It was generally understood that little could be accomplished by representations or remonstrances to Russia, but the desire to do something more than collect alms was very strong, and the sentiment naturally crystallized itself in an effort to ask the Government of the United States to use its good offices in behalf of the Jews of Russia. A petition was framed by the Executive Committee of the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith and submitted to the President of the United States with the request that it be transmitted to the Emperor of Russia. The President received the Committee cordially, and said at the conclusion of his remarks: “I will consider most carefully the suggestion that you have submitted to me, and whether the now existing conditions are such that any further official expression would be of advantage to the unfortunate survivors, with whom we sympathize so deeply.”
The petition was couched in courteous terms, extolling the Czar personally and pleading that “he who led his own people and all others to the shrine of peace, will add new luster to his reign and fame by leading a new movement that shall commit the whole world in opposition to religious persecution.” The petition was circulated in thirty-six States and Territories, and 12,544 signatures were obtained. Among the signers were Senators, Members of the House of Representatives, Governors (22), high judicial officers, State Legislators, Mayors of cities (150), clergymen of all denominations, including three Archbishops and seven Bishops, a large number of other officials, and many prominent men in the professional and the business world. President Roosevelt consented to transmit the petition, but the Russian Government declined to receive it, and the matter was thus ended. By permission of the President, the separate sheets of the petition bearing all the signatures, suitably bound and enclosed in a case provided for the purpose, have been placed in the archives of the Department of State.[55]
It was impossible to arouse the general public and even the general Jewish public at the recurrent pogroms and massacres at near intervals after Kishinev. But as is always the case with Russian or Galician or Roumanian cities when they suffer from fires, it became now the custom for all natives of an afflicted city to form some sort of organization in the rather rare occasion when there existed no synagogue or benevolent society of the “landsleut,” and to collect funds for the succor of the unfortunate families of the victims at home. Each of the riots and massacres between Kishinev and the terrible October days, the largest of which occurred at Homel (September 10–14, 1903) when eight Jews were killed and nearly one hundred injured; at Bender (May 1, 1904), and at Zhitomir (May 6, 1905), where twenty-nine were killed—each of these riots was a miniature Kishinev among the natives of the stricken place or its vicinity in this country. America became for the suffering Jews of Russia the Egypt of the time of the Patriarch Jacob, and the Russian immigrant who settled here before was the prosperous brother Joseph whom God sent to the New World before them to preserve life. To the emissaries from Palestine and from religious institutions in Russia, especially the Talmudical Academies or Yeshibot, who were coming regularly to the United States for many years to make collections among the conservative immigrants who prospered here, were now added emissaries from the radical or revolutionary parties from Russia, who were enthusiastically received by the working classes and the radical element in general, and their appeals for funds were seldom in vain.
The most substantial and most beneficial form of assistance sent from here to Russia was, however, not in response to appeals through Jewish newspapers or through personal representatives of causes, of parties or of institutions, but to requests made by members of families, by relatives or by friends to be taken out of Russia as soon as possible. While public appeals were made for charity of various kinds and for defense funds and similar objects, private correspondents solicited only one thing—steamship tickets. And the private responses, while they attracted less attention, were more generous, and in many instances verged on self-sacrifice. This can be deduced from the results, i. e., from the increased Jewish immigration, which was easily absorbed and little burdensome to the general Jewish public or to the larger charities, because most of the new arrivals had near relatives or friends who took care of them in the short time which elapsed until they could find employment. The increase of Jewish immigration on account of the pogroms can best be seen by a comparison of the number of Jewish arrivals at the Port of New York, where nearly nine-tenths of them arrive, with the general immigration for the five years 1903–07 (each ending June 30). The figures for 1903 are: Jews 58,079, total immigration, 857,046; for 1904: Jews 80,885, total 812,870; for 1905: Jews 103,941, total 1,027,421; for 1906: Jews 133,764, total 1,100,735; for 1907: Jews 117,486, total 1,285,349. It is seen that while general immigration in 1904 was about 45,000 less than in 1903, Jewish immigration was about 22,000 more. On the other hand, while general immigration rose to an unprecedented height in 1907, and was larger than the preceding year by 185,000, the number of Jews arriving in New York was about 16,000 less. The Jewish immigrant is not the man who fails at home or the adventurer who cares for no home; he could get along very well where he is if he were not molested, and Jewish immigration from Russia would become as insignificant as Jewish immigration from Germany if the former country could rise to the political and social conditions of the latter.
The small pogroms which were designated above as miniature Kishinevs, and even Kishinev itself, were soon forgotten or began to look very small in comparison with the frightful massacres of the last day of October and the first days of November, 1905, with which the Russians inaugurated their quasi-constitutional regime. This time there were about a thousand Jews killed, the wounded numbered many thousands, the losses by destruction of property amounted to hundreds of millions. America again responded nobly, and a committee, of which Oscar S. Straus was chairman and Jacob H. Schiff, treasurer, collected considerably more than a million dollars, from Jews and non-Jews, mainly through the same agencies and by the same methods as the funds for the sufferers from Kishinev were collected. There were again mass-meetings at which prominent non-Jews spoke words of sympathy for the martyrs and their families and condemned the government which permitted such carnage. The general press was as friendly and sympathetic to the Jews as on former occasions. When the great march of Jewish mourners after the martyrs took place through the streets of New York, in which nearly one hundred thousand participated (December 4, 1905), several Christian churches tolled their bells in expression of sympathy with the weeping masses which passed by.
Hon. Jacob H. Schiff.
Photo by Dupont, N. Y.
There was also an official expression of sympathy from Congress. Representatives Henry M. Goldfogle and William Sulzer introduced into the House resolutions to that effect, and a third one as a substitute was introduced by Representative Charles A. Towne, who, like the former two, represented a New York City District. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs granted a hearing, on February 8, 1906, to those interested in the passage of the resolutions. In its final form the joint resolution was introduced into the Senate by the late Anselm J. McLaurin of Mississippi, and in the House by Robert G. Cousins of Iowa, and read as follows: