to which it is sought to confine them. The immigration of these people to the United States-many other countries being closed to them is largely increasing, and is likely to assume proportions which may make it difficult to find homes and employment for them here and to seriously affect the labor market. It is estimated that over one million will be forced from Russia within a few years. The Hebrew is never a beggar; he has always kept the law-life by toil-often under severe and oppressive civil restrictions. It is also true that no race, sect, or class has more fully cared for its own than the Hebrew race. But the sudden transfer of such a multitude under conditions that tend to strip them of their small accumulations and to depress their energies and courage is neither good for them nor for us. "The banishment, whether by direct decree or by not less certain indirect methods, of so large a number of men and women is not a local question. A decree to leave one country is, in the nature of things, an order to enter another-some other. This consideration, as well as the suggestions of humanity, furnishes ample ground for the remonstrances which we have presented to Russia, while our historic friendship for that government can not fail to give the assurance that our representations are those of a sincere well-wisher." President Harrison, annual message, Dec. 9, 1891, For. Rel. 1891, xII. (4) ROUMANIA. $926. "It is reported by telegraph that extensive murders of Jews have taken place in Roumania. Ascertain facts, and if true unofficially urge on Turkish government to put a stop to bloodshed. by cable." Answer Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Morris, min. to Turkey, tel., June 4, 1870, See, as to the persecution of Jews in Roumania, S. Ex. Doc. 75, 42 Cong. See, also, 62 Br. & For. State Papers, 679. "Among the large number of Israelites in this country there are probably few whose sympathies have not been intensely excited by the recent intelligence of the grievous persecutions of their co-religionists in Roumania. This feeling has naturally been augmented by the contrast presented by the position of members of that persuasion here, who are equals with all others before the law, which sternly forbids any oppression on account of religion. Indeed, it may be said that the people of this country universally abhor persecution anywhere for that cause, and deprecate the trials of which, according to your dis patches, the Israelites of Roumania have been victims. "This government heartily sympathizes with the popular instinct upon the subject, and while it has no disposition or intention to give offense by impertinently interfering in the internal affairs of Roumania, it is deemed to be due to humanity to remonstrate against any license or impunity which may have attended the outrages in that country. You are consequently authorized to address a note to the minister of foreign affairs of the principalities, in which you will embody the views herein expressed, and you will also do anything which you discreetly can, with a reasonable prospect of success, toward preventing a recurrence or continuance of the persecution adverted to." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Peixotto, consul at Bucharest, April 10, 1872, For. Rel. 1872, 688. "The Department has received your despatch No. 30, of the 19th ultimo, accompanied by a copy of a remonstrance addressed by the representatives of foreign governments at Bucharest to that of the principalities, against recent maltreatment of Israelites there. "The Department approves your taking part in that remonstrance. Whatever caution and reserve may usually characterize the policy of this government in such matters may be regarded as inexpedient when every guarantee and consideration of justice appear to have been set at defiance in the course pursued with reference to the unfortunate people referred to. You will not be backward in joining any similar protest, or other measure which the foreign representatives there may deem advisable, with a view to avert or mitigate further harshness toward the Israelites residents in, or subjects of, the principalities." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Peixotto, consul at Bucharest, May 13, The remonstrance was signed by the representatives of Austria-Hungary, "It has been suggested to this Department, and the suggestion is concurred in, that if the sympathy which we entertain for the inhumanly persecuted Hebrews, in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, were made known to the government to which you are accredited, it might quicken and encourage the efforts of that gov ernment to discharge its duty as a protecting power, pursuant to the obligations of the treaty between certain European states. Although we are not a party to that instrument, and, as a rule, scrupulously abstain from interfering, directly or indirectly, in the public affairs of that quarter, the grievance adverted to is so enormous, as to impart to it, as it were, a cosmopolitan character, in the redress of which all countries, governments, and creeds are alike interested. "You will consequently communicate on this subject with the minister for foreign affairs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in such way as you may suppose might be most likely to compass the object in view." for Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Jay, min. to Austria-Hungary, July 22, 1872, For. Rel. 1872, 55. The foregoing instruction was suggested by Mr. Peixotto, United States consul at Bucharest. (For. Rel. 1872, 692–693.) It was addressed, as a circular, to the diplomatic representatives of the United States at London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Rome, and Constantinople. The treaty referred to was the convention between Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, concluded at Paris, Aug. 19, 1858, to carry into effect certain stipulations of the treaty of Paris of March 30, 1856, concerning the definitive organization of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, afterwards consolidated into Roumania. The responses made to the instruction indicated that Austria-Hungary would not intervene; that France had made and would make representations; that Germany was disposed to intercede; that Great Britain had made representations; that Italy was noncommittal; and that Russia was opposed to intervention. (For. Rel. 1872, 62, 183, 194, 197, 320, 493. See, also, 678.) "Your dispatch No. 256 of the 31st ultimo, inclosing the reply of His