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] Séménoff, 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] Jüdische Statistik, p. 208 et seq.
CHAPTER V[ToC]
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 Israélite 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.