History of the Jews in Russia and Poland Volume II Part 23

The pogroms of 1881, and the indignation they aroused among the American people induced the United States Government to adopt a more energetic form of protest. In his dispatch to the United States Minister at St.

Petersburg, dated April 15, 1882, the new Secretary of State, Frederic T. Frelinghuysen, takes account of the prevailing sentiment in the country in these words: "The prejudice of race and creed having in our day given way to the claims of our common humanity, the people of the United States have heard with great regret the stories of the sufferings of the Jews in Russia." He therefore notifies the Minister "that the feeling of friendship which the United States entertains for Russia prompts this Government to express the hope that the Imperial Government will find means to cause the persecution of these unfortunate beings to cease." [1]

[Footnote 1: _Executive Doc.u.ment_ No. 470, p. 65.]

A more emphatic note of protest was sounded in the House of Representatives by Samuel S. c.o.x, of New York, who, in his lengthy speech delivered on July 31, 1882, scathingly denounced the repressive methods practiced by the Russian Government against the Jews, and, more particularly, the outrages which had been perpetrated upon them during the preceding year. [1] He makes the former directly responsible for the latter. In his opinion the pogroms were not merely a spontaneous and sudden outburst of the Eussian populace against the Jews, but rather the slow result of the disabilities and discriminations which are imposed upon the Jews by the Russian Government and are bound to degrade them in the eyes of their fellow-citizens:

[Footnote 3: _Congressional Record_, Vol. 13, part 7, _Appendix,_ p. 651 et seq. The speech is accompanied by an elaborate tabulated statement of the pogroms and a map of the area in which they had taken place.]

Is it said that the Russian peasantry, and not the Government, are responsible, I answer: If the peasantry of Russia are too ignorant or debased to understand the nature of this cruel persecution, they have warrant for their conduct in the customs and laws of Russia to which I have referred. These discriminate against the Jews. They have reference to their isolation, their separation from Russian protection, their expulsion from certain parts of the Empire, and their religion. When a peasant observes such forceful movements and authoritative discriminations in a Government against a race, it arouses his ignorance, and inflames his fanatical zealotry. Adding this to the jealousy of the Jews as middlemen and business-men, and you may account for, but not justify, these horrors. The Hebraic-Russian question has been summed up in a few words: "Extermination of two and one-half millions of mankind because they are--Jews!" [1]

[Footnote 1: loc. _cit_., p. 653.]

After giving an elaborate account of the horrors which had taken place in Russia during 1881, he wound up his speech with the following eloquent appeal:

This people is one of the survivors, with Egypt, China and India, of the infancy of mankind. It is at the mercy of the cruel despot of the North. With a lineage unrivalled for purity, a religious sentiment and ethics drawn out of the glory and greatness of Mount Sinai ... with an eternal influence from its law-givers, prophets, and psalmists never vouchsafed to any language, race or creed, It outlives the philosophies and myths of Greece and the grandeur and power of Rome. It is this race, broken-hearted and scattered, to which the Czar of all the Russias adds the enormities of his rule upon the victims of the ignorance and slander of the ages. The birthright of this race is thus despoiled; and, Sir, have we no word of protest? Struggling against adversities which no other people have encountered, do they not yet survive--the wine from the crushed grape? [1]

[Footnote 1: _loc. cit_., p. 656.]

The resolution introduced by him on that occasion was to the following effect:

Whereas the Government of the United States should exercise its influence with the Government of Russia to stay the spirit of persecution as directed against the Jews, and protect the citizens of the United States resident in Russia, and seek redress for injuries already inflicted, as well as to secure by wise and enlightened administration the Hebrew subjects of Russia and the Hebrew citizens of the United States resident in Russia against the recurrence of wrongs; Therefore

Resolved, That the President of the United States, if not incompatible with the public service, report to this House any further correspondence in relation to the Jews in Russia not already communicated to this House." [1] [Footnote 1: _Congressional Record_, Vol. 13, p. 6691.]

The resolution, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, was finally pa.s.sed by the House on February 23, 1883.

The sentiments of the broad ma.s.ses of the American people had found utterance somewhat earlier at a big protest meeting which was held in February, 1882, in the city of New York, where the first refugees from Russia had begun to arrive. [1] A resolution was adopted protesting "against the spirit of medieval persecution thus revived in Russia" and calling upon the Government of the United States to make energetic representations to St. Petersburg. One of the speakers at the New York meeting, Judge Noah Davis, said, amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience:

[Footnote 1: The meeting was held on Wednesday, February 1, 1882, on the same day as the Mansion House Meeting in London. The chair was occupied by the Mayor, William R. Grace. See the _American Hebrew_ of February 3, 1882, p. 138 et seq.]

Let them come! I would to Heaven it were in our power to take the whole three million Jews of Russia. The valley of the Mississippi alone could throw her strong arms around, and draw them all to her opulent bosom, and bless them with homes of comfort, prosperity, and happiness. Thousands of them are praying to come. The throne of Jehovah is besieged with prayers for the powers of escape, and if they cannot live in peace under Russian laws without being subject to these awful persecutions, let us aid them in coming to us. [1]

[Footnote 1: See _Proceedings of Meetings held February 1, 1882, at New York and London, to Express Sympathy with the Oppressed Jews in Russia_. New York, p. 20 et seq.]

These words of the speaker, uttered in a moment of oratorical exultation, voiced the secret wish cherished by many enthusiasts of the Russian ghetto.

3. THE PROBLEM OF EMIGRATION AND THE POGROM AT BALTA

In Russia itself a large number of emigration societies came into being about the same time, which had for their object the transfer of Russian Jews to the United States, the land of the free. The organizers of these societies evidently relied on some miraculous a.s.sistance from the outside, such as the _Alliance Israelite_ of Paris and similar Jewish bodies in Europe and America. Under the immediate effect of Ignatyev's statement to Dr. Orshanski in which the Russian Minister referred to the "Western frontier" as the only escape for the Jews, the Russian-Jewish press was flooded with reports from hundreds of cities, particularly in the South of Russia, telling of the formation, of emigrant groups. "Our poor cla.s.ses have only one hope left to them, that of leaving the country. 'Emigration, America,' are the slogans of our brethren"--this phrase occurs at that time with stereotyped frequency in all the reports from the provinces.

Many Russian-Jewish intellectuals dreamed of establishing Jewish agricultural and farming colonies in the United States, where some batches of emigrants who had left during the year 1881 had already managed to settle on the land. A part of the Jewish youth was carried away by the idea of settling in Palestine, and conducted a vigorous propaganda on behalf of this national idea among the refugees from the modern Egypt. There was urgent need of uniting these emigration societies scattered all over the Pale of Settlement and of establishing central emigration committees to regulate the movement which had gripped the people with elemental force.

Unfortunately, there was no unity of purpose among the Jewish leaders in Russia. The intellectuals who stood nearer to the people, such as the well-known oculist, Professor Mandelstamm, who enjoyed great popularity in Kiev, and others like him, as well as a section of the Jewish press, particularly the _Bazsvyet_, insisted continually on the necessity of organizing the emigration movement, which they regarded as the most important task confronting Russian Jewry at that time. The Jewish oligarchy in St. Petersburg, on the other hand, was afraid lest such an undertaking might expose it to the charge of "disloyalty" and of a lack of Russian patriotism. Others again, whose sentiments were voiced by the Russian-Jewish periodical _Voskhod_ and who were of a more radical turn of mind, looked upon the attempt to encourage a wholesale emigration of Jews as a concession to the Government of Ignatyev and as an indirect abandonment of the struggle for emanc.i.p.ation in Russia itself.

In the spring of 1882, the question of organizing the emigration movement had become so pressing that it was decided to convene a conference of provincial Jewish leaders in St. Petersburg to consider the problem. Before the delegates had time to arrive in the capital, the sky of South Russia was once more lit up by a terrible flare. Balta, a large Jewish center in Podolia, where a Jewish emigration society had had sprung into being shortly before the catastrophe, became the scene of a frightful pogrom.

It was shortly before the Russian Pa.s.sover, the high season of pogroms, when the Russian public was startled by a strange announcement published towards the end of March in the _Imperial Messenger_ to the effect that from now on it would accurately report all cases of "Jewish disorders"

in accordance with the official information received from the governors.