Highness the Prince of Roumania to the letter which the President addressed to him on the 15th of August, 1878, has been received. In connection with the subject of Roumanian recognition, I enclose your consideration a copy of a letter under date of the 30th ultimo, from Mr. Myer S. Isaacs, president, and other officers of the board of delegates on civil and religious rights of the Hebrews, asking that the government of the United States may exert its influence towards securing for the Hebrew subjects and residents in Roumania the equality of civil and religious rights stipulated in Article XLIV. of the treaty of Berlin. "As you are aware, this government has ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the Hebrew race in foreign countries, and has viewed with abhorrence the wrongs to which they have, at various periods, been subjected by the followers of other creeds in the East. This Department is therefore disposed to give favorable consideration to the appeal made by the representatives of a prominent Hebrew organization in this country in behalf of their brethren in Roumania, and while I should not be warranted in making a compliance with their wishes a sine qua non in the establishment of official relations with that country, yet any terms favorable to the interest of this muchinjured people which you may be able to secure in the negotiations now pending with the government of Roumania would be agreeable and gratifying to this Department.” Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Kasson, min. to Austria-Hungary, Nov. 28, 1879, For. Rel. 1880, 35. Oct. 30, 1879, Mr. Myer S. Isaacs, president, and other officers of the board of delegates on civil and religious rights of the Hebrews, addressed a letter to Mr. Evarts, Secretary of State, asking that the United States might not be committed to an act of recognition of Roumanian independence till the condition of civil and religious liberty, expressed in Article XLIV. of the treaty of Berlin, had been complied with by Roumania. Mr. Evarts enclosed a copy of the letter to Mr. Kasson, then United States minister at Vienna, and said that, while a compliance with the writers' wishes could not be made 'a sine qua non in the establishment of official relations" with Roumania, yet "any terms favorable to the interest" of the Hebrew race, which he might be able to secure" in the negotiations now pending with the government of Roumania would be agreeable and gratifying to this Department." Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Kasson, No. 138, Nov. 28, 1879, For. Rel. See supra, § 41, as to the Executive recognition of Prince Charles of "It behooves the state to scrutinize most jealously the character of the immigration from a foreign land, and, if it be obnoxious to objection, to examine the causes which render it so. Should those causes originate in the act of another sovereign state, to the detriment of its neighbors, it is the prerogative of an injured state to point out the evil and to make remonstrance; for with nations, as with individuals, the social law holds good that the right of each is bounded by the right of the neighbor. "The condition of a large class of the inhabitants of Roumania has for many years been a source of grave concern to the United States. I refer to the Roumanian Jews, numbering some 400,000. Long ago, while the Danubian principalities labored under oppressive conditions which only war and a general action of the European powers sufficed to end, the persecution of the indigenous Jews under Turkish rule called forth in 1872 the strong remonstrance of the United States. The treaty of Berlin was hailed as a cure for the wrong, in view of the express provisions of its forty-fourth article, prescribing that ‘in Roumania, 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 public employments, functions, and honors, or the exercise of the various professions and industries in any locality whatsoever,' and stipulating freedom in the exercise of all forms of worship to Roumanian dependents and foreigners alike, as well as guaranteeing that all foreigners in Roumania shall be treated, without distinction of creed, on a footing of perfect equality. "With the lapse of time these just prescriptions have been rendered nugatory in great part, as regards the native Jews, by the legislation and municipal regulations of Roumania. Starting from the arbitrary and controvertible premise that the native Jews of Roumania domiciled there for centuries are aliens not subject to foreign protection,' the ability of the Jew to earn even the scanty means of existence that suffice for a frugal race has been constricted by degrees, until nearly every opportunity to win a livelihood is denied; and until the helpless poverty of the Jew has constrained an exodus of such proportions as to cause general concern. "The political disabilities of the Jews in Roumania, their exclusion from the public service and the learned professions, the limitations of their civil rights and the imposition upon them of exceptional taxes, involving as they do wrongs repugnant to the moral sense of liberal modern peoples, are not so directly in point for my present purpose as the public acts which attack the inherent right of man as a breadwinner in the ways of agriculture and trade. The Jews are prohibited from owning land, or even from cultivating it as common laborers. They are debarred from residing in the rural districts. Many branches of petty trade and manual production are closed to them in the overcrowded cities where they are forced to dwell and engage, against fearful odds, in the desperate struggle for existence. Even as ordinary artisans or hired laborers they may only find employment in the proportion of one 'unprotected alien' to two 'Roumanians' under any one employer. In short, by the cumulative effect of successive restrictions, the Jews of Roumania have become reduced to a state of wretched misery. Shut out from nearly every avenue of self-support which is open to the poor of other lands, and ground down by poverty as the natural result of their discriminatory treatment, they are rendered incapable of lifting themselves from the enforced degradation they endure. Even were the fields of education, of civil employment, and of commerce open to them as to Roumanian citizens,' their penury would prevent their rising by individual effort. Human beings so circumstanced have virtually no alternatives but submissive suffering or flight to some land less unfavorable to inem. Removal under such conditions is not and can |