The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-07
LETTERS TO EDITOR.
The Russian Atrocities.

To the Editor of the Age Herald:
 Your issue of yesterday contains a ca blegram from the director of police de- pertinent. dated St. Petersburg, June 4. '03, in answer to a request made by the Christian Herald of New York, to the czar, asking for official report of the occurrences al. Kisheniff The reply is in part as follows: "Russa's agricultural and laborlng population Is i'll at ease, living the common life with Jewish in habitants of widely developed commercial instinct; hence there is constant antagon- Ism, the material difference in racial and religious character, coming to the verge of frenzy at the least occasion" Contin- uing he states:
 ''The strained relations existing between the Russians and the Jews of Bessara- bia were made worse by the finding In an outlying village of a murdered Christian boy. His murder was attributed by the population to the Jewish ritual habits Official denials of ritual murder were not given credit by the peasants.
 "On Easter day In the market place of Kisheniff, the workers while holiday mak- ing. saw the Jewish proprietor of a ca rousing machine Ca merry go round) strike Christian woman who fell to the ground. letting go her infant baby. This incident was the immediate cause of an outburst. The workers began to break windows and pull down Jewish stores as a sign of protest" CThis on Easter Sun day).
 Continuing, he director says: "On Mon- day morning the Jews wishing to intim- idate and inflict punishment on the Chris tan workers, began. assembling in the market place in groups, armed with sticks and other weapons" This charge of the Jews intimdating would be huge joke if the affair were not so tragic
 The charge of ritual murder Is absurd, but the clergy preach it all the same, and the second charge that a Jewish proprie- tor of a carousinR machine struck a Christian woman Is denied by MT. Mi- chael Davitt (the special commissioner of the New York American) who Is in his report to the said journal dated Berlin, June f. '03, says: q found that the ori- gin of the riots at Klshlneff was not as was reported by the Russian accounts, which alleged that Christian woman struck by the Jewish proprietor of a ry-go-round, which provoked the peas ants to the ensuing riots There Is no truth In this story. I found the owner of the merry-go-round. He is a German named Reinhod Mergert, and is a Chris tian. He assured me that no one was in- suited or hurt on that occasion" I rise to ask whom will the American people believe as to this charge, the director of the police department or MT. Davftt?
 | MT. Davitt assigns the cause of the recent outrages in Kishineff to Kroushau the editor of the Bessarabyetz an anti semitic, who constantly for the last six years has been attacking the Jews in his journal, and this melted the ignorant masses to riot, robbery, arson and mur- der "The rioters" says MT. Davitt In his cable report of June f. '03, "comprised thirty bands averaging fifty each, with a seminarlst on a bicycle directing the attack, and when the chief of police of Kishineff was requested to act in the interest of peace and curb thedlatribes of the Bessarabyetz, he replied that it would serve the Jews right If they were driven from the city for encouraging the propaganda of socialism" MT. Davitt leaves no doubt upon the mind of any un- prejudiced person that the outrages were planned and connived at by the local authorities at Kishineff. for as he says: Tn the rural villages throughout the Pole the police and peasants are told by the anti-semites that the czar has issued al order to kill all the Jews or drive them from Russia MT. Davitt says in his report: 'I asked the mayor of Kishineff, Karl Smidt are you in favor of solving the problem of the Jewish question in Russia by means of emigration to Pales- tine, promoted and undertaken by the European powers? As the mayor of Kishineff. he replied. T must say our city would be ruined if the Jews left it., but I were a Jew l confess I would leave Russia " Hence 1t Is safe to infer that the reason give by the director of po- lice department as to the cause of the trouble between the Russians and the Jews Is about as true as the charges of Count Cassini given to the Associated Press
 The Literary Digest of May SO 'os. con tains a number of extracts copied from Russian Journals The Novosti of St. Petersburg, demands an Investigation in- to the conduct of the local authorities, and the trial of every one of them before an impartial court In separate edi- toriaI the Novoste, referring to the talk of Jewish exploitation and economic op- pression. suggests that the courts in tring the rioters should ask each pris- attack on the Jews. Ii expresses the con yiction that an honest inquiry along these lines would establish the entire baseless- ness of the "economic' explanation of the apologists of the mob.
 The Kieolianln, the leading paper of Kieff, says "The blood of the murdered and maimed cries to heaven. These out rages are not merely a calamity to the Jews, but a disgrace and misfortune to the Christian population. It. is not im- proper at this time to observe that the Jews, on whom all sorts of accusations are lavishly poured, are not as a mass responsible either practically or morally for these objectionable qualities which characterize many of them, as they char acterized the Christian people. Taken as a mass the Jews of southern and west ern Russia form an energetic, enterprise ing class of artisans and tradesmen: q class that is satisfied with very modest scale of earnings. The great majority of them in spite of endless toll, sobriety and thrift, are hardly able to make both ends meet"
 Regarding the views held by Count Tol- stoi on the Kishineff massacre, in a letter to the New York Sun I quote as follows:
 My attitude towards the Jews cannot be other than as toward brothers whom I love, not because they are Jews but because like ourselves and everybody else. they are sons of one God. the Father. Such love needs no effort on my part, for l have met and known many excellent people among the Jews What I felt most deeply was horrors at