The announcement clearly implied that the Government knew beforehand of the imminence of new pogroms. Even the conservative _Moscow News_ commented on the injudicious statement of the official organ in emphatic and sarcastic terms:

The _Imperial Messenger_ is comforting the public by the announcement that it would in due time and at due length report all cases of excesses perpetrated upon the Jews. One might think that these are every-day occurrences forming part of the natural course of events which demand nothing else than timely communication to the public. Is there indeed no means to put a stop to this crying scandal?

Events soon made it clear that there was no desire to put a stop to this "scandal," as the Moscow paper politely termed the exploits of the Russian robber bands. The local authorities of Balta were forewarned in time of the approaching pogroms. Beginning with the middle of March the people in Balta and the surrounding country were discussing them openly.

When the Jews of that town made their apprehensions known to the local police commissioner, they received from him an evasive reply. In view of the fact that the Jewish population of Balta was three times as large as the Christian, it would not have been difficult for the Jews to organize some sort of self-defence. But they knew that such an organization was strictly forbidden by the Government, and, realizing the consequences, they had to confine themselves to a secret agreement entered into by a few families to stand up for one another in the hour of distress. On the second day of the Russian Easter, corresponding to the seventh day of the Jewish festival, on March 29, the pogrom began, surpa.s.sing by the savagery of the mob and the criminal conduct of the authorities all the baccha.n.a.lia of 1881. A contemporary observer, basing his statements on the results of a special investigation, gives the following account of the events at Balta:

At the beginning of the pogrom, the Jews got together and forced a band of rioters to draw back and seek shelter in the building of the fire department. But when the police and soldiers appeared on the scene, the rioters decided to leave their place of refuge. Instead of driving off the disorderly band, the police and soldiers began to beat the Jews with their rifle b.u.t.ts and swords. This served as a signal to start the pogrom. At that moment, somebody sounded an alarm bell, and, in response, the mob began to flock together.

Fearing the numerical superiority of the Jews in that part of the town, the crowd pa.s.sed across the bridge to the so-called Turkish side, where there were fewer Jews. The crowd was accompanied by the military commander, the police commissioner, the burgomaster, and a part of the local battalion, which fact, however, did not prevent the mob, while pa.s.sing the Cathedral street, from demolishing a Jewish store and breaking the windows in the house of another Jew, a member of the town-council. After the mob had crossed over to the Turkish side, the authorities drew up military cordons on all the three bridges leading from that side to the rest of the town, with the order not to allow any Jews to pa.s.s. Needless to say, the order was carried out. At the same time the Christians of the remaining sections of the town and of the village of Alexandrovka were allowed to pa.s.s unhindered. Thanks to these arrangements, the Turkish side was sacked in the course of three to four hours, so that by one o'clock in the morning the rioters found nothing left to do. During the night, the police and military authorities arrested twenty-four rioters and a much larger number of Jews. The latter were arrested because they ventured to stay near their homes. The following morning, the Christians were released and allowed to swell the ranks of the pillaging mob, while the Jews were kept in jail until the following day and freed only when the governor arrived.

On the following day, March 30, at four o'clock in the morning, a large number of peasants, amounting to about five thousand and armed with clubs, began to arrive in town, having been summoned by the Ispravnik [1] from the adjacent villages. The arrival of the peasants was welcomed by the Jews, who thought that they had been called to come to their aid. But they soon found out their mistake, for the peasants declared that they had come to beat and plunder the Jews. Simultaneously with the arrival of the peasants, large numbers from among the local mob began to a.s.semble around the Cathedral, and at eight o'clock in the morning signals were given to renew the pogrom. At first this was prevented. The officers of the local battalion, who patrolled the city, ordered the soldiers to surround the mob and hold it off for about an hour, during which time the Greek-Orthodox bishop [2] Radzionovski admonished the rioters and tried to make them understand that such doings were contrary to the laws of the Church and the State. But when the police commissioner, the military chief, and Ispravnik arrived before the Cathedral, the military cordon was withdrawn, and the crowd, now let loose, threw itself upon a near-by liquor store, and, after demolishing it and filling itself with alcohol, resumed its work of destruction, with the co-operation of the peasants who had been summoned by the Ispraynik and the a.s.sistance of the soldiers and policemen. It was on this occasion that those wild, savage scenes of murder, rapine, and plunder took place, the account of which as published in the newspapers is but the pale shadow of the real facts.... The pogrom of Balta was called forth not by the mere inactivity but by the direct activity of the local authorities.

[Footnote 1: The head of the district (or county) police. The police in the larger towns of the county is subject to the police commissioner of the town, who is referred to earlier in the text.]

[Footnote 2: In Russian, _Protoyerey_, a term borrowed from the Greek. It corresponds roughly to the t.i.tle of bishop.]

What these "savage scenes" were we do not learn from the newspapers, which were forbidden by the censor to report them, but we know them partly from unpublished sources and partly from the later court proceedings. Aside from the demolition of twelve hundred and fifty houses and business places and the destruction and pillage of property and merchandise--according to a statement of the local rabbi, "all well-to-do Jews were turned into beggars, and more than fifteen thousand people were sent out into the wide world "--a large number of people were killed and maimed, and many women were violated. Forty Jews were slain or dangerously wounded; one hundred and seventy received slight wounds; many Jews, and particularly Jewesses, became insane from fright.

There were more than twenty cases of rape. The seventeen year old daughter of a poor polisher, Eda Maliss by name, was attacked by a horde of b.e.s.t.i.a.l lads before the eyes of her brother. When the mother of the unfortunate girl ran into the street and called to her aid a policeman who was standing near-by, the latter followed the woman into the house, and then, instead of helping her, dishonored her on the spot. The fiendish hordes invaded the home of Baruch Shlakhovski, and began their b.l.o.o.d.y work by slaying the master of the house, whereupon his wife and daughter fled and hid themselves in a near-by orchard. Here a Russian neighbor lured them into his house under the pretext of defending their honor against the rioters, but, once in his house, he disgraced the daughter in the presence of her mother. In many cases the soldiers of the local garrison a.s.saulted and beat the Jews who showed themselves on the streets while the "military operations" of the mob were going on. In accordance with the customary pogrom ritual, the human fiends were left undisturbed for two days, and only on the third day were troops summoned from a near-by city to put a stop to the atrocities.

On the same day the governor of Podolia arrived to make an investigation. It was soon learned that the local authorities, the police commissioner, the Ispravnik, the military commander, the burgomaster, and the president of the n.o.bility [1] had either directly or indirectly abetted the pogrom. Many rioters, who had been arrested by the police, were soon released, because they threatened otherwise to point out to the higher authorities the ringleaders from among the local officials and the representatives of Russian society. The Jews, again, were constantly terrorized by these scoundrels and cowed by the fear of ma.s.sacres and complete annihilation, in case they dared to expose their hangmen before the courts.

[Footnote 1: The n.o.bility of each government forms an organization of its own. It is headed by a president for the entire government who has under his jurisdiction a president for each district (or county). Such a county president is referred to in the text.]

The pogrom of Balta found but a feeble echo in the immediate neighborhood--in a few localities of the governments of Podolia and Kherson. It seemed as if the energy of destruction and savagery had spent itself in the exploits at Balta. On the whole, the pogrom campaign conducted in the spring of 1882 covered but an insignificant territory when compared with the pogrom enterprise of 1881, though surpa.s.sing it considerably in point of quality. The horrors of Balta were a substantial earnest of the Kishinev atrocities of 1903 and the October pogroms of 1905.

