Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-05-28

mission to enter him at one of the small
provincial universities remote from the
capital.
ITO account for this particular re-
striction 1t is urged that if freely al
lowed to receive an advanced educa-
ton they would swarm in the high
schools. universities and learned pro-
LESSONS; and, as n proof of this, the
fact is mentioned that some time since,
in the absence of restrictions, at
Odessa from so to 20 per cent. of the
scholars in sundry Russian colleges
We're Jews"
A statement was recently made by
Count Cassini, the Russian Ambassa-
dor in Washington. that much of the
resentment of the Russian peasants
against the Jews was due to the fact
that the were crushed by Jewish
money lenders. Upon this subject Dr.
White had something to say in his re-
port.
In justification of all these restric-
! tons he wrote, various claims are
made. First of all it is claimed that
| the Jews lend money to peasants and
others at enormous rates of interest.
But it is pointed out, in answer to this,
! that sundry bankers and individuals in
parts of Russia where no Jews are per-
mitted have made loans at much
higher rate than Jews have ever VEN
| tured to do: while it is allowed that 100
| per cent. a year has not unfrequently
been taken by the Israelites. There
| seems to be no doubt of the fact that
| from 300 to 800 per cent, and even more,
sometimes. has been taken by Chris
| tians.
This statement seems incredible, but
it is unimpeachable. In a general way
| it is supported by the recent report of
| n Russian official to Mr.. Sagonof; and
: leading journal of St. Petersburg,
published under strict censorship, has
recently given cases with names and
dates. where a rate higher than the
| highest above named was paid by Rus
| sian peasants to Christian money lend
| ers.'
| DIR. White refers to the assertion that
| the Jews will not work at agriculture
and that they will do no sort of manual
labor which they can avoid. This has
been supported by the statement of Nc
t-erZie Wallace and other travellers that
the Jewish agricultural colonies found
cd by Alexander L. in 1910, and by
Nicholas l. in 1S40 have not done we'll.
but in answer" says DIR. White, sit
may be stated as a simple matter of
history that, having been originally an
agricultural people, they have been
made what they are by ages of perse-
cutions which have driven them into
the occupations to which they are now
so generally devoted: that in Russia
| they have for generations been in
capacitated for agricultural work by
such restrictions as those above re-
ferred to: that even if they are allowed
here and there to till the land, they are
not allowed. in the parts or the Empire
which thy most inhabit, to buy it or
even to farm it. and that thus the
greatest incentive to labor is taken
(2way."
AS to the branches of manual labor,
Dr. White asserts that there are very
large bodies of Jewish artisans in Po-
land. numbering in the aggregate about
one-half the entire adult male Israelite
population.
'As stone masons," he adds, they
have an especially high reputation, and
it is generally conceded that in sobriety,
CAPACITY, and attention to work they
fully equal their Christian rivals"
DR. White praises the patriotism, So
briefly, industry and regard for law of
the Jews.
The whole present condition of
things" he remarks, lis rather the out
come of a great complicated mass of
causes. involving racial antipathies, re-
membranes of finacial servitude,
vague inherited prejudices, with myths
and legends like those of the Middle
Ages"