, 1891 to December 31, 1891, and
January 1, 1892 to December 31, 1892, by month 163
XII. Total immigration from Russia and Jewish immigration
from Russia, 1881 to 1910, and percentage Jewish of
total 164
XIII. Total immigration from Russia and Jewish immigration
from Russia, 1881 to 1910, by decade and percentage
Jewish of total 164
XIV. Immigration to the United States from the Russian
Empire, 1899 to 1910, by annual percentage of
contribution of principal peoples 165
XV. Rate of immigration of peoples predominant in the
immigration from Russia, 1899 to 1910 165
XVI. Rate of Jewish immigration from Russia per 10,000
of Jewish population, 1899 to 1910 166
XVII. Jewish immigration from Roumania, 1881 to 1910, by
decade and percentage of total arriving each decade 166
XVIII. Jewish immigration from Roumania, 1881 to 1910, and
percentage of total arriving each year 167
XIX. Total immigration from Roumania and Jewish
immigration from Roumania, 1899 to 1910, and
percentage Jewish of total 168
XX. Rate of Jewish immigration from Roumania per 10,000
of Jewish population, 1899 to 1910 168
XXI. Jewish immigration from Austria Hungary, 1881 to
1910, by decade and percentage of total arriving
each decade 169
XXII. Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary, 1881 to
1910, and percentage of total arriving each year 169
XXIII. Total and Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary,
1881 to 1910, by decade and percentage Jewish of
total 170
XXIV. Total and Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary,
1881 to 1910, and percentage Jewish of total 170
XXV. Percentage of annual immigration from
Austria-Hungary contributed by principal peoples,
1899 to 1910 171
XXVI. Rate of Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary per
10,000 of Jewish population, 1899 to 1910 171
XXVII. Jewish immigration, 1881 to 1910, by decade 172
XXVIII. Jewish immigration, 1881 to 1910, by six-year
period 172
XXIX. Jewish immigration to the United States, 1881 to
1910 173
XXX. Total immigration and Jewish immigration, 1881 to
1910, by decade and percentage Jewish of total 174
XXXI. Total immigration and Jewish immigration, 1881 to
1910, by year and percentage Jewish of total 174
XXXII. Total and Jewish immigration, 1881 to 1910, by
number and percentage of increase or decrease 175
XXXIII. Sex of Jewish immigrants, 1899 to 1910 176
XXXIV. Sex of Jewish immigrant adults at the port of New
York, 1886 to 1898 176
XXXV. Age of Jewish immigrants, 1809 to 1910 177
XXXVI. Age of Jewish immigrants at the port of New York,
1886 to 1898 177
XXXVII. Sex of total and Jewish immigrants, 1899 to 1910 178
XXXVIII. Sex of European immigrants, 1899 to 1910 179
XXXIX. Age of European immigrants, 1899 to 1909 180
XL. Sex, 1899 to 1910, and age, 1899 to 1909, of Slavic
immigrants 181
XLIA. Sex of Roumanian immigrants, 1899 to 1910, and of
immigrants from Roumania. 1900 to 1910 181
XLIB. Age of Jewish and Roumanian immigrants, 1899 to
1909 181
XLII. Sex and age of "old" and "new" immigration (Jewish
excepted) and of Jewish immigration, 1899 to 1909 182
XLIII. Jewish immigration and emigration, 1908 to 1912 182
XLIV. Total and Jewish emigrant aliens and percentage
Jewish immigrant aliens of total immigrant aliens,
1908 to 1912 183
XLV. European immigrant aliens admitted, and European
emigrant aliens departed, 1908, 1909 and 1910 183
XLVI. Jewish immigration and emigration, Russia,
Austria-Hungary and Roumania, 1908 to 1912 184
XLVII. Polish immigration and emigration, Russia and
Austria-Hungary, 1908 to 1912 184
XLVIII. "Old" and "new" (Jewish excepted) and Jewish
immigration and emigration, 1908 to 1910 185
XLIX. European immigrant aliens, 1907, and European
emigrant aliens, 1908 185
L. Total European immigrants admitted and total of those
admitted during this period in the United States
previously, 1899 to 1910 186
LI. Occupational distribution of Jewish immigrants,
1899 to 1910 186
LII. Jewish immigrants reporting occupations, 1899
to 1910 187
LIII. Jewish immigrants engaged in professional
occupations, 1899 to 1910 187
LIV. Jewish immigrants reporting skilled occupations,
1899 to 1910 188
LV. Occupations of total European and Jewish immigrants,
1899 to 1909, and percentage Jewish of total 189
LVI. Total European immigrants and immigrants without
occupation, 1899 to 1910 189
LVII. Occupations of European immigrants reporting
employment, 1899 to 1910 190
LVIII. Occupations of Slavic and Jewish immigrants
reporting employment, 1890 to 1910 191
LIX. Occupations of "old" and "new" immigration (Jewish
excepted) and of Jewish immigration, 1899 to 1909 191
LX. Illiteracy of Jewish immigrants, 1899 to 1910 192
LXI. Sex of Jewish immigrant illiterates, 1908 to 1912 192
LXII. Illiteracy of European immigrants, 1899 to 1910 193
LXIII. Illiteracy of "old" and "new" immigration (Jewish
excepted) and of Jewish immigration, 1899 to 1909 194
LXIV. Illiteracy of peoples from Eastern Europe, 1899 to
1910 194
LXV. Sex of illiterates of peoples from Eastern Europe,
1908 194
LXVI. Destination of Jewish immigrants, 1899 to 1910, by
principal divisions 195
LXVII. Destination of Jewish immigrants, 1899 to 1910, by
principal states 195
LXVIII. Percentage of Jewish and total immigrants destined
for each division, 1899 to 1910 196
LXIX. Participation of Jewish immigrants in destination of
total immigrants, 1899 to 1910, by principal
divisions 196
APPENDICES
A. President Harrison's Message, 1891 199
B. Article VII of the Constitution of Roumania 200
C. Secretary Hay's Note 201
BIBLIOGRAPHY 207
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Thirty years have elapsed since the Jews began to enter the United
States in numbers sufficiently large to make their immigration
conspicuous in the general movement to this country. A study of Jewish
immigration, in itself and in relation to the general movement,
reveals an interesting phase of this historic and many-sided social
phenomenon and throws light upon a number of important problems
incident to it.
Especially does it become clear that the Jewish immigration, although
in part the result of the same forces as have affected the general
immigration and the separate groups composing it, differs,
nevertheless, in certain marked respects, from the typical
immigration. Some of these differences indeed are fundamental and
far-reaching in their effects and practically stamp the Jewish
immigration as a movement _sui generis_.
Generally speaking, in the forces which are behind the emigration of
the Jews from the countries of the Old World, in the character of
their immigration--its movement and its distinguishing qualities--the
Jewish immigration strikes a distinctly individual note.
Three European countries--Russia, Austria-Hungary and
Roumania--furnish the vast majority of the Jewish immigrants to the
United States.[1] It is to these countries, therefore, that we must
turn for light upon the causes of this movement.
Geographically, these countries are closely connected; they form
practically the whole of the division of Eastern Europe. Here the
Slavonic races so largely predominate that the term Slavonic Europe
has been applied to this section of Europe.
Eastern or Slavonic Europe is a social as well as a geographical fact.
In racial stratification, economic and social institutions, cultural
position and, in part, religious traditions as well, these countries
present strong similarities to one another and equally strong
differences in most of these respects from the countries of Western
Europe.
It is here that the Jews are found concentrated in the greatest
numbers. Nearly seven and a half-million Jews--more than half of the
Jews of the world--live in these countries. Of this number more than
five millions are in Russia, more than two millions in Austria-Hungary,
and a quarter of a million in Roumania. The great majority of these are
massed on the contiguous borders, in a zone which embraces Poland, and
Western Russia, Galicia, and Moldavia. This is the emigration zone. The
relative density of the Jews is greatest in these parts. Every seventh
man in Poland, every ninth man in Western Russia and in Galicia, and
every tenth man in Moldavia, is a Jew. Thus the center of gravity of
the Jewish populations is still the former kingdom of Poland, as it was
constituted before the partitions at the end of the eighteenth century.
United originally in Poland, the Jews of Eastern Europe still retain
the same general characteristics, in spite of the changes that have
been brought about by a century of rule under different governments.
Speaking a common language, Yiddish, and possessing common religious
traditions, as well as similar social and psychological traits, the
East-European Jews present on the whole a striking uniformity of
character.
Through the centuries they have become deeply rooted in the
East-European soil, their economic and social life intimately
connected with the economic and social conditions of these countries
and their history deeply influenced by the transformations that have
been taking place in them for half a century.
As these conditions and transformations furnish the foundation of
Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and contain the explanation of the
situation that has been largely responsible for the recent Jewish
emigration to Western Europe and the United States, a rapid review of
the economic, social and political conditions of Russia, Roumania and
Austria-Hungary will be made.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Cf. infra_, p. 95.
PART I
THE CAUSES OF JEWISH EMIGRATION
CHAPTER II
EASTERN EUROPE: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
I. RUSSIA
The difficulty of the average American to understand the character of
Russian life, some traits of which have been so vividly brought home
to him in recent years, may be attributed to a general idea that a
country rubbing elbows as it were with Western civilization for
several centuries must perforce itself possess the characteristics of
modern civilization. A closer survey of the economic, social and
political conditions prevailing in Russia to-day, however, reveals
many points of difference from those of the countries of Western
Europe, and presents a remarkable contrast with those prevailing in
the United States. Russia and the United States, indeed, stand, in
Leroy-Beaulieu's phrase, at the two poles of modern civilization. So
far apart are they in the character of their economic, social and
political structures, in the degree in which they utilize the forms
and institutions of modern life, and, in the difference in the mental
make-up of their peoples, that there exist few, if any, points of real
contact.
Up to the middle of the 19th century, Russia was, in nearly all
respects, a medieval state. She was a society, which, in the words of
Kovalevsky, "preserved still of feudalism, not its political spirit
but its economic structure, serfdom, monopoly and the privileges of
the nobility, its immunities in the matter of taxes, its exclusive
right to landed property, and its seignorial rights."[2] Her modern
era dates from the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, when she became,
at least in form, a European state. But, though the Russia of our day
has witnessed great transformations in the direction of modernization,
she still retains many of the conditions and much of the spirit of her
medieval past.
A rapid review of the economic, social and political conditions of
Russia will serve to make clearer this situation, which has an
important bearing upon the exceptional position, legal, economic,
social, of the Jews in the Empire, and upon the fateful events of
their history for a third of a century.
The most striking fact in the economic life of present-day Russia is
that it is overwhelmingly agricultural. More than three-fourths of her
population are engaged in some form of agricultural labor. The vast
majority are peasants living in villages. Towns are relatively few and
sparsely populated. Agricultural products constitute 85 per cent of
the annual exports. What a contrast does this agricultural state, this
"peasant empire", present to the industrially and commercially
developed countries of Western Europe and the United States!
The Russian peasant still practices a primitive system of agriculture.
His method of extensive cultivation, the three-field system in vogue,
his primitive implements, his domestic economy of half a century ago,
with its home production for home consumption, which is still
maintained in many parts of Russia to this day--all these present
conditions not far removed from those of the middle ages of Western
Europe.[3]
The existence to our day of this almost primitive economy finds its
explanation in the fact that serfdom existed in Russia, in all its
unmitigated cruelty, until comparatively recent times. Its abolition
through the Emancipation Act of Alexander II--antedating our own
Emancipation Proclamation by a few years--struck off the chains that
bound twenty millions of peasants to the soil. The emancipation,
however, was not complete. The land the peasants received was
insufficient for their needs. Other conditions co-operated in the
course of time with this primary one, to create a situation of chronic
starvation for the great mass of the Russian peasants. Forced by the
government to pay heavy taxes, in addition to redemption dues for the
land, which they paid until recently, and receiving little help from
either government or the nobility for the improvement of their
position, they are virtually exploited almost as completely as before
the emancipation.
Thus, though freed in person, the peasants are to a great extent bound
by economic ties to their former masters, the nobles. These two
social-economic classes maintain towards each other practically the
same relative position held by them before the emancipation. The manor
still controls the hut.
The former servile relations have persisted psychologically as well.
The Russian peasant is still largely a serf in his mentality, in his
feeling of dependence, in his inertia and lack of individual
enterprise, and, above all, in the smallness of his demands upon
life.[4] This fact permeates, as it serves to explain, many aspects of
contemporary Russian life.
The industrial and commercial stage of Russian economy began with the
emancipation, which set free a great supply of labor. The changes
that have taken place have nevertheless not obliterated many of the
landmarks of the feudal, pre-reformation period. The economic
activities of the last half-century present a curious juxtaposition of
old and new, medieval and modern. Cottage and village industries but
little removed from the natural economy of the earlier period exist by
the side of great factories and industrial establishments employing
thousands of workmen. Fairs and markets still play a large part in
supplying the needs of the peasants, rapidly as they are being
supplanted by the commercial activities of the towns. The industrial
laborers, recruited mainly from the country, retain largely their
peasant interests, relations and characteristics. The payment of wages
in kind, which is still in vogue in many parts, and the right of
inflicting corporal punishment retained by the employers, give
evidence of the strong impress of the servile conditions of the past.
Vast changes have nevertheless taken place since the emancipation.