4. THE CONFERENCE OF JEWISH NOTABLES AT ST. PETERSBURG

The horrors of Balta cast their shadow upon the conference of Jewish delegates which met in St. Petersburg on April 8-11, 1882. The conference, which had been called by Baron Horace Gunzburg, with the permission of Ignatyev, was made up of some twenty-five delegates from the provinces--among them Dr. Mandelstamm of Kiev, Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Specter of Kovno--and fifteen notables from the capital, including Baron Gunzburg himself, the railroad magnate Polakov, and Professor Bakst. The question of Jewish emigration was the central issue of the conference, although, in connection with it, the general situation of Russian Jewry came up for discussion. There was a mixed element of tragedy and timidity in the deliberations of this miniature congress, at which neither the voice of the ma.s.ses nor that of the _intelligentzia_ were given a full hearing. On the one hand, the conference listened to heartrending speeches, picturing the intolerable position of the Jews; and one of the delegates, Shmerling from Moghilev, who had just delivered such a speech, was so overcome that he fainted and died in a few hours. On the other hand, the most influential delegates, particularly those from the capital, were looking about timorously, fearing lest the Government suspect them of a lack of patriotism. Others again looked upon emigration as an illicit form of protest, as "sedition," and they clung to this conviction, even when the conference had been told in the name of the Minister of the Interior that it was expected to consider the question of "thinning out the Jewish population in the Pale of Settlement, in view of the fact that the Jews will not be admitted into the interior governments of Russia."

At the second meeting of the conference, the rabbi of St. Petersburg, Dr. Drabkin, reported to the delegates about his last conversation with Ignatyev. In reply to the rabbi who had stated that the Jews were waiting for an imperial word ordering the suppression of the pogroms, and were antic.i.p.ating the removal of their legal disabilities, the Minister had characterized these a.s.sertions as "commonplaces," and had added in an irritated tone: "The Jews themselves are responsible for the pogroms. By joining the Nihilists they thereby deprive the Government of the possibility of sheltering them against violence." The sophistry of the Minister was refuted on the spot by his own confession that the Balta pogrom was due to "a false rumor charging the Jews with having undermined the local Greek-Orthodox church," in other words, that the cause of the Balta pogrom was not to be traced to any tendencies within Jewry but rather to the agitation of evil-minded Jew-baiters.

At the same session, the discussion of the emigration question was side-tracked by a new design of the slippery Minister. The financier Samuel Polakov, who was close to Ignatyev, declared in a spirit of base flunkeyism that the labors of the conference would prove fruitless unless they were carried on in accordance with "Government instructions." On this occasion he informed the conference that in a talk which he had with the Minister the latter had branded the endeavors to stimulate emigration as "an incitement to sedition," on the ground that "emigration does not exist for Russian citizens." Asked by the Minister for suggestions as to the best means of relieving the congestion of the Jews in the Pale, Polakov had replied: "By settling them all over Russia." To this the Minister had retorted that he could not allow the settlement of Jews except in Central Asia and in the newly conquered oasis of Akhal-Tekke, [1] In obedience to these ministerial utterances, the obsequious financier sharply opposed the plan of a Jewish emigration to foreign lands, and seriously recommended to the conference to consider the proposal made by Ignatyev. The Minister's suggestion was bitterly attacked by Dr. Mandelstamm, who saw in it a new attempt to make sport of the Jews, Even Professor Bakst, who objected to emigration on principle, declared that the proposed scheme of settling the Jews amounted in reality to "a deportation to far-off places" and was tantamount to an official "cla.s.sification of the Jews as criminals."

[Footnote 1: In the Trans-Caspian region. It had been occupied by Russian troops shortly before--in 1880.]

From the project of deportation, which failed to meet with the sympathy of the conference, the delegates proceeded to discuss the burning question of pogroms. It was proposed to send a deputation to the Tzar, appealing to him to put a stop to the legislative restrictions, which were bound to inspire the Russian population with the belief that the Jews were outside the pale of the law.

In the question of foreign emigration the majority of the conference voted against the establishment of emigration committees, on the ground that the latter might give the impression as if the Jews were desirous of leaving Russia.

After a debate lasting four days the following resolutions were adopted:

_First_, to reject completely the thought of organizing emigration, as being subversive of the dignity of the Russian body politic and of the historic rights of the Jews to their present fatherland.

_Second_, to point to the necessity of abolishing the present discriminating legislation concerning the Jews, this abolition being the only means to regulate the relationship of the Jewish population to the original inhabitants.

_Third_, to bring to the knowledge of the Government the pa.s.sive att.i.tude of the authorities which had clearly manifested itself during the time of the disorders.

_Fourth_, to pet.i.tion the Government to find means for compensating the Jewish population, which had suffered from the pogroms as a result of inadequate police protection.