The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-03-07


amin" his qualifications by asking him
What do yUu bclieve?''
The u"Ophyte frankly replied. 81 be-
licvc that now | shall not be driven out
of Pctr"grad," Instead of being horrI-
ned by that blunt response. however. the
! dGvout rrecept"r laughed and confessed,
| Il. too. am Il Jew
4 Nation In Prison.
Below the PctroSrad railway limo.
NitebSk il ono of the most diStinCtivcly
Jewish cities in the Pale. On the Mos
cow-NarSaw road. Minsk is a big Jewish
which iS the great Russian military base
back of Warsaw.
All along the dreary way through tho
plains and woods OF the Pale Jew,
thTOng the SIualid wooden towns. They
are the lOrterS at the railway stations:
they are the wood choppers in the vast.
wild forests OF I.ithUania: they are the,
loggerS on the NiStula and the Nicmeu,
and sometimes they are the plowmen
and reapers in the fields. But wherever
they go they are like "tiCket-Of-leave
men" constantly under the watchful eye
of the police. which. however. can al
ways he readily and effectuany closed
by a rouble.
The masses of the Jewish population
are denied 10y law all freedom Of move
ment from place to place within the Pale
and are denied the ownership of land.
Cut off from the very soil beneath their
feet. naturally they grasp with all the
greater intensity OF tONtlOuSnpSS At every
form of property and at all other means
of saving themselves from the wolves of
poverty.
Puuperism and lllitcracy.
But while the few, the keencst among
the prisoners of the Pale. thus wrest
prosperity from their prison, the null
titude are perhaps the most impoverished
of any civilized population. To the ruin
of one another. thousands are crowded
N business an hay l.
ing and tailoring. while many other thou
sands have found no fixed calling of any
kind.
Pauperism is a terrible reality every-
where. In city, where the figures for
one year have been reported. a full third
of the Jewish inhabitants were reduced
to the necessity of seeking aid. and more
than half the Jewish dead received pau
per burials. In the Pale. as a whole the
people are SO poor that in a recent year
almost a fifth of all the Jewish families
leavened bread at Passover. Fully as
many were obliged also to apply for fuel
to keep them warm through 4 Russian
winter
illitcracy. that inevitable twin of PAU
perism. is another of the crushing mis-
fortunes of the Pale. Although the Rus
slams are still less literate. hardly more
than a third of the Jews can read or
education is narrowly restricted.
why the Jews Come Here.
Russian persecution under the May
laws has caused the latest and greatest
Jewish migration in the age-long history
of the dispersal of the Jews 1t has
driven them by the hundreds OF thou
sands across the Atlantic. whittier they
have come to seek refuge in the United
States
The Car Alexander III is the parent
of all the Jewish quarters in our Ameri.
can cities. In the course of sixty years
ha axnallpI he yrYx
Russia and herded them in the Pale. Less
than $1,000 Russian Jews entered the
United States. The instant effect OF the
May laws was to swell that thin stream
into a mighty torrent. In the first twenty
years after their enactment. in 1852. more
than 10000 Russian Jews poured through
the open gates of Uncle Sam. and in the
next seven years fully 10000 more came
to the welcoming shores of the republic.
The extraordinary increase of the Jew
ish population of the United States dates
from the adoption OF Russia,s present
harsh policy toward the race. 1t was es-
timated In 1870 that there were only go