Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-11-18
RUSSIAN JEWS STATUS
Herman Rosenthal Describes Prejudice Against His Race.
uAssAOREs LAID TO THE oHURoH
Jewish Editor BIames Pobedonost- zeff, Some of the Higher Bureau crats and Bishops-Believes Present Outbreak will Last Year-Perse- cutions of the Black Hundred-The Pale of Settlement.

cutions of the Black Hundred-The
 Pale of Settlement.
 Probably no man in America knows more about the status of the Jew in Russia than Herman Rosenthal, chief of the Slavonic department of the New York Public library and one of the ed itors of the Jewish Encyclopedia. The other night he said to New York Times reporter:
 ''In nutshell, the situation is thiS Russia ill it's attitude to Jews is just about where England was in the thir- teenth century. You have read ballads of old England in which the Jew was always pictured as the villain, the man to be hated, despised and i'll treated. Some three centuries ago the Anglo Saxons decided that the Jew was hu- man being, like themselves, and they began to treat him so. Some day, of course, the same transformation will take place in Russia, but it will not come suddenly. It will be the result of q gradual change, as it has been with other nations.
 "A great deal has been said and writ ten about the feeling of the Russian peasant toward his fellow countryman, the Jew. You hear one man declare that the peasants hate the Jews with deadly hatred, and another says: The peasant has no ill feeling toward the Jew at all. He is only the ignorant tool of despotic and cruel leaders, who incite him to rioting and bloodshed.' Neither of these views is exactly cor, rect.
 "As a matter of fact. the Russian peasant has very decided prejudice against Jews. He is born with it-it is the growth of centuries of prejudice on the part of his ancestors Such prej- udice, born In man as it is and al- most part of his flesh and blood. is not to be destroyed in a day. Years, and many of them, are necessary to end it, but even with this prejudice the peas ant is not a man who wants to be go- ing around killing Jews and burning their homes all the time. He may live with them peacefully for years-then interruptions leaders will infiame his latent prejudice and the mob spirit carries him along.
 "Afterward, very often, he is very contrite. Once, after the riot in Kiev, in 1881, Russian peasants came to me weeping about what they had done and asking themselves how they had ever come to such acts of violence. It hap pened that there was no killing in that riot, only a great deal of property was destroyed. asked these peasants how 1t was they hadn't thought of these wrongs beforehand, but they didn't know themselves. -
 Undoubtedly Pobedonostzeff and some of the higher bureaucrats are re- sponsible for the present outbreak throughout Russia. Of,course that has not come out officially yet, but 1t will be proved to be the truth. Pobe- donostzeff and some of the bishops who stand for the old order of things and want to see the cause of liberty killed before it grows any stronger have sown the seeds of riot and bloodshed. When the Klshineff massacres sent thrill of horror around the world said then that De Plehve. who has since been killed, was at the bottom of the trouble. By many was laughed at. They said it could not be. When the smoke clear ed away and the facts came out it was proved beyond doubt that he was re- sponsible. ..
 ''The faction that does such injury to the Jews works through an organiza- tion known as the, Chornaya Sotnya. In English this means the Black Hun dred. It is a secret and very powerful organization and has it's members in all the large cities. Its object, to put 1t briefly, is to kill the cause of liberty. Wherever it finds an opportunity the Black Hundred persecutes or kills the liberals. Jews are not the only vic tins. but they are the easiest because of the already full grown prejudice possessed by the peasants. The high church dignitar!es. like these bishops, cause 10 be gathered together a mob and then stir it up with all sorts of accusations. With the mob spirit once aroused nothing meets such a ready response as the cry. Kill the Jcwsr
 "The Black Hundred is hated by all the lovers of liberty. In Poland when ever the people discover a man to be a member of 1t they pour kerosene on him and act him afire. That shows what hate this cruel organization has inspired As far as possible the names of its members arc kept secret
 Its numbers are largely recruited from the party of the bureaucrats. These are the men that now have the reins of government-tlIeyh hOld the of- fees. Anything that will tend to take power away from them is naturally very obnoxious to them. The students are the friends of liberty and therefore are the enemies of the Black Hundred. Students. you know. wear uniforms. 90 they are easily picked out and at tacked.
 T have a very large correspondence with Russians anu hear a great deal from them that does not get into the newspapers I have information now that Jews were killed in over forty towns As a rule the newspaper re- ports Of the massacres are not exag- gsrated Letters that come long after the cabled dispatches usually confirm the main facts. though of course the full details are not sent to the papers F~-s~--4gs-@-s--