fflTAC
;
THE JEWS OF ROUMANIA AND
THE TREATY OF BERLIN
The marvelous contributions of the Jewish people to the spiritual
and intellectual wealth of the world entitle them to the gratitude and
homage, not the hatred and persecution of mankind.
If gratitude were a supreme virtue of nations, as it should be of
individuals, there would never be any organized governmental perse-
cution of the Jews.
If her sense of national honor and international obligation does not
incline Roumnuia to deeds of justice and righteousness, then let the
strong arm of force be used and the wrath of the nations be visited
upon her.
SPEECH
OP
HON. WALTER M. CHANDLER
OF
YORK
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OCTOBER 10, 1913
13001 1245G
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1913
SPEECH
OF
HON. WALTER M. CHANDLER,
OF NEW YORK.
THE JEWS OF ROUMANIA AND THE TREATY OF BERLIN.
Mr. CHANDLER of New York. Mr. Speaker, I wish now to
address myself to the subject of Roumanian persecution of the
Jew in defiance of the treaty of Berlin, and I preface my re-
marks by reciting a joint resolution which I have introduced
this afternoon.
The joint resolution is as follows:
House joint resolution 138.
Whereas the following is the literal text of Articles XLIII and XL1V of
the treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878 :
" XLIII. The high contracting parties recognize Hie independence of
Roumania, subject to the conditions set forth in the two following
articles.
" XLIV. In Rotimar ia the difference of religious creeds and confes-
sions shall not be alleged against any person as a ground for exclu-
sion or incapacity in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil and
political rights, admission to public employments, functions, and
honors, or the exercise of the various professions and industries in
any locality whatsoever.
" The freedom and outward exercise of all forms of worship shall
be assured to all persons belonging to the Roumanian state, as well as
to foreigners, and no hindrance shall be offered either to the hierar-
chical organization of the different communions or to their relations
with their spiritual chiefs.
" The subjects and citizens of all the powers, traders or others,
shall be treated in Roumania, without distinction of creed, on a foot-
ing of perfect equality."
Whereas the Government of Roumania accepted the terms of said arti-
cles of said treaty as a condition precedent to the recognition of her
independence ; and
Whereas it is a matter of certain knowledge that the Jews of Roumania.
numbering about 250,000, have been the barbarized and impoverished
victims of Roumanian discriminatory legislation and of Roumanian
riots and massacres for a period of more than 30 years in violation
of both the letter and the spirit of the treaty of Berlin : Therefore
be it
Resolved by 1he Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled. That it is the sense of the
American Congress that the interests of civilization, the rights of
humanity, the principles of eternal justice, and the dignity and sanctity
of international Jaw demand that the signatory powers of the treaty of
1300112450 3
21 17853
Berlin compel Roumania to observe the stipulations of the treaty of
Berlin in the matter of the treatment of the Jews.
Resoli-ed, That the Secretary of State be requested to transmit a copy
of this resolution to the Governments of Great Britain, Germany,
Austria, Russia, France, Italy, and Turkey.
Mr. Speaker, in all the history of prejudice the persecution of
the Jew has no parallel. Whether born of human wickedness
or divine vengeance, Jewish persecution is the strangest of all
historical phenomena. When and where it originated and what
have been its intensifying and perpetuating causes are still sub-
jects of grave doubt and speculative debate.
AVhen we coine to trace the history of prejudice against the
Tew and to seek its cause we are led by many labyrinthian
paths through shadows of doubt and mystery to a remote an-
tiquity. The popular notion that hatred against the Jew origi-
nated in the crucifixion of the Savior is without basis in
reason or in fact. The tragedy of Golgotha might have been a
perpetuating, an intensifying means, but it was not the origin
the originating principle.
To ascertain the real beginning of Jewish persecution we must
antedate the Christian era by several centuries. We must go
back to the days of ancient Egypt. We learn from Genesis
xliii, 32, that " the Egyptians might not. eat bread with the
Hebrews: for that it is an abomination unto the Egyptians."
Social discrimination and ostracism seem to have been keen and
bitter even in those early times. And in the Book of Esther,
iii, 8, we find an epitome of much of the complaint made by
the anti-Semites and Jew baiters of modern times : "And Hainan
said unto the king, Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scat-
tered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces
of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people,
neither keep they the king's laws." Then Haman added : " If it
please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed."
Those were plain, fierce days when thoroughgoing measures
were unhesitatingly advised.
How thoroughly the old Romans hated and despised the Jews
may be learned from early Roman writers. Cicero, Pro Flacco,
says: "Their barbarous superstitions must be fought." "The
Jews are nothing but a superstitious nation," says Persius.
" Their Sabbath is a lugubrious day," adds Ovid. " They wor-
ship the hog and the ass," affirms Petronius. Of course, the
charge of worshiping the hog was a gratuitous slander, a lie
born of calumny and ignorance and perpetuated by hate and
superstition.
In the annual carnivals of ancient Rome the Jews were com-
pelled to play the roles of clowns and buffoons, were forced to
1300112456
run in the races ridiculously dressed, and were compelled to
ride through the streets mounted backward on donkeys, holding
the animals' tails in their hands.
When the night of the Middle Ages fell upon the human race
Jewish persecution often assumed forms of peculiar malignity
and hate. King John of England once caused one of his Jewish
subjects to be cast into prison, and then ordered that a tooth
should be drawn from his mouth each day until he had sur-
rendered his money. Seven teeth were extracted, one on each
subsequent day, until, on the eighth, the unhappy and unlucky
man ransomed the remainder of his teeth at the price demanded,
10,000 marks of silver.
In Toulouse, France, it was an ancient custom on certain
holidays to slap the Jews in the face publicly and ostentatiously.
All the Jews in town were compelled to assemble in the public
square. The Count of Toulouse then opened the miserable pro-
ceedings by slapping in the face the elder of the Jewish com-
munity, and his subjects followed suit, until all the Jews had
been slapped and thoroughly humiliated.
In Germany in the eighteenth century, even so grand a King
as Frederick the Great persecuted the Jews by contemptible
and irritating exactions. He permitted only a certain number
of them to marry annually, and then only on condition that they
would buy $300^ worth of china ware from his royal porcelain
factory. We are reminded by this that Frederick was not only
a scholar and philosopher under the tutelage of Voltaire, but
that he was a money-maker as well.
But time does not permit a recital of all the laws of ancient
and medieval ages, whose effect was to embitter the life and
degrade the condition of the Jew. The world is already too
sadly familiar with the history of his woes. The references
already made have been merely academic and introductory.
It now becomes my painful duty to be pointed and practical;
to discuss and denounce the brutal and savage persecutions of
the Jews by Roumania, reputed to be a Christian nation, pre-
tending to be civilized and enlightened, while violating the most
sacred and solemn treaty obligations to her sister nations,
while trampling under foot all the charities of the heart, all
the tenets of religion, and all the sentiments of humanity and
this at the beginning of the twentieth century more than a
hundred years after the American Revolution established the
immortal principle that all just powers of government are de-
rived from the consent of the governed ; more than a hundred
years after the French Revolution sent the cry of " Liberty,
equality, fraternity," reverberating around the globe; and more
13001 1245G
6
than nineteen centuries after the Prophet of Nazareth delivered
the Sermon on the Mount; the chart of the soul on the sea of
life, whose beatitudes are the glorifications of the virtues of
meekness, mercy, peace, gentleness, and love.
The modern Kingdom of Roumania was formed by the union
of the ancient Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, Prov-
inces situated near the mouth of the Danube, having an area of
about 50,000 square miles, and occupying an extent of territory
some 350 miles in length and 160 miles in breadth. The shape
of the country is an irregular half-nioou, touching the Black
Sea near the center of the crescent.
The people of Roumania proudly boast a classic antiquity in
their supposed descent from the Romans who conquered the
ancient Scythian Kingdom of Dacia, which was practically the
modern territory of Rouinania.
If not classic in history the country of Roumania is at least
classic and historic in soil, for the legions of Rome, the hordes
of Attilla, the crusaders of Richard and Barbarossa, and the
Cossacks of Peter the Great, have crossed its borders and tra-
versed its plains.
The language of Rouruaiiia has a groundwork of Latin and
Slavonic, with a superstructure of Turkish, Greek, and French.
The social, political, religious, and intellectual life of the
people is a strange, weird blending of the cruder forms of occi-
dental and oriental civilizations.
The population of Roumania in 1910 was about 6,850,000.
Fully 6,000,000 of these were Rouinans or Vlachs ; the rest were
Jews, Armenians, gypsies, Greeks, Germans, Turks, Magyars,
Servians, and Bulgarians.
Of the total population of Roumania the Jews number about
250,000. And it is with the Jews of Roumauia, in their relation-
ship as citizens and subjects to the Government of Roumania,
and with the Government of Roumania in its relationship to its
Jewish population, under binding treaty obligations entered into
by Roumania with the great powers of Europe, that I shall
hereafter in this address deal particularly and pointedly.
'I desire especially to discuss the persecution of the Jews by
Roumania, in defiance of the treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878.
