The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-11-30

congratulated themselves tHdl there
J was a class as hated as themselves and
weaker on which the long cherished
| vengeance of the people might vent
itself to safety.
when the Gar proclaimed the dawn OF
freedom. Others had suffered tyran-
ny; they had been crushed into the
dust. Others lived at the mercy of
the Gear; they existed, Sub-strata OF
distress, by virtue of the very oppres-
sion and injustice which kept their
enemies busted with their own wrongs.
The Jews in Russia had long since
given up the idea of liberty or of JUS
tice Long since they had learned
ed Surrounded by a hostile people,
aliens of fate upon cruel and inhospit-
able land, they waited with the pa
thence of their race for the cloud of
their destiny. Weak in numbers,
stunted by centuries of adroit persecu-
ton, made a marked class both by
nature and by a law which took from
helplessness even the right of self
defense, they shuddered hopeless in
the upheaval of a nation, .impotent eX-
cept to abide the coming of the storm.
How the storm broke the world has
heard these weeks with horror. In
its vortex the Jews of almost every
great industrial city of Russia were
swallowed up, inundated and denuded
Around them and above them the
passions of the mob, the fury of hate
of years, the envy and malice and race
and religious prejudice of centuries
spent themselves like lightenings on
the waters Fire and murder, outrage
and robbery took their fill. The Jews
had been "baited' before but in no
such wise as this. In the face of an
absolute license they had nowhere
to turn no possible defense except en-
durance. BY the thousands they died,
by the other thousands, the stripped
and hungry victims of ancestral wrath,
they are today accomplishing the con-
tinued miracle of their existence. And
all the while, fearful themselves yet
thankful for the easy choice of the
mob, those who might in a measure
have prevented the massacre and
lightened the viciousness of its brutal
manifestations have stood by and
laughed and drawn morals on the
principle of liberty to the common
people and pointed the way to muir
a hill f1onxy lya MT
guard lest no Jew should make re-
sistance to his fate!
Slowly and with pain will Russia be-
come sober in time, leaving this de-
baueh against the Jews only as a
nightmare of her history. Even in
time do we believe that the growth
of that liberty which Russia is bound
to accomplish will free also the Jews.
But, in the midst of the pitiful TRACE
dy of revolution, the world at large
owes itself a duty towards these in
nocent accidents of change. Their
condition is one to appeal to the heart
universal, without regard to national
ity or to race or to religion. They
are the wards of world-charity. Par
ticularly from America should the eX-
ample of aid to the prosecuted and
the distressed most bountifully come
The Russian Jews are much like 9TH
ers of their race, if more oppressed.
They have been peaceable, uncom-
planning, seeking to live honestly in
their own way, clinging passionately
lou. Iuy
making a little money, giving no Of
Tense except in SO far as they were
themselves. Today most Of them are
homeless, penniless, almost hopeless.
Century-old in submission, they have
now nothing to submit. They have
been stripped to the bone. Even their
lives in the eyes Of the Russian in
teger of the mob are too worthless
to destroy. The finer cruelty is to let
them live. The Russian Jew has never
been happy. To the sorrows of his
race, has been added a well-founded
and continual dread for his family. Yet
a month ago he was numerous and,
to a wonderful extent prosperous. To-
day. from the bonfire of freedom he
is as ashes on the sea!
1t is a beautiful illustration of
the tie of blood that in this crisis,
the prosperous and happy Jews of
America should have combined to give
of their means to their brothers
caught in the mill-stoneS of revolu-
ton across the world. They are CIV
ing with the accustomed liberality of
their race and with the passion of hab-
itual charity towards their own. The
Jew however free and however hap
by, has within him the inheritance
to sympathise with persecution. His
heart beats with a note of understand
ing for the oppressed. The fund which
is being raised grows larger day by
day, but it should not grow from the
Jews alone. The sufferers in Russia
make a special appeal to the United
States In so far as might be done,
the influence of the government has
l., tho mast been eXertpd in their he