Various municipalities outside the Pale have petitioned the government
to give equal rights to the Jews.
The Municipal Council of Smolensk, at its session of December 19, 1914
(January 1, 1915), passed a resolution, with only two dissenting votes,
petitioning the government “to abolish all measures which restrict the
rights of Russian subjects of the Jewish faith, and, in particular,
to abolish the Pale of Settlement.” At this session Councillor P. V.
Mikhailoff said:
“We are referring not only to those families of Jewish soldiers at the
front, to families fleeing from devastated Poland, but even to the
soldiers themselves who are placed _hors de combat_ because of their
wounds, after having valiantly served in our ranks. Thus, for example,
a Jewish soldier wounded in the hand and in the breast, having parents
in this city, obtained permission _only with the utmost difficulty_
to stay here three months. At the end of this period he must go
back to the Pale and live there without means or medical attention,
although he is threatened with tuberculosis.... This is merely one
case in thousands which prove to us the horrors of the situation in
which Jewish soldiers and their families are placed because of their
deprivation of civic rights. Those families whose members have shed
their blood for Russia are ruined by the invasion of the enemy. They
arrive here to find a refuge from starvation and death, from ruin
and violation. We must remember that nearly a half million Jews are
fighting side by side with our brave warriors against the common
enemy. As to the civilian Jews, they have no less patriotism or
enthusiasm than the other inhabitants.... His Majesty, the Emperor,
in passing through Lublin, Grodno, and Tiflis, has deigned to express
his thanks to the Jews for their faithfulness to our common country.
The conclusion from this is clear: =There is no serious reason to
maintain any longer those measures of restriction so futile and so
pernicious and so malevolent.... But the Jewish question is not merely
a question of abstract justice. The economic and moral development of
our city life is seriously retarded by the restrictions placed upon
one part of the population....”=[46]
In August, 1914, a meeting of municipality, Zemstvo, Stock Exchange,
and University officials and merchants, at Odessa, resolved that the
country would benefit by the abolition of all repressive laws and the
opening of educational institutions to all citizens.[47]
In August, 1914, the Moscow Conference of Mayors also forcibly
condemned the expulsion policy of some governors and resolved to use
its influence to ameliorate the position of the Jews.[48]
So also the Congress of Delegates from cities of Western Siberia
petitioned for the abolition of all Jewish disabilities.[49]
Within the past few months the municipalities of Samara, Saratov,
Ekaterinoslav and other important centers; the Siberian Municipal
Conference, and the Conference of twenty Zemstvos held at Yaroslavl,
all petitioned the government and the Duma to remove the disabilities
affecting the Jews of Russia.