HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA AND POLAND
FROM THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER I UNTIL THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER III
by S.M. Dubnow
A Project Gutenberg EBook
3. EFFECT OF PROTESTS
All these horrors, which remind one of the expulsion from
Spain in 1492,
were passed over in complete silence by the Russian
public press. The
cringing and reactionary papers would not, and the liberal
papers could
not, report the exploits of the Russian Government in
their war against
the Jews. The liberal press was ordered by the Russian
censor to refrain
altogether from touching on the Jewish question. The only
Russian-Jewish
press organ which, defying the threats of the censor, had
dared to fight
against official Russian Judaeophobia, the _Voskhod_, had
been
suppressed already in March, before the promulgation of
the Moscow
expulsion edict, "for the extremely detrimental
course pursued by it." A
similar fate overtook the _Novosti_ of St. Petersburg
which had printed
a couple of sympathetic articles on the Jews.
In this way the Government managed to gag the independent
press on the
eve of its surprise attack upon Moscow Jewry, so that
everything could
be carried out noiselessly, under the veil of a state
secret.
Fortunately, the foreign press managed to unveil the
mystery. The
Government of the United States, faced by a huge
immigration tide from
Russia, sent in June, 1891, two commissioners, Weber and
Kempster, to
that country. They visited Moscow at the height of the
expulsion fever,
and, travelling through the principal centers of the Pale
of Settlement,
gathered carefully sifted documentary evidence of what
was being
perpetrated upon the Jews in the Empire of the Tzar.
While decimating the Jews, the Russian Government was at
the same time
anxious that their cries of distress should not penetrate
beyond the
Russian border. Just about that time Russia was
negotiating a foreign
loan, in which the Rothschilds of Paris were expected to
take a leading
part, and found it rather inconvenient to stand forth in
the eyes of
Europe as the ghost of medieval Spain. It was this
consideration which
prompted the softened and ambiguous formulation of the
Moscow expulsion
decree and made the Government suppress systematically
all mention of
what happened afterwards.
Notwithstanding these efforts, the cries of distress were
soon heard all
over Europe. The Russian censorship had no power over the
public opinion
outside of Russia. The first Moscow refugees, who had
reached Berlin,
Paris, and London, reported what was going on at Moscow.
Already in
April, 1891, the European financial press began to
comment on the fact
that "the Jewish population of Russia is altogether
irreplaceable in
Russian commercial life, forming a substantial element
which contributes
to the prosperity of the country," and that,
therefore, "the expulsion
of the Jews must of necessity greatly alarm the owners of
Russian
securities who are interested in the economic progress of
Russia." Soon
afterwards it became known that Alphonse de Rothschild,
the head of the
great financial firm in Paris, refused to take a hand in
floating the
Russian loan of half a billion. This first protest of the
financial king
against the anti-Semitic policy of the Russian Government
produced a
sensation, and it was intensified by the fact that it was
uttered in
France at a time when the diplomats of both countries
were preparing to
celebrate the Franco-Russian alliance which was
consummated a few months
afterwards.
The expulsion from Moscow found a sympathetic echo on the
other side of
the Atlantic. President Harrison took occasion, in a
message to
Congress, to refer to the sufferings of the Jews and to
the probable
effects of the Russian expulsions upon America:
This Government has found occasion to express in a
friendly spirit,
but with much earnestness, to the Government of the
Czar its serious
concern because of the harsh measures now being
enforced against the
Hebrews in Russia. By the revival of anti-Semitic laws,
long in
abeyance, great numbers of those unfortunate people
have been
constrained to abandon their homes and leave the Empire
by reason of
the impossibility of finding subsistence within the
Pale to which it
is sought to confine them. The immigration of these
people to the
United States--many other countries being closed to
them--is largely
increasing, and is likely to assume proportions which
may make it
difficult to find homes and employment for them here
and to
seriously affect the labor market. It is estimated that
over
1,000,000 will be forced from Russia within a few
years. The Hebrew
is never a beggar; he has always kept the law--life by
toil--often
under severe and oppressive restrictions. It is also
true that no
race, sect, or class has more fully cared for its own
than the
Hebrew race. But the sudden transfer of such a
multitude under
conditions that tend to strip them of their small
accumulations and
to depress their energies and courage is neither good
for them nor
for us.
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; while
our historic
friendship for that Government cannot fail to give
assurance that
our representations are those of a sincere
well-wisher.[1]
[Footnote 1: Third Annual Message to Congress by
President Harrison,
December 9, 1891, _Messages and Papers of the
Presidents_, Vol. IX,
p. 188.]
The sentiments of the American people were voiced less
guardedly in a
resolution which was passed by the House of
Representatives on July 21,
1892:
_Resolved_, That the American people, through their
Senators and
Representatives in Congress assembled, do hereby
express sympathy
for the Russian Hebrews in their present condition, and
the hope
that the Government of Russia, a power with which the
United States
has always been on terms of amity and good will, will
mitigate as
far as possible the severity of the laws and decrees
issued
respecting them, and the President is requested to use
his good
offices to notify the Government of Russia to mitigate
the said laws
and decrees. [1]
[Footnote 1: _Congressional Record_, Vol. 23, p. 6533.]
The highly-placed Jew-baiters of St. Petersburg were
filled with rage,
The _Novoye Vremya_ emptied its invectives upon the
_Zhydovski_
financiers, referring to the refusal of Alphonse de
Rothschild to
participate in the Russian loan. Nevertheless, the
Government found
itself compelled to stem the tide of oppression for a
short while.
We have already had occasion to point out that the
Government had
originally planned to reduce the Jewish element also in
the city of St.
Petersburg, whose head, the brutal Gresser, had
manifested his attitude
toward the Jews in a series of police circulars.
Following upon the
first raid of the Moscow police on the Jews, Gresser
ordered his
gendarmes to search at the St. Petersburg railroad
stations for all
Jewish fugitives from that city who might have ventured
to flee to St.
Petersburg, and to deport them immediately. In April
there were
persistent rumors afloat that the Government had decided
to remove by
degrees all Jews from St. Petersburg and thus make both
Russian capitals
_judenrein_. The financial blow from Paris cooled
somewhat the ardor of
the Jew-baiters on the shores of the Neva. The wholesale
expulsions from
St. Petersburg were postponed, and the Russian
anti-Semites were forced
to satisfy their cannibal appetite with the consumption
of Moscow Jewry,
whose annihilation was carried out systematically under
the cover of
bureaucratic secrecy.
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