“In view of these facts the Commission has decided to request the Council of the Free Economic Society to communicate with the government and members of the society who are members of the legislative bodies:—
“To immediately stop the functioning of all restrictive laws relating to the Settlement rights of Jews, and
“To abolish them immediately and permanently by legislative enactment.”[51]
Numerous commercial and technical associations have passed resolutions declaring that the main cause of Russia’s economic backwardness lay in the restrictions placed upon Jews, and that the sole means of combating German predominance over Russian industry and trade is through the abolition of these restrictions. Among these organizations are the national grain, lumber, fur and gold trades; the Chambers of Commerce of Moscow, Petrograd and the leading cities of Russia and Siberia, and the national Congress of Bourses; the Russo-American Chamber of Commerce, etc. Practically every national convention of every industry has petitioned the government to liberate the economic talents of the Jews by the removal of all legal restrictions.
PROTESTS OF RUSSIAN WRITERS AND PUBLICISTS
Just as the commercial and industrial elements of Russia demand equality for the Jews on economic grounds, so the intellectual elements of Russia demand it on broad human grounds.
The great manifesto issued at the beginning of the war by 225 of the leading publicists and writers of Russia, declares:
“Russia, in the present great war, is straining all her physical and intellectual forces to an extraordinary degree. All the peoples of Russia are taking part in the war, sharing equally in all the labors. We believe that the blood of the fighters is not being shed in vain. We believe that after having borne the horrors of the war, the population will return with increased energy to the work of building for a better and brighter future. This we believe, and we hope that the relations between the different peoples that inhabit Russia will be built up in the future on the eternal foundations of wisdom and justice.
“But at this moment, so important in history, we see with sorrow and consternation that to the sufferings of one of the nationalities inhabiting Russia new distress and new vexations are added. The limitation of the right of education is now felt with particular pain by the Jewish youth. As the Western frontiers are closed the usual exodus to the foreign schools is checked, while in Russia itself the percentage limitations against the Jews in the schools are maintained in force. The Jews of the destroyed towns have no right to leave the Pale of Settlement, a measure which often leads to a disintegration and a division of members of families, wives and children of wounded soldiers not being allowed to visit their husbands and fathers, and being at the same time exposed to all sorts of chicanery. The sorely-tried Jewish nation which has given to the world such precious contributions in the domain of religion, of philosophy, of poetry; which has always shared the travails and trials of Russian life; which has been hurt so often by prejudice and insult; which more than once has proven its love for Russia, and its devotion to her cause, is now again exposed to unjust accusations and persecutions.