Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-07-16
STATUS Of THE JEWS.
No Relief For the Sufferer to Be
Had in Russia From Misery
and Persecution.
CRUSHED, IMp0ylSHsD AND KILLED.
Fettered I'm His MOvements-Hnndi-
capped in His Vocation-He is I'm
able to Protect Himself-A slave
without 81 Masters Protection tn
shield Him from Abuse.

Atlantic City, n. j.. July 13.-John
B. Weber, of Buffalo, y. Y. late COM
missioner of immigration at the port
of New York, and chairman of the
Special commission authorized by the
congress in 1883 to investigate in
Europe the causes melting immigra-
ton to this country, was a speaker.
Sunday, before the Jewish Chautau-
qua on the subject of The Status of
the Jews in Russia
In his address Mr.. Weber charged
the Russian restrictive laws as being
responsible for the misery and perse-
cution of which people read and hear.
He stated that there would be no
peace, no substantial relief for the
sufferers until the total disappear
ance from Russia of either the Jew
or the special laws directed against
them.
Taking up the laws regarding the
right of residence which tine speaker
characterized as especially hard and
oppressive he briefly sketched the
history of the official DEGREES regu-
lating the area within which the
Jews were permitted to live during
the past forty years.
Summing up the status of the Jew
=, Drcu;, M. W,l,,r snil.
To-day he is an alien in the land
of his birth. Il subject who bears IN
undue share of the burdens of good
government without the privileges of
The meanest citizens. Fettered in his
movements, handicapped in his voca-
ton, restricted in his educational OPP
portunitieS, he is unable to protect
himself and is powerless to success
fully invoke the protection of the
authorities, a slave without the self
interest of a master to shield him
from abuse-he stands helpless,
%friendless and defenselesS, a brute
force, egged on not only by religious
intolerance, but by contending forces
that strive to strengthen the govern
ment on the one hand and to destroy
it on the other, the irrepressible o
flict of the age between government
by autocracy and government by the
people. The Jew is, therefore. the
spoil of the rabble, the spoil of the
official, the football of fanaticism. the
buffer against which strikes the
wrath of bigotry, intolerance and
savagery."
After asserting the moral obIiga-
ton and the right of the United
States to protest to the Russian gov
eminent against its treatment of the
Jews, Mr.. Weber said:
81 can not look with ]uncOncern up
on the arrival of thousands of hunt
ed, terror-stricken human beings,
who come to us, crushed in spirit ana
impoverished in substance, to enter
into competition with our respected
and se~lf-respecting labor. Neither is
it an nswer to say that we have the
remedy in M oWn hands by closing
our ports against these people. This
would violate our every instinct of
humanity and would war against the
policy which has made this country
great and prosperous and which will
continue to add to our progress and
prosperity if immigration is con
fined TO normal causes alone. The
abnormal immigration from Russia is
due to the laws and methods of that
country-and this gives us a legal
and moral right to object. Self-in-
terest and humanity unite in a loud
call to invoke such rights
Referring to the hope hat a con
siderable part of this stream from
Russia may be diverted to other
lands, Mr.. Weber quoted the state
ment of an immigrant at Kovno in
the Pale:
II am going to America. for in. that
direction lies hope. Here | have only
fears to confront me. The hope may
prove delusive, but the fears are a
certainty. My great ambition is 20
breathe at least once the free air
with which God has blessed the
American people,
''These," continued the speaker,
fare the words of an uncultured jew,
and these are the sentiments in the
heart of every jew in Russia
Continuing, he said:
"Be patient with these Unfortunate
people, and do not judge them by the
ordinary standards. Their lives from
the cradle up have been passed under
extraordinary conditions. The grown
up generation can never forget their
mistreatment, they can not Danish
fear and suspicion upon command,
but their children can be fitted to en-
ter upon citizenship and made to
glorify your race and reflect credit
upon our American institutions.