Capitalism has made rapid, if uneven, progress. Under the fostering
care of the government, industry and commerce have made immense
strides. The factory system has taken firm root and has been
developing a specialized class of industrial laborers. Great
industrial centers have sprung up; towns have grown rapidly. The
middle class, hitherto insignificant, has increased in number, wealth
and influence. Among the peasants as well, freedom has given birth to
the spirit of individualism. The differentiation of the peasantry into
wealthier peasants and landless agricultural laborers, the great mass
of the peasantry occupying the middle ground, and the gradual
dissolution of the two great forces of Russian agricultural life--the
patriarchal family and the village community--have been the most
important results.
Russia is clearly in a state of transition from the agricultural or
medieval to the industrial and commercial or modern economic life.
This transformation of the economic structure is being effected under
great difficulties and the strong opposition of the ruling classes,
whose privileges are threatened by the new order of things.
The Russian social and political order reflects the medieval
background which formed the setting for her entrance upon the modern
stage. The class distinctions, naturally obtaining, are hardened into
rigidity by the law, which divides Russian society into a hierarchy of
five classes or orders--the nobles, the clergy, the merchants, the
townsmen and the peasants--each with separate legal status, rights and
obligations.
The individual is thus not an independent unit, as in the legal codes
of Western Europe or the United States. Accompanying the legal
stratification there is an exceedingly strong, almost caste-like,
sense of difference between the members of the different groups.
This emphasis on the person is characteristic of the medieval social
order. In Russia it finds additional expression in the control of
individual movement by means of the passport, without which document a
Russian may be said to have no legal existence.
Even more striking is the position of the Russian Church, as well as
the religio-national conception which dominates the Russian mind and
according to which orthodoxy and nationality are regarded as one. The
Russian Orthodox is the only true Russian; all others are foreigners.
In the alliance of church and state--which in Russia reaches a degree
of strength not attained in any other European state--in the complete
control exercised by the Church over the lives of the faithful and the
clergy, in secular as in religious matters, in its intolerant attitude
towards other creeds and its unceasing attempts to suppress them--it
presents characteristics strongly reminiscent of the position of the
medieval church in Western Europe.
The one great political fact of Russia has been the autocracy. The
degree of control which the autocratic Czars exercised unopposed over
their subjects marks an important difference between the political
development of Russia and that of the countries of Western Europe. At
an early period the Czars had transformed the nobility into a body of
state officials, thus at a blow depriving them of any real powers,
apart from the will of the Crown, and making them serve the interests
of the state. In this way the nobles, or the landed aristocracy,
became the main source from which the members of the bureaucracy were
recruited. The lack of a middle class of any real size and influence,
which could play a part in the demand for political rights, explains
in a measure the strength of the autocratic powers.[5] The autocracy
in turn has been largely dependent upon its servant, the bureaucracy.
To such an extent has the Russian government been the expression of
the will and interests of this all-powerful body as to justify
Leroy-Beaulieu's designation of Russia as the "Bureaucratic State".
Thus the autocracy, the nobility-bureaucracy and the church have been
the dominating forces in the economic, social and political life of
Russia.
In the light of this analysis, the political struggles that have been
so conspicuous a feature of Russian life during the last half of the
19th century become an accompaniment as well as an expression of the
progressive development of Russia towards modern economic, social and
political institutions.
Russian liberalism,--largely revolutionary because of the denial of
even elementary rights, such as the freedom of person, of speech, of
the press and of meeting,--rights which were secured to Englishmen
through the Magna Charta--has had the serious task not only of
securing these rights but at the same time of creating in Russia the
conditions of modern civilization. For the twenty years in which its
spirit ruled, during the reign of Alexander II, the reforms begun
under its influence amounted to a veritable revolution. The economic,
social, political and juridical reforms of this epoch generated new
forces and began the modernization of Russia. These reforms
encountered the formidable opposition of the nobility and the church
and finally of the autocracy, when the latter felt that its position
was gradually being undermined, especially by the demand for a
constitution. With the assassination of Alexander II, the liberal era
was brought to a close, and a reaction was ushered in which has lasted
to our day.
The classes that came into power with Alexander III and Pobedonostseff
were, from their economic interests, social outlook and political
ideals, essentially medieval and may properly be termed the feudal
party. Guided by its economic interests--which had been seriously
threatened by the emancipation--and swayed by the Slavophilistic
philosophy,[6] this party sought to nullify as far as possible
the reforms of the epoch of emancipation and to carry through a
many-sided program for putting the order of things backward to the
medieval, pre-reform days. Autocracy, Greek Orthodoxy and Russian
Nationalism--the famous Slavophilistic trinity--were glorified,
the first two as peculiarly national institutions, the policy of
russification and the repression of non-orthodox faiths by force
were proclaimed as vital to the social health of Russia, the blind
ignorance and illiteracy of the peasants were extolled as a virtue and
the control over them by the nobility was strengthened in many ways.
Freedom of every form was condemned as an aping of the "rotten"
civilization of the West with its decaying institutions, and as false
to the true Russian national, historical development.
During this period of reaction, however, the liberal movement was kept
alive, largely as revolutionary propaganda. The earlier movement had
been directed by the educated classes, the "_Intelligenzia_" of
Russia. Lately, with the growth of the middle class and a population
of industrial workers in the towns and the factories, and a wealthier
class of peasants, the cry for reform has become more insistent, and
only recently partly successful in results.
Summarizing his impressions of Russian life and institutions obtained
while serving as Ambassador to Russia, Andrew D. White remarked:
"During two centuries Russia has been coming slowly out of the middle
ages--indeed, out of perhaps the most cruel phases of medieval
life."[7] One of the phases of this process has been the bitter
struggle between the feudal and the modern forces that has occupied
Russia for the last third of a century.
II. ROUMANIA
In Roumania,[8] in spite of a liberal constitution modeled upon the
Belgian, granting all rights enjoyed by citizens of a free state, the
underlying economic, social and, in a measure, political conditions
point to a state of things little removed from the medieval forms of
life. The main social-economic classes are the large landed
proprietors, composed chiefly of the old nobility or boyars, and the
peasants, who were formerly serfs. In the hands of the former are
concentrated the greater part of the land. Five thousand large landed
proprietors together owned nearly half of the cultivable land. Nearly
a million of peasants, on the other hand, comprising with their
dependents a great majority of the population, together owned a little
over two-fifths of the cultivable land.[9]
This situation is an inheritance from the servile system which existed
in Roumania until 1864, when it was legally abolished. The freedom
granted to the peasants was, however, more formal than real. The land
given them being insufficient for their needs, and pasture land
especially having been denied them, they were as a rule compelled to
lease land or pasture right from their former masters at ruinous
rates, often paying by labor on their former masters' estates. Thus
the essential feudal services were in the main continued, especially
as the lease and labor contracts, generally drawn up in the interests
of the landed proprietor, were often usurious and extremely
oppressive.[10] In twenty years there was little change from the
previous condition of serfdom, so that a law was necessary, in 1882,
to permit the peasants to work at least two days during the week on
their own land.
Since this period there has been practically little change in this
essentially feudal relation of the peasantry to the landed
proprietors. As the owners of the great estates are a ruling power in
the political life of the country, the greater part of peasants being
disqualified from voting through property and educational
requirements, the former have been enabled to keep the peasantry in
this condition of semi-servitude. The result is a state of ignorance,
misery and degradation on the part of the peasantry that is difficult
to parallel in another European country. That the peasants are not
entirely passive under their wrongs is shown in the repeated uprisings
against their masters and in the two great social revolutions of 1888
and 1907, both of which were put down by military force.
Roumania's advent into industry and commerce may be dated from the
eighties of the last century, and was initiated by the industrial law
of 1887, which sought to create a national industry by means of
subsidies, land grants and other favors to undertakers of large
industrial enterprises. Since then the growth has been sufficiently
rapid to place Roumania as the industrial and commercial leader of the
Balkan States. Relatively, however, it is still very backward. Only 14
per cent of the population is urban. The industrial laborers are
estimated at no more than 40,000. There are only a few cities. Only
the largest--Bucarest--has above 100,000 inhabitants, three other
cities have between fifty and seventy-five thousand inhabitants. The
chief industrial establishments, such as saw mills, flour mills and
distilleries, are concerned mainly in the working up of the raw
materials produced in the country. Nevertheless, industrial progress
has made for the growth of a small but influential middle class, which
divides the control of affairs with the large landed proprietors. Its
influence can be traced in the electoral law, which gives the urban
classes, constituting the backbone of the liberal party, a majority in
the Chamber of Deputies.
III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Though relatively far advanced along the road of modern civilization,
Austria-Hungary, through its prevailing mode of economic and social
life, and through its large Slavic populations, belongs rather to
Eastern than to Western Europe. Historically, it began its modern
career about the same time as Russia, when it abolished, in 1867, the
feudal services and dues, survivals of the previous servile
institutions. Nevertheless, in its large agricultural population, in
the primitive system of cultivation generally in vogue, in the
scattered character of the peasant holdings, in the strong contrast
between the great landed estates or _Latifundia_, held chiefly by the
nobility, and the small, even minute, estates of the majority of the
peasant proprietors, and in the natural economy prevailing in many
parts of the Dual Monarchy and constituting the main foundation upon
which the life of the peasants rests--in all these characteristics, is
reflected the almost medieval economy which existed in the empire
before 1848 and which is not yet entirely outgrown.
Industrially and commercially, Austria, far more than Hungary, has
indeed made really remarkable progress. Yet in this respect the
greatest contrast exists between the various Austrian provinces.
Certain of these--Galicia and Bukowina, for instance--are not only the
most backward in these pursuits, but their agricultural population is
even relatively increasing. Even in the industrially advanced
provinces, such as Lower Austria and Bohemia, the transitional nature
of the industrial life is evident in the unspecialized character of a
larger portion of the town laborers, many of whom are peasants
temporarily employed in factories and mines.
The Austrian organization of industry and commerce is a modernized
version of the guilds and crafts of medieval Western Europe. How these
medieval economic forms with their underlying psychologic forces still
live and dominate Austria, especially its Slavic nationalities, is
shown by the revival in 1859 of the Austrian guilds, the direct
descendants of the medieval _Innungen_. These were, in 1883, developed
in the form of _Zwangsgenossenschaften_ or compulsory trade-guilds,
which, in their regulations concerning the _Befaehigungsnachweis_ or
certificate of capacity, the three orders of master, journeyman and
apprentice, the principle of compulsory entrance into the local guild,
the workman's passport or _Arbeitsbuch_, unite the methods of
regulating and restricting industry and trade characteristic of the
Middle Ages, with modern methods of combination, arbitration, and
assistance of members. By the side of these compulsory guilds are to
be found the _Gewerkschaften_, or the modern voluntary trade-unions.
The transition to modern economic and social conditions is,
nevertheless, well advanced. This is seen in a decrease of the
agricultural classes and an increase of the industrial and commercial
classes in the thirty years from 1869 to 1900. Another sign is the
fairly strong differentiation of the economic-social classes, in both
the agricultural and the industrial groups, which has advanced quite
rapidly. The middle class, while neither as large nor as influential
as in the countries of Western Europe, has played an important role
towards hastening this transition.
Politically, the Dual Monarchy occupies a middle ground between
absolutist Russia and constitutional England. The court, the nobility
and the Roman Church with its strong aristocratic leanings, represent
the dominant power in Austria. The economic and social changes of the
transitional period have been accompanied by politico-economic
struggles which have played a vital part and have cut through and
across the racial, national and religious conflicts of this
much-distracted conglomeration of peoples. Amid the confusion of
parties, with their complexity of programs, may be distinguished the
German-Austrian liberals, representatives of the middle class or
industrialists, whose historic mission was to create a modern state
in Austria, and who carried out, in large measure, their program of
constitutionalism, economic freedom and the secular state. Against
them were arrayed the powerful forces of the agrarian party or the
landed aristocracy--the upholders of the feudal economic-social order
of privilege and class distinction, the clericals--the upholders of
the idea of the Christian State--and the representatives of the lower
middle class, composed chiefly of petty artisans and traders, whose
ideal was the medieval industrial organization, largely co-operative
and regulated, as opposed to the individualistic and competitive
system of the modern era, with its great concentration of wealth,
capital and power in the hands of the middle class. That the present
structure of Austria is so much of a compromise and crosspatch between
modern and medieval economic, social and political forms, and contains
so much that is essentially incongruous, is due largely to the
successful struggle which the chief parties of the medieval order--the
feudal-clericals--the party of the upper classes, and the Christian
Socialists--the party of the lower classes--have waged against the
growing constitutionalization, industrialization and secularization of
Austria--in short, against the transformation of Austria into a modern
state.
It is in Galicia that the conditions obtaining in Russia are largely
duplicated. Geographically, racially and socially, Galicia is a part
of Russia. Galicia is a preponderatingly agricultural land and
possesses the densest agricultural population in Europe. Modern
industry is relatively little developed, its place being held to a
great extent by the domestic system of industry. The contrast between
the large and small estates is sharper here than perhaps in any other
section of Europe. The Polish nobility, in whose hands the large
estates are mostly found, are the ruling social and political, as well
as economic, power in Galicia. The autonomous Galician _Diet_ is
practically the instrument of their interests. A middle class has been
gradually rising and contesting their supremacy. The peasantry is one
of the most illiterate, degraded, and oppressed in all Europe.
