FOOTNOTES:
[120] This Commission was appointed, under direction of the President, by Secretary of the Treasury Charles Foster, by virtue of authority of the act of Congress (Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill) of March 3, 1891, and its Report was transmitted by the Secretary to Congress, February 25, 1892. The Commission consisted of Hon. John B. Weber, Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York, Chairman, and the following named special immigrant inspectors: Judson N. Cross, of Minnesota; Walter Kempster, M. D., of Wisconsin; Joseph Powderly, of Pennsylvania, and Herman J. Schultheis, of Washington, D. C. The investigations with which the Commission was charged were made in the various countries of Europe by the Commissioners in severalty, those relating to Russia and the persecution of its Jewish subjects being made by the Chairman, Col. Weber, with the assistance of Dr. Kempster.
Col. Weber's report on the condition of affairs in Russia affords the most detailed and exhaustive statement of the subject that has been given to the world. It followed closely upon the publication in the New York Times, (Sept.-Dec., 1891,) of the masterly review of Russian affairs generally, by Harold Frederic, in a series of articles entitled "An Indictment of Russia," and these two publications finally disposed of the glossing with which Russian diplomacy had attempted to hide the facts.
[121] This subject had on frequent occasions previously received the attention of our State Department. In a despatch under date of July 29, 1881, Secretary of State Jas. G. Blaine directs our minister at St. Petersburg, Mr. John W. Foster, to demand of the Russian Government the due rights of American Jewish citizens travelling or temporarily sojourning in Russia, in compliance with treaty obligations. From this document we quote the following salient paragraphs:
"From a careful examination of the causes of grievances heretofore reported by your legation, it appears that the action of the Russian authorities toward American citizens, alleged to be Israelites, and visiting Russia, has been of two kinds:
"First. Absolute prohibition of residence in St. Petersburg and in other cities of the Empire, on the ground that the Russian law permits no native Jews to reside there, and that the treaty between Russia and the United States gives to our citizens in Russian jurisdiction no other rights or privileges than those accorded to native Russians. The case of Henry Pinkos may be taken as a type of this class.
"Second. Permission of residence and commerce, conditionally on belonging to the first guild of Russian merchants and taking out a license. The case of Rosenstrauss is in point.
"The apparent contradiction between these two classes of actions becomes more and more evident as the question is traced backward. The Department has rarely had presented to it any subject of inquiry in which a connected understanding of the facts has proved more difficult. For every allegation, on the one hand, that native laws, in force at the time the treaty of 1832 was signed, prohibited or limited the sojourn of foreign Jews in the cities of Russia, I find, on the other hand, specific invitation to alien Hebrews of good repute to domicile themselves in Russia, to pursue their business calling under appropriate license, to establish factories there, and to purchase or lease real estate. Moreover, going back beyond 1832, the date of our treaty, I observe that the imperial ukases concerning the admission of foreigners into Russia are silent on all questions of faith; proper passports, duly viséd being the essential requisite. And, further back still, in the time of Empress Catharine, I discover explicit tolerance of all foreign religions laid down as a fundamental policy of the empire.
"It would be, in the judgment of this government, absolutely inadmissible that a domestic law restraining native Hebrews from residence in certain parts of the empire might operate to hinder an American citizen, whether alleged or known to profess the Hebrew faith, from disposing of his property or taking possession thereof for himself (subject only to the laws of alien inheritance) or being heard in person by the courts which, under Russian law, may be called upon to decide matters to which he is necessarily a party. The case would clearly be one in which the obligation of a treaty is supreme, and where the local law must yield. These questions of the conflict of local law and international treaty stipulations are among the most common which have engaged the attention of publicists, and it is their concurrent judgment that where a treaty creates a privilege for aliens in express terms, it cannot be limited by the operation of domestic law without a serious breach of the good faith which governs the intercourse of nations. So long as such a conventional engagement in favor of the citizens of another state exists, the law governing natives in like cases is manifestly inapplicable.
"I need hardly enlarge upon the point that the Government of the United States concludes its treaties with foreign states for the equal protection of all classes of American citizens. It can make absolutely no discrimination between them, whatever be their origin or creed. So that they abide by the laws, at home or abroad, it must give them due protection and expect like protection for them. Any unfriendly or discriminatory act against them on the part of a foreign power with which we are at peace would call for our earnest remonstrance whether a treaty existed or not. The friendliness of our relations with foreign nations is emphasized by the treaties we have concluded with them. We have been moved to enter into such international compacts by considerations of mutual benefit and reciprocity, by the same considerations, in short, which have animated the Russian Government from the time of the noble and tolerant declarations of the Empress Catharine in 1784 to those of the ukase of 1860. We have looked to the spirit rather than to the letter of these engagements, and believed that they should be interpreted in the broadest way; it is, therefore, a source of unfeigned regret to us when a government, to which we are allied by so many historical ties as to that of Russia, shows a disposition in its dealing with us to take advantage of technicalities, to appeal to the rigid letter and not the reciprocal motive of its international engagements, in justification of the expulsion from its territories of peaceable American citizens resorting thither under the good faith of treaties and accused of no wrong-doing or of no violation of the commercial code of the land, but of simple adherence to the faith of their fathers."