Around the Black Sea / Asia Minor, Armenia, Caucasus, Circassia, Daghestan, the Crimea, Roumania

by William Eleroy Curtis

There are two universities in the country, and the government pays 39,000,000 francs ($7,800,000) for the support of the schools. Education is free and compulsory, but there is a lamentable lack of schools in the rural districts, so that the purpose of the educational provision in the constitution is not fully carried out. Nearly 70 per cent. of the young men who report for military service can neither read nor write and only a little more than half the school population is in actual attendance.

The University of Bukharest has 3,443 students and the University of Jassy has 629. There are schools for engineering, agriculture, forestry, and art. There are various technical schools in the larger cities, all of them under the care of the general government, and they are well attended. The administration of King Carol is as thorough as the Germans in promoting technical education and in introducing scientific theories into practice in municipal and national administration. Many of the young men go to Paris or to Berlin for post-graduate courses, and several of them have become distinguished in science, literature, music, and art. The Roumanian taste for painting is as bizarre as that for music. The pictures by native artists in the art stores and galleries of Bukharest are vivid in colour and action and daring in their conceptions.

There is a good deal of politics in Roumania, and partisanship usually encourages radical measures during political campaigns. But King Carol is more than a figurehead. He takes a deep interest in diplomatic and legislative affairs, and has recently concluded negotiations for an alliance with Turkey, Austria, and Germany against the other Balkan states, England, and Greece. Although Roumania has the same religion, neither the government nor the people have much political sympathy with their neighbours in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Servia, and Greece, and in case of war between Greece and Turkey, Roumania would undoubtedly be found on the side of the latter. The influence of Austria and Germany is much greater in Roumania than that of any other nation, which is not unnatural, as the king is a German, and a near relative of the kaiser.

The Roumanian army, for its size, is often said to be the best in Europe. The king is a trained soldier and has taken an active personal interest in its organization and equipment. But the people grumble at the expense. The standing army for a nation of 6,000,000 people here is precisely as large as that of the United States, with a population of 80,000,000, not including 200,000 reserves, who are paid full wages for two months in the year, when they are in camp. The army of Roumania costs more than $15,000,000 a year, which is almost equal to $2.50 of taxation per capita upon every man, woman and child in the country.

Roumania is fortunate in having unusually rich resources. The wide plains in the valley of the Danube produce enormous crops of grain and are cultivated with American machinery. Several of the manufacturers of agricultural implements in the United States have branch houses, whose sales mount into the millions every year. Roumania is the most profitable market for American agricultural implements in Europe excepting Russia and Hungary. The farms are large and are owned by a landed aristocracy—there are no orders of nobility in the country—who live in a feudal state and have armies of retainers born and brought up on the soil they cultivate. The land owners are called boyards—the same term is used in Russia—and the profits they make from their lands are expended in maintaining handsome and extravagant establishments in Bukharest.

There are enormous flocks of sheep also, mounting into millions, and immense herds of cattle scattered among the foothills and on the mountain slopes. The sheep and cattle barons of Roumania have residences in Bukharest also, and spend a great deal of their money there. Few of them ever try to live on their ranches, which are in charge of overseers, and they do nothing to improve the condition of their labourers or to provide them with schools or even decent habitations. The farm villages throughout the country are in a primitive condition—worse than those of Ireland. They have not been improved for centuries, but the peasants are not unhappy or discontented and they do not know that their condition could be bettered. The Greek priests keep them in order and exercise a similar influence to that of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland and Italy, and while they have the credit of being honest and earnest, most of them are uneducated and some are actually illiterate. I was told that there was scarcely a hundred university men among the entire clergy of the orthodox Greek church in Roumania, although there are nearly seven thousand churches, six bishops, two archbishops and a patriarch, who is at the head of the spiritual system of the country.