.1 shall, however, in the first place, as a foundation for that
discussion, submit for your consideration a classified list of Rou-
manian laws, passed during the half century preceding the
assembling of the congress of Berlin, which were intended to
discriminate against the Jews. This list, though short, may be
tedious and tiresome to study and contemplate, but it will be
decidedly illuminating and enlightening when we come to con-
1300112456
sider the motive and conduct of the great powers in forcing
Rouniania, through treaty stipulations, to accord better treat-
ment to her Jewish subjects. The following is a resume, with
authorities cited, of the leading Roumanian legal enactments
against the Jews between the years 1802 and 1ST6:
1803. Alexander Monize forbids Jews to rent farms. (" American Jew-
ish Year Book," 1901, p. 48.)
May 18, 1804. Alexander Monize, of Moldavia, forbids Jews to buy
farm products. (Locb, " La Situation des Israelites en Turquie, en Serbie
et en Roumanie," p. 212, Paris, 1877, hereafter cited as " Loeb.")
1817. Code Cahmachi, section 1430, forbids Jews of Roumania to ac-
quire real property. (Loeb, p. 213.)
By 1818. Code of Jolm Caradja, of Wallachia, repeats the church laws
against allowing Jews to be witnesses against Christians. (Am. Jew.
Yearbook, 1901, p. 50.)
By 1819. Code of Kallimachor of Moldavia gives civil rights to Jews,
who, however, may not own land. (Am. Jew. Yearbook, 1901, p. 50.)
1831. Fundamental law of Moldavia, chapter 3, section 94, orders
all Jews and their occupations to be registered ; Jews not of proved
usefulness are to be expelled ; others of same class shall not be allowed
to enter. (Loeb, p. 214.)
March 11, 1839. Tax of GO piasters per annum placed on Jews of
Moldavia. (Loeb, p. 215.)
December 12, 1850. No Jew allowed to enter Roumania unless pos-
sessed of 5,000 piasters and of known occupation. (Loeb, p. 216.)
May 5, 1851. Appointment of commission of vagabondage at Jassy to
determine right of entry of foreign Jews. (Loeb, p. 21G.)
June 17, 1861.- Circular of Roumanian ministry preventing Jews from
being innkeepers in rural districts. (Locb, p. 217.)
April 12, 18G4. Communal law of Roumania permits only those Jews
to be naturalized who (1) have reached the grade of noncommissioned
officers in the army (2) or have passed through college (3) or have a
recognized foreign degree (4) or have founded a factory. (Loeb, pp.
107-108.)
December 4, 1864. Jews excluded from being advocates. (Loeb,
p. 124.)
December 7, 1864. Elementary education of all children between the
ages of 8 and 12. (Sincerus, " Les Juifs en Roumanie," hereafter cited
as " Sincerus.")
April 14, 18GG. Ghika, Roumanian minister of interior, permits Jews
already settled in rural districts to keep farms till leases run out, but
they must not renew them. (Loeb, p. 218.)
March, 1868. Law submitted to chamber preventing Jews from hold-
ing land, settling in the country, selling food, keeping inns, holding
public office, trading without special permits. Jews already settled in
rural districts were to be driven therefrom. This was withdrawn April
5 in fear of the intervention of the powers. (Loeb, pp. 1G9, 311-312.)
June 23, 1868. All Roumanians forced to serve in Army, "but not
strangers" (Loeb, p. 109); therefore Jews who served were for this
purpose regarded as Roumauians.
December 27, 1868. Jews excluded from medical profession In Rou-
mania. (Loeb, p. 124.) Clause omitted in decree of June, 1871.
January 15, 1869. Jews not allowed to be tax farmers in rural com-
munes. (Loeb, p. 112.)
13001 12456
8
July, 1869. Note of M. Cogalniceano to French consul at Bucharest
refuses to consider Jews as Roumanians. (Loeb, p. 102.)
October, 1869. Extra tax put on kosher meat at Roman and Focsan.
(Loeb. p. 127.)
October 25, 1869. Jews prevented from being apothecaries In Rou-
mania, except where there are no Roumanian apothecaries. (Loeb, p.
125; Sincerus, p. 102.)
November 10. 1870. Servian Jews obliged to serve in Army. (Loeb,
p. 57.)
February 15, 1872. All dealers in tobacco in Roumania must be
"Roumanians." (Loeb, p. 120.)
April 1, 1873. Law forbidding Jews to sell spirituous liquors in rural
districts. (Loeb, p. 188.) A license may be given only to an elector.
(Sincerus, p. 19.)
These enactments show the legal disabilities of the Jews. But
they do not tell the full story of shame and humiliation of a long-
suffering and wretched people. Written in the calm and digni-
fied phraseology of the law they can not and do not recount the
bloody details of riot and massacre, whose occurrence was the
disgrace of civilization and whose horrors compose the blackest
chapters of Roumanian history. I will not harrow your feelings
with a recital of the details. I shall content myself with a
simple and dispassionate discussion of legal rights and treaty
obligations in the matter of Roumania and the Jews.
It was at the close of the War of the Crimea that the great
Governments of Europe first gave serious attention to the op-
pressions of the Jews by the rulers of the principalities of
Moldavia and Wallachia, the Provinces from which the kingdom
of Roumauia was afterwards formed. At that time the first
decisive effort was made to relieve the legal disabilities of the
Jews.
The following articles of the protocol of the conference of
Constantinople of the llth of February, 1856, imposed, it must
be admitted, rather exacting terms upon Moldavia and Wal-
lachia :
XIII. All the religions and those who profess them shall enjoy equal
liberty and equal protection in the two Principalities.
XV. Foreigners may possess landed property in Moldavia and Wal-
lachia on discharging the same liabilities as natives and on submitting
to the laws.
XVI. All Moldavians and Wallachians, without exception, shall be
admissible to public; employments.
XVIII. All classes of the population, without any distinction of birth
or religion, shall enjoy equality of civil rights and particularly of the
right of property in every shape, but the exercise of political rights shall
be suspended in the case of natives placed under a foreign protection.
The language of these articles was an emphatic and unequivo-
cal' declaration in favor of civil and religious liberty for all the
inhabitants of Roumauia. A complete realization of ttoe protec-
1300112456
9
tion afforded by these articles would have been all that the Jews
could reasonably have asked. But such a thing was not to be.
No such blessing was in store for thorn. The reigning Prince of
Moldavia, Gregory Ghika, began at once a course of subterfuge
and evasion for the purpose of rendering abortive the intentions
and efforts of the powers. Pie contended that a strict applica-
tion of the provisions of these articles was impracticable, if not
impossible, on account of the great number of unassimilated
Jews in the Principalities; and two years later he presented a
memorial to the congress of Paris asking that the realization of
the principle embodied in the articles of the protocol of the con-
ference of Constantinople, which he admitted to be excellent
within itself, should be left to the discretion of the local Gov-
ernment, which alone, he contended, knew how to apply the
principle. His arguments were plausible, if not sound and
righteous, and at h;st, out of deference to the wishes and pledges
of Ghika, the powers modified their intentions by the adoption
of Article XLVI of the convention of Paris, which runs as
follows :
All Moldavians and Wallachians shall be equal in the eye of the law
and with regard to taxation, and shall be equally admissible to public
employments in both principalities.
Their individual liberty shall be guaranteed. No one can be detained
or prosecuted but in conformity with the law. No one can be deprived
of his property unless legally for causes of public interest and on
payment of indemnification.
Moldavians and Wallachians of all Christian confessions shall equally
enjoy political rights. The enjoyment of these rights may be extended
to other religions by legislative arrangements.
Indeed the pledge of Ghika and the expectations of the
powers based upon this pledge were that the Jews would be
gradually enfranchised and emancipated politically by legisla-
tive arrangements. But Roumanian legislation during the past
50 years shows how badly founded were those expectations and
how complete has been the evasion of that pledge.
Instead of relieving their legal disabilities, the efforts of the
powers to help the Jews through stipulations of the conventions
of Constantinople and Paris proved to be a positive misfortune.
"So far," says a modern writer, "from ameliorating the con-
dition of the Jews, the convention of Paris by a regrettable ac-
cident led to more burdensome disabilities and a more barbarous
persecution than they had ever before endured. Under the old
organic laws, by which the principalities were governed pre-
viously to 1859, the people had no effective voice in the govern-
ment. Hence there was little cause for jealousy between
Christians and Jews, and with the exception of occasional ex-
13001 1243G 2
10
plosions of religious fanaticism, they lived together in harmony.
The new order of things established in 1858 destroyed this equal-
ity. It gave to the Christian population a monopoly of political
power which they were not slow to use against their trade rivals
among the unenfranchised Jews. This unfortunate incidence of
the convention of Paris was aggravated by the new electoral
law under which a preponderating franchise was reserved for
the mercantile classes, with whom the Jews, being chiefly of
the same classes, most directly competed. The result was that
not only was the fulfillment of Article XLVI of the convention
of Paris rendered impossible, but the whole influence of the
mercantile electorate was employed to obtain the imposition
of fresh disabilities upon the Jews and to inflame the reli-
gious and racial prejudices of the populace against them. In-
stead of gradually emancipating them in accordance with the
provisions of the convention of Paris, even their status as
' non-Christian Moldo-Wallachs,' acknowledged in that instru-
ment, was denied them. They were assimilated by the civil
code of 1SG4 to aliens, though admitted by the code to be ' in-
digenes,' and were made dependent on a difficult and tedious
process of naturalization for their acquisition of political rights
(Arts. VIII, IX, and XVI). Even the privilege was withdrawn
from them by the constitution of I860, which declared (Art.