IV. SUMMARY
This brief review of the economic and social conditions in Russia,
Roumania and Austria-Hungary has shown that, broadly speaking, these
countries present points of similarity in their situation and their
recent movement. In all of these countries, economic and social
conditions closely resembling those that obtained in the countries of
Western Europe several centuries ago were found until comparatively
recent times. The abolition of serfdom in Russia and in Roumania, and
of feudal dues in Austria-Hungary, paved the way for the entrance of
these states into modern European civilization. The succeeding period
has been marked by a rapid transition from the old domestic economy to
a modern exchange economy, through the growth of industry and
commerce. The medieval conditions of the earlier period have
nevertheless not been entirely obliterated. They exist, in Russia, in
the privileges and powers of the nobility, in the inferior status and
oppressed condition of the peasantry, in the strong class
distinctions, in the restraints upon economic activity and upon
movement. Though in smaller measure, the same conditions are found in
Austria-Hungary, especially in Galicia. In Roumania, so far as the
peasantry is concerned, the pre-emancipation conditions remain
practically, if not legally, in force. Owing to the increase of
population, the minute subdivision of the estates of the peasants, the
backwardness of their agricultural methods, and their over-taxation,
the position of the peasants has been rendered precarious.
Revolutionary uprisings directed chiefly against the landed
proprietors have been a recurring expression of their discontent.
An important consequence has been the rapid evolution of the
industrial and commercial, or the middle class. The growth of the
middle class has been accompanied by a struggle in each of these
countries between the privileged classes of the feudal state and the
middle class, including in the latter the educated classes and the
industrial workers of the towns.
It is in this middle class that the Jews are chiefly to be found.
Owing to this fact, as well as through the action of historical
conditions, the Jews occupy an exceptional position in the economic
activities and the social life of each of the countries of Eastern
Europe. A survey of their economic and social position in each country
will serve to clarify the last thirty years of their history in
Eastern Europe and to give some of the causes underlying their vast
movement from these countries to Western Europe and particularly to
the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Kovalevsky, _La crise russe_ (Paris, 1906), p. 111.
[3] _Cf._ Witte, _Vorlesungen ueber Volks- und Staatswirtschaft_
(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913), p. 40.
Milyoukov, _Russia and its Crisis_ (University of Chicago Press,
1905), p. 439.
[4] _Cf._ Witte, _op. cit._, p. 52.
[5] _Cf._ Milyoukov, _op. cit._, p. 246 _et seq._
[6] An interesting statement of the principles of the Slavophiles may
be obtained from Simkhovitch (_International Quarterly_, Oct., 1904).
[7] White, _Autobiography_ (New York, 1905), vol. ii, p. 35.
[8] Owing to the similarity of conditions in Russia and Roumania,
particularly as regards the Jews, Roumania has been considered,
practically throughout, immediately after Russia.
[9] Kogalniceancu, "Die Agrarfrage in Rumaenien" _Archiv fuer
Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik_, vol. xxxii, p. 804.
[10] _Ibid._, p. 184.
Jorga, _Geschichte des Rumaenischen Volkes_ (Gotha, 1905), vol. ii, p.
374.
CHAPTER III
THE JEWS IN EASTERN EUROPE: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POSITION
The economic and social life of the Jews in Eastern Europe has moved
along the familiar channels of commerce, industry and urban life
characteristic of the Jews in all countries during the middle ages. An
examination of the economic position and function and the principal
social characteristics of the Jews reveals the fact that they play an
important part in each of these countries. This we shall see by
tracing their principal economic activities and some significant
phases of their social life.
I. RUSSIA
A review of the occupations of the Jews in the Russian Empire shows
that those engaged in the manufacturing and mechanical pursuits
constituted 39 per cent of the total Jewish population gainfully
employed. This was the largest occupational group. Commerce engaged 32
per cent. Together the industrial and commercial classes comprised
seven-tenths of all Jews engaged in gainful occupations. On the other
hand, only 3 per cent were employed in agricultural pursuits.
It is in comparison with the occupations of the non-Jewish population
in Russia that the significance of this distribution becomes evident.
Of the non-Jews in Russia, agricultural pursuits engaged 61 per cent,
manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 15 per cent, and commerce only 3
per cent. The non-Jews engaged in industry and commerce thus
constituted somewhat less than one-fifth of the total non-Jewish
population gainfully employed. More than twice as many Jews,
relatively, as non-Jews were engaged in industrial pursuits and
practically twelve times as many Jews as non-Jews in commercial
pursuits.[11]
This difference of occupational grouping makes itself felt in the
participation of the Jews in the principal occupational groups. Of the
total Russian population gainfully employed, the Jews were 5 per cent.
They constituted, however, 11 per cent of all engaged in industry, and
36 per cent of all engaged in commerce.[12] Thus, in the Russian
Empire the Jews formed a considerable proportion of the commercial
classes and a large proportion of those engaged in industrial
pursuits.
Properly to gauge the economic function of the Jews in Russia,
comparison should be made not with the population of the Russian
Empire but rather with that of the Pale of Settlement, where nearly 95
per cent of the Jews live. There the contrast was even stronger. Of
the Jews, 70 per cent were employed in industry and commerce as
compared with 13 per cent on the part of the non-Jews. Though the Jews
are only 12 per cent of the total working population of the Pale, they
formed 32 per cent of all engaged in industry and 77 per cent of all
engaged in commerce.[13] This clearly shows that the Jews constituted
the commercial classes and a significant part of the industrial
classes of the Pale. In other words, what is true of the place of the
Jews in the occupational distribution of all Russia is still more true
of the Pale. The Jews are preponderatingly industrial and commercial,
in striking contrast to the rest of the population, which is
preponderatingly agricultural.
What is the nature of their activities and their function in the
industrial and commercial life of Russia? The great majority of Jews
engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits are artisans. In the
present relatively backward stage of Russian industrial development
these are chiefly handicraftsmen, who mainly supply the needs of local
consumers. These artisans, who number more than half a million,[14]
support nearly one-third of the Jewish population.
The most important industry is the manufacture of clothing and wearing
apparel, which employed more than one-third of the Jewish working
population and supported more than one-seventh of the total Jewish
population. It is in effect a Jewish industry: practically all the
tailors and shoemakers in the Pale are Jews. They predominate as well
in the preparation of food products, in the building trades, in the
metal, wood and tobacco industries.[15] Hampered by legal
restrictions, lack of technical education, and lack of capital, they
nevertheless have become an essential part of the economic life of the
Pale, supplying the needs for industrial products not only of the Jews
but of the entire Pale, and, especially of the peasants.
In the development of large-scale industry, the Jews have taken a
smaller part than the Germans or foreigners, owing to the conditions
above referred to. Yet, in 1898, in the fifteen provinces of the Pale,
more than one-third of the factories were in Jewish hands.[16] Jewish
factory workers were estimated at one-fifth of all the factory
workers in the Pale.[17]
Trade and commerce engage Jews chiefly, supporting nearly two-thirds
of the total Jewish population.[18]
As Russia is essentially an agricultural country, trade in
agricultural products, such as grain, cattle, furs and hides, _etc._,
is of prime importance. Nearly half of the Jewish merchants in the
Pale were dealers in these products. Of the dealers in the principal
grain products, Jews formed an overwhelming majority. Relatively
twenty-six times as many Jews as Russians, in the Pale, were grain
dealers.[19] Four-fifths of all the dealers in furs and hides,
three-fourths of all the dealers in cattle were Jews.[20] The Jewish
traders are agents in the movement of the crops, in the various stages
from the direct purchase of the grain from the peasant to its export
for the world markets. In view of the lack of development in Russia of
modern methods for marketing the agricultural produce, and in view of
the fact that the Russian peasant is ignorant of the most elementary
principles of trade, the Jewish merchants, with their knowledge of the
market and their skillful use of credit, play a vital part in the
organization of the Russian grain trade, and control this trade in the
Pale and on the Black Sea.
In other branches of commerce, the Jews are almost as strongly
represented. As sellers to the village and city populations, they
carry on the largest part of the retail trade of the Pale. The great
majority of the merchants, however, are petty traders or
store-keepers. The wholesale merchants enrolled in the guilds, on the
other hand, constitute a large proportion of all the guild merchants.
Thus, through their activity as petty artisans, traders and merchants,
the Jews preponderate in the industrial and commercial life of the
Pale. As manufacturers and wholesale merchants they play a less
important but nevertheless significant part in all Russia.
In general the Jewish merchants are quite strongly distinguished from
the Russian merchants in their employment of the competitive
principles and methods common to the commercial operations of Western
Europe and the United States. Their principle of a quick turnover with
a small profit, and their use of credit, are not in vogue among the
Russian merchants who operate on the basis of customary prices and
long credits.
In their social characteristics as well, the Jews are strongly set off
from the rest of the population. The Jews are essentially urban, the
non-Jews are overwhelmingly rural. In all Russia, 51 per cent of the
Jews lived in incorporated towns, as against only 12 per cent of the
non-Jews. Though the Jews constituted 4 per cent of the total
population, they constituted 16 per cent of the town population.[21]
In the Pale, where they constituted 12 per cent of the total
population, they comprised 38 per cent of the urban population.[22]
Their concentration in the cities of the Pale is striking. In nine out
of the fifteen provinces of the Pale, they constituted a majority of
the urban population. In twenty-four towns, they were from two-fifths
to seven-tenths of the population. In the important cities of Warsaw
and Odessa they were one-third of the population.[23]
The urban and occupational distribution of the Jews places them higher
than the great majority of the non-Jews among the social classes into
which the Russian people are legally divided. Townsmen are of a higher
rank than peasants. Nearly 95 per cent of the Jews belong to this
category and only 7 per cent of the Russians. The vast majority of the
Russians--86 per cent--are peasants. Only 4 per cent of the Jews are
of this class. Again, 2 per cent of the Jews are merchants, as against
only .2 per cent of the Russians. Thus in these two classes of
townsmen and merchants there were twelve times as many Jews,
relatively, as Russians.[24]
The higher cultural standing of the Jews may be partly measured by the
relative literacy of the Jews and of the total population. According
to the census of 1897, in the Jewish population ten years of age or
over there were relatively one and a half times as many literates as
in the total population of the corresponding group. In each of the
age-groups there were relatively more literates among the Jews than
among the total population. In the highest age-group, that of sixty
years of age and over, the Jews had relatively more literates than any
of the age-groups of the total population, indicating that the
educational standing of the Jews half a century ago was higher than
that of the Russian population of to-day.[25]
The fact that the Jews dwell chiefly in towns has considerably to do
with their higher educational standing. If the statistics of relative
literacy of the Jewish and the non-Jewish population in the towns were
obtainable, the chances are strong that they would not show a much
higher rate of literacy on the part of the Jews. At the same time the
difficulties that are put in the way of Jewish attendance in the
elementary schools must be regarded as a considerable factor in
explaining this possibility.[26]
The participation of the Jews in the liberal professions, which
implies the possession of a higher education, is also very large, even
with the great obstacles that have been placed in the way of the
entrance of the Jews into the universities, into the liberal
professions and the state service. Relatively seven times as many Jews
as Russians are found in the liberal professions.[27]
II. ROUMANIA
The economic activities of the Jews in Roumanian industry and commerce
closely resemble those of their Russian brethren.[28] The large part
taken by the Jews in Roumanian commerce may be gathered from the fact
that, in 1904, one-fifth of those who paid the merchant-license tax
were Jews. Equally great is their participation in large-scale
industry, where, as an inquiry in 1901-2 shows, nearly one-fifth of
the large industries were conducted by Jewish entrepreneurs. In some
of the most important ones--the glass industry, the clothing industry,
the wood and furniture industry and the textile industry--from
one-fourth to one-half of the total number of entrepreneurs were Jews.
As in the case of Russia, it is in _Klein-industrie_ or handicraft,
which is more nearly characteristic of the present form of Roumanian
industrial economy, that the Jews are mostly concentrated and where
they participate so largely as to constitute "the backbone of the
young Roumanian industry".
The latest inquiry--that of 1908--shows that the Jews were one-fifth
of all inscribed in the corporations as artisans. They formed more
than one-fourth of the master-workmen and nearly one-sixth of the
laborers. In the five principal industries Jewish master-workmen
formed from nearly one-tenth to nearly one-half. In the following
trades Jews formed between one-fourth and nearly two-thirds of the
entire workers: watchmakers, tinners, modistes, tailors, glazers,
housepainters, coopers and bookbinders. In all the garment industries
nearly one-third of the workers were Jews. The principal trades of the
Jews, in which two-thirds of the Jewish industrial workers were found,
were, in order: tailors, shoemakers, tinners, joiners and planers, and
bakers.[29] The Jews in Roumania were thus more strongly concentrated
in industry and less in commerce than their Russian brethren.
As masters and workmen they play a part in Roumanian large-scale and
small-scale industry nearly four and a half times as large as their
proportion in the total population. Their participation in commerce is
equally large.
The Jews in Roumania present the same social characteristics,
relatively to the surrounding population, as the Jews in Russia. The
Jews were overwhelmingly concentrated in the towns. 80 per cent of the
Jews dwelt in the towns; 84 per cent of the non-Jews dwelt in the
villages. Of the population in the department-capitals the Jews
constituted one-fifth. Of the population of the other towns they
constituted more than one-tenth. In some of the department-capitals,
notably Jassi, the Jews were a majority of the total population. In
six other department-capitals they constituted from one-fourth to
one-half of the population.
