The call for the convention which resulted in the organization of the American Committee for Ameliorating the Condition of Russian Refugees, elicited the following letter from Judge DILLON to Mr. Seligman:
Dear Sir: Coming to this place (Saratoga) on the train from New York, I saw in the Evening Post a statement that prominent Hebrews in all parts of the United States have been invited by the Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch fund to meet in this city on Wednesday, September 23rd in the building of the Hebrew Educational Alliance at East Broadway and Jefferson streets, for the purpose of co-operating in the formation of an American Relief Committee to make the best possible disposition of the exiled Russian Jews coming to this country.
The persecution of your people with mediæval cruelty, whereby they are exiled without cause, suddenly and en masse, with all the multiplied and nameless hardships and sufferings which must necessarily attend such an exodus, from a country in which they had lived for generations and had the right to peacefully remain, has awakened among all right-thinking persons sympathy for the victims and indignation against their oppressors. This is not a matter that appeals alone to the people of your race. It appeals to every man with a heart of flesh in his bosom. There remains no longer any place for prejudice or selfishness. Reports are made that some Jewish refugees have already been sent back from this country for fear that they may become a public charge. This must not be. Without shame we cannot remain idle and cold spectators and see this done under our very eyes. Ever since the establishment of our nation, it has been its just boast that it was the asylum of the toiling and oppressed people of all other countries, who in good faith sought our shores with a view of permanent residence and citizenship. I am not criticising necessary or provident defensive modification of this policy, but the former considerations have a rightful application to your fugitive people, who in their necessity come from preference to this land of freedom to find and make themselves homes.
I would as soon shut my door against a benighted wanderer seeking refuge from the merciless blizzard as to shut our national ports against those of your people, who, stricken like wild beasts, are driven here in the stress of the raging storm which threatens their destruction. Let us receive them with welcome and hospitality. Let us show to the nations of the world that there is one spot on God's earth where these unfortunate exiles may rest their tired feet, set up again their household goods, reconstruct their ruined homes and worship in peace the God of their fathers.
I notice in the article referred to that it is proposed "to appeal to the Jews of the United States to unite in a co-operative plan to find homes and employment for Russian immigrants." I beg to suggest that this concerns not your people alone. It quite as deeply concerns the good name of the American people to see that no refugee shall be returned for poverty, or for any cause, save for crime, or shall be allowed to suffer until he can find work.
I do not rest these sentiments upon the unfeigned respect I feel for the immemorial traditions and glorious history of your people, who in theology, ethics, philosophy, arts, literature, jurisprudence and legislation have either led the thought of the world or kept abreast with it. I prefer to rest them upon the broader, higher and truer ground, that these exiles are men, with all the inprescriptable rights that belong to men because they are men, irrespective of religion, race or nationality, rights which governments do not create or confer, so they cannot rightfully deny or destroy. I enclose my check for the cause (would it were more), and in doing so, I could not refrain, before resting my head upon my pillow, to thus state the reasons why I did it.
With great respect, I am as ever,
Very truly yours,
John F. Dillon.To Jesse Seligman, Esq.
On the same occasion as that noted above, Hon. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW expressed himself as follows:
"We behold to-day in Russia with horror the amazing spectacle in the nineteenth century of the whole power of the government brought to bear upon three millions of Hebrews to treat them as aliens and enemies. They have been for three hundred years the subjects and the citizens of the Russian Empire, and yet the whole power of the state, of its army, of its civil force, is brought to bear to deprive them of the opportunities of employment and to refuse them, except within certain limits, the right to live in the country where their ancestors have lived for ten to twenty generations. It is because monarchical institutions, autocratic institutions, class institutions do not possess the power of assimilation and of homogeneity.
"In the past fifty years, fifteen millions of people have come to this country from abroad. They belonged to every race, they spoke every language but our own. They worshipped in every form, under every symbol and in every creed. But American liberty solved the problem. These people did not know about our institutions, or understand them. They had been taught to believe that liberty was license, and yet the solvent power of American liberty made them citizens and gave to the immigrants of a few years ago, the same rights before the law and in making the law that is possessed by the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. These fifteen millions of people, under the operation of this glorious principle, have become bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. They have aided in the development of the country; they have assisted in increasing its wealth, its power and its glory, and have marched with equal step and equal love under the old flag for the preservation of the glorious Republic which had made them free."
Following is an extract from a letter written to Hon. Simon Wolf by Father Sylvester Malone, of St. Peter and Paul Church, Brooklyn:
I have listened to St. Patrick's Day discussions in time past in which your co-religionists were likened to the Irish. Both suffered because of their holding with such tenacity to what was their belief. This was true in the case of the Hebrew in his own native land and in every other land whither tyranny forced him to emigrate. The Irish have been the victims of cruel persecution in their own native land. Here, however, they are free, and are always successful when they do not by some fault of their own mar their best hopes of success. The Jewish people too have had great success in America, but the later emigration, directly from Russia, has not been acceptable to many of our citizens. They have run the gauntlet, as my countrymen had to do some fifty years ago. They must learn wisdom and patience."