All this was of no avail, and the question was again brought before Congress. Representative John F. Fitzgerald (b. in Boston, 1863; now Mayor of Boston) of Massachusetts introduced the following resolution in the House of Representatives, March 31, 1897, which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs:
Resolved, That the Secretary of State be requested to demand from the Russian Government that the same rights be given to Hebrew-American citizens in the matter of passports as now are accorded to all other classes of American citizens, and also inform the House of Representatives whether any American citizens have been ordered to be expelled from Russia or forbidden the exercise of the ordinary privileges enjoyed by the inhabitants, because of their religion.
The same resolution was re-introduced by Mr. Fitzgerald in December, 1899, with no better results. In the meantime, a Jewish banker from California, Mr. Adolf Kutner, was refused admission to Russia in 1897, and this caused Senator J. C. Perkins of that State to introduce a lengthy resolution about this question in the United States Senate (May 25, 1897), which was followed by a shorter one presented in the House by Representative Curtice H. Castle of the same State in December of that year.
In 1902 the question was again brought to the attention of the House by a Representative who not only is himself a Jew, but represents a district most of whose inhabitants are immigrant Jews who are interested in the passport question. Henry Mayer Goldfogle (b. in New York City, 1856), who was twice elected Judge of the Municipal Court in an East Side district, was in 1900 elected, as a Democrat, to represent the Ninth Congress District of New York, which includes the most thickly populated part of the East Side, and has been re-elected at every Congressional election since, serving now (1911) his sixth term. It was during his first term that he introduced what became well known as the “Goldfogle Resolution” and has been before Congress in one form or another for nearly a decade. Its original form as it was introduced, March 28, 1902, was as follows:
Resolved, By the House of Representatives of the United States, that the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby, respectfully requested to inform the House whether American citizens of the Jewish religious faith, holding passports issued by this Government, are barred or excluded from entering the territory of the Empire of Russia, and whether the Russian Government has made, or is making, any discrimination between citizens of the United States of different religious faiths or persuasions, visiting or attempting to visit Russia, provided with American passports; and whether the Russian Government has made regulations restricting or specially applying to American citizens, whether native or naturalized, of the Jewish religious denomination, holding United States passports, and if so, to report the facts in relation thereto, and what action concerning such exclusion, discrimination or restriction, if any, has been taken by any department of the Government of the United States.
This resolution was amended by adding the words “if not incompatible with the public interest” after the word “House” in the third line. It was passed by the House April 30, 1902. Shortly afterwards (June 27) Senator E. W. Pettus of Alabama introduced a resolution in the Senate requesting the President, “if not incompatible with the public interest, to inform the Senate as to the attitude of the Russian Government toward American citizens attempting to enter its territory with American passports.” This was also passed by the Senate, but the reply was given to the House before the Senate Resolution was introduced. The essence of the letter to the House, written by Secretary of State John Hay (1838–1905), dated May 2, 1902, that American Jews are not at a greater disadvantage before that Government than are the Jews of other countries; that the exclusion of naturalized citizens of Russian origin was explained by Secretary Olney in his report to the President in 1896 as due to circumstances under which a “conflict between national laws, each absolute within its domestic sphere and inoperative beyond it, is hardly to be averted”; that the effort to secure uniform treatment for American citizens in Russia, begun many years ago, had continued, although it had not been attended with encouraging success; and that the Department of State send to all persons of Russian birth who received passports an unofficial notice showing what were the provisions of Russian law liable to affect them, in order that they might not incur danger through ignorance.
The subject has been treated officially and semi-officially in various manners since that time, but practically without results. It came up several times in Congress, and was ably discussed by Jewish representatives and their friendly colleagues, hardly a voice ever being raised in defence of the Russian Government. There were new resolutions by Judge Goldfogle, who was now recognized as the Jewish Representative in Congress; new correspondence between the State Department and the American Ambassador in St. Petersburg; a personal letter from President Theodore Roosevelt to Count Witte (who came to the United States to negotiate a treaty of peace with Japan in 1905), in which that Muscovite statesman was begged “to consider the question of granting passports to reputable American citizens of the Jewish faith,” and a letter from Secretary of State Elihu Root (b. 1845; now a Senator from New York) to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff in October, 1908, telling him that the Administration “has urged the making of a new treaty for the purpose of regulating the subject.” It was the subject of a notable address delivered by the well known attorney and communal worker, Louis Marshall (b. in Syracuse, N. Y., 1856), at the convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations which was held in New York in January, 1911, and was afterward brought before President William H. Taft (b. 1857) by a delegation which was appointed by that convention. Public men in various parts of the country became interested in the question. They were encouraged by an almost unanimous public press to stand up for the rights of American Citizenship, regardless of creed, and the movement became well-nigh irresistible. Numerous State Legislatures adopted resolutions favoring the abrogation of the treaty unless the American passport be fully recognized as conferring the right of domicile in all parts of the Russian Empire. Congress was flooded with resolutions which were adopted by Jewish organizations all over the country, and many meetings were held to express the public indignation, as well as the dissatisfaction with the Government’s dilatoriness in obtaining justice for its Jewish citizens. The most imposing meetings were held under the auspices of the National Citizens’ League, a newly formed organization, composed mostly of prominent non-Jews, of which Andrew D. White became the chairman.
In December, 1911, the resolution for the abrogating of the treaty, which was introduced in the House of Representatives by William Sulzer, of New York, was adopted with practical unanimity. But President Taft had anticipated this action by the instructions which he gave several days before to the American Ambassador in St. Petersburg, to serve formal notice on Russia that the Treaty of 1832 would be abrogated on December 31, 1912, i. e., after one full year shall have elapsed after the notice of abrogation, as it is provided by the terms of the agreement itself. Both houses of Congress soon afterwards approved the President’s act without a dissenting vote, and the battle was won, as far as the American side of it was concerned. But the work of negotiating and concluding a new treaty was perforce left to the slow procedure of diplomacy, which is doubly slow when a government, like the Russian, which is so unwilling to recognize the rights of Jews, is one of the contracting parties.