FOOTNOTES:
[63] Cf. [table IX], p. 162.
[65] Sulzberger, The Beginnings of Russo-Jewish Immigration to Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1910), pp. 125-150.
[66] Cf. [table XI], p. 163.
[67] Cf. [table XII], p. 164.
[68] Cf. [table XIII], p. 164.
[69] Cf. [table XIV], p. 165.
[70] Cf. [table XV], p. 165.
[71] Cf. [table XVI], p. 166.
CHAPTER IV[ToC]
Immigration of Jews from Roumania
The immigration of Roumanian Jews to the United States began as a small stream at the end of the sixties, and assumed significant dimensions in the eighties. Two important periods of rising immigration are clearly distinguishable. The first period attains its maximum between 1885 and 1889. The second attains its maximum and that of the entire movement between 1900 and 1904.
In the thirty years between 1881 and 1910, 67,057 immigrants entered the United States.[72] In the first decade, 6,967 immigrants, or 10.4 per cent of the total, arrived. In the second decade, 12,789 immigrants arrived, or 19.1 per cent of the total. The great majority, 47,301 immigrants, or 70.5 per cent of the total, arrived in the last decade, more than twice as many as had arrived in the two preceding decades. The Roumanian Jews thus began to take a significant part in the Jewish movement only within the last decade.
The annual variations are closely connected with the conditions in Roumania which have been previously discussed.[73] The rise in 1885 to 803 immigrants, the first number of any consequence, reflects the measures taken in Roumania to restrict the economic activity of the Jews, chiefly through the hawkers' law of 1884. The continuation of the administrative activities against the Jews, the expulsion of many from the villages, and particularly the beginning in earnest of the attempt to drive them from industry and commerce, by the law of 1887, are responsible for the wholesale exodus in that and the following two years. In these three years more than 7 per cent of the total Roumanian Jewish immigration entered the country.
After 1889 and for nearly a decade the immigration of Jews from Roumania subsided, resuming the proportions established before 1887.
Another rise began in 1899. In 1900, the Roumanian Jewish immigration reached the relatively great number of 6,183, around which point it stood for the next two years. In 1903, it reached its maximum with an immigration of 8,562 Jews, one-eighth of the entire Roumanian Jewish immigration for the thirty years. In the following year the immigration still held to the high numbers reached before 1903. The years following 1904 show a fall to less than 4,000, which was interrupted in 1908, when the immigration rose to 4,455. In 1909, a sharp fall ensued to 1,390, and in 1910 to 1,701.
The great rise from 1900 to 1904, during which period there came more than half of the total number of Jewish immigrants from Roumania, was largely due to the resumption of the government program against the Jews. The chief form of restriction was the passing of the Artisans' Law in 1902, preceded by some years of agitation and administrative activity directed against the Jews, which aimed to make it impossible for the Jewish artisans to secure work. The feeling that the Jews had nothing to hope from the government, as much as the actual distress occasioned, was largely responsible for the unprecedented immigration.[74]
The Jewish forms so large a part of the Roumanian immigration as to be practically synonymous with it. As we have before noted, the figures obtained from the Jewish sources indicate a larger immigration from 1886 to 1898 on the part of the Jews alone than the official figures give for the entire immigration from Roumania for this period. Confining our attention to the figures of immigration from 1899 to 1910,[75] we find that, from 1899 to 1910, of the 61,073 immigrants from Roumania who entered the United States, 54,827, or 89.8 per cent, were Jews. Thus practically nine-tenths of the immigrants from Roumania are Jews. In the five years in which the Jewish movement was at its height, the Jews constituted from 91 per cent to 95.7 per cent of the Roumanian immigration. The immigration of other peoples from Roumania is insignificant. The highest number entering in any of the twelve years amounted to less than 800.
Still more significant is the intensity of immigration of the Roumanian Jews, especially in view of the negligible number of immigrants from Roumania other than Jews. The rate of immigration of the Roumanian Jews is far higher than that even of their Russian brethren.[76] The average annual immigration of Roumanian Jews, for the twelve years, from 1899 to 1910, amounted to 4,569, which represented an average rate of immigration for the Roumanian Jews of 175 per 10,000 of the Jewish population in Roumania. In the five years of maximum immigration, from 1900 to 1904, the rate was considerably higher, reaching in 1903 the enormous proportion of 329 immigrants to every 10,000 Jews in Roumania. The lowest rate during this period, that of 1900, was only slightly smaller than the maximum rate approached by the Jewish immigrants from Russia. However, in the three years which represented the highest point of the rate of immigration of the Jews from Russia, from 1905 to 1907, the rate of immigration for the corresponding years in Roumania was considerably smaller.
The Jewish immigration from Roumania is thus a product chiefly of the last decade. The rise in the first decade and the relatively tremendous rise in the last decade are a result largely of the activities of the Roumanian government. The vast majority of the immigrants from Roumania are Jews, whose rate of immigration is unprecedented.