Jacob H. Schiff and I prepared a careful brief on conditions and presented it to President Roosevelt. The President said he was willing to take the matter in hand provided something could be done by our Government. Congressman Lucius N. Littauer also extended helpful coöperation. He had recently returned from Roumania and had first-hand knowledge of the question, which he took up in conferences with the President and with Secretary Hay.
Finally, in September, 1902, the President directed Secretary Hay to prepare his now famous Roumanian Note to the Powers signatory to the Treaty of Berlin. The note was sent to our diplomatic representatives in those countries with instructions to present it to the governments to which they were accredited. The occasion for sending it was found in connection with negotiations initiated by Roumania for the concluding of a naturalization treaty with our country. The note gave the reasons why, under the circumstances, we were unwilling to conclude such a treaty. After referring to the Treaty of Berlin and the obligations assumed by Roumania under it regarding the treatment of subject nationalities, the Secretary said:
The United States offers asylum to the oppressed of all lands. But its sympathy with them in no wise impairs its just liberty and right to weigh the acts of the oppressor in the light of their effects upon this country, and to judge accordingly.
Putting together the facts, now painfully brought home to this Government, during the past few years, that many of the inhabitants of Roumania are being forced by artificially adverse discriminations to quit their native country; that the hospitable asylum offered by this country is almost the only refuge left to them; that they come hither unfitted by the conditions of their exile to take part in the new life of this land under circumstances either profitable to themselves or beneficial to the community, and that they are objects of charity from the outset and for a long time—the right of remonstrance against the acts of the Roumanian Government is clearly established in favor of this Government. Whether consciously and of purpose or not, these helpless people, burdened and spurned by their native land, are forced by the sovereign power of Roumania upon the charity of the United States. This Government can not be a tacit party to such an international wrong. It is constrained to protest against the treatment to which the Jews of Roumania are subjected, not alone because it has unimpeachable ground to remonstrate against the resultant injury to itself, but in the name of humanity. The United States may not authoritatively appeal to the stipulations of the treaty of Berlin, to which it was not and can not become a signatory, but it does earnestly appeal to the principles consigned therein, because they are the principles of international law and eternal justice, advocating the broad toleration which that solemn compact enjoins and standing ready to lend its moral support to the fulfillment thereof by its cosignatories, for the act of Roumania itself has effectively joined the United States to them as an interested party in this regard.
One of the most valuable by-products of the Congress of Berlin was to bring into closer relations the autocratic with the liberal governments of Europe and cause the former to become more amenable to the enlightened conscience of the world. Hay's dispatch, while not pleasing to the Government of Roumania, yet, because of the world-wide publicity it received, had a measure of influence in modifying Roumania's indefensible proscriptions.
Another need for humanitarian diplomacy arose the following year. The attitude and proscriptions of the Roumanian authorities had doubtless encouraged anti-Semitic activity in Russia, and the latter Government, no longer contenting itself with the application of restrictions in the book of laws which compelled Jews to live in the Pale settlements, officially encouraged mobs to massacre and loot, culminating on April 19-20, 1903, with the outbreak in Kishineff, where forty-seven Jews were killed, ninety-two severely wounded, and some five hundred more slightly injured. In addition great material losses were inflicted: seven hundred houses were destroyed, six hundred stores pillaged, and thousands of families utterly ruined.
When these facts became known, they called forth an expression of indignation throughout the civilized world. In New York a mass meeting was called at Carnegie Hall by hundreds of the foremost New York Christians, in protest against the outrages upon the Jews in Russia and particularly against the Kishineff affair. The meeting was presided over by Paul D. Cravath, eminent lawyer, and the speakers were ex-President Cleveland, Mayor Seth Low, Jacob G. Schurman, president of Cornell, and Edward M. Shepard, well known for his unselfish devotion to the interests of the public. I have in my possession the manuscript of Cleveland's address on this occasion, which concludes:
In the meantime, let the people of the United States, gathered together in such assemblages as this in every part of the land, fearlessly speak to the civilized world—protesting against every pretence of civilization that permits mediæval persecution, against every bigoted creed that forbids religious toleration and freedom of conscience, against all false enlightenment that excuses hatred and cruelty towards any race of men, and against all spurious forms of government protection, that withhold from any human being the right to live in safety, and toil in peace.
I will also quote part of the resolutions adopted that evening: