There is still no treaty with Roumania, but there is an American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary (the usual designation of an ordinary minister) sent to Roumania and accredited also to Servia and Bulgaria, who resides at the Roumanian capital, Bucharest, where there is also an American consul-general. The representation is, as was the case in the time of Peixotto, one-sided, the Roumanian Government having no representative in the United States. The Roumanian question may therefore be considered neither as solved nor as abandoned, but to be in abeyance until a favorable opportunity shall present itself for further negotiations, which may ultimately lead to the only adjustment which can be acceptable to the United States as well as to the Jews.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
HELP FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE RUSSIAN MASSACRES IN 1903 AND 1905. OTHER PROOFS OF SYMPATHY.
The Kishinev massacre—Official solicitude and general sympathy—Protest meetings and collections—The “Kishinev Petition” and its fate—Less publicity given to the later pogroms, whose victims were helped by “landsleut” from this country—The influence of pogroms on immigration—The frightful massacres in Russia in the fall of 1905, and the assistance rendered by this country—A Resolution of sympathy adopted in Congress—The 250th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the United States—Relief for Moroccan Jews proposed by the United States—Oscar S. Straus in the Cabinet.
While the correspondence about the Jews of Roumania was still carried on by our State Department, the civilized world was shocked by the reports of the brutal massacre of Jews in Kishinev in the three days of April 19–21, 1903. This massacre which is still within every one’s memory, aroused the press and the people of the United States more than the riots of 1881. “Almost from the first, the world’s indignation centered in the United States. Served by a vigorous press, whose liberal spirit voices the prevailing attitude; animated by a humanitarianism which lies at the foundation of all our public institutions; realizing also that America was the chief refuge of all victims of persecution; the people of the United States became, again, the world’s logical leaders in a campaign of humanity.”[54] President Roosevelt’s opening remark in his speech to the Executive Committee of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith on June 15, 1903, when he said: “I have never in my experience in this country known of a more immediate or a deeper expression of sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity that has occurred,” was fully justified.
The news filtered very slowly through the usual channels, and more than a week passed before the enormity of the Russian crime became fully known. On the 29th of April the following dispatch was sent by our Department of State:
McCormick, Ambassador, St. Petersburg:
It is persistently reported upon what appears to be adequate authority that there is great want and suffering among Jews in Kishinev. Friends in this country would like to know if financial aid and supplies would be permitted to reach the sufferers.
Please ascertain this without discussing political phase of the action.
HAY.
Ambassador McCormick replied, ten days later, that it is “authoritatively denied that there is any want or suffering among Jews in Southwestern Russia and aid of any kind is unnecessary.” But the people here understood that the Ambassador reflected the official view of the Russian Government, and efforts to raise money for the thousands of families which were left destitute by pillage, and for the hundreds of widows and orphans of the martyrs, were soon made, and large sums were collected in New York, as well as in many other places. More than seventy-five meetings of protest and indignation were held in fifty localities in twenty-seven States (and the District of Columbia) during the months of May and June, the most notable of which was the one held in New York, May 27, where Mayor Seth Low presided and ex-President Grover Cleveland was the principal orator. Among the largest meetings of the other places were those of Baltimore (May 17), of Philadelphia (June 3) and of New Orleans (June 13). In the most cases the prominent non-Jewish citizens, including high officials and ministers of religion, delivered addresses or expressed their sentiments in letters. Numerous sermons against Russia were preached in various churches and hundreds of editorial articles appeared in all sorts of periodicals. Public opinion was again, as it was twenty-two years before, practically unanimous in condemning Russia, and in encouraging every enterprise for the assistance of the sufferers from its barbarity.
The response to the appeals for material help was quick and generous. The contributions were sent either directly to the central office of the “Alliance Israelite Universelle” at Paris or to one of three agencies in New York—to the Relief Committee of which Emanuel Lehman was chairman and Daniel Guggenheim, treasurer, and which was in communication with the “Alliance”; to the Relief Committee of which K. H. Sarasohn was chairman and Arnold Kohn, treasurer, and which was in communication with the Central Relief Committee at Kishinev; or to Mr. William Randolph Hearst, whose newspapers, in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, did much to arouse the public to the gravity of the situation, and who forwarded the money collected by them to Treasurer Arnold Kohn. The sum sent to Kishinev from the United States through all these agencies was set down in a report made on June 7, 1903, by the Central Relief Committee at Kishinev to the “Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden” at Berlin, at 192,443 roubles (somewhat less than $100,000). It is about half of the sum which was collected in Russia itself, and a fourth of what was contributed by all the countries of the world.