That the Jews are of a higher educational standing than the Roumanians
is seen in the fact that they possessed a higher rate of literacy,
having relatively twice as many literates among the males and nearly
twice as many among the females. Confining this comparison to the
cities, however, we find that the Jews had a higher literacy only in
the age-groups above fifteen. The Roumanian urban population between
the ages of seven and fifteen showed a higher literacy than the
corresponding group among the Jews, indicating the influence of the
special restrictions on Jewish education which will later be
discussed.
While the higher literacy of the Jews in Russia and Roumania is due
partly to residence in towns, the restrictions on the Jewish
participation in the educational facilities afforded by the Russian
and Roumanian governments have been so great as to make the higher
educational standing of the Jews practically a product of their own
efforts.
III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
The economic position of the Jews in Austria-Hungary presents a close
parallel to that in Russia. The largest proportion of the Jews--44 per
cent--were engaged in commerce and in trade, and 29 per cent were
engaged in industry.[30] A significantly large proportion were engaged
in public service and in the liberal professions. A surprisingly large
proportion--11 per cent--were engaged in agriculture and allied
occupations. Thus, a little over seven-tenths of the Jews were
concentrated in commerce and trade, and industry.
The contrast between the Jewish and the non-Jewish population is most
striking in the relative proportions of those engaged in agriculture,
and commerce and trade. 54 per cent of the non-Jews were engaged in
agriculture, or five times as many, relatively, as Jews. On the other
hand, only 8 per cent were engaged in commerce and trade, or
relatively one-fifth as many as Jews.
Of the total population engaged in commerce and trade the Jews
constituted 21 per cent. They constituted, on the other hand, 5 per
cent of all engaged in industry. Thus, the Jews in Austria-Hungary
were concentrated in commerce and trade to a much larger extent than
in all other occupations, constituting an important part of all
engaged in this branch.
It is in Galicia, however, where conditions in general most resemble
those in Russia, that the Jews are seen to occupy relatively the same
position as their brethren in Russia. In Galicia, 29 per cent of the
Jews were engaged in commerce and trade, and 26 per cent in industry.
Together the Jews engaged in these two branches constituted more than
half of the total Jewish working population.
By far the largest part of the non-Jewish population--86 per
cent--were engaged in agriculture. In industry only 4 per cent of the
non-Jews were engaged and in commerce only 1 per cent. Thus the Jews
were largely concentrated in commerce and industry, the non-Jews
preponderatingly concentrated in agriculture.
As compared with the Jews in Russia and Roumania the Galician Jews
engaged in agriculture show a surprising proportion--18 per cent being
so engaged--a larger proportion than in any other country.
The Jews in East Galicia were 13 per cent of the total
population.[31] Of all the "independents" engaged in commerce in East
Galicia 92 per cent were Jews; of all the "independents" engaged in
industry 48 per cent were Jews. The Jews in West Galicia were 8 per
cent of the total population. Of all "independents" engaged in
commerce they constituted 82 per cent; of all "independents" engaged
in industry they constituted 33 per cent. This gives the crux of the
economic position of the Jews in Galicia. They play an overwhelming
part in its commercial life, practically monopolizing it. In industry
their participation is very significant.
Socially the Jews in Austria-Hungary and especially in Galicia,
present characteristics similar to those in Russia and Roumania. In
the forty cities in Galicia with a population above five thousand
there dwelt 34 per cent of the total Jewish population. Only 7 per
cent of the non-Jewish population lived in these cities. Thus,
relatively five times as many Jews as non-Jews were urban. Though the
Jews in Galicia were 11 per cent of the total population, they
constituted 37 per cent of the population in these cities, thus being
represented in the cities by more than three times their proportion in
the total population. In nine of these towns they formed a majority of
the population. They were more than one-third in twelve, and more than
one-fourth in eleven other towns. In the two chief cities in
Galicia--Lemberg and Cracow--they constituted a third of the total
population.
The figures regarding literacy are not available for Austria-Hungary
or Galicia, but there is every reason to believe that essentially the
same situation exists as in Russia and Roumania. In the liberal
professions in Austria-Hungary there were 16 per cent of the Jews so
engaged as compared with 11 per cent of the non-Jews. In Galicia the
contrast is much sharper. Relatively ten times as many Jews as
non-Jews were represented in the liberal professions.[32]
IV. SUMMARY
A review of the occupations, economic function and social
characteristics of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe reveals
them in an important and essentially similar role in each country.
Pursuing mainly industrial and commercial occupations, the Jews
constitute by far the largest part of the middle classes of each
country. The historical position which they held in the ancient
kingdom of Poland as the middle class has been practically maintained
to this day.
By virtue of their occupations, the Jews are possessed of liquid
wealth to a greater extent than the nobility or the peasantry, and in
the lack of proper credit facilities still serve as bankers and
money-lenders. The Jews have also been conspicuous in Eastern Europe
as stewards or administrators of the estates of the nobility, who are,
as a rule, absentee landlords, distinguished as a class by their
serious lack of interest or ability in the management of their
estates. The Jewish _Hofjuden_, as they were known, were particularly
useful in the utilization of the products of the soil, through
distilleries, mills, trade with agricultural products and exploitation
of the forests.[33] In this way, however, Jews often acted as
intermediaries in the oppression of the peasantry by the nobles. They
were often keepers or lessees of the taverns, the ownership of which
was formerly vested in the nobles as one of their feudal privileges.
It is, however, as artisans, industrial laborers and merchants,
retail and wholesale, that Jews chiefly obtain their living. Their
monopoly of industry and commerce has given them an influence far
above their numerical proportions.
In each of these countries, again, the Jews are essentially town
dwellers in the midst of preponderatingly rural populations. That the
degree of the contrast is due to the artificial workings of
restrictive laws is unquestioned. The chief reason for this, however,
is occupational. The Jews as an industrial and commercial people
constitute one of the main elements out of which the town populations
are recruited. Towns are ordinarily the foci of all the cultural
forces and the movement and enterprise of a country. In Eastern
Europe, where the number of towns is so few, this is much more the
case than in Western Europe. The fact that the Jews are so largely
concentrated in these comparatively few towns serves to give them a
cultural position and influence far out of proportion to their
numbers. Their economic activities and their relatively large
participation in the liberal professions strengthens this position
considerably.
Amidst populations preponderatingly devoted to agricultural
occupations and dwelling in villages, the Jews represent an industrial
and commercial people, strongly concentrated in towns. This economic
and social position of the Jews is of the greatest significance,
especially in the present period of transition in these countries.
Possessed of the characteristics of a modern people in their economic
and social life and in their mentality, they present a sharp contrast
with the peoples among whom they dwell and whose economic and social
life are only now taking on modern forms. It is this that makes the
Jews personify in a large degree the forces of economic enterprise and
of social progress in these countries.
On the other hand, the exceptional economic and social position held
by the Jews among the East-European peoples has made them peculiarly
susceptible to the changes that have been taking place, as their
inferior legal status and sharp differentiation from the mass of the
people have made them favorable objects of attack in the
politico-economic struggles that have largely accompanied the
transition.
A consideration of the legal status of the Jews in each of the
countries of Eastern Europe and of the chief forces that have ruled
their history for more than a third of a century will enable us to see
some of the dynamic aspects of the recent history of the East-European
Jews and the underlying causes of their recent emigration.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Rubinow, _Economic Condition of the Jews in Russia_ (Washington,
1907), p. 500.
[12] _Cf._ table IA, p. 158.
[13] _Cf._ table IB, p. 158.
Rubinow, _op. cit._, p. 501.
[14] Margolin puts the number at 600,000.
[15] Ruppin, _Die Sozialen Verhaeltnisse der Juden in Russland_
(Berlin, 1906), p. 59.
[16] Rubinow, _op. cit._, p. 537.
[17] Rubinow, _op. cit._, p. 542.
[18] _Ibid._, p. 553.
[19] Ruppin, _op. cit._, p. 62.
[20] Rubinow, _op. cit._, p. 556.
[21] Ruppin, _op. cit._, p. 100.
[22] Rubinow, _op. cit._, p. 493.
[23] Ruppin, _op. cit._, p. 19.
[24] Ruppin, _op. cit._, p. 65.
[25] Rubinow, _op. cit._, pp. 577-578.
[26] In a personal communication to the writer, Dr. Rubinow gives it
as his opinion that the Jews as a group consisting primarily of
artisans and merchants will show a very much higher rate of literacy
than a group of factory employes, and, we may add, of unskilled
laborers, to which groups the majority of the non-Jews in the towns
belong.
[27] Ruppin, _op. cit._, p. 62.
[28] On the economic activities and social characteristics of the Jews
in Roumania, _cf._ Ruppin, _Die Juden in Rumaenien_, p. 27 _et seq._
[29] _Enquete sur les artisans_ (Bucarest, 1909), p. 157 _et seq._
[30] Thon, _Die Juden in Oesterreich_ (Berlin, 1908), p. 112.
[31] Thon, _op. cit._, p. 124.
[32] Thon, _op. cit._, p. 127.
[33] _Grenzboten: Galizische Wirtschaft_, vol. lxii, p. 402.
CHAPTER IV
THIRTY YEARS OF JEWISH HISTORY IN EASTERN EUROPE
I. RUSSIA
Religious intolerance had been the prime motive of Russia's policy of
completely excluding the Jews from her borders. Through the partitions
of Poland from 1772 to 1795, she became the unwilling ruler over the
destinies of millions of Jews living in Lithuania, Western and
Southwestern Russia and Poland proper. The historic medieval principle
by which the Jews were regarded as an alien and heretic race living
among the Christian peoples--a principle that had, with the growth of
modern ideas, been rapidly losing its hold upon the West-European
nations--expressed Russia's attitude towards the Jews and conformed to
her strongly medieval outlook and organization of this period. Thus,
at the time when the emancipation of the Jews had begun to be in
Western Europe a concomitant of social progress, Russia set to work to
recreate almost typically medieval conditions for a vaster Jewish
population than had ever before been assembled in any European
country.
The Jews were placed in the position practically of aliens, whose
activities were regulated by special laws. The first and the most
far-reaching of these laws limited their right of residence to those
provinces in which they lived at the time of the Polish partitions. In
this way originated that reproduction on a vast scale of the medieval
Ghetto--the Pale of Jewish Settlement. The elementary right of free
movement and choice of residence, which was denied to the Jews, has
remained the principal restriction to which they are subjected.
The Pale of Jewish Settlement, continued with but few changes to our
day, includes the fifteen provinces of Western and Southwestern
Russia--Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk, Mohileff, Volhynia,
Podolia, Kiev (except the city of Kiev), Chernigov, Poltava,
Bessarabia, Kherson, Jekaterinoslav, Taurida (except the city of
Yalta), and the ten provinces into which Poland is divided--Warsaw,
Kalisz, Kielce, Lomza, Lublin, Petrikow, Plock, Radom, Suvalk and
Siedlec. From the rest of the eighty-nine provinces and
territories--constituting nearly 95 per cent of the total territory of
the Russian Empire--the Jews were excluded.
In the course of a century the special laws relating to the Jews have
multiplied greatly until they now consist of more than a thousand
articles, regulating their religious and communal life, economic
activities and occupations, military service, property rights,
education, _etc._, and imposing special taxes over and above those
borne by all other Russian subjects. The direct consequence of these
laws was to mark the status of the Jews as the lowest in the Empire,
placing them in the position of aliens as to rights and citizens as to
obligations.[34]
The policy of the Russian government throughout the 19th century has
been full of contrasts and contradictions. Attempts at forcible
russification and assimilation, which with Nicholas I practically
spelled conversion, have alternated with methods of repression which
sought to prevent closer contact between the Jewish and the native
populations.
It was the liberal epoch of Alexander II that gave the first real
promise of emancipation to Russian Jewry. The great reforms of this
era benefited the Jews along with the other subjects of the Empire.
With the influence of the liberals over the government there came a
new attitude regarding the Jews and their value as economic and
cultural forces. Partly to relieve the intense competition in the
Pale, harmful both to the Christian and the Jewish populations, but
chiefly to give the provinces of interior Russia the benefit of the
superior industrial and commercial, and professional abilities of the
Jews, laws were enacted allowing certain classes of Jews to live
outside of the Pale. These were, chiefly, master-artisans, merchants
of the first guild, students and graduates of universities and higher
educational institutions, and members of the liberal professions.
With these laws and with the opening of the high schools and
universities to the Jews, the movement for Russianization received a
mighty impetus. Though these reforms, hedged about and limited by
onerous conditions, affected comparatively few and hardly touched the
life of the Jewish masses in a radical way, nevertheless, the impulse
which even these relatively slight reforms gave to the current of
Jewish life in Russia was far out of proportion to the relief they
afforded. Jewish hopes for a final emancipation soared high: it seemed
as if the walls of the Pale needed but little more to be broken down.
The reaction that followed the assassination of Alexander II fell upon
the Jews as a national calamity. To the feudal party which now came
into control, the Jews seemed the very embodiment of the forces in the
Empire whose progress they were seeking to stem. No other nationality
in the Russian Empire concentrated in itself so many characteristics
and tendencies opposed to the ideals and interests of the Russian
ruling classes. To the Church, dominated by a religio-national point
of view, they were the very opposite of her ideal type of Russian
orthodox, their very existence in Russia being regarded as an anomaly
and as an actual and possible influence in disintegrating the
religious faith of the orthodox peasants. To the nationalists they
were an alien people racially and religiously, whose assimilation with
the Russian people was neither possible nor desirable. To the
autocracy and the bureaucracy there was the added fear from their
intellectual superiority and their zeal for education of their playing
a powerful part among the liberal forces seeking political freedom.
Indeed, the Jews, whose economic and cultural activities and interests
bound them closely to Western Europe and were in themselves
modernizing and liberalizing influences, growing all the stronger
through the greater freedom offered them during the liberal epoch,
excited the deep repugnance of the feudal forces now directing the
destinies of the state. To them the Jews spelled anathema. Separated
from the great masses of the Russian people by race, nationality,
religion, occupations and other social and psychological
characteristics, they offered an unusually favorable object of attack.
It soon became clear that the new regime had determined upon making
the Jews a central feature in their policy of reaction. At once a
many-sided campaign against the Jews was begun. A powerful machinery
of persecution was at hand in the existing Jewish laws. All that was
necessary was to revive them, to interpret them rigorously, to tighten
the legislative screws which had become loosened during the preceding
liberal regime. This, however, seemed insufficient. It was determined
that a powerful and definitive blow must be struck at the roots of
their very existence in Russia.
The main attack was economic. The industrial and commercial activities
of the Jews, especially in the Pale, make them, as we have seen, among
the chief industrial producers for the peasants, as well as the chief
buyers of their agricultural produce. This contact between the Jews
and the peasants was a vital need in the economic life of both. The
familiar charge that the Jews were exploiters of the peasantry was
revived. Behind this charge lay the medieval economic prejudice, which
attributes no really useful role to the merchant or trader.[35] In a
custom-ridden economic order, the competitive methods of the Jewish
traders smacked of commercial deceit. Principally, however, this
charge served for a convenient explanation of the change of policy
towards the Jews.
In this wise were introduced the "Temporary Regulations" of May, 1882,
or the May Laws, the main clauses of which are the following:
1. As a temporary measure and until a general revision is made
of the legal status of the Jews, they are forbidden to settle
anew outside of towns and townlets (boroughs), an exception
being made only in the case of existing Jewish agricultural
colonies.
2. Until further orders, the execution of deeds of sale and
mortgage in the names of Jews is forbidden, as well as the
registration of Jews as lessees of real estate situated outside
of towns and townlets, and also the issuing to Jews of powers of
stewardship or attorney to manage and dispose of such real
property.
The May Laws may be regarded as an extension of the general principle
underlying the creation of the Pale. Through the first clause they
were now to be forbidden free movement even within the Pale. As far as
possible, their contact with the peasantry was to be cut off. The
second clause aimed to put an end to the ownership by Jews of land in
rural districts and the employment of Jews as stewards or managers of
estates. A further construction of this clause forbade Jews to be
connected with any business directly or indirectly depending upon the
purchase of landed property outside of the towns of the Pale, thus
debarring them from the utilization of land for industrial and
commercial, as well as for agricultural purposes.
In the actual execution of these laws, and in the legal
interpretations given them by the highest courts, the effect was far
greater. A series of wholesale expulsions from the villages into the
towns of the Pale began, on the ground of illegal residence. This was
increased by the device, which became normal, of renaming towns as
villages--easily possible in Russia where towns are frequently only
administrative units--the resident Jews then being expelled as illegal
settlers. Again, movement within the villages even on the part of Jews
who had the right to live in villages was prohibited.
A further effect of this change in policy was upon the position of the
Jews outside of the Pale, who enjoyed the right of residence in the
interior of Russia, through the laws of the preceding regime. A
stricter interpretation of these laws, added to a change in the
administrative policy, had the effect not only of stopping the
comparatively slight current of Jewish artisans into the interior of
Russia, but also of starting a never-ending series of expulsions from
the interior to the Pale. These expulsions have since continued, with
individuals, families and whole groups, until they have become a
constant phenomenon of Jewish life in Russia and a familiar item of
world news.
While the May Laws thus touched to the quick the economic life of the
Russian Jews, another series of laws sought to break down their
cultural life by barring them from the higher educational and
professional institutions. The contrast with the policy of the
preceding regime was here as complete as possible. The principle of
liberal assimilation with regard to the Jews had dictated the policy
of opening wide to them the doors of the secondary schools and
universities, and the liberal professions. The new regime, however,
not only opposed education generally, and higher education
particularly, as the means by which the reform and westernization of
Russia was being accomplished, but it regarded the russification of
the Jews as a special evil. Culturally as well, the Jews were to be
separated from the Russian people.
Hence the introduction of the "percentage rule" in 1886 and 1887,
restricting the proportion of Jewish students admitted to the
secondary and high schools, and universities, within the Pale, to 10
per cent of the total number of students admitted. Outside of the
Pale, the proportion was 5 per cent, except in St. Petersburg and
Moscow, where it was placed at 3 per cent. In addition, the Jews were
completely barred from a number of these institutions. As the Jews
constituted so large a part of the populations in the towns of the
Pale and had distinguished themselves in Russia as elsewhere by the
eagerness with which they grasped the educational and professional
opportunities offered them, the introduction of the "percentage rule"
meant that the vast majority of the Jewish youth were to be deprived
of the normal chances for education. Thus the "percentage rule", which
was extended to institutions founded by the Jews themselves, was
almost as great a blow as the May Laws. It threatened the cultural
ruin of Russian Jewry. Bound up as the admission to these schools was
with the liberal professions and with the opportunity of escaping from
the limits of the Pale, it meant that one of the main highways to
freedom in Russia had been closed to the Jews.
The most striking method of repression introduced by the new regime
and its feudal supporters was that combination of murder, outrage and
pillage--the _pogrom_. The revival of this characteristic expression
of the antisemitism of the middle ages was not the result of
spontaneous outbreaks of fury on the part of the Russian masses, but a
deliberate and calculated awakening of latent racial and religious
prejudices, evoked as powerful aids to inflame against the Jews the
Russian masses, who are, religiously speaking, a tolerant people and
whose relations to the Jews had been marked, on the whole, with
friendliness.
The first _pogroms_ began a month after the accession of Alexander III
to the throne, and extended in the course of a year to 160 places in
Southern Russia. Though the connivance of the local authorities was
clearly established, the originators of the _pogroms_ were never
found.[36] However, moral support was lent by the government in the
promulgation of the May Laws which closely followed. The doctrine that
the misery of the peasants was due to their exploitation by the Jews,
and that the _pogroms_ were the instinctive expression of the fury of
the peasants, was officially sanctioned. The _pogroms_ of 1881-2
served as notice to all Russia and particularly to Russian Jewry, that
the old order had given place to the new. Apart from the loss of life
and damage to property they left the Russian Jews in a state of
stupefaction and horror, with the sense of living on the brink of a
precipice.
The first decade of Alexander III's reign had opened with these
_pogroms_. The second decade opened with the wholesale expulsions from
Moscow. Within six months, more than ten thousand Jews were expelled
from the city on the ground of illegal residence. So vast a number of
Jewish families was affected and so summary was the manner of
executing the decree of expulsion, that several governments, among
them our own, protested to the Russian government. President Harrison,
discussing this protest in his message to Congress, frankly stated
that
the banishment, whether by direct decree or by not less certain
indirect methods, of so large a number of men and women is not a
local question. A decree to leave one country is in the nature
of things an order to enter another--some other. This
consideration, as well as the suggestion of humanity, furnishes
ample ground for the remonstrances which we have presented to
Russia.[37]
The expulsions were preceded by a year of ominous rumors of a program
of new restrictions beside which the May Laws would pale into
insignificance. An offer of ten million dollars for the cause of
Jewish education made by Baron de Hirsch to the Russian government was
refused. His scheme, however, for the organization of a
mass-emigration of Jews to Argentine was sanctioned. All these facts
lent strength to the feeling of the Jews that they had nothing to hope
for under the existing regime. Thus closed the reign of Alexander III
and a memorable chapter in Russian Jewish history.
The early years of Nicholas II were marked by a relaxation in the
strict administration and interpretation of the existing restrictive
laws. Hopes for the amelioration of the Jewish situation began to be
entertained. These hopes were destined shortly to be shattered.
The first decade of the twentieth century opened with threatening
unrest. Economic depression began and was accompanied by revolutionary
attacks. For the Jews, the most alarming symptom was the rise and
uninterrupted progress of a group of antisemitic agitators and Russian
loyalists, who sought to counteract the revolutionary movement by
denouncing the Jews as the leaders of the revolution and the enemies
of the autocracy and the Orthodox religion. Thus was sown the seed of
the Kishineff massacre of April, 1903, which lasted three days. Before
the echoes of Kishineff had died away, the massacre at Gomel followed.
But Kishineff proved to be merely a bloody prelude. The air was
surcharged with explosives. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war and
of the first organized revolution created a dangerous combination of
events for the Jews. To the discontent of the peasants, forced to go
to the front in a war for which they had no enthusiasm, and sore with
the reverses of the Russian army, was added the increased activity of
the agitators who declared that the war with Japan had been forced
upon Russia by the Jews, eager to profit through its ruin, and who
called upon their followers and the peasants through propaganda and
proclamations to revenge themselves upon the Jews. The government at
bay, on the verge of breakdown under the revolutionary attacks, and
anxious to excuse its incompetency and failure in the conduct of the
war, sought a means of diverting the peasants from the uprisings
against the landed proprietors spreading over the land, and, above
all, of stifling the revolution, which had met with such opportune
and unlooked-for success among all classes. This was a situation
alive with danger for the Jews, whose proletarians in the cities had
taken an active part in the revolution. The organization of Jewish
massacres by responsible agents of the government became the central
feature of its program of counter-revolution.[38] A veritable
holocaust ensued in nearly every province of the Empire for two years,
only the climaxes of which became known to the world in Zhitomir,
Odessa, Bialystok, and Siedlec.
The role of the bureaucracy in the creation of the _pogroms_,
especially in 1906, in which year there took place hundreds of
_pogroms_, was made abundantly clear by the Russian press, by Prince
Urussov's disclosures in the Duma, and by the report of the Duma
Commission appointed to investigate the causes of the Bialystok
_pogrom_ of 1906. As announced in their official report, an
investigation had shown that the relations between the Jews and the
Christians of Bialystok previous to the bloodshed had been amicable,
and that preparations for a _pogrom_ had been deliberately and
carefully made by agents of the bureaucracy and carried out with the
aid of the local authorities.
Both periods of _pogroms_ in these thirty years were periods of
revolution. In both the government had felt the ground shaking under
its feet from terroristic attacks and from peasant uprisings. In the
first period Jews had taken only slight part. In the late revolution,
however, the participation of the Jews of the Pale, through the Jewish
labor organization, the _Bund_, was quite strong. The earlier
_pogroms_ gave a hint as to the policy of the new regime. The later
ones occurred at the end of years of repression and persecution, and
were a culminating point in the fury of the reactionary forces at
their failure to stem the tide of liberalism in the struggle for
parliamentary institutions and for the rights of citizens in a modern
state.
The results of these thirty years of reaction remain to be considered.
Though the effects of the _pogroms_ upon the Russian Jews can hardly
be overestimated, the less evident, because less spectacular, methods
of restrictive law and administrative action have in the long run left
a far more enduring impress.
The introduction of the May Laws at the very beginning of the eighties
awakened the Jews to the realization that their future in Russia was
threatened. The May Laws and the laws that were developed from them,
the obstacles that were placed in the way of Jewish education and, in
general, the administrative difficulties that were created, have
affected every movement of their life.
Freedom of movement of the individual is the very essence of the life
of modern states and the basis of their economic, social and political
institutions. The lack of this freedom, especially to the extent
created by the May Laws, bars the Jews from the possibilities of
normal economic growth and progress. The Jewish manufacturers and
capitalists are prevented from participating in the industrial and
commercial development of Russia, which is so rapidly proceeding and
to which, owing to their economic position and capacities, they could
powerfully contribute. Legal interference with economic activities, so
frequently the rule in Russia, is emphasized in the case of the Jews.
A far more serious situation confronts the great mass of the Jewish
artisans, petty merchants and factory workers, to which the vast
majority of the Jews belong. Largely prevented access to their natural
customers, the peasants, by the prohibition of rural residence, and
confined to the relatively few towns of the Pale, where over-crowding
and over-competition are the necessary and unavoidable results, the
Jewish artisans and petty merchants have a bitter struggle to maintain
a position of economic independence.
Added to this, there is the social pressure to which the Jews have
been subjected. Not until this period has the century-long position of
the Jews as the "pariahs of the Empire" been so sharply emphasized.
Enmeshed in a net of special laws and regulations, at the mercy of
ministerial decree, secret circular, arbitrary administrative act, law
has lost all meaning for the Jews. In this atmosphere they exist
mainly through bribery, at once their bane and their salvation.
The unusual economic and social pressure exerted by the reactionary
regime upon its Jewish subjects, through the new restrictive laws that
were put into operation during the last thirty years, the
administrative harrying that became the order of the day and the
introduction of the hitherto unused method of physical repression, the
_pogrom_, becomes clear in the light of its policy. Beginning as a
movement to suppress the Jews in their economic and cultural
activities, and to separate them as far as possible from their Russian
neighbors, the anti-Jewish program became in its final form the
expulsion and extermination of the Jews from Russia. The historic
sentence of Count Ignatiev, author of the May Laws, at the very
beginning of this period, "the Western borders are open to you Jews",
strikes the keynote of this policy. And, in fact, for practically the
first time in its history, the Russian government relaxed in 1892 its
rigorous rules forbidding emigration, and gave its sanction to Baron
de Hirsch's plan of organizing a vast emigration of Jews from Russia,
which its author hoped would, at the end of a quarter of a century,
result in the complete transplantation of the Jews from Russia. The
famous principle of the Russian government, "once a Russian always a
Russian", was for once put aside in favor of the Jews. They were given
one right not enjoyed by other Russians, that of leaving Russia under
the obligation of abandoning Russian citizenship forever.[39]
II. ROUMANIA
Up to very recent years, the history of the Jews in Roumania centers
about those resident in Moldavia. Its proximity to ancient Poland and
close association with Bessarabia, naturally made for a back-and-forth
movement of the Polish and Russian Jews, whose settlement was invited
by the boyars or landed nobility because of resulting industrial and
commercial advantages.
The position of the Jews in Moldavia up to the middle of the
nineteenth century did not differ to any extent from that of their
brethren in Russia. Moldavia, as a Christian state, denied civil and
political rights to all non-Christians. The Jews in Moldavia were
regarded as aliens, whose activities were subject to special
regulation. The beginning of the last century witnessed the first
special Jewish laws. The Jews were forbidden to buy the products of
the soil, to acquire real property; non-resident Jews were debarred
unless they could prove an occupation and show the possession of
property. Definite restrictions as to occupation, residence in the
villages, the ownership, in villages, of houses, land, vineyards,
_etc._, existed. As vagabonds they could be expelled from the country
by administrative decree. Thus was their legal status fixed.
The emancipation of Jews was first demanded by the liberal party
during the revolutionary days of 1848. But no practical change
resulted until the Convention of Paris in 1856, which, in granting
autonomy to the two provinces, guaranteed civil rights to all
Moldavians, regardless of creed. Though political rights were granted
only to Christian Moldo-Wallachians, the provision was made that, by
legislative arrangements, the enjoyment of political rights could be
extended to other creeds. Thus was established the possibility of a
gradual emancipation of the Jews, foreshadowed in the communal law of
1864, which granted the right of naturalization to certain classes of
native Roumanian Jews. Those who had passed through college or had a
recognized foreign degree, or who had founded a factory in the land
employing at least fifty workmen were among the favored classes.
Shortly afterwards, this section was abrogated, and, with the
abdication of the liberal Couza and the accession of Charles
Hohenzollern, the present king, to the throne, the situation changed.
Article VII of the constitution of the newly-created kingdom read that
foreigners not of the Christian faith could not be naturalized. As
within the term foreigner the great mass of the Jews residing in the
land was included, this was a denial of the conditions laid down in
the Treaty of Paris. At the same time, old laws against the Jews which
had fallen into abeyance were revived, expulsions of the Jews from the
villages into the towns began to take place with great frequency, laws
requiring all sellers of liquor in rural communes to be naturalized
Roumanians deprived many Jewish families of a livelihood--in short,
the usual symptoms of anti-Jewish activity became the order of the
day.
It was at the famous Berlin Congress, convened to decide questions
created by the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, that the subject of the
Jewish disabilities in Roumania was brought up, in connection with the
demand of Roumania for recognition as an independent state. The chief
objection made especially by the representatives of three of the
European powers--France, England and Germany--was Roumania's treatment
of the Jews. It was finally decided by the Congress to recognize her
independence on the condition that she grant civil and political
equality to all her citizens without distinction of race or creed.
This was expressed in Article 44 of the historic Berlin Treaty, which
read as follows:
Article 44. In Roumania, difference in religious beliefs and
confessions shall not be brought against anyone as a ground for
exclusion or unfitness as regards the enjoyment of civil and
political rights, admission to public offices, functions, and
honors, or the exercise of various professions and industries in
any place whatever. Freedom in outward observance of all creeds
will be assured to all subjects of the Roumanian state, as well
as to strangers, and no obstacle will be raised either to the
ecclesiastical organization of different bodies, or to their
intercourse with their spiritual heads.
The citizens of all states, whether merchants or others, shall
be dealt with, in Roumania, without distinction of religion, on
the basis of perfect equality.
In the _constituante_ which was convoked soon after to discuss the
question of giving the Jews equal political rights, an interesting
picture is obtained of the sentiment of the upper and middle classes
of Roumania.[40] An overwhelming majority was opposed to the granting
of political rights to the Jews on the ground that Roumania was a
Christian-Latin State, or on the purely nationalistic ground that the
Jews were an alien and utterly unassimilable element of the
population. To meet the demands of the Powers the principle of
individual naturalization was adopted, by which an alien could be
granted naturalization individually and only by a special vote of the
Chamber of Deputies. Other onerous conditions, such as the
requirement of a ten years' residence in the country for citizenship,
and the prohibition of the purchase by aliens of rural estates, showed
conclusively that Roumania was prepared to give only formal assent to
the demand of the Powers.[41] After a year of negotiations, the three
Powers agreed to the recognition of her independence, expressing the
hope that the Roumanian government would recognize the inadequacy of
the revised article and especially of the principle of individual
naturalization as meeting the conditions of the Berlin Treaty, and
would aim towards a complete emancipation of all her subjects.[42]
The situation at the beginning of the eighties presented but little
hope of improvement in the political condition of the Jews. Eight
hundred and eighty-three Jews who had fought in the war for
independence had been naturalized _en masse_. With the exception of
this small number, the Jews were legally classed as foreigners.[43]
Shortly after, owing to the fact that Austria-Hungary had withdrawn
its protection from several thousands of its Jewish citizens resident
in Roumania, the entire body of Jews received a new legal status, that
of "foreigners not subject to any foreign Power". In other words, they
were stateless, though subject to all the obligations of Roumanian
citizens, including military service and the payment of taxes. This
legal status of the Jews has received the attention of the world and
marks a condition of things which according to Bluntschli is "a denial
of the entire development of European states".[44]
Freed from the control of the Powers, Roumania now entered on a new
campaign of discrimination against the Jews. The first decade of the
eighties saw this begun in a series of laws which for completeness
finds no parallel even in Russia. At the very beginning, a law giving
the police the right of domiciliary visitation and of expelling under
the vagabond law anyone in the rural districts, was employed against
the Jews, resulting in their frequent expulsions into the towns. The
enforcement of the law against rural residence was so strict as to
create practically the same situation as exists in the Russian Pale.
The law of 1883, prohibiting lotteries, and in the following year the
law prohibiting hawking or any form of sale from house to house or on
the streets deprived several thousands of Jewish families of their
livelihood.
It was in 1886 and 1887, however, when the laws which were to create a
national industry and commerce were introduced, that a serious step
was taken to exclude the Jews from economic activity. On the
assumption that occupations were a civil right to which aliens could
or could not be admitted, the Jews were systematically deprived even
of the civil rights which had been theirs, to a great extent, before
the Berlin Congress sought to make them politically free. As
foreigners, the Jews were prohibited the right of choosing electors
for the newly-created Chambers of Commerce and Trade, or of becoming
members of these chambers although they formed a large majority of the
merchants and manufacturers represented in these important bodies. A
still more serious provision was that which decreed that five years
after the foundation of a factory two-thirds of the workingmen
employed therein must be Roumanians. Jews were also partly excluded
from the administrative positions in joint-stock companies. They were
completely excluded from employment in the financial institutions of
the state, from the state railway service, and, by a provision that
two-thirds of the employes on private railways must be Roumanians,
were practically excluded from these as well. The sharpest blow,
however, was struck in 1902, when a new law for the organization of
trades, popularly known as the Artisans' Bill, was passed. In this law
there is to be seen a revival of the guild organizations of the Middle
Ages. To pursue his occupation every artisan was required to obtain a
certificate from a guild. Jewish master artisans and workmen were hit
by the requirement that aliens in order to have the right of working
in accordance with this law must prove that in their own country
reciprocal rights existed for Roumanians, or obtain an authorization
from a Chamber of Commerce or Industry. Whatever value this
requirement may have had for the protection of Roumanian workmen in
foreign countries, its chief effect was to place in a position of
economic helplessness the majority of the Jewish workmen as "aliens
not subject to any foreign Power", and largely unable to secure
authorization from such chambers controlled by competitors. Other
clauses, requiring that all workingmen belong to a guild, and that
fifty workmen possessing civil and political rights are empowered to
form a guild, put the control of trades into the hands of non-Jews,
although the majority of the artisans in many of the trades were Jews.
A similar policy was pursued with reference to the cultural activities
of the Jews. A circular of the minister of public instruction, issued
in 1887, ordered that preference should be given to Roumanian
children, in cases where there was not enough room in the elementary
schools for all. This began the gradual exclusion of Jewish children
from the Roumanian elementary schools. The formal treatment of the
Jews as aliens in the educational system was introduced in 1893, when
all aliens were required to pay fees for entrance into the public
schools, and were admitted only in case there was enough room for
them. The effect of these laws was seen in the diminished proportion
of Jewish children in the elementary schools. Similar provisions for
the secondary and high schools and universities largely closed the
doors of these institutions to the Jews. From schools of agriculture
and forestry, and of commerce they were completely excluded.
To the educational restrictions were added restrictions to
professional service. As aliens, they were forbidden to be employed in
the public sanitary service and health department as physicians,
pharmacists, _etc._, from owning as well as working in private
pharmacies, and from entering other professional fields.
The almost complete agreement of the two principal parties--liberal
and conservative--explains the thoroughness and uninterrupted progress
of this process of piling up disability upon disability. The
explanation is partly to be found in the constitution of Roumania, the
electoral law of which places the political powers in the hands of two
classes--the landed aristocracy and the urban, or middle class. The
vast majority of the peasants are excluded by educational and property
qualifications, obtaining only indirect representation. Had the Jews
been granted political rights, they would have shared political power
with the other two classes. It is through the second electoral
college, of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, that the
middle class is represented politically. As manufacturers and
merchants, as urban dwellers, as members of the liberal professions
and as graduates of the elementary schools, the Jews would have become
the most important part of this electoral college.
Again, the creation of an industry and commerce along national lines
was largely a course of action in the interests of this middle class
of Roumanian merchants, artisans and laborers. It was in favor of this
class that the laws were passed debarring Jews from various
occupations and seeking essentially to wrest the industrial and
commercial monopoly from their hands.
In this course of action, powerful aid was extended by the
bureaucracy, recruited mainly from the lower nobility and the middle
classes. Depending for their support upon the urbans, and seeking to
prevent the entrance of Jews into state service, which would have
resulted from the granting of political rights to the Jews, the
bureaucracy have acted in harmony with the middle classes in the
attempt to make the Jews politically, economically, and culturally
powerless.
Thus the situation that the Jews in Roumania have been facing for
thirty years is abnormal, from every standpoint. At no time within
thirty years has there been any serious question of giving to the Jews
the political rights, the granting of which had been made the
condition of the recognition of Roumania's independence by the Powers.
The history of the succeeding thirty years has been one of gradual,
steady and systematic deprivation of one civil right after another. To
the prohibition of freedom of movement has been added that of work;
one occupation after another has been prohibited to Jews under the
mask of foreigners. From all the branches of state service Jews have
been almost completely debarred. Participation in important private
and public enterprises has similarly been limited. The schools have
been largely closed to them. The effect has been partly registered in
a rate of illiteracy higher in the cities among the Jewish children
between seven and fifteen than among the non-Jewish children of the
same age.
Thus the conscious policy of Roumania has been that of oppression,
political, economic and social, with the deliberate aim of making it
impossible for the Jews to live in Roumania. This method of indirect
expulsion is the essence of her policy of thirty years. As such it was
recognized and openly stated in the only formal protest against her
manner of fulfilling the conditions of the Berlin Treaty, made by the
United States, through its Secretary of State, John Hay, whose
circular to the Powers signatory to the Treaty demanded that Roumania
be called to account for her treatment of the Jews, and her dishonesty
in violating the pledges given by her to the Powers.[45]
III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the legal position of the
Jews in Austria-Hungary differed from that of their brethren in Russia
and Roumania only in degree. Prohibited the free exercise of their
religion, the right to hold real property, and to enter certain
occupations, and burdened by special Jewish taxes, the Jews remained a
class apart and governed in all their activities by special laws.
Their legal emancipation, begun in 1848, was definitely established by
the promulgation in each division of the Empire of the Fundamental Law
of 1867, declaring that religion should not be a ground for
discrimination in civil and political rights.
The civil and political equality of the Jews was a cardinal principle
of the creed of German-Austrian liberalism and one of a number of its
victories embodied in the Constitution of 1867. Austrian economic and
social life at this period was, however, too saturated with
medievalism to allow for a complete revolution in the attitude toward
the Jews. On the other hand, the influential part played by the Jews
in the liberal movement and the fact that a group of wealthy Jews
were powerful factors in the _haute finance_ and in the commercial
life of the country were made the basis of an attack by the
feudal-clericals upon the Jews.
