The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1882-06-25
More Hope for the Jews in Russia.

and chosen servants of heaven.
More Hope for the Jews in Russia.
Our Hebrew fellow citizens engaged in the
succor Of their coreligionists who have been
forced to fly from Russia will receive with
peculiar satisfaction the latest news from
St. Petersburg. Gen. IGNATIEFF has found
himself constrained to resign the Ministry
of the Interior, and he has acknowledged
that he was driven to this step because
he had been foiled in his purpose of get
ting rid Of the Jews
The suffering inflicted on the Israelite
population OF southern Russia during Gen.
IGNATIEFF's tenure Of office, which has lasted
about year, is incalculable, and the respon-
sibility for it rests largely on his shoulders.
The civil authorities in many places showed
themselves so lax in their efforts to repress
the outbreaks against the Hebrews as TO
warrant the suspicion that they were obey
ing the secret orders OF their official superior.
And even II we suppose that the Minister
Of the Interior refrained from any overt
intimation OF willingness to connive
at disorder his well-known hostility to the
Jews could not fail to act as a powerful en-
enlargement to the rioters. In q recent
number Of the Rerue des DeLr Mondes we
are told by M. ANAToLE LERoY-BEAULIEU
that last summer during the massacre and
pillage OF the Israelites in southern Russia,
the working people OF the towns and rural
districts professed to have received secret
orders from the Gar to pay no heed to the
local administrators and police, who, 80 the
peasants and artisans declared, had sold
themselves to the Hebrews. How IGNATIKFF
desired to solve the Jew problem
was made manifest by his proposals
to the Commission OF 50 experts convoked
last September at st. Petersburg. 1t was
mainly through his influence that the Com
mission voted to prohibit Jews from keeping
dram shops or taking any part in the whole
sale or retail trade in liquors. How unreal
sonable this interdlct was is obvious enough
when we bear in mind that drunkenness is
much less prevalent In the southern or
black earth zone, where alone the Jews are
numerous, than in the central district, where
they are relatively few. The Commission, how
ever, though consenting to maintain the exist
ing disabilities OF Hebrew residents, and to
discriminate in some additional respects
against them, ultimately refused to carry per-
secution to the lengths demanded by the
Minister Of the Interior. Gen. IGNATIEFF
had framed a plan by which Jews would be
virtually imprisoned for life in isolated quar-
ters, or Ghettos, Of specified towns, the right
Of migration from one town to another
being denied them. Inasmuch. too, as
| nine-tenths OF the avocations open to
| Christians were to be debarred to them, 1t
| seemed probable that under this system
Of local confinement their extirpation by
starvation would be only question OF time.
The wholesale destruction Of q people repre-
senting more than a third OF tho Russian
population-there are one and half millions
Of Jews in the black earth zone and as many
more in Russian Poland-was, In fact, the
avowed object OF the astute and energetic
statesman who up to few days ago held the
Office OF Minister OF the Interior in the empire
| Of ALEXANDER III.
At first sight it seems astonishing that
man like Gen. IGNATIEFF, who processes to
be intensely patriotic, and who is identified
with the Slavophil, as opposed to the Ger
man party, should espouse policy calcu-
lated to deprive his country of third part
Of its inhabitants. 1t Is, however, Just be-
cause IGNArIEFF is a Slavophil that he has
heartily sympathized in the popular uprising
against the Jews. The crusade against the
Israelites in southern Russia was not
fanatical, but O communistic movement.
| The improvldence of the Russian ag-
| riculturist and his lack OF capital have
rendered tho assistance OF money lenders
and middlemen Indispensable, and this
requirement has been met by the presence Of
the Jew, whose sobriety, thrift, energy and
commercial Instincts qualify him for the vo-
| cation. The more thriftless the peasantry
the greater were the immediate profits OF
the middlemen, and the result. has been that
while the former have become impoverished,
many oflthe latter have acquired, not, OF
course, large fortunes, but comparative
wealth. There has grown up consequently
very bitter feeling against the Jews, ac-
companied by the persuasion, on tho part OF
| the Slav artisans and peasants, that there
Is special Injustice In the superior ma
| terial prosperity OF race whom the Gov
eminent, by penal legislation, had marked
off as inferior to the Christians. Religious
fanaticism proper scarcely exists In Russia
and indifferentism Is rather the rule among
a peasantry which lives in amity with Mo-
hammedans, Lutherans, and Roman Catho-
lies; but 1t needs strong hand to restrain a
semi-civillzed and poverty-stricken people
from attacking neighbors who they think
have thriven at their expense. The Govern
ment did not show this strong hand during
IdNArIRFF's term of Office, because he looked
upon the presence Of the Jews as a social
evil likely TO undo the good which otherwise
might be expected from remission of part
OF the land dues under which the peasantry
had long struggled, 1t will be remembered
that the serfs, when emancipated, were
forced to assume the obligation OF paying
by annual installments OF purchase money
| f1,r tho La ndu allnttod than and thnI nho,,t N