The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-30

Inc t0ii0w1ug exaHpie viii stIsr aS o.
illustration of the treatment or the jewish
land owner: In the year 1853 the Emperor
Alexander III. granted to the Jews the
right to acduire and possess lands. In the
ensuing year this privilege was revoked:
A wealthy IsraeIite who had purchased
the estate Of Krewin, near Ostrog, was
refused q title TO the property III
consequence OF TINS reVocation. Inc
governor general, however, on his own au-
ffority caused deed to be issued to him.
1t is now proposed 10 annul the purchase
on the alleged ground that the DEGREES OF
the governor general have no legal valid
ity. The matter Is at present before the
upper courts. After having been so long
in peaceful possession Of his rightfuliy-ac-
quired property, the man Is now IN danger
of being violently dispossessed oft.
Until recently certain classes of the jew
ish population were permitted to reside IN
any portion of the Russian empire. This
privilege was accorded in the hrst place TO
all who had completed their studies at a
university or other imperial institute OF
learning, and secondly TO merchants OF
the nrst guild, as well as to members of the
artisan guilds. This exceptional privilege
has now been considerably curtailed, and
to certain extent abolished. The enforce
ment of the new order has been attended
with unparalleled anti-Semitic excesses.
No mercy is shown in the endless raids
upon the Jews. Streets are closed and the
houses are searched for Jews who may be
residing in the place without official au-
thorization. The time especially selected
for such raids is Friday evening, when the
Jews are assembled in their homes and
around their hearths in order
to begin in peaceful tranquility
the celebration of the SABBATH.
Often as many as three or four hundred
persons are arrested at one time, like so
many criminals, and locked up TO be got
out of the way and consigned to the i'm
perial ghetto. individuals who have dwelt
thirty or even forty years at one place
within a government in which Jew is not
permitted to reside, or even to tarry
twenty-four hours, are forced to put
take themselves to the government,
which it is customary to designate
as Jewish Russia" where they arrive
as utterly impoverished and ruined
men. This fate oyertakes or menaceS
hundreds of thousands. The right to re-
side anywhere and everywhere was for
merly extended also to soldiers who had
passed through the service, and special
privileges were enjoyed by those who had
received a commission in the army, of
whom there were until recently a large
number. This has been completely
changed. The Jews can no longer aspire
to military preferment, and the soldier, as
soon as he has completed his term
of service, is sent back to the place
from which he came and whence he had
been recruited. The soldier was formerly
fond of remaining at the place where he
had been garrisoned, which had become
endeared to him by long residence, with
the economic conditions and local peculiar
tiles of which he was familiar, and where
he felt at home among the inhabitants.
All this has ceased now. As soon as his
fpP of 10 cd hs 10 oh 70,
return to his home-that is to say, if he has
such thing as home. To show that this
is not always the case, we give the follow
ing instance representing a very recent
occurrence. A soldier had served for six
years at a garrison in the interior of
Russia, and was anxious to settle at the To-
cality, but was forced to leave, and pro-
ceeded TO return to his home. His home
was some place in the open country, where
in the meanwhile the Jews had been pro-
hibited from residing any longer. When
the soldier arrived there, he was ordered
in all haste TO quit the place. Six of the
best years of ones life spent in military
duty, and as a reward to be made vaga-
bond-this is a sad fate, indeed, but one
which has befallen many
In seeking to portray the sufferings and
prosecutions of the Russian Jews we must
not forget to mention one particular class
in whose lives utter despair has become
the prevailing sentiment. We refer to the
graduates OF the gymnasia and UNIVERSE
ties. Never at any time or in any country
did body of patriots exist more ardent
and exalted than were the Jewish students
between the years 1870 and 1880 and
the beginning of the present decade.
To them Russia meant all that was
loftiest in the world. They regarded the
inhabitants of other countries with con-
tempt, or at best with pity, and they felt
al s.
ish fellow worshippers in and out of Rus
STA. They looked down upon these as
upon people UNNECESSARILY below them,
for then belonged to their Russia, and to
this Russia belonged the future. To
their Russian home they offered an
idolatrous worship far worse than that
of the widest Panslavist. No one who
knew, if only specifically, the Russian
Jewish students of that time will by will
ing TO assert that in this picture we are
guilty of the slightest exaggeration. The
hest patriots III Russia were formerly the
Russian students. The more violent and
terrible, therefore, was the revolsion of
feeling when they perceived that it was
just they who were selected as the first and
chief victims of the anti-Semitic hatred
and persecution. $50 this is study, and
this its rewardl' they exclaimed, in the
words of that ancient Jewish martyr who
was tortured to death. The holder spirits
among them left their home, to become
street-sweepers or walters, or wood-chop-
pers in America or farm hands in the
Jewish colonies in Palestine. The bulk of
them, who were now excluded from the
gynnasia and universities, or could not
hope to receive any appointment on
completing their studies, remained in
their native country in state of despair;
and their number is indeed not a
small one when we consider that in the
present year, in the district OF kiev, out of
i57 graduates of the gymnasium not more
than nifty were allowed to enter the uni
versity. How many in this district and in
the whole empire are excluded from the
gymnasia and unIversites-a certain per-
centage only being admitted-and how
many OF those who have studied and suc-
cessfully passed their examinations are
wandering about penniless, it would be
difficult TO calculate.
If we are allowed to draw conclusion
from this expose of the illegal" persecution
OF the Jews in Russia, we NAV bodily assert
that more than a million Jews are threat
ened with utter ruin, should the laws
against them be everywhere enforced with
equal severity, and that the remaining
three or four millions have to suffer nore
or less from these and many other oppress-
i've cnactments. But all are bowed down
with grief and pain at the misery of those
who happen 10 be the special victims and
AT the base treatment to which the Jew i'm
Russia Is everywhere subjected. Let the
minister of the United States try to CON
trovert these facts.