Waves of Russian-Jewish immigrants were pounding our shores in the spring of 1891. In Russia, pogroms and other forms of mob persecution had become so persistent that refugees were arriving in pitiful droves at our ports. Sinister circumstance had hurled them from one country into another. Many had been compelled to abandon their employment or even their own established businesses in Russia, owing to the enforcement of the Ignatieff laws and the consequent prohibitions, restrictions, and persecutions.
Determined to make a strenuous protest, a small committee was formed of prominent Jews from New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, to lay before President Harrison the pitiable conditions day by day presented by the arriving refugees, many of whom had been stripped of all their possessions.
Our committee was headed by Jesse Seligman, and among the others I recall Jacob H. Schiff, of New York, and General Lewis Seasongood, of Cincinnati, besides myself. The President listened to our story with sympathetic interest, and then turned to me and asked what, in the light of my international and diplomatic experience, I thought should be done. I told him that we had a right to remonstrate with any nation with which we were on friendly terms, as we were with Russia, for committing an unfriendly act if that nation by special laws forced groups of its people, in pitiable condition, to seek refuge in another country and that country our own.
The President agreed, but suggested that our Government ought to have before it an official report or statement of facts. I replied that this could easily be obtained by sending a competent commission to Russia to make inquiry. Promptly Colonel John B. Weber, immigration commissioner at Ellis Island, admirably qualified because of his experience in office and his sympathetic interest, together with Dr. Walter Kempster, a physician known for his studies of the pathology of insanity, were sent abroad to make an investigation and report. Their investigation was thorough, and they embodied their findings in a report that is a model of its kind. It was the first authentic and official report on these Russian restrictions and persecutions, and when published it aroused great interest in all enlightened parts of Europe as well as at home. The distinguished English historian, Lecky, refers to it in his own work, "Democracy and Liberty."
George Jones, of the "New York Times," also had an investigation and report made by his London correspondent, Harold Frederic. These findings the "Times" published as articles and syndicated them to several other papers of the country, and later Frederic brought them out in book form under the title "The New Exodus."
President Harrison was much impressed with the report of the commission, and through diplomatic channels brought the matter to the attention of the Russian Government. His reference to this action in the Annual Message of December, 1891, is such a clear and convincing recognition of humanitarian diplomacy, that I quote it:
This Government has found occasion to express, in a friendly spirit, but with much earnestness, to the Government of the Czar, its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia.... It is estimated that over one million will be forced from Russia within a few years....
The banishment, whether by direct decree or by not less certain indirect methods, of so large a number of men and women is not a local question. A decree to leave one country is, in the nature of things, an order to enter another—some other. This consideration, as well as the suggestions of humanity, furnishes ample ground for the remonstrances which we have presented to Russia, while our historic friendship for that Government can not fail to give the assurance that our representations are those of a sincere wellwisher.
The President's Message was largely quoted and favorably commented upon in this and many European countries. All of this had a reaction in Russia itself. No matter how autocratic a government may be, as Russia then was, it cannot free itself from "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." For the time being conditions in Russia for the Jews were ameliorated.