VII) ' that only Christians may obtain naturalization-' Conse-
quently Article XLVI of the convention of Paris remained a
dead letter."
In the meantime the Jews of Roumauia were more bitterly
oppressed than ever. New laws discriminating against them
were passed ; riots and massacres were renewed with greater
fury. They were languishing in a bondage worse than that
endured by their fathers in ancient Egypt when hope was re-
vived again among them by the adoption of Article XLIV of the
treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878.
The Berlin congress of 1878 was a gathering at the German
national capital of the brainiest and most brilliant statesmen
of Europe. The purpose of the congress was to settle the ques-
tions growing out of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.
On the 24th of April, 1877, Russia declared war against Tur-
key with the avowed object of protecting the Christian inhabi-
tants of the Ottoman Empire. Bulgaria, Roumauia, Servia, and
Montenegro were either tacitly or openly the allies of the Czar.
After varying successes the fortunes of war finally favored the
Russians, and the fall of Plevna opened the way to Constanti-
nople. The Turks sued for peace, and on March 3, 1878, the
treaty of San Stefano was signed. Some of the terms of this
13001 1245G
11
treaty were displeasing to several of the Governments of Europe.
Austria and England were decidedly dissatisfied. The political
changes made and the territorial readjustments provided for in
the treaty, together with the exaction of 1,400,000,000 rubles
war indemnity, which promised to cripple most seriously the re-
sources of the Turkish Empire for years to come, practically
made the Czar permanent arbiter of Balkan affairs. To avert
such a catastrophe had been the traditional policy of Austria,
and to prevent a result so disastrous to her interests England
had waged the war of the Crimea.
Assuming the initiative in the matter Count Andrassy, in the
name of the Austrian Government, dispatched a circular note to
the signatory powers of the treaty of Paris of 1856 and the Lon-
don protocol of 1ST1 suggesting an international congress for the
purpose of establishing " the agreement of Europe on the modi-
fications which it might become necessary to introduce into the
above-mentioned treaties," in view of the provisions of the
treaty of San Stefauo. The suggestion of Count Andrassy met
with a ready response. Germany was especially willing to co-
operate with England and with Austria, her ally, in the as-
sembling of a congress of which her own great statesman,
Bismarck, was sure to be the dominating figure. Russia was
naturally displeased with the turn events had taken. She
felt intuitively that she would lose all that she had gained in the
war with Turkey if she consented to the revision of the articles
of the treaty of San Stefano by an international conference
dominated by her enemies.
But she was powerless to resist. She demanded, however, as
a condition of giving her consent to the assembling of the pro-
posed congress and of her participation in its proceedings, that
the scope of its powers be limited by the exclusion of certain
clauses of the treaty of San Stefano from its consideration.
The reply of Disraeli, on behalf of England, to this demand
was to mobolize the militia and to bring Indian troops to the
Mediterranean. Finding that the diplomatic support which she
had hoped to receive from Bismarck had failed her, she took the
hint, and finally consented to submit the whole question of the
Balkan situation to the determinations of a new international
conference.
On the 3d of June, 1S78, Count Miinster, in the name of the
German Emperor, invited the delegates of the signatory powers
of the treaty of Paris of 1S5G to assemble at Berlin. The invi-
tation was accepted. Great Britain was represented by Lord
Beaconsfleld, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Russell ; Germany by
Prince Bismarck, Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, and Baron
1300112456
12
von Billow; Austria by Count Andrassy, Baron Karolyi, and
Baron von Hayinerle ; Italy by Count Corti and Count Launay ;
France by William H. Waddington, Felix Desprez, and Le
Coinpte de Saint-Valliers ; Russia by her imperial chancellor,
Prince Gorchakov, Count Shuvalov, and Paul D'Oubril; Turkey
by Alexander Pasha, Ali Pasha, and Sadullah Bey.
These distinguished representatives of the leading nations of
the world lords, princes, barons, counts, ambassadors, and
prime ministers men renowned in statesmanship, diplomacy,
law, and letters, convened, and organized the Congress of Ber-
lin, on the 13th day of June, 1878, under the presidency of
Prince Bismarck.
On the 13th of July, a month after the assembling of the con-
gress, the treaty of Berlin was signed. It consists of 64 articles.
Two great purposes of the delegates of the congress are re-
vealed in the terms of the treaty :
(1) The reconstruction, upon an equitable basis, of the map
of southeastern Europe;
(2) The establishment of the independence of certain Balkan
States upon a foundation of civil and religious liberty.
The first great purpose was achieved, in the main, by certain
territorial changes. Bulgaria was divided into two parts Bul-
garia proper and eastern Rumelia. Parts of Armenia were given
to Russia and Persia. Bosnia and Herzegovina were transferred
to Austria, and Bessarabia was restored to Russia.
The second great purpose was accomplished by the recogni-
tion of the independence of Rouinania, Servia, and Montenegro
under terms of guaranty by them of civil and religious liberty
to all the inhabitants of their territories.
In the archives of history are few more important documents
than the treaty of Berlin. It readjusted the boundaries of king-
doms and empires. It proclaimed the independence of states and
the freedom of races. It was, above all, a grand proclamation
of religious emancipation.
The conditions of life among the Jews of Roumania were far
more pitiable and their political situation was infinitely worse
when the Berlin Congress convened in 1878 than they had been
20 years before when the conferences of Constantinople and
Paris met. In 1858 the legal status of the Jews was admitted
to be that of unenfranchised Roumanians. In 1878 they had
been declared to be outcasts and aliens, and were cruelly treated
as such. A succession of barbarous persecutions, culminating
in riots and massacres had reduced them to such a state of
misery and degradation that the pity of mankind was excited
and the indignation of the civilized world found vigorous ex-
1300112456
13
pression in official protests to the great powers of Europe.
This was the state of affairs when Rouuinnin asked the dele-
gates to the Congress of Berlin to recognize her independence as
a kingdom.
The representatives of the powers knew well the cunning
character of Roumanian statesmanship. They remembered dis-
tinctly the subterfuge and chicanery employed to evade the
pledges given at the time of the conferences of Constantinople
and Paris. They recalled that discretion had been allowed and
that it had been abused in the matter of the promise of Ghika
to emancipate the Jews gradually by legislative enactment. '
They now resolved to withdraw all discretion from the Govern-
ment of Bucharest in the matter of the emancipation of its
non-Christian subjects. And to the demand of Koumauia that
her independence be recognized the powers responded with
Articles XLIII and XLIV of the treaty of Berlin of July 13,
1878, which imposed as a condition of recognition the absolute
equality of all religious creeds and confessions in the Kingdom.
The following is the text of those articles :
XLIII. The high contracting parties recognize the independence of
Rournania, subject to the conditions set forth in the two following
articles :
XLIV. In Rou-nania the difference of religious creeds and confessions
shall not be alleged against any person as a ground for exclusion or
incapacity in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil and political
rights, admission to puhlic employments, functions, and honors, or the
exercise of the various professions and industries in any locality what-
soever.
The freedom and outward exercise of all forms of worship shall be
assured to all persons belonging to the Roumanian State, as well as
to foreigners, and no hindrance shall be offered either to the hier-
archical organization of the different communions or to their relations
with their spiritual chiefs.
The subjects and citizens of all the powers, traders or others, shall
be treated in Roumania without distinction of creed on a footing of
perfect equality.
Such were the terms offered by the Congress of Berlin to
Roumania as a condition of the recognition of her independence.
Strangely and unfortuutaely the powers were once again per-
suaded to agree to a compromise. " That only Christians may
obtain naturalization" was a provision of Article VII of the
Roumanian constitution of 1866. Acting upon the arbitrary
and illegal assumption that all Jews were aliens, Roumania
contended that the only disability imposed upon them was ex-
clusion from naturalization under this article, and she conse-
quently proposed to revise Article VII of her constitution as a
satisfaction of Article XLIV of the treaty of Berlin. The
13001 1245C
14
offer of Roumania, in other words, was to open the door of
naturalization to the Jews, the inference then being, of course,
that all other blessings would flow from citizenship.
The powers pointed out in reply that by Uie Roumanian
naturalization law the " equality of citizen " could only be
obtained after a probation of 10 years, and then by individual
act of Parliament, which was liable to be defeated by the
Chambers; and the offer of compromise was consequently
declined.
Rournania then changed her ground by deserting her legal
position and urging a plea of expediency. She insisted that if
the Jews were not aliens in law they were aliens in fact, " not
only by their religion, but by language, custom, manners, as-
pirations in a word, by all that constitutes distinctive char-
acter in a man as a member of society." She contended, further,
that the Jews were " illiterate and fanatical," and that they
were " peculiarly accessible to foreign influences, and that,
owing to their large numbers, they were calculated to strike a
fatal blow at the homogeneity of the Roumanian national
character." And as a final plea it was urged that " the nation
was strongly opposed to an immediate and wholesale emanci-
pation, and that if the powers insisted upon it the effect would
be that the cause of religious liberty in Roumania would be en-
dangered rather than promoted."
