Los Angeles herald., 1905-11-27
RUSSIAN PRIESTS CAUSE OF
MASSACRES
George N. Black Delivers Stirring Ad-
dress In East Los Angeles congre-
satlonaI church-csll on Ma
tIons to stop Horrors

TeIuSal 10 dNOW q religion which their
conscience could not accept" said
George N. Black. second grand vice
president of the Independent Order
B'nai Birth, at union service hell i'm
East Los Angeles Congregati 1nll
| church last evening.
THE world is stupefied," continue 4
the speaker with horror as the sLud-
dering telegraph and the qulverinG
cable translate in heartbreaking sobs
the dreadful details of inhuman cruelty
and wholesale murder inflicted upon the
HELPLESS Jews of Russia. The mini e.
volts and cannot grasp the ovcrwhclnl-
ing extent of this, the most frightful
tragedy ever enacted in history.
Denied by law the right to arm
themselves In defense of their property
and their lives, these persecutel people
can look only to the constituted author
tiles to protect them in times of danger
yet in every instance of general out
break a large proportion of the mur-
dered victims died from bullet wounds
| and saber thrusts at the hands of foul
| fiends in uniform who were appointed
and paid and sworn to protect life and
property.
zone word from the guilty autocrat
who disgraces the throne of Russia,
one command from the ministry Of war,
one order from the head Of the police,
one plea from the all-powerful Russian
church would have rendered such out
RACES absolutely impossible.
But those who fatten upon the
miseries of the down-trodden, poverty
stricken peasantry will not utter that
word. They realize that the people
whom they have ground into the dust
and rendered to the verge of actual
starvation, that they may squander
millions upon riotous luxury and de-
bauchery, have awakened at last from
their lethargy and have kindled a flame
of revolt and revenge that threatens to
overwhelm the heartless aristocracy.
Russian Church to Blame
1.-THE poor, illiterate, starving, priest
ridden peasantry have arisen and de-
mand a victim upon whom to wreak
their terrible vengeance, and the big
oted Russian church says to them
The Jews are responsible for all your
miseries.. The Jews have robbed you
They are rich, while you are starving.
In their homes they are boarding your
wealth. Kill the Jews and confiscate
| their property
And so these poor misguided crea-
lures, goaded to a fury by sense of
their own wrongs, accepting the sug-
gestion of the priesthood that they are
| doing that which will find favor in
Gods sight, and transformed out of all
semblance to human being by their
lust for blood and their greed for gold.
fall upon the innocent and helpless
Jews and commit these sickening
| atrocities.
1--WE thought it was settled prin-
| ciple in the laws of civilized nations
| that even the worst criminal shall be
| immune from cruel or unusual form
of punishment.
How symbolic of the blood-stained,
sorrow crowned martyrdom of the en-
tire Jewish race!
when will men learn that religious
convictions are the result of an inborn,
intuitive faith and cannot be imposed
| upon others by the bayonet, the cam
| non, the rack and the torch.
1T has been our unhappy fate that
we Jews who gave to the world God
| and the Bible and who have con-
tributed so richly to the store Of human
knowledge and human achievement,
should be so relentlessly prosecuted,
pillaged and slain because we choose
to worship God under a simple form of
religion which has been our priceless
heritage for forty centuries.
Crushed beneath the iron heel of a
| remorseless fanaticism, we turn to you,
our Christian brethren, for succor and
| sympathy. We call on you in the name
of that gentle Jewish preacher whom
you worship as divine and who ever
taught and exemplified In his own
blameless life the Godlike spirit of
charity and mercy, to rise in your
righteous wrath and disaVow these
frightful atrocities and to resent as a
sacrilege the committing of unspeak-
able outrages and wholesale murder In
his name. Not Judaism but Christian
ity Is the greater sufferer from these
diabolical, beastlike orgies Of religious
frenzy.
This meeting is one of many evil
dences that these outrages against the
Jews no longer bear a significance
purely racial purely local or purely re-
ligious. They have reached a point
where they are a menace to the peace
and welfare of the entire human
family.
Liberty of thought and speech,
freedom of conscience and worship, in
volatility of person and property, are
on trial today before the bar of hu-
manity in this terrible affiiction which
has befalen the children of suffering
Israel
"When we Jews beg for the inter-
vention of the powers of earth we are
invariably put off with the excuse that
they cannot interfere in the domestic
affairs of friendly sovereign power.
rs it not high time for the nations
of earth to thrust aside the fiction that
binds them speechless and helpless and
say to Russia. as America said to
Spain under precisely similar circum-
stances in Cuba: Stop, you murderers!
These conditions are intolerable. If
you deny your Jewish people the or
binary rights of citizenship we will
afford them the rights and the protec-
tion of a common humanity
"What a mockery 1t is to this, our
boasted civilization, when In a so-called
civilized country the government itself,
from the cowardly czar down to the
obscurest petty official, is the alder and
abettor the inspirer and the instigator
OF such holiday of hell
1--WE hope and pray that out OF the
travail of the present horrors and the
present sorrows there shall be born the
future peace and happiness Of regen-
Grated Russia.
thousands OF heart-broken women,