The great financial crash of 1873, in which several Jewish financial
houses were concerned, was the starting-point of political
antisemitism in Austria. The Jews were denounced as the
representatives of the capitalist order of society, with its
overwhelming concentration of wealth and its exploitation of the
industrial and the agricultural proletariat. The Christian-Socialist
movement began with antisemitism as the corner-stone of its economic
and social doctrines. Its opposition to the Jews and to capitalism was
largely due to medieval prejudices in favor of the Christian-feudal
state and the medieval industrial organization. In the early eighties
it began to triumph when the "small man" or petty industrialist
received political power through an extension of the suffrage.
It reached its height in the nineties, when, under the combined
influence of feudal-clerical nobles, the clergy and the lower middle
class, a period of reaction set in. In Vienna, in 1895, the antisemite
Lueger was elected mayor. Powerless though they were to change the
legal status of the Jews, the antisemites succeeded in creating in
both upper and lower circles of Austrian society an atmosphere of
antagonism to the Jews which has prevented the complete fulfillment of
the principle of equality as set forth in the constitution.
The clericals have fanned the flames of religious hatred especially
among the peasantry by ritual-murder accusations, which have been rife
and have played a large part in strengthening the sentiment of
hostility toward the Jews.
In Galicia, the position of the Jews became unsettled, owing to a
variety of causes.[46] Although one of the least advanced among the
Austrian crown lands, Galicia has experienced within the last
half-century an industrial and commercial development along with the
rest of the Empire. This resulted in the growth of a middle class
particularly among the Poles, which began to compete for supremacy
with the Jews. The improvements in transportation and communication,
the organization of agricultural syndicates, for the purpose of
directly purchasing and selling the produce of the peasants, and the
creation of rural credit societies, helped considerably to displace
the Jewish middlemen and traders as well as the Jewish money-lenders,
who dealt largely with the peasantry. The movement to develop Galicia
industrially was fostered on national lines by these Polish
organizations, which carried on an extensive propaganda and
systematically organized economic boycotts against the Jews. "Do not
buy of Jews", "Do not patronize Jewish artisans", became familiar
cries in Galicia as in other parts of Austria.
The process of wrestling the monopoly of industry, trade and commerce
from the Jews in favor of the Polish petty merchants and artisans was
considerably accelerated by the official bodies, the autonomous
Galician _Diet_ and the municipal boards, controlled chiefly by the
Polish-Catholic nobility, who saw in the national-industry movement a
means of capturing the votes of the middle class and of thus retaining
their position as leaders of the Polish people. Communal funds were
used to establish Poles in business. Attempts were made to take away
from the Jews the small-salt and tobacco trades. The taxes on the
taverns were increased. In the public financial institutions organized
for various purposes Jews were not given representation. In nearly all
the activities designed to promote the interest of the urban
population and the peasantry, the Jews were systematically excluded by
the local authorities.
Added to this, the increasing distress of the Galician peasants has
reacted strongly upon the Jews, who depend so largely upon their
buying power. The poverty of the peasantry, the competition for the
control of the rural market created by public and private agencies,
added to the increasing competition in the towns from other sections
of the population, have all co-operated to create a great surplus, in
proportion to the population, of petty merchants and artisans among
the Jews. This had its effect in an over-competition from the side of
the Jews themselves.
The Jews have suffered as well from their historical role of
intermediaries between a most avaricious nobility and a bitterly
exploited peasantry. Acting as stewards and as tavern keepers for the
Polish nobles, who are mainly absentee landlords, and who, until very
recently, enjoyed the right of keeping taverns as one of their feudal
privileges, the Jews have become the buffers of the deep-seated
antagonism between the two chief classes of Galicia.
Agrarian uprisings have been frequent of late, particularly after the
failure of the crops, which here as in Russia and Roumania spells a
crisis. These, chiefly directed against the nobles, have frequently
been diverted toward the Jews, to whom the peasants are largely
indebted, and in whom they see the visible instruments of the
oppression of their lords.
Economic antagonism has been intensified by the religious hatred which
has been fostered by the Polish clergy and which has been the basis of
numerous ritual-murder charges.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Leroy-Beaulieu, _The Empire of the Tsars_ (New York, 1894), vol.
iii, p. 558.
[35] For an example of typically medieval economic notions regarding
trade and commerce prevalent among the feudal classes of Eastern
Europe, _cf._ Carmen Sylva's criticism on the economic activities of
the Jews in Roumania in _Century_, March, 1906.
[36] The part played by the authorities in these _pogroms_ is
discussed by A. Linden in _Die Judenpogromen_, vol. i, pp. 12-96.
[37] President Harrison's Message is given in Appendix A, page 199.
[38] Semenoff, _The Russian Government and the Jewish Massacres_
(London, 1907), pp. 147-167.
[39] Immigration Commission: _Emigration Conditions in Europe_, pp.
261-262.
[40] The discussions are presented in _La question juive_.
[41] Article VII is given in Appendix B, p. 200.
[42] _Cf. English Parliamentary Papers_, 1880, vol. lxxix,
Correspondence relative to the recognition of Roumania.
[43] In the following twenty years only 85 Jews were granted
citizenship.
[44] Bluntschli's pamphlet is a valuable statement of the situation.
For title _cf._ Bibliography.
[45] The Hay note is given in Appendix C, pp. 201-206.
[46] _Juedische Statistik_, p. 208 et seq.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
An intimate connection has thus been established between the present
state of economic and social transition through which the countries of
Eastern Europe are passing and the situation which has confronted the
Jews in each of these countries and has profoundly influenced their
position and their history for the last third of a century. What the
forces are behind the emigration of the Jews from these countries to
Western Europe and the United States during this period now become
clear.
The industrial and commercial development of the recent decades
brought about changes in themselves unfavorable to the economic
activities of the Jews. The improvements in communication and
transportation through the extension of railroads, the building of
roads, and the creation of credit facilities especially for the
peasantry served partly to displace the Jews, whose economic position
had been largely based upon the services they rendered in a relatively
backward industrial and commercial civilization. The rise of a middle
class among the Christian populations, chiefly engaged in industry,
added an element of competition not before present. Not the least
important in its effects was the increasing poverty of the peasantry,
which seriously affected the Jews, as the principal buyers of their
produce and sellers of finished products. Agricultural crises, so
frequent in recent years in Eastern Europe, have often involved the
Jews in financial ruin.[47]
These purely economic factors served to weaken the position of the
Jews and to cause an over-concentration in trade and industry, to
their detriment. The gradual readjustment that would have followed
naturally was, however, prevented by the existence of other forces, in
the action of which we find the key to the situation faced by the Jews
and the impelling forces of Jewish emigration.
One of these was the economic antisemitism that rose partly from the
competition of the middle classes of both populations. This
competitive jealousy awakened racial and religious prejudices and
found particularly in Galicia an active expression in the organization
of economic boycotts, and in the co-operative agencies that were
created to foster the growth of the Christian artisans and merchants.
The sufferings of the agricultural population, again, were charged to
the Jews, with whom the peasants were in close business relations and
to whom they were deeply indebted. Preached from platform, press and
pulpit, the doctrine of Jewish exploitation of the peasantry found a
ready acceptance among all classes.
Economic and social hostility was furthered by the feudal ruling
classes whose antagonism to the Jews was deep-seated and many-sided.
As these formed the ruling economic, social and political power in
Eastern Europe, they were the chief instrument in creating a situation
that was full of danger for the Jews. In the politico-economic
struggles between these privileged classes and the liberal middle
classes that accompanied the transition, the Jews were found,
consciously or unconsciously, on the side of the liberals, who sought
to introduce the economic, social and political conditions of modern
civilization. Thus they served as a convenient object of attack. In
Russia, where, since the reaction, the control of the feudal classes
over the government was complete, the new laws restricting residence,
movement, occupations and economic activity in general, checked the
economic growth of the Jews and put them at a great disadvantage in
the struggle for existence. This situation was created to an even
greater degree in Roumania, where the economic interests of the
Roumanian middle class were furthered at the expense of the Jews.
Economic helplessness was essentially the condition created for the
Jews, so narrow was the margin left for the exercise of their powers.
The social pressure that was added, through laws limiting the entrance
of Jews to the educational institutions and the liberal professions,
seeking to limit their cultural influence, was part and parcel of the
same policy. In the case of Russia, repression reached the form of
massacres of Jews, when these were found politically useful.
Governmental oppression was thus the chief force in unsettling the
economic and social position of the Jews. Throughout the course of
thirty years the leading motive of the Russian and Roumanian
governments was the reduction, through every possible means, of the
number of their Jewish populations.
This governmental pressure which began to be applied at the beginning
of the eighties became equivalent in the course of time to an
expulsive force. The only outlet to the intolerable conditions that
had been created by the forces of governmental repression and
oppression was emigration. This was sensed by the Jews at the very
beginning of the period. How eagerly it has been seized upon the
following pages will show. It is enough for the moment to point out
that the vast and steadily increasing stream of Russian Jewish
immigrants to the United States alone, has risen to such proportions
that its average for the past decade has approached the estimated
annual increase of the Jews in Russia. In other words, emigration has
begun to mean the decline, not only relatively, but even absolutely,
of the Jewish population in Russia.
The fact that the persecution of the Jews in the case of Russia and
Roumania amounts to a force of rejection has been widely recognized
during the course of the emigration of the Jews from Eastern Europe.
In England, where the number of Jewish immigrants increased rapidly,
it found expression in the official reports, and in the United States,
it became a subject of direct diplomatic correspondence in the formal
protest to Russia in 1891 by President Harrison, and in 1902 in the
circular note to the Powers by Secretary Hay, regarding Roumania's
treatment of the Jews.
A still more significant recognition of the exceptional forces behind
the Jewish immigration was given by the Jews of Western Europe and the
United States, living in a state of freedom, security and comparative
wealth, to whom the oncoming of thousands of Jewish refugees at all
the critical periods, and the steady stream of Jewish immigrants at
other times has meant a taking-up of onerous burdens and a sharing of
the hardships of the situation thus suddenly thrust upon them. The
attempt to organize and regulate Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe
was a task early undertaken by the _Alliance Israelite Universelle_.
The Jewish Colonization Association was expressly founded by Baron de
Hirsch to open up, in various countries, new paths for the Jewish
emigrants. At all periods of exceptional emigration, national and
international committees met to consider the problems of the
immigrants thrown upon their responsibility.
The vast majority of the emigrants made the United States their goal.
In their movement and their economic and social characteristics we
shall find a striking reflection of the impelling forces of their
emigration.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] _Cf. Hersch_, chap. v. He gives to this factor far more
importance than it deserves. For criticism of his method, _cf._ p. 92,
note I.
PART II
JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
A. ITS MOVEMENT
CHAPTER I
DETERMINATION OF NUMBER OF JEWISH IMMIGRANTS
In a study of Jewish immigration to the United States the first
problem is to determine the number of Jews who entered this country
during the thirty years from 1881 to 1910, and their nationality, or
their countries of nativity. The determination of these figures meets
with the difficulty that prior to 1899, immigrants were classified in
the official statistics by country of nativity or residence, and not
by race or nationality. Thus the figures regarding Jewish immigration
are obtainable from official sources only from 1899. Those relating to
previous years have to be sought for elsewhere.
The main sources that have been used to obtain the figures before 1899
are the reports of three Jewish societies which were concerned with
the care of the Jewish immigrants arriving at the principal ports of
New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. These were the United Hebrew
Charities, of New York; the Association for the Protection of Jewish
Immigrants, of Philadelphia; and the Hebrew Benevolent Society, of
Baltimore. Each of these maintained an agent who, besides his other
duties, collected statistical information concerning the sex, age,
country of nativity, occupation, destination, etc., of the Jewish
immigrants, partly from the ships' manifests and partly through
personal inquiry. The statistical information thus obtained was
regularly included in the annual reports of these societies. These
records were begun by the New York and Philadelphia societies, in
1884, and by the Baltimore society, in 1891.
As the yearly statistical tables of these reports were made to
correspond with the annual meeting of these societies,[48] it was
found advisable to rearrange them from July to June, in order to have
them correspond with the fiscal year, and thus allow for a proper
comparison with the official data furnished by the immigration
authorities.
As rearranged, the tables presented the number of Jewish immigrants
entering the ports of New York and Philadelphia from July 1, 1886, to
June 30, 1898, and the number of Jewish immigrants entering the port
of Baltimore from July 1, 1891, to June 30, 1898.[49] As these three
ports were, up to recent years, the places of entry of all but a very
small number of Jewish immigrants, the figures thus obtained represent
practically the total Jewish immigration to the United States from
1886 to 1898.
