[Footnote 1: See Proceedings of Meetings held February 1, 1882, at
New York and London, to Express Sympathy with the Oppressed Jews in
Russia. New York, p. 20 et seq.]
These words of the speaker, uttered in a moment of oratorical exultation, voiced the secret wish cherished by many enthusiasts of the Russian ghetto.
3. THE PROBLEM OF EMIGRATION AND THE POGROM AT BALTA
In Russia itself a large number of emigration societies came into being about the same time, which had for their object the transfer of Russian Jews to the United States, the land of the free. The organizers of these societies evidently relied on some miraculous assistance from the outside, such as the Alliance Israélite of Paris and similar Jewish bodies in Europe and America. Under the immediate effect of Ignatyev's statement to Dr. Orshanski in which the Russian Minister referred to the "Western frontier" as the only escape for the Jews, the Russian-Jewish press was flooded with reports from hundreds of cities, particularly in the South of Russia, telling of the formation, of emigrant groups. "Our poor classes have only one hope left to them, that of leaving the country. 'Emigration, America,' are the slogans of our brethren"—this phrase occurs at that time with stereotyped frequency in all the reports from the provinces.
Many Russian-Jewish intellectuals dreamed of establishing Jewish agricultural and farming colonies in the United States, where some batches of emigrants who had left during the year 1881 had already managed to settle on the land. A part of the Jewish youth was carried away by the idea of settling in Palestine, and conducted a vigorous propaganda on behalf of this national idea among the refugees from the modern Egypt. There was urgent need of uniting these emigration societies scattered all over the Pale of Settlement and of establishing central emigration committees to regulate the movement which had gripped the people with elemental force.
Unfortunately, there was no unity of purpose among the Jewish leaders in Russia. The intellectuals who stood nearer to the people, such as the well-known oculist, Professor Mandelstamm, who enjoyed great popularity in Kiev, and others like him, as well as a section of the Jewish press, particularly the Bazsvyet, insisted continually on the necessity of organizing the emigration movement, which they regarded as the most important task confronting Russian Jewry at that time. The Jewish oligarchy in St. Petersburg, on the other hand, was afraid lest such an undertaking might expose it to the charge of "disloyalty" and of a lack of Russian patriotism. Others again, whose sentiments were voiced by the Russian-Jewish periodical Voskhod and who were of a more radical turn of mind, looked upon the attempt to encourage a wholesale emigration of Jews as a concession to the Government of Ignatyev and as an indirect abandonment of the struggle for emancipation in Russia itself.
In the spring of 1882, the question of organizing the emigration movement had become so pressing that it was decided to convene a conference of provincial Jewish leaders in St. Petersburg to consider the problem. Before the delegates had time to arrive in the capital, the sky of South Russia was once more lit up by a terrible flare. Balta, a large Jewish center in Podolia, where a Jewish emigration society had had sprung into being shortly before the catastrophe, became the scene of a frightful pogrom.
It was shortly before the Russian Passover, the high season of pogroms, when the Russian public was startled by a strange announcement published towards the end of March in the Imperial Messenger to the effect that from now on it would accurately report all cases of "Jewish disorders" in accordance with the official information received from the governors. The announcement clearly implied that the Government knew beforehand of the imminence of new pogroms. Even the conservative Moscow News commented on the injudicious statement of the official organ in emphatic and sarcastic terms:
The Imperial Messenger is comforting the public by the announcement that it would in due time and at due length report all cases of excesses perpetrated upon the Jews. One might think that these are every-day occurrences forming part of the natural course of events which demand nothing else than timely communication to the public. Is there indeed no means to put a stop to this crying scandal?
Events soon made it clear that there was no desire to put a stop to this "scandal," as the Moscow paper politely termed the exploits of the Russian robber bands. The local authorities of Balta were forewarned in time of the approaching pogroms. Beginning with the middle of March the people in Balta and the surrounding country were discussing them openly. When the Jews of that town made their apprehensions known to the local police commissioner, they received from him an evasive reply. In view of the fact that the Jewish population of Balta was three times as large as the Christian, it would not have been difficult for the Jews to organize some sort of self-defence. But they knew that such an organization was strictly forbidden by the Government, and, realizing the consequences, they had to confine themselves to a secret agreement entered into by a few families to stand up for one another in the hour of distress. On the second day of the Russian Easter, corresponding to the seventh day of the Jewish festival, on March 29, the pogrom began, surpassing by the savagery of the mob and the criminal conduct of the authorities all the bacchanalia of 1881. A contemporary observer, basing his statements on the results of a special investigation, gives the following account of the events at Balta: