Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-07-13
Peace Depends Upon Removal
of Either Restrictive Laws
or Jews Themselves
|oPE LIES in AMERICA
In Russia the Jews Are Aliens and I'm.
able to Protect Themselves or Invoke
Protection of Authorities-Late Com
missioner of immigration Speaks Be-
fore Jewish chautauqua.

Atlantic City, N. J., July 13.-John B.
Weber of Buffalo, n. Y. late commits
sioner of immigration at the port of
New York, and chairman of the special
commission authorized by congress in
1888 to investigate in Europe the causes
melting immigration to this country,
was speaker yesterday before the
Jewish Chautauqua on the subject of
the Status of the Jew 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 disappearance from Rus
STA of either the Jew or the special
laws directed against him.
Taking up the laws regarding the
right of residence which the speaker
characterized as especially hard and
oppressive. he briefly sketched the his
tory of the official DEGREES regulating
the area within which the Jews were
permitted to live during the past forty
years.
Summing up the status OF the Jew in
Russia Mr. Weber said: To-day, he is
an alien in the land Of his birth, SUBJ
ject who bears an undue share of the
burdens of good government without
the privileges of it's meanest citizens
Fettered in his educational opportun-
tiles, he is unable to protect himself
and powerless to successfully invoke the
protection Of the authorities, slave
without the half interest of master
to shield him from abuse-he stands
helpless. friendless and defenseless
against brute force, egged on not only
by religious intolerance, but by con-
tending forces that strive to strengthen
the government on the one hand, and tc
destroy 1t on the other, the irrepressible
conflict of the age between government,
by autocracy and government by PEG.
pie. The Jew is. therefore. the sport
Of the rabble, the spoil of the official
the foot ball Of fanaticisml the buffet
against which strikes the wrath OF
bigotry, intolerance and savagery.'
nl9ne 20 protest.
Mr.. Weber asserted strongly the
moral obligation and the legal right OF
the United States to protest to the
Russian government against its treat
ment of Jews. and said: I'VE can not
look with unconcern upon the arrival
of the thousands of hunted, terror
stricken human beings who come to us
crushed in spirit and impoverished in
substance, to enter into competition
with our respected and self respecting
labor Neither is it an answer to say
that we have the remedy in our owr
hands by closing our ports agains,
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 pro-
gress and prosperity, IL immigration is
confined to normal causes alone
Referring to the hope that consid-
cradle part of this stream from Rus
sia may be diverted into other lands
Mr.. Weber quoted the statement of ar
emigrant at Koyno:
Il am going to America, for In tina,
direction lies hope. Here l have only
fears to comfort me. The hope may
prove delusive, but the fears are q
certainty. My great ambition is tc
breathe at least once the free air which
God has blessed the American people
with"
"These," said the speaker ARE the
words of an uncultured Jew, and these
are the sentiments of every Jew In
Russia
Mr.. Weber calls attention of those
of the JEWS faith to the grave re-
sponsibilities falling upon them. due tc
the prosecutions of their co-religionists
in receiving the thousands who flee
from their oppressors, In aiding to es.
tablish them in work and business, sc
that they will become self sustaining
in distributing them so they will no,
by congestion become a menace, t.
guard against the dangers of a rebound
from oppression to freedom. which sc
generally accompanies the lifting of the
pressure, and SO generally interprets
liberty to mean license, and to instil
into their minds correct principles OF
our citizenship, and ito solve the prob
lens would tax their best energies, theil
most profound thought, and their mos
enlightened liberality."