The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-11-01


AS announced in the HERALD of yesterday,
q letter has been received at the General Land
Office, in Washington, to the effect that move
ment is on toot the object of which is to settle
a colony of Roumanian and Continental Jews
in the United States. 1t appears that COM
pany has been organized to encourage and
superintend the exodus The company is in
possession of paid-up capital of one million
five hundred thousand dollars It is intended
to settle in this country some eight thousand
families, numbering in all not fewer than forty
thousand persons The question, as presented
States government will extend to the company
a title to tract of land-say two hundred and
fifty thousand acres-it being the intention OF
the company to form distinct and separate
settlement, composed entirely of the sons and
daughters of Israel. The answer given by
the Acting Commissioner is that there is no
law providing for such disposal of the public
lands.
The whole question thus opened up is Of
large scope and of deep and general interest
The condition Of the Israelites in Eastern
Europe has long been scandal to the civil
lied nations. Latterly the treatment to which
they have been subjected in the Danubian
Principaities has recalled the memory of the
Dark Ages when they were looked upon as
the enemies at once of God and man, and
when Christian governments, SO called, con-
sidered it first their privilege to rob them and
then their duty to torture and destroy them.
We can conceive Of no more narrowing record
of human suffering than would be history of
the prosecutions of the Jews. In Spain, in the
days of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catho-
lies, decree was issued expelling from
Spanish territory every Jew who refused
to deny his faith and declare him
self Christian; and this harsh de-
cree was vigorously executed. It was then
that the Inquisition was established in Spain
and it is stated on good authority that eight
hundred thousand Jews were sent homeless
and penniless into other lands. The same
merciless policy was pursued by the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, who was Emperor of Ger
many and master Of large sections of Italy as
well as King Of Spain. Flee whittier he might
the assor Jew could find neither home nor
friend. The position Of the son of Abraham
was not one whit more comfortable in France;
and every reader of history remembers how in
England the hidden treasures of the provident
but prosecuted race were discovered by the
cruel process of plucking out their teeth. The
French Revolution and the DEGREES of the
First Napoleon were great gains to the Jew
ish people. Since then their condition has
been greatly improved in oil the great nations
of the Old World and in France, in Great
Britain and throughout Germany the sons of
the long down-trodden people have dis
tinguished themselves in all the learned pro-
LESSONS, winning high places as statesmen
and philosophers, and distancing all COM
Europe, however, and particularly along
the line Of the Danube, they have remained
in their originally wretched condition
as an outcast and accused race. 1t was only
on Wednesday last that, in the Lower House
of the Servian Parliament, a motion was with
difficulty rejected providing for the exclusion
of Hebrews from the landwehr service. With
the cruel treatment of the Jews in Roumania,
and with the indignant circumstances which
have been addressed to the government of
Prince Charles by the government Of the
United States and by all the leading govern
ments of Europe, our readers are too familiar
to permit us to enter into details The won
der is that the Israelite in those semi barbar-
Gus regions manages to maintain his existence.
All things considered, we wonder not at all
that the wealthier and more comfortable of the
race should seek in some final and satisfactory
way to make an end of all this suffering and
sorrow.
1t is impossible for us to write in other than
terms Of approval Of the company which has
been formed for the purpose of affording re-
lief to the suffering brethren of Roumania and
other parts Of Europe. That they should have
thought of the United States as the Promised
Land for the children of this proposed new
exodus was not unnatural. In these United
States the Jew has literally found the Land Of
Promise, the land of the vine and the fig and
the pomegranate-a land flowing with milk
and honey. But if it must be admitted that
this country is suited to 1.-The Jew, it is, on the
other hand, undeniable that the Jew is not un-
suited to the country. II he gets he gives. If
he has found q home he has sought to i'm
prove that home and adorn it. We have no
more prosperous citizens; but to them pros
perity does not come as. the reward
of Incidence and ease. In all our large
cities, and in almost every department of
froda fhov oro m no found omopo o,,r ,y,oc4
active business men, None of our citizens
are more peaceful and lsw-abiding. Of all
the nationalities they are the most careful Of
and kind to each other. Seldom is Jew
found in our prisons; and when they are
poor thew no cost to the community.