The Savannah morning news., 1903-05-26
LOT OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.
ANDREW ID. WHITES PICTURE OF
EXISTING CONDITIONS.

1t Was Drawn in 1898, but Is stil
Accurate-Abject Poverty Common
Among the Hebrews in Russia.
Education Denied Them-Answer
to Charge of Usury.
Washington Letter in New York sun.
In a report made to the State De-
partment in 1898, Dr. Andrew D. White,
the minister at st. Petersburg, review
ed the situation of the Jews in Rus
STA in a manner SO thorough and in
teresting that the report has come to
be recognized as the best exposition of
the subject that has ever been written
to the knowledge of this government.
Despite the fact that it is ten years old.
it is applicable to the conditions pre-
vailing in Russia to-day, and is of par
ticular interest in connection with the
massacres and prosecutions of Israel
ties in Bessarabia.
According to Dr. White there were,
when he wrote, 100000 Jews in Rus
STA, forming, it was estimated, more
than half of the entire Hebrew race.
These were packed together in the
cities and villages of what was former
ly Poland and the adjacent political
divisions, in a belt extending along the
western border of Russia from north
west to southeast, but drawn back from
the frontier about forty miles under the
alleged necessity imposed by the ten
denotes of the Israeltes in that region
to conduct smuggling operations.
In other parts of the empire they
We're allowed to reside as a matter of
exceptional favor. DR.. White says that
this alleged favor, under the more
kindly reign of Alexander il, grand
father of the present Gar, was large
ly developed and matured into a sort
of quasi right in the case of certain
classes, such as Israelites, who had
been admitted to the learned profess
siOns, or had taken a university de-
gree, or had received the rights of mer-
chants of the first or second guild pay
ing the heavy fees required in such
cases
Certain skilled artisans were also al
lowed to reside in certain towns out
side the Jewish pale, but their priVi-
leges were very uncertain, liable to
revocation at any time, and in recent
years-that is, prior to 1893-had been
greatly diminished. Besides this, Ger
tain IsIaelites were allowed by special
permits to reside as clerks in sundry
establishments, but under the most un-
certain tenure.
THE treatment Of the Israelites,
whether good or evil" wrote Dr. White,
lis not based entirely upon any one
ukase or statute: there are said to be
in the vast jungle of the laws of this
empire more than one thousand de-
crees and statutes relating to them,
besides innumerab1e circulars, open or
secret, regulations, instructions, extern
stems, and temporary arrangements.
general, special, and local, forming
such a tangled growth that probably
no human being can say what the law
as a whole is-least of all can Jew In
any province have any certain knowl-
edge of his rights.
ut may appear strange that any ma
ton should wish to expe1 people who
in other parts of the world have amass-
ed so much wealth. The fact is that
but very small fraction of them in
Russia are wealthy; few even in COM
Portable circumstances. The vast ma
jority of them are in poverty and a
very considerable part in misery-just
on the border of starvation"
Forty years before the report was
written DIR. White was an attache of
the American legation at st. Peters
burg. At that time he made a jour
ney by post coach between St. Peters
burg and Warsaw and saw much of
the Jews of that region.
Gwen the best of them" he says,
were then treated with contempt by
the lowest of the pure Russians. [ my
self saw two Israelites, evidently of
the Weather class and richly clad who
had ventured into the enclosure IN
front of the post house to look at the
coach in which 1 was, dashed with a
coach whip and driven out of the en-
closure with blows by one of the postil-
ions-eVidently a serf.
"A very few millionaire Israelites are
to be found among the merchants of
the first guild in some of the larger
cities, but there is no such proportion
Of wealthy men among them as in the
United States, Great Britain, France
and Germany In the smaller towns,
in some of which they form the ma
jority of the residents, their poverty is
so abject that they drag each other
down, making frequently a ruinous