The powers seem to have been somewhat impressed by the
force of these contentions, but. nevertheless, they still declined
to admit that a revision of Article VII of the Roumanian consti-
tution would, in full measure, meet the requirements of Article
XLIV of the treaty of Berlin.
It was then that Roumania, fearing the shipwreck of her
hopes to become an independent nation, gave the most solemn
assurances that if the proposed solution was accepted, it would
be made to apply at once to all assimilated Jews, and tuat the
naturalization of unassimilated Jews would be provided for and
accomplished within a reasonable time.
Sir William White was told by Boeresco, the Roumanian for-
eign minister, " that if the present bill could only become a
law, a more complete measure of emancipation would be ac-
cepted by the electorate later on when the present agitations
had subsided."
But more specific and emphatic than this were the promises
contained in a circular dispatch sent out by Boeresco under
date of August 31, 1879, a document that he himself described
as " a sort of expose des motifs of the measure we are about
1300112456
15
to submit to the Chambers." The essential passages of this
dispatch are the following:
Will the Jews who do not immediately obtain naturalization remain
foreigners? No; they will remain what they always have been Rou-
manian. But in the measure that they identify themselves with the
population of the country, in the measure that by schools and other
means of preparation they become enlightened men and attached to the
country, they will be able to obtain and exercise political rights.
*******
There will be three categories of Jews foreigners, Roumanian sub-
jects, and citizens. Hitherto both the foreign and native Jews have
been the objects of certain prohibitions, but in their quality of Jew
alone. From the moment that article 7 of the constitution shall be
suppressed all these prohibitions will disappear, and no distinction will
be made between the foreign Jew and the foreign Christian. It will be
the same with the Jews who are Roumanian subjects. Hitherto certain
civil rights have been denied them. Thus they could not be advocates,
professors, State engineers; they could not serve on juries, etc. Under
the new regime they will have, in the first place, all the rights enjoyed
by foreigners in general. Then, as Roumanian subjects they will have
(he right of serving in the army and the national guard, the right of
acquiring real estate, the right to be advocates, to serve on juries, to
exercise freely every -profession and every trade ; they will, in short,
have the same civil rights as Roumanians and will be protected in the
same way by the same law and by the authorities. (Official documents
extracted from the diplomatic correspondence of 2/14 September, 1878 ;
17/20 July, 1880. Bucharest, 1880, pp. 121-123.)
The Governments of Austria and Italy were somewhat in-
clined to accept these assurances, but England, France, and Ger-
many still demanded that legislative guaranties be given for the
faithful observance of the treaty and that this be done within a
reasonable time, if not immediately.
The negotiations between Boeresco and the powers were still
in progress when the Roumanian Parliament passed an act re-
vising Article VII of the constitution, which was soon after-
wards promulgated by the Prince in the following terms :
In room of Article VII, which is revised, the following shall be placed :
"ART. VII. The difference of religious creeds and confessions does not
constitute in Roumania an obstacle to the acquirement of civil and
political rights and their exercise.
" 1. Every foreigner, without distinction of creed, whether enjoying
any foreign protection or not,, cau acquire naturalization under the fol-
lowing conditions :
"(a) By addressing to the Government an application for naturaliza-
tion, in which must be declared the capital he possesses, his profession,
and his wish to establish his domicile in Roumania.
"(b) By residing in the country for 10 years after having made this
application and by proving by his acts that he is useful to the country.
" 2. The following may be exempted from this delay of residence (10
years) :
"(a) All who shall have introduced into the country industries, use-
ful inventions, or distinguished talents, or who shall have founded large
commercial or industrial establishments.
1300112456
16
'"(b) All who have been born and educated in Roumania of parents
domiciled in the country and have, neither in their own case nor that
of their parents, at any time been in the enjoyment of any foreign pro-
tection.
"(c) All who have served with the colors during the war of independ-
ence, and these can be naturalized collectively on the proposition of
the Government by a single law, without further formalities.
" 3. Naturalization can only be granted by a law, and individually.
" 4. A special law will determine the manner in which foreigners can
establish their domicile on Roumanian territory.
" 5. Roumanian and naturalized Roumanian citizens can alone acquire
rural estates in Roumania.
" Rights acquired up to the present time are respected."
The international conventions existing at present remain in force,
with all their clauses and for the term mentioned therein.
This decisive action of the Parliament of Bucharest, bold in
design and prompt in execution, seems to have changed the no-
tions of the powers, for they soon afterwards consented, though
reluctantly, to the Roumanian solution. But before giving their
final consent they required the Roumanian Government to make
a formal declaration of acceptance of the principle of Article
XLIV of the treaty of Berlin and of its resolution to act upon it
"loyally and sincerely."' The required obligation was expressed
in the following note :
Article 7 of the Roumanian constitution, sanctioning the principle of
article 44 of the treaty of Berlin, has opened to the Jews access to citi-
zenship and has abrogated all existing laws. That principle will con-
tinue to be observed sincerely and loyally. The organic powers will de-
vote themselves to assuring its respect and will pursue its application
with the view of securing a more complete assimilation of the Jews.
* Meanwhile ail Jews residing in the country will possess, from
the point of view of private civil law, an assured juridical position, and
will have no cause to fear arbitrary administrative measures or excep-
tional laws aimed at confessions or religions. (Statement by Signor
Cairoli in the Italian Parliament, Dee. 9, 1879.)
Upon the receipt of this note Austria and Italy signified their
willingness to recognize the independence of the new Kingdom.
After considerable hesitation Great Britain, France, and Ger-
many did the same, but not before they had made it perfectly
clear to the Roumanian Government that they were well aware
that the conditions of the treaty of Berlin had not been fulfilled
and that they relied upon the solemn pledges of the principali-
ties "to -observe them in the spirit and to execute them gradu-
ally in the letter."
That there might be a clear understanding of the situation
the three last-mentioned powers presented an identic note to
M. Boeresco on the 20th of February, 1880. The following are
the essential paragraphs of that note:
Her Majesty's Government can not consider the new constitutional
provisions which have brought to their recognizance and particularly
13001 12456
17
those by which persons belonging to a nonchrfstian creed domiciled
In Roumania, and not belonging to any- foreign nationality, are required
to submit to the formalities of individual naturalization as being a
complete fulfillment of the views of the powers signatories of the
treaty of Berlin.
Trusting, however, to the determination of the prince's Government
to approximate more and more in the execution of these provisions, to
the liberal intentions entertained by the powers, and taking note of the
positive assurances to that effect which have been conveyed to them,
the Government of her Britannic Majesty being desirous of giving to
the Roumanian Nation a proof of their friendly sentiments, have de-
cided to recognize the principality of Roumania as an independent
State. Iler Majesty's Government consequently declares themselves
ready to enter into regular diplomatic relations with the prince's Gov-
ernment.
Such was the result of the diplomatic negotiations of nearly
two years in which the great powers of Europe had again been
cajoled and hoodwinked by a contemptible little Balkan prin-
cipality. Rournauia had secured the recognition of her sov-
ereignty and, in return, had given promises and pledges which
the developments of the last 30 years show she never intended
to fulfill.
The congress of Berlin of 1S78 accomplished nothing more in
fact than did the convention of Paris of 1858. The illusory
pledges of Prince Gregory Ghika remained unfulfilled for 20
years. The promises of the Government of King Charles have
been equally false and hypocritical, for more than three decades
have passed and yet nothing has been done to meet the just
expectations of the powers. A new generation of Roumanian
Jews have been born in the land, and yet they are as far from
emancipation as were their fathers. The night of oppression
and persecution still hovers over them and the day of freedom
and regeneration still seems far away. They are still held to
be aliens and outcasts in the laud of their birth; naturalization
is still practically inaccessible to them ; and the sufferings of
persecution are still as great and painful as ever.
Roumanian statesmanship triumphed in the matter of the
compromise of 1SSO, not by honest methods of skillful diplomacy,
but by craft and cunning and through the negligence of the pow-
ers themselves.
It was a regrettable mistake that the Governments of Europe
should have overlooked two fatal defects in the compromise.
In the first place they should by all means have forced from
the Roumanian Parliaiueat a legislative acknowledgment that
Jews " belonging to no other nationality and enjoying no for-
eign protection were Roumanian nationals in the sense of article
46 of the convention of Paris and of the admission of M. Boer-
esco in his dispatch of August 31, 1879."
1300112456
18
Again the Roumanian Parliament consists of two chambers.
All naturalization bills arc individual and must pass each cham-
ber by a two-thirds majority. Paragraph 3 of the revised
Article VII of the constitution left Jewish petitions for naturali-
zation at the absolute mercy of the Parliament. This was the
second fatal defect of the compromise which should not have
been overlooked by the powers.
These defects are all the more to be lamented because they
furnish loopholes of escape to Ronmania in the matter of keeping
her naturalization pledges under the treaty. They gave ground
for the practice of rank hypocrisy, and at the same time for a
plea of seeming justification in terms of law.
The unfortunate result has been that in the matter of natu-
ralization, so far from keeping her pledges, Roumania has almost
completely ignored them, for the Roumanian chambers have in
nearly every case refused to pass bills intended to confer citizen-
ship upon the Jews. Since 18SO, the date of the recognition of
the new Kingdom, only 170 Jews have been naturalized out of a
total population of 100,000 adult males, the greater part of
whom are natives, and many thousands of whom have bravely
and patriotically performed military service for the Roumanian
fatherland.
When arraigned at the bar of the nations and charged with
bad faith in the matter of broken pledges, the defense of Rou-
mania is at once astonishingly simple and amazingly cynical.
She simply revives her ancient argument that the Jews are now
and have always been strangers and aliens in the land, and
that the treaties of 1S5S and 1878, under strict interpretation,
did not alter their status. When pointed to the formal and
categorical pledges of 1880, and the admission of M. Boeresco in
1879, which directly contradicted and repudiated her conten-
tions in this regard, and, moreover, when reminded that Great
Britain, Franca, and Germany had recognized her independence
only after she had specifically and emphatically renounced such
a theory, she simply points to the equivocal revision of Article
VII of her constitution, which Europe had accepted under pres-
sure and protest, and declares that she is bound by that alone.
Strange to say, no attempt is ever made by Roumania to con-
ceal the hypocrisy or to hide the bad faith of her astonishing
defense. Indeed, eminent writers of Roumania have frequently
boasted of the trick which was successfully played on Europe.
One of these, M. Suliotis, writes in this manner :
The treaty of Berlin was thought to work wonders in favor of the
strangers, but Roumania has been wise enough to escape the incon-
veniences which might have resulted from the application of article 7
in the sense of the treaty of Berlin, which has had no other effect than
to render more difficult the situation of the aliens.
13001 12456
19
Again, writing in the Romanul of December 25, 1881, M.
Rosetti, an ex-minister and one of the leading statesmen of the
Kingdom, has this to say:
We may congratulate oui selves to-day on having solved the Jewish
question in a national sense, and that we may now avow loudly con-
trary to the manifest will of the powers and even contrary to the spirit
of the treaty of Berlin.
The solution of " the Jewish question" in " a national seuse,"
it will be readily seen, was by the simple method of having
the Roumanian Parliament pass laws antagonistic to " stran-
gers," and then have all public officials of Roumania re-
gard the Jews as " strangers," in the application of those laws.
Nothing can better illustrate the determined efforts of the
Roumanian Government to evade its pledges in the matter of
the treaty of Berlin than its systematic legislation against
" strangers," which was, in fact, intended to apply only to the
Jews. The following classified list of laws, discriminating
against the Jews, will prove conclusively that Roumania, from
the very beginning, never had any intention of fulfilling her
obligations under Article XLIV of that treaty:
October 21, 1879, Roumanian Senate passes law stating that dis-
tinction of religion shall not be a bar to civil or political rights, but
that " strangers " may obtain naturalization only by special law on
individual demand and after 10 years' residence. (Act VII of constitu-
tion ; Sincerus, pp. 3-4.)
June 6, 1880. The directors and auditors of the National Bank of
Roumania must be Roumanians. (Sincerus, p. 77.)
March 18, 1881. Law of expulsion passed, authorizing minister of
interior to expel or order from place to place, without giving reason,
any "stranger" likely to disturb public tranquillity. (Sincerus, p.
146). (Originally intended against Nihilists after murder of Czar,
but afterwards applied to Jews.)
July 16, 1881. Law promulgated declaring that all " agents de-
change " or " courtiers de merchandise " must be Roumanians or natural-
ized, except in the ports (where there are Christian "strangers").
(Sincoms, p. 45.)
October 21, 1881. Ministerial council extends the law excluding
Jews from the sale of liquors in rural districts to cities and towns
included in such districts. (Sincerus, pp. 22-23.)
November 11, 1881. All " strangers " in Roumania required to obtain
a permit of residence before they may pass from place to place. (Sin-
cerus, p. 163.)
February 26, 18S2. Jews forbidden to be customhouse officers. (Sin-
.eerus, p. 53.)
November 3, 1882. Roumanian Senate passes law declaring all " in-
habitants " liable to military service, except subjects of alien States.
(Sincerus, p. 35.) See above, June 23, 1868.
January 31, 1884. Roumanian Senate decides that " strangers " have
no right of petition to Parliament. (Sincerus, p. 197.)
March 19, 1884. Law passes prohibiting hawkers from trading In
rural districts. (Sincerus, p 65.)
April 15, 1885. Pharmacy law permits minister of interior to close
any pharmacy not under direction of a recognized person ; pharmacies
1300112456
20
may be acquired only by Roumanians or by naturalized citizens ; per-
mission to employ "strangers" extended to 1886. (Sincerus, p. 104.)
March 13. 1886. Electors of chambers of commerce must be persons
having political rights. (Sinceruo, p. 75.)
June 16, 18SG. Druggists must be Roumanians or naturalized citizens.
(Sincerus, p. 84.)
December 7, 1886. Account books must be kept in Roumanian or in a
modern European language. (Sincerus, p. 81.) (The object was to
keep out Yiddish.)
February 28, 1887. All employees of the " regie " must be Rou-
manians or naturalized. (Sincerus, p. 29.)
April 28. 1S87. Farmers of taxes in Roumania must be persons
capable of being public officers. (Sincerus, p. 89.)
May 22, 1887. Majority of administrators of private companies must
be Roumanians. (Sincerus, p. 78.)
May 24, 1887. Five years after the foundation of a factory two-
thirds of its workmen must bo Roumanians. (Sincerus, p. 94.)
August 4, 18S7. Ministerial circular orders preference to be given
to children of Roumanians in the order of admission to public schools.
(Sincerus, p. 123.)
1889. Of 1,307 permits issued to hawkers, only 123 went to Jews;
of these : only G were held in Wallachia. (Sincerus, p. 70.)
August 31, 1892. Retired Jewish soldiers are not allowed to serve as
rural gendarmes. (Siuccrus, p. 40.)
April 21, 1893. Professional education permitted to " strangers " only
when places are available and on payment of fees. The number of
" strangers " on the roll of such an educational institution must not
exceed one-fifth of the total roll, and these may not compete for
scholarships "Strangers" are not admitted at all to schools of agri-
culture. (Sincerus, p. 138.)
May 20, 1893. Roumanian Senate passes law giving preference to
children of Roumanians in elementary public schools and placing a tax
on children of "strangers" admitted. (Sincerus, p. 129.) This tax
amounted to 15 francs for rural and 30 francs for urban schools. (Ib.,
127.)
June 26, 1893. Royal decree declaring all functionaries In the sani-
tary service must be Roumanians except In rural districts. " Stranger "
invalids may be admitted to free public hospitals only on payment of
fees, and they may not 1n any case occupy more than 10 per. cent of
the beds. A " stranger " may be taken as an apprentice by an apothe-
cary only where there is a Roumanian apprentice. (Sincerus, pp. 106,
110, 115.)
January 26, 1894 Farmers may be represented in law courts by their
stewards if the latter be Roumanians, not Jews. (Sincerus, p. 44.)
May 22, 1895. Students in the military hospitals and army doctors
must be either Roumanians or naturalized citizens. (Sincerus, p. 117.)
April 13, 1896. Jews may not act as Intermediaries at the customs
in Roumania. (Sincerus, p. 54.)
June, 1896. A ministerial order declares that letters on school busi-
ness excuses for absence, etc. need not be stamped except in the
case of " strangers " ; only children of " strangers " are required to pay
entrance fees at examinations. (Sincerus, p. 130.)
June 26, 1896 Ministerial order instructs rural council that permis-
sion to remain in a rural district may be revoked at any moment.
(Sincerus, p. 185.)
April 4, 1898. Law permitting secondary instruction of children of
" strangers " only where places are available and on payment of fees,
though to Roumanians tuition is free. (Sincerus, p. 133.)
1300112456
21
October, 1898. Admission to public schools in Roumania refused to
11,200 Jewish children. (Sincerus.)
February 18, 1899. Only Roumanians henceforth admitted as em-
ployees on State railways. (Sincerus, p. 97.)
October 21, 18J>9. Ministerial order closes private Jewish schools in
Roumania on Sundays. (Sincerus, p. 141.)
1900. Number of Jewish children in elementary public schools in
Roumania reduced to 5J per cent ; in secondary schools, from 10J per
cent (in 1895) to 7 per cent. (Sincerus, p. 133.)
February 27, 1900. Ministerial circular orders pupils to receive in-
structions in Jewish private schools with heads uncovered. (Sincerus,
p. 143.)
March 28, 1900. On private railways 60 per cent of the employees
must be Roumanians. (Sincerus, p. 99.)
April 17, 1900. Ministerial circular orders Jewish private schools to
open on Saturdays. (Sincerus, p. 142.)
March 16, 1902. Artisans' bill requires special authorization from the
authorities to carry on any trade, only to bo obtained by " strangers "
i. e., Jews on production of foreign passports, and proof that in their
" respective countries " reciprocal rights are accorded to Roumanians.
(Am. Jew. Yearbook, 1902-3, p. 30.)
The culmination of Roumanian meanness and malignity was
reached in the passage of the artisans' bill. Other measures
had been designed to cripple and harass, to degrade and humili-
ate them, but this bill was evidently intended to starve the
Jews to death, for it inevitably deprived many thousands of
Jewish artisans of the only means of earning their daily bread.
The ludicrous absurdity as well as the fiendish cruelty of such
a law are shown by the fact that, under its provisions, no
"foreigner" was permitted to exercise a handicraft in Rou-
mania unless " he could show reciprocity for Roumanians in his
own country." The Jews being " foreigners not under any foreign
protection" were unable to prove this reciprocity. They were
therefore unable to carry on any trade without violating the law.
Another characteristic illustration of the ingenious method
employed by the Roumanian Parliament in framing laws to evade
the spirit, if not the letter, of the treaty of Berlin is afforded
by the military law of November 3, 1882. By Article I of this
law " all the inhabitants " of the country are liable to military
service. By Article II " subjects of foreign States " are declared
ineligible for entrance into the army. The Jews being "in-
habitants " of the country, but not " subjects of foreign States,"
are required to perform military service, although deprived of
all civil and political rights, because of their status as " stran-
gers." Although forced to risk the dangers and bear the bur-
dens of war as privates in the rank they are denied promotion
on the ground that " service in the army is a duty, while the
rank of officer is a public function reserved for Roumanian citi-
zens." These distinctions and the reasons for them were all
solemnly declared in a speech by M. Bratiano in the Roumanian
13001 1245G
22
Senate May 27, 18S2. But it is needless to elaborate the ques-
tion at greater length.
The hideous result of long years of persecution and oppres-
sion, of riot and massacre, has been that the Jews of Roumauia
have been barbarized and impoverished and that life for most
of them has been rendered an intolerable burden. Within the
last 10 years 60,000 of them have been forced to emigrate and
100,000 others have been reduced to a state approaching vaga-
bondage.
Shall these frightful conditions continue to exist? Shall the
barbarous practices of a semicivilized people forever violate the
precepts and shock the sentiments of civilization? Shall Article
XLIV of the treaty of Berlin become as dead a letter upon the
statute books of nations as did Article XLVI of the conference
of Paris? What says old England, the laud of Magna Charta,
of the Bill of Eights, the petition of rights, and habeas corpus,
the birthplace of Hampdeu, Pym, and Cromwell, the grandest
and most majestic among the commonwealths of the earth?
What says she, a party to the treaty of Berlin? Shall the
/nighty power that conquered Napoleon and preserved the lib-
erties of Europe be forever defied and mocked by a petty and
contemptible little Balkan State? What says France, the bril-
liant and beautiful among the nations, whose chivalric sym-
pathies sent Rochambeau and Lafayette as ambassadors of
freedom to our shores? What says she, a party to the treaty
of Berlin? Shall the bad faith and insolence of Roumania go
forever unpunished and unrebuked while France, the dauntless
and eternal champion of the rights of man, stands mute and
motionless? And last, but not least, what says America, the
country of Washington, the Republic of Jefferson, the Union
of Lincoln, whose Goddess of Liberty in the harbor of Nt-w
York brandishes forever a torch of freedom as a beacon light
to the oppressed and distressed of all the world? What says
America, the protagonist of republican virtue and the model of
newborn Republics throughout the earth? Shall she give no
response and make no protest when a suffering and helpless
people ask for sympathy and aid?
But it is contended that America was no party to the treaty
of Berlin and that it would be improper therefore for her to
seek to interfere in the local affairs of Roumania. There is a
grain of truth in this contention, but only a grain. The fatal
defect in the argument is that the barbarous persecution and
merciless oppression of any race within the borders of any
country causing wholesale emigration of the members of that
race to other countries as a means of preserving life are the
internal affairs of the state guilty of the persecution and op-
13001 12450
23
pression with which other countries have no concern and in
which they should not interfere. Such a contention wrongfully
assumes that the intercessory and intervening powers of civil-
ized nations are suspended and paralyzed when the laws of
humanity and the rights of races happen to conflict with the
local arrangements of some small despotic government.
Whether rightfully or wrongfully, America has already pro-
tested, in vigorous and solemn terms, against Roumanian op-
pression of the Jews; and this protest was not born of the
hurry and heat of a political convention or of any other volun-
tary association of irresponsible persons. It was a calm and
deliberate act of American diplomacy, the product of one of the
noblest and finest of American intellects.
Following the passage of the artisans' bill of March 16, 1902,
which was designed to prevent the Jews from earning a liveli-
hood by any form of handicraft or trade, Mr. Secretary Hay, on
August 11, 1902, addressed a ministerial note of protest to the
Roumanian Government, pointing out the tendency of such legis-
lation to produce an abnormal stream of emigration to the
United States. The following is the essential passage of that
note :
The teachings of history and the experience of our own Nation show
that the Jews possess in a high degree the mental and moral qualifica-
tions of conscientious citizenhood. No class of immigrants is more wel-
come to our shores when coming equipped in mind and body for entrance
upon the struggle for bread and inspired with the high purpose to give
the best service of heart and brain to the land they adopt of their own
free will ; but when they come as outcasts, made doubly paupers by
physical and moral oppression in their native land and thrown upon the
long-suffering generosity of a more favored community, their migration
lacks the essential conditions which make alien immigration either ac-
ceptable or beneficial. So well is this appreciated on the Continent that
even in the countries where anti-Semitism has no foothold -it is difficult
for these fleeing Jews to obtain any lodgment. America is their only
goal.
The United States offers asylum to the oppressed of all lands, but its
sympathy with them in no wise impairs its just liberty and right to
weigh the acts of the oppressor in the light of their effects upon this
country and to judge accordingly.
Putting together the facts now plainly bro'ught home to this Govern-
ment during the past few years, that many of the inhabitants of Rou-
mania are being forced by artificially adverse discriminations to quit
their native country, that the hospitable asylum offered by this country
is almost the only refuge left to them, that they come hither unfitted by
the conditions of their exile to take part in the new life of this land
under circumstances either profitable to themselves or beneficial to the
community, and that they are objects of charity from the outset and
for a long time, the right of remonstrance against the acts of the Rou-
manian Government is clearly established in favor of this Government.
Whether consciously and of purpose or not, these helpless people, bur-
dened and spurned by their native land, are forced by the sovereign
power of Roumania upon the charity of the United States. This Gov-
13001 12456
eminent can not be a tacit party to such an International wrong. It is
constrained to protest against the treatment to which the Jews of Rou-
mania are subjected, not alone because it has unimpeachable ground to
remonstrate against the resultant injury to itself, but in the name of
humanity. The United States may not authoritatively appeal to the
stipulations of (he treaty of Berlin, to which it was not and can not
become a signatory, but it doc-s earnestly appeal to the principles con-
signed therein because they are the principles of international law and
eternal justice, advocating the broad toleration which that solemn com-
pact enjoins and standing ready to lend its moral support to the fulfill-
ment thereof by its cosignatories, for the act of Roumania itself has
effectively joined the United States to them as an interested party in
this regard.
It iniglit.be well to add that a copy of this note of Mr. Hay,
American Secretary of State, to the Government of Romnania.
was simultaneously sent to the Governments of Great Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Turkey, the signatory pow-
ers of the treaty of Berlin. By this act the United States served
notice upon Roumania and upon the great powers of Europe that
she considered herself a party to that treaty, if not hy direct
signature then at least by the laws of humanity, by the princi-
ples of eternal justice, by the binding obligations of interna-
tional law in which all civilized peoples have a common interest,
and by the right of self-preservation involved in the necessity
of protecting her own population and her own civilization
against the barbarized and impoverished victims of Roumanian
persecution.
This authoritative action of our State Department some 10
years ago is still a landmark and a precedent. No one will
question the righteousness of the motive or the soundness of
the political principle involved in this action. No one can ef-
fectively contend that this diplomatic step should not have been
taken. The only regret that can be expressed is that the results
accomplished were not greater. ,
Historical considerations affecting the discussion of the pres-
ent question are these: A great Balkan war has just been termi-
nated. Roumania was involved indirectly in the struggle.
Changes in territory, similar to those brought about at the close
of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, will probably be made.
The Roumanians, it is said, contemplate revising their present
constitution in view of changed conditions. It is more than
probable that the great powers of Europe will again be called
upon to adjust, in international conference, various questions
growing out of the recent war.
Now, after the lapse of 30 years, Roumanian persecution of
the Jews exists in more acute and malignant form than when
Mr. Hay dispatched his note of diplomatic protest. Roumanian
laws against the Jews have become more stringent and oppres-
sive. Social discrimination and ostracism have become more
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pitiless and humiliating. Riot and massacre are still as immi-
nent as ever.
In view of tlie approaching conference of the powers, what
shall be done, what can be done to compel Roumania to act
justly and humanely by the Jews within her borders? The
powers will have no difficulty, in the matter of the Jews, with
any other Balkan State. At the same time and in exactly the
same language as that employed in the case of Rouinania, Servia
and Montenegro promised the congress of Berlin to guarantee civil
and religious freedom to the Jews within their territories in con-
sideration of the recognition of their independence. Both Servia
and Montenegro have faithfully kept these pledges, which demon-
strates conclusively that there was no inherent difficulty, no insu-
perable obstacle in the way of Roumania's doing the same thing.
My own opinion is that the United States should accept the
invitation of the European powers to become a member of the
approaching international congress, if such an invitation is ex-
tended. I have been reliably informed that our Government
was invited to participate in the proceedings of the Berlin Con-
gress, but declined. If we are not invited we should ask that
the United States be permitted to be a party to the next con-
ference of the powers. We should then join with other nations
in reminding Roumania of existing obligations, and in imposing
fresh ones upon her in a manner that will preclude any possi-
bility of violating them in the future. If no new conference of
the powers is called, or if the United States for any reason
should not be a party to it if one is called, then let us again,
and repeatedly if need be, in the language of Mr. Hay, lend our
" moral support " to the gi'eat cause of civil liberty and religious
emancipation, by such representations to the great Governments
of Europe as will secure prompt and vigorous action on their
part, in compelling Roumania, even at this late date, to perform
her pledges under Article XLVI of the conference of Paris and
Article XLIV of the treaty of Berlin. If her sense of national
honor and international obligation does not incline Roumauia to
deeds of justice and righteousness, then let the strong arm of
force be used and the wrath of the nations be visited upon her.
But why should we do all these things for the Jews, you ask?
The reply is that these things are not to be done primarily for
the Jews. They are to be done to promote and maintain civil
liberty and religious freedom among men; to prevent offenses
against international morality and to uphold the dignity and
sanctity of international law; and, above all things, to compel
respect for the laws of humanity and regard for the principles
of eternal justice. These are the primary objects of action to
be taken against Roumauia.
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But if you challenge me to open declaration I will candidly
say to you that I am in favor of doing all manner of good
things at all times for the Jews simply because they are Jews.
And in this declaration is no sickly sentimentality, no maudlin
sentiment. I am well aware that the Jewish race is not a per-
fect one. The Jews, along with all the balance of us, have in-
herited the curse of Eden. The stamp of sin is upon the Jewish
as well as upon the gentile brow. From the records of the
courts we gather that there are Jewish as well as Christian
criminals. And undoubtedly the sons of Abraham Tire afflicted
at times with all the faults and frailties to which human flesh
is heir.
And, again, it should be cheerfully admitted that individual
Jews are not entitled to receive and should not receive any par-
ticular consideration; any special clemency in the exigencies
and crises of life. If Jews steal, they should be sent to prison
along with gentile thieves. If they murder, the death penalty
should be administered to them as in the case of others. If
Jews are physically, mentally, or morally unclean, they should
be socially ostracized and banished, as should gentiles who are
similarly afflicted. If Jews are guilty of uupardoued sins
against the laws of God, they should be consigned to the same
place and for the same length of time in the hereafter as in the
case of gentile sinners. These statements and concessions I
gladly and cheerfully make. But having said these things, I
must be permitted to repeat the 'declaration that where the
Jewish race as such is concerned and its rights are involved in
terms of religious persecution all doubts should be resolved in
favor of the Jews.
The marvelous contributions of the Jewish people to the
spiritual and intellectual wealth of the world entitle them to the
gratitude and homage, not the hatred and persecution of man-
kind. If gratitude were a supreme virtue of nations, as it
should be of individuals, there would never be any organized
governmental persecution of the Jews. The civilized nations of
this earth are too deeply and everlastingly indebted to the Jews
to be able ever to cancel the obligation. They should at least
treat them with humanity and accord them those considerations
which are the absolute essentials of happiness in a civilized state.
The ghastly feature of Jewish persecution is the fact that it
was probably born of the refusal of the Jews to yield the divine
unity of Jehovah to the polytheistic demands of ancient Rome.
Forupey the Great conquered Palestine and made it a dependent
Roman state some 63 years before the birth of Christ. The
ordinary results and usual incidents of Roman provincial ad-
ministration followed. Among these was the attempt to blend
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the religion and mingle the god or gods of the conquered conn-
try with the religion and gods of Rome. Jewish monotheism,
which civilization to-day prizes as its most precious jewel, was
then sought to be destroyed.
The civil and religious differences between Jews and Romans
were at once fundamental and fatal. In the first place, these
two races have shown themselves to be, by all odds, the most
masterful of mankind. The Romans founded the world's great-
est physical empire. The Jews founded the earth's most illus-
trious kingdom of the spirit. In the fiber of both Jew and
Roman were to be found those elements of mastery and control
that have nowhere else been seen in the organization of any
race, with the possible exception of the English. The Romans
would brook no earthly opposition and the Jews would submit
to none but God. The Romans worshiped a whole host of greater
and lesser deities, who inhabited earth and sky, mountains, seas,
and streams. Against this polytheism of a most extravagant
kind the Jews pitted the doctrine of monotheism, the jealous
and exclusive worship of one great God. Again, polytheism
was an integral part of the government of the Roman state and
could not be attacked or derided without constituting an act
of treason against the laws of Rome and the sovereignty of
Csesar. On the other hand, the religion of the Jews and their
law were identical. To submit to the worship of Roman gods
was not only an act of treason to Jehovah, but was also an
abrogation of Jewish nationality and a repeal of all Jewish
laws. These considerations constituted a definite and acute issue
between the Roman masters of the world and the chosen seed of
God. The character of each race was such that neither would sur-
render, and the result was, of necessity, a mere struggle of the
survival of the fittest. Both were victorious. The Romans de-
stroyed the physical kingdom of the Jews; the Jews destroyed
polytheism, the religious empire of the Romans ; and out of the
struggle, which lasted for centuries, grew a bitterness and hate
that has been handed down to the modern world as a hideous
legacy and from which massacre and persecution have been born
and multiplied.
Monotheism is Judaism's great contribution to the religious
thought of mankind and to the civilization of the earth. And
for consenting that their country should be conquered, their
nationality destroyed, and their race dispersed throughout the
world, in order that this best and noblest gift of God to man
might not be sacrificed to pagan and barbarian superstition, but
might instead be transmitted as a heavenly heritage to all future
generations of men; the Jews have received, not the gratitude
and love but the hate and oppression of the nations.
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The Jew is the Prometheus of history. The JSschylean
Prometheus snatched fire from the skies and gave it to mankind
as a priceless boon. As a reward for his trouble he was chained
to a rock while a vulture preyed upon his liver. The Jew
received the fire of monotheism from Heaven and gave it to
man. For his care and solicitude he has been chained to the
rock of the ages while the vultures of hatred, persecution, riot,
and massacre have preyed upon his heart.
Another hideous feature of Jewish persecution is the fact that
its chief intensifying cause for nearly 20 centuries has been a
total misunderstanding and misconception of the real facts and
true meaning of the crucifixion of Jesus. The cruel and sense-
less notion of the implacable wrath of Deity has prevailed in nil
the ages as an explanation of the destruction of Jerusalem and
the dispersion and persecution of the Jews. It is worse than
nonsense to see in this event anything but the operation of
vulgar physical forces of the most ordinary land. The fall of
Jerusalem was a most natural and consequential thing. It was
not even an extraordinary historical occurrence, even in Jewish
history. Titus did not so completely destroy Jerusalem as did
Nebuchadnezzar before him. Razing cities to the ground was a
customary Roman act. a form of pastime, a characteristic
Roman proceeding in the case of stubborn and rebellious towns.
Scipio razed Carthage and drove Carthaginians into the most
remote corners of the earth. Was any Roman or Punic god
interested in this event? Caesar destroyed many Gallic cities
and scattered Gauls throughout the world. Was any deity con-
cerned about these things?
Roman admiration was at times enkindled, but Roman clem-
ency was never gained by deeds of valor directed against the
arms of Rome. Neither Hannibal nor Mithradates, Vercinge-
torix nor Jugurtha, the grandest of her enemies, received any
mercy at her hands. To oppose her will was to invite destruc-
tion ; and the sequel was a mere question of " the survival of
the fittest." The most turbulent, rebellious, and determined of
all the imperial dependencies was the Province of Judea. The
Jews regarded the Romans as idolaters, and instead of obeying
them as masters despised and defied them as barbarians. When
this spirit became manifest and promised to be perpetual the
dignity of the Roman name, as well as the safety of the Roman
State, demanded the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion
of the Jews; and destruction and dispersion followed as natu-
rally as any profane effect follows any vulgar cause.
But the advocates of the divine-wrath theory quote Scriptures
and point to prophecy in support of their contention. Then
Scriptures must be pitted against Scriptures. The last prayer
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of the Master on the cross must be made to repeal every earlier
Scriptural prophecy or decree. " Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do," is the sublimest utterance in the litera-
ture of the world. It is the epitome of every Christian virtue
and of all religious truth. This proclamation from the cross
repealed the Mosaic law of hereditary sin, placed upon a per-
sonal basis responsibility for offenses against God and man, and
served notice upon future generations that those who " know
not what they do " are entitled to be spared and forgiven. To
believe that God ignored the prayer of Christ on the cross, and
that the centuries of persecution of the Jews which followed
were but the fulfillment of prophecy and fate, is to assail the
Messiahship of Jesus and to question the goodness and mercy of
Jehovah. Jesus knew the full meaning of his prayer and was
serious unto death. To believe that the Father rejected the
petition of the Son is to destroy the equality of the persons of
the Trinity by investing one with the authority and power to re-
view, revise, and reject the judgments and petitions of the others.
If the Christian doctrine be true that Christ was God " mani-
fest in the flesh " ; if the doctrine of the Trinity be tine that
God the Father, God the Sou, and God the Holy Ghost are one
and the same, eternal and inseparable, then the prayer of Jesus
on the cross was not a petition, but a declaration that the
malefactors of the crucifixion who, in the blindness of ignorance,
had helped to kill the Son of Man, would receive at the last day
the benefits of the amnesty of the Father of mercy and for-
giveness.
If the perpetrators of the great injustice of the Sanhedrin
and of the Pretorium are to be forgiven because they knew
not what they did, is there any justice, human or divine, in
persecuting their innocent descendants of all lauds and ages?
" When Sir Moses Montefiore was taunted by a political op-
ponent with the memory of Calvary and described by him as
one who sprang from the murderers who crucified the world's
Redeemer, the next morning the Jewish philanthropist, whom
Christendom has learned to honor, called upon his assailant and
showed him the record of his ancestors which had been kept
for 2,000 years and which showed that their home had been in
Spain for 200 years before Jesus of Nazareth was born." This
half-humorous anecdote illustrates the utter absurdity and
supreme injustice of connecting the modern Jew with ancient
tragic history. The elemental forces of reason, logic, courage,
and sympathy wrapped up and interwoven in every impulse and
fiber of the human mind and heart will be forever in rebellion
against the monstrous doctrine of centuries of shame, exile, and
persecution visited upon an entire race because of the sins and
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30
crimes of a handful of their progenitors who lived more than a
thousand years before.
But if the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the sons
is to be maintained and perpetuated as a form of divine, if not
of human justice, why not, at least, be consistent in the applica-
tion of the principle? Many philosophers and critics have
detected a striking kinship between the teachings of Socrates
and those of Jesus. A celebrated historian closes a chapter of
the history of Greece with this sentence :
Thus perished the greatest and most original of the Grecian philoso-
phers (Socrates), whose uninspired wisdom made the nearest approach
to the divine morality of the Gospel.
The indictments against the philosopher of Athens and the
Prophet of Nazareth were strikingly similar. Socrates was
charged with corrupting Athenian youth ; Jesus, with perverting
the nation. Socrates was charged with treason against Athens ;
Jesus, with treason against Rome. Both were charged with
blasphemy the Athenian with blasphemy of the Olympic gods
the Nazarene with blaspheming Jehovah. Both sealed with
their blood the faith that was in them. If the descendants of
the crucifiers of the Christ are to be persecuted, brutalized, and
exiled for the sins of the fathers, why not apply the same
pitiless law of hereditary punishment to the descendants of the
Athenian dicasts who administered hemlock to the greatest sage
of antiquity? Why not persecute all the Greeks of the earth,
wherever found, because of the injustice of the Areopagus?
Let uo persecutor of the Jew lay the unction to his soul that
he is justified by the tragedy of Golgotha, for he who persecutes
in the name of religion is a spiritual barbarian, an intellectual
savage. Let this same persecutor not make the mistake of sup-
posing that the Jews are wholly responsible for the persecution
that has been heaped upon them. Before he falls into the fool-
ish blunder of such a supposition let him ponder the testimony
of several gentile experts upon the subject. Let him read
The Scattered Nation, a brilliant lecture on the Jew by the
late Zebulou Vance, of North Carolina, in which occurs this
sentence : " If the Jew is a bad job,, in all honesty we should
contemplate him as the handiwork of our own civilization."
Let him find Shakespearean confirmation of this statement in
The Merchant of Venice, act 3, scene 1. If the Jew baiter
objects that this is the imagination of a poet, let us then point
him to the testimony of a great historian and statesman to prove
to him that the gentile is in great measure responsible for the
causes that have produced Jewish persecution.
In the British House of Commons on April 17, 1833, a bill for
the removal of the disabilities of the Jews was the subject of
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parliamentary discussion. Lord Macaulay took part in the de-
bate and spoke as follows :
The honorable member for Oldham tells us that the Jews are nat-
urally a mean race, a money-getting race ; that they are averse to all
honorable callings ; that they neither sow nor reap ; that they have
neither flocks nor herds ; that usury is the only pursuit for which they
are fit ; that they are destitute of all elevated and amiable sentiments.
Such, sir, has in every age been the reasoning of bigots. They never
fail to plead in justification of persecution the vices which persecution
has engendered. England has been legally a home to the Jews less
than half a century, and we revile them because they do not feel for
England more than a half patriotism.
We treat them as slaves and wonder that they do not regard us as
brethren. We drive them to mean occupations and tlv.^n reproach them
for not embracing honorable professions. We long forbade them to pos-
sess land and we complain that they chiefly occupy themselves in trade.
We shut them out from all the paths of ambition and then we despise
them for taking refuge in avarice.
During many ages we have, in our dealings with them, abused our
immense superiority of force, and then we are disgusted because they
have recourse to that cunning which is the natural and universal de-
fense of the weak against the violence of the strong. But were they
always a mere money -changing, money-getting, money-hoarding race?
Nobody knows better than my honor-able friend, tne member for the
University of Oxford, that there is nothing in their national character
which unfits them for the highest duties of citizens.
He knows that in the infancy of civilization, when our island was as
savage as New Guinea, when letters and art were still unknown to
Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was afterwards
the site of Rome, this contemned people had their fenced cities and
cedar palaces, their splendid temple, their fleets of merchant ships,
their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen and soldiers,
their natural philosophers, their historians, and their poets.
What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming
odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, hi its last
agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished by a
brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the depressed
descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated from the qualities
of their fathers ; if, while excluded from the blessings of law and bowed
down under the yoke of slavery, they have contracted some of the
vices' of outlaws and slaves, shall we consider this is a matter of re-
proach to them? Shall we not rather consider it as a matter of shame
and remorse to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to
them the door of the House of Commons. Let us open to them every
career in which ability and energy can be displayed. Till we have done
this let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the coun-
trymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.
What more eloquent tribute to the Jew and his achievements
could be found in the literature of the earth? And is every
word of it not as true to-day when applied to the Jews of
Rouinania as it was when spoken by Macaulay of the Jews of
England more than 70 years ago?
But, if the persecutor of the Jew is not moved by the elo-
quence of Macaulay or by the satire and sarcasm of Shake-
speare, then let him call the roll of Hebrew great names and
watch the mighty procession as it moves. Abraham among
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patriarchs; Moses among lawgivers; Isfiiah and Jeremiah among
prophets; Solomon and David among kings; Philo, Maimonides,
Spinoza, and Mendelsohn among philosophers; Herschel, Syl-
vester, Jacobi, and Kronecker among mathematicians and as-
tronomers; Josephus, Neanclcr, Graetz, Palgrave, and Geiger
among historians; Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Offenbach. Gold-
mark, Joachim, Rubinstein, and Strauss among musicians;
Sonneuthal, Possart, Rachel, and Bernhardt among actors and
actresses; Disraeli, Gambetta, Castelar, Lasker, Cremieux, and
Bei:jamin among statesmen; Halevi and Heine among poets;
Karl Marx and Samuel Gompers amo'ig labor leaders and po-
litical economists; the Rothschilds, Bleichrorders, Schiffs. and
Seligmaus among financiers; Auerbach and Nordau among nov-
elists; Sir Moses Moutefiore and Baron Hirsch among philan-
thropists.
Civilization may well rush to the rescue of the Jew when
threatened with destruction as a terrified and frantic mother
struggles to save a favorite child, for if the Bible and the
Talmud of the Jews, with all that they teach and mean, should
be stricken from the earth, mankind would relapse with fright-
ful speed into savage and barbaric night.
Liberty may well complain when Jews are persecuted and
oppressed, for Irom the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, the first
great revolutionists of earth, to the times of Gambetta and
Castelar, the fierce and uncompromising advocates of repub-
lican government in France and Spain, freedom's c.-ui^e has
had no nobler, braver champions than the sons of Israel.
Religion and Literature will gladly join hands with Liberty
and Civilization, their dearest children, in protesting against,
mistreatment of the sons of Abraham, for, in every century of
history, with their -hands tied behind them and their hearts bur-
dened to the breaking point, with a bitter load of hatred and
persecution, Jews have yet managed, from the cave of the
prophets and from the manger of the Christ, from the filth of
the Judengasse, and from the darkness of the hovels of the
Ghetto, to plant in the garden of life, in the soil of the soul, the
most beautiful and fragrant flowers that bloom and blossom there.
This race deserves the gratitude and homage, not the hatred
and persecution of mankind. The parliaments and congresses
of enlightened nations, whose peoples are truly grateful, civ-
ilized, and free, will in the future extend to the Jewish race,
the chief benefactors of mankind, a positive protection, and will
guarantee to each and every one of them who is honestly guided
and righteously disposed, a free hand with a full swing in the
struggle of life. [Loud applause.]
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