To ascertain the nationality or country of nativity of the Jewish
immigrants from 1886 to 1898, it was necessary to redistribute in
accordance with the fiscal year the monthly arrivals found in the
tables of the United Hebrew Charities, which contain the figures for
each nationality.[50] As the reports of the Philadelphia society gave
only the totals of arrivals of each nationality for each year but not
distributed by months, the following method was employed. The
percentage the immigration of each nativity constituted of the total
immigration from November to October (the society's year) was used as
the basis for calculating the annual immigration of each nativity
from July to June.[51] There being no essential difference between
Baltimore and Philadelphia, so far as Jewish immigrants of each
nationality are concerned, the same percentages were used as for
Philadelphia.[52]
The discrepancy between the official figures of the total immigration
from Roumania from 1886 to 1898 and those of the Jewish societies for
the Jewish immigrants from Roumania for the same period is worthy of
note. In each of four years the number of Jewish immigrants from
Roumania as reported by the Jewish societies exceeded the total
immigration from Roumania as reported in the official statistics. For
two years, 1892 and 1893, the official statistics do not report any
immigrants from Roumania, whereas the Jewish societies report,[53]
respectively, 740 and 555 Jewish immigrants from Roumania, which
represented a normal number from this country, as the other years
indicate.[54]
The total number of immigrants of each nationality arriving from July
1, 1886, to June 30, 1898, was thus obtained. The total number of
Jewish immigrants arriving from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania,
at each of the principal ports, for each year from 1886 to 1898, are
summarized in table V.[55]
The figures of Jewish immigration before 1886 were not obtainable
either from the official or the Jewish sources, there being only an
estimate of the number of the Jewish immigrants from 1881 to 1884 in
the _American Jewish Year Book_ of 1899-1900 (as 74,310), and in the
_Jewish Encyclopedia_ (as 62,022), without any indications as to how
these were obtained. To secure a fairly accurate statement, the
proportion the Russian Jewish immigration from 1886 to 1898 bore to
the total Russian immigration was used as the basis for calculating
the total number of Russian Jewish immigrants from 1881 to 1885.[56]
This was distributed yearly according to the proportion of each year's
contribution to the five years' total. By a similar calculation the
number of Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary was obtained.[57] For
Roumania, the proportion of Jews being more than ninety per cent, and
at this period practically the entire Roumanian immigration being
Jewish, the figures were taken _in toto_. The results for each year
added together constituted the total Jewish immigration for the year.
The general tendency among writers on the subject of Jewish
immigration has been to exaggerate the magnitude of this movement. In
a discussion in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_ regarding the dimensions of
the Jewish immigration before 1899, exact figures were given that are
on their face erroneous.[58] The inaccuracy of these figures is
explained by the fact that the writer committed a gross error in
making his table. The total Russian immigration to the United States
from 1880 to 1898 was designated as the Jewish immigration from
Russia, though it should have been evident that the number of other
peoples coming from Russia and included in these figures must have
been very large. Another column gave as Jewish immigrants coming from
countries other than Russia, the totals of the Jewish immigrants
entering the United States from 1885 to 1898, as reported in the
_American Jewish Year Book_ of 1899 (the latter figures of which
included Russian Jews as well as those of other nativities), thereby
doubling the number of Russian Jewish immigrants for this period. The
result has been to more than triple the numbers of the Jewish
immigrants. These figures have been widely used and quoted, and have
generally created the impression of a Jewish immigration larger by
several hundred thousands than is really the case.[59]
The results of the foregoing are summarized in Table VI, which gives
the number of Jewish immigrants arriving in each of the thirty years
from 1881 to 1910, and the principal countries of nativity of these
immigrants. We are thus in a position closely to study the movement of
Jewish immigration for practically the entire period since it became a
significant part of the recent immigration to the United States, and
thereby to throw light upon the character of this movement, in itself
and as a part of the general immigration.
TABLE VI
JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1881 TO 1910
Year Austria- United
Russia Hungary Roumania Kingdom Germany
1881 3125 2537 30 -- --
1882 10489 2648 65 -- --
1883 6144 2510 77 -- --
1884 7867 3340 238 -- --
1885 10648 3938 803 -- 1473
1886 14092 5326 518 -- 983
1887 23103 6898 2063 -- 780
1888 20216 5985 1653 -- 727
1889 18338 4998 1058 -- 758
1890 20981 6439 462 -- 633
1891 43457 5890 854 -- 636
1892 64253 8643 740 -- 1787
1893 25161 6363 555 -- 1814
1894 20747 5916 616 -- 1109
1895 16727 6047 518 -- 1028
1896 20168 9831 744 -- 829
1897 13063 5672 516 -- 586
1898 14949 7367 720 -- 296
1899 24275 11071 1343 174 405
1900 37011 16920 6183 133 337
1901 37660 13006 6827 110 272
1902 37846 12848 6589 55 182
1903 47689 18759 8562 420 477
1904 77544 20211 6446 817 669
1905 92388 17352 3854 14299 734
1906 125234 14884 3872 6113 979
1907 114937 18885 3605 7032 734
1908 71978 15293 4455 6260 869
1909 39150 8431 1390 3385 652
1910 59824 13142 1701 4098 705
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total 1119059 281150 67057 42896 20454
Year Brit. All
N.A. Turkey France Others Total
1881 -- -- -- -- 5692
1882 -- -- -- -- 13202
1883 -- -- -- -- 8731
1884 -- -- -- -- 11445
1885 -- -- -- -- 16862
1886 -- -- -- 254 21173
1887 -- -- -- 200 33044
1888 -- -- -- 300 28881
1889 -- -- -- 200 25352
1890 -- -- -- 124 28639
1891 -- -- -- 561 51398
1892 -- -- -- 950 76373
1893 -- -- -- 429 35322
1894 -- -- -- 791 29179
1895 -- -- -- 871 26191
1896 -- -- -- 276 32848
1897 -- -- -- 535 20372
1898 -- -- -- 322 23654
1899 5 81 9 52 37415
1900 -- 114 17 49 60764
1901 -- 154 20 49 58098
1902 -- 138 9 21 57688
1903 -- 211 11 74 76203
1904 8 313 32 196 106236
1905 11 173 327 772 129910
1906 429 461 479 1297 153748
1907 1818 918 306 952 149182
1908 2393 635 425 1079 103387*
1909 2780 690 325 748 57551*
1910 2262 1388 339 801 84260*
-----------------------------------------------------------
Total 9706 5276 2299 14903 1562800
* From 1908 immigrants were classified in the reports of the
Commissioner-General of Immigration as "immigrant aliens," those
intending to reside permanently in the United States and
"non-immigrant aliens," those making a temporary trip to the
United States. In the figures of 1908, 1909 and 1910, only the
"immigrant aliens" are considered.
TABLE VII
PERCENTAGE OF ANNUAL JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
CONTRIBUTED BY EACH COUNTRY OF NATIVITY, 1881 TO 1910
Austria- United
Year Russia Hungary Roumania Kingdom Germany
1881 54.8 44.7 0.5 -- --
1882 79.5 20.1 0.4 -- --
1883 70.4 28.7 0.9 -- --
1884 68.7 29.2 2.1 -- --
1885 63.1 23.4 4.8 -- 8.7
1886 66.6 25.2 2.4 -- 4.6
1887 69.9 20.8 6.3 -- 2.4
1888 70.0 20.7 5.7 -- 2.5
1889 72.3 19.7 4.2 -- 3.0
1890 73.3 22.5 1.6 -- 2.2
1891 84.6 11.5 1.6 -- 1.2
1892 84.1 11.3 1.1 -- 2.2
1893 71.2 18.0 1.6 -- 5.1
1894 71.1 20.3 2.1 -- 3.8
1895 63.9 23.1 2.0 -- 3.9
1896 61.4 29.9 2.3 -- 2.5
1897 64.1 27.9 2.5 -- 2.9
1898 63.2 31.1 3.0 -- 1.3
1899 64.9 29.5 3.6 .5 1.1
1900 60.9 27.8 10.2 .2 .6
1901 64.8 22.4 11.8 .2 .5
1902 65.6 22.3 11.4 .1 .3
1903 62.6 24.6 11.2 .6 .6
1904 73.0 19.0 6.1 .8 .6
1905 71.1 13.4 3.0 11.0 .6
1906 81.5 9.7 2.5 4.0 .6
1907 77.1 12.7 2.4 4.7 .5
1908 69.6 14.8 4.3 6.1 .8
1909 68.0 14.7 2.4 5.9 1.2
1910 71.1 15.6 2.0 4.9 .8
--------------------------------------------------------
Total 71.6 17.9 4.3 2.8 1.3
Year Brit. All
N.A. Turkey France Others Total
1881 -- -- -- -- 100.0
1882 -- -- -- -- 100.0
1883 -- -- -- -- 100.0
1884 -- -- -- -- 100.0
1885 -- -- -- -- 100.0
1886 -- -- -- 1.2 100.0
1887 -- -- -- .6 100.0
1888 -- -- -- 1.1 100.0
1889 -- -- -- .8 100.0
1890 -- -- -- .4 100.0
1891 -- -- -- 1.1 100.0
1892 -- -- -- 1.3 100.0
1893 -- -- -- 4.1 100.0
1894 -- -- -- 2.7 100.0
1895 -- -- -- 7.1 100.0
1896 -- -- -- 3.9 100.0
1897 -- -- -- 2.6 100.0
1898 -- -- -- 1.4 100.0
1899 -- -- -- .4 100.0
1900 -- -- -- .3 100.0
1901 -- .2 -- .1 100.0
1902 -- .2 -- .1 100.0
1903 -- .3 -- .1 100.0
1904 -- .3 -- .2 100.0
1905 -- .1 .2 .6 100.0
1906 .3 .3 .3 .8 100.0
1907 1.2 .6 .2 .6 100.0
1908 2.3 .6 .4 1.1 100.0
1909 4.7 1.2 .6 1.3 100.0
1910 2.7 1.6 .4 .9 100.0
------------------------------------------------------
Total 0.6 0.3 0.2 1.0 100.0
FOOTNOTES:
[48] The year of the United Hebrew Charities is from October to
September, that of the Philadelphia society is from November to
October, that of the Baltimore society is from July to June.
[49] _Cf._ table II, p. 159. The figures for Baltimore were furnished
by the Baron de Hirsch Fund.
[50] For an example of this distribution _cf._ table III, p. 159.
[51] _Cf._ table IVA, p. 160. Thus, from November 1885 to October 1886
there entered the port of Philadelphia 2165 Jews, of whom 1624 or 75
per cent were from Russia, 260 or 12 per cent were from
Austria-Hungary, 43 or 2 per cent were from Roumania, and 238 or 11
per cent were from all other countries. From July 1, 1885 to June 30,
1886, there entered the port of Philadelphia 1625 Jews. To ascertain
the numbers of each nationality for this fiscal year, we may use the
percentages given above for each nationality. Calculating these, we
find that in the fiscal year 1886 of the 1625 Jews entering the port
of Philadelphia, 1218 were from Russia, 196 were from Austria-Hungary,
33 were from Roumania, and 178 were from all other countries. In like
manner, the numbers of each nationality for the other years were
obtained.
[52] _Cf._ table IVB, p. 160.
[53] As corrected by the methods described.
[54] For the four years mentioned, the figures are as follows, those
reported by the Jewish societies preceding those from official
sources: in 1886, 518, 494; in 1887, 2063, 2045; in 1888, 1653, 1188;
in 1889, 1058, 893. For the official figures _cf._ Immigration
Commission: _Statistical Review of Immigration_, pp. 40-44.
[55] _Cf._ table V, p. 161.
[56] Out of a total of 505,078 Russian immigrants from 1886 to 1898,
the Russian Jewish immigrants constituted 315,355, or 62 per cent.
[57] In calculating the number of Jewish immigrants from
Austria-Hungary the percentage the Jewish immigration was of the total
immigration from Austria-Hungary from 1886 to 1910 and not, as in the
case with the Jewish immigration from Russia, from 1886 to 1898, was
used through an oversight as the basis for calculation. As the
immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary for 1885 at the port of New
York alone constituted 14 per cent of the total immigration from
Austria-Hungary, this figure was put down _in toto_, being a higher
number than the one obtained by calculation. As the Jewish immigration
from 1886 to 1910 constituted 9 per cent of the total immigration from
Austria-Hungary and the immigration from 1886 to 1898 constituted 14
per cent of the total immigration, the difference is not large.
Following is the table indicating the difference for each year from
1881 to 1884.
Year. Total Jewish immigration. Difference.
immigration. at 14 at 9
per cent per cent
1881 27935 3882 2537 1345
1882 29150 4051 2648 1403
1883 27625 3840 2510 1330
1884 36571 5083 3340 1743
The increased numbers from the higher percentage involve no change in
the relative position of Jewish immigration from the three principal
countries of emigration, except in 1881, when the Jewish immigration
from Austria-Hungary would have exceeded that from Russia.
[58] _Jewish Encyclopedia_: "Migration," vol. viii, p. 584. _Ibid._,
"Russia"--Emigration, vol. x, p. 547.
[59] Ruppin uses these figures in _Die Sozialen Verhaeltnisse der Juden
in Russland_, p. 11.
Hersch, (_Le juif errant d'aujourd'hui_), subjects the figures given
in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_ to a thorough analysis and shows their
absurdity. Unaware, however, of the nature of the error committed by
the writer and of the existence of authoritative sources for the
figures of Jewish immigration, he drew the conclusion that it is
impossible to obtain any really accurate figures of Jewish immigration
before 1899. This leads him into serious errors owing to the fact that
he discusses the movement of Jewish immigration from the basis of the
twelve years from 1899 to 1910, representing the height of the
movement, instead of for the entire period of thirty years. This
vitiates his principal conclusions regarding the character of the
Jewish movement to this country. Particularly noticeable is his
neglect of the phenomena presented by the Russian and Roumanian
movements and his elevation of the movement from Austria-Hungary as
the type of Jewish immigration to this country.