There is plenty of petroleum of a high grade and two or three German corporations are refining it, but the exports are small owing to the inability of local refiners to compete with the Standard Oil Company. The market is practically limited to Roumania and the adjacent countries. Several years ago the Standard Oil Company tried to obtain control of the Roumanian wells in order to get a more complete command of the market in the East, in competition with the Russian producers at Baku; but the Germans had more influence with the government and kept the Americans out. There is a disposition among business men here to regret the outcome of that transaction, because they believe the Standard Oil Company would have made a great deal more petroleum than the Germans have ever done, and would have contributed in a larger degree to the prosperity of the country. The government officials sympathize with this view of the case, and if the Standard Oil Company should again attempt to secure control of the industry in Roumania it would have the encouragement of the administration and the business organizations. The German refiners are doing practically nothing in the way of improvement and expansion, and are actually letting their plants run down.

In no country has the Jewish race suffered more brutal and relentless persecution than in Roumania, and as elsewhere it has been more from economic than from religious motives. It is true that synagogues have been plundered and polluted; laws have been passed and regulations have been framed to hinder believers from performing their rites of worship. On holidays, Good Friday, and anniversaries of the saints, fanatical mobs have often attacked quarters in which Jewish families have lived, but these have been mere incidents in a general campaign that has continued for a thousand years for the purpose of disabling the Jew from competition with his Christian rivals in commerce, industry, and the professions. That is the secret of all the Jewish persecution in Russia to-day and everywhere else that this remarkable race suffers from discrimination under the laws and the prejudices of society.

There is no doubt that Jews were among the earliest inhabitants of Roumanian territory. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of its inhabitants by the Roman Emperor Titus many families found their way into what are now Roumania, Hungary and Austria, and many more followed the Roman legions, who occupied this country a hundred years after the Christian era, and settled in different places favourable to their trade. They were treated with favour in early days, many became rich and influential, but shared the lot of the whole population which was subjected to the caprice and the tyranny of the semi-barbarous rulers who succeeded to the throne. Jews were conspicuous in the professions as well as in finance and trade; they often occupied high places under the government and were honoured with the confidence of kings as well as that of the public generally. They played an important rôle in state affairs, but all men of wealth suffered blackmail in those days and were the prey of greedy and impecunious princes. It was not until the development of civilization in the eighteenth century that the Jewish population was singled out for special attention. Then they were made objects of insult and persecution, but it was not until the nineteenth century that they were deprived of any of the rights that other men enjoyed in commerce and trade. Jews were allowed to live in all the cities, villages, and market towns and to engage in all the crafts and lines of commerce. They were permitted to join the guilds of artisans and merchants on an equal footing with Christians, and their skill, ability, and sagacity enabled them to acquire special privileges, favours and influence. They engaged in all of the professions; they were physicians, lawyers, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, distillers, goldsmiths, and their representatives were found in every occupation.

For various reasons during the earlier part of the nineteenth century the Jews were accused of crimes and conspiracies, and in 1821 a tremendous storm broke out against them. Their homes were pillaged and burned, their business houses were looted; men, and even women and children, were stoned in the streets, and no protection was given them in the courts or by the police. Taxes were doubled; they were forbidden to engage in certain trades or live in certain towns and cities; they were compelled to wear a distinctive costume; they were arrested on trivial pretexts and compelled to pay heavy fines, and property owners were prohibited from renting shops and stores and houses to them. But when the Revolution of 1848 broke out the Jews took an active part in it, contributed liberally to the cause of liberty and were among the leaders of the movement which accomplished so much for the freedom of the people. Their services were recognized at the time, but no sooner was the kingdom of Roumania recognized in 1866 than a methodical and thorough system of persecution was adopted, which has continued until the present day. It has been intended to drive the Jewish population, which numbers about a quarter of a million, from Roumania, to deprive them of their property and savings and to relieve the native members of the professions and occupations from rivals with whom they cannot compete. The motive, as I have said, is purely business, and religion has not been offered even as a pretext.