American Jewish Committee

I.

REPORT OF THE RUSSIAN-JEWISH RELIEF
COMMITTEE

NOTE.—The following report was issued by the (Russian) Jewish Committee for the Relief of Sufferers from the War, to its members in Russia, in May, 1915, since when conditions in Russia and Poland have steadily grown worse. The authoritativeness of the report is guaranteed by the personnel of the committee, numbering among its membership the foremost Jews of Russia, among whom may be named: Baron A. de Gunzberg, H. Sliosberg, M. Ginsburg and B. Kamenka, chairman of the Executive Committee; M. A. Warschavsky, chairman of the Organizing Committee; and D. Feinberg, L. Bramson and M. Kreinin, Secretaries.

Terrible disaster has befallen the Jewish population of the Pale of Settlement and of Poland. Hunger and thirst and disease and death, and moral sufferings beyond the power of human pen to describe are the lot of hundred thousands of Jewish men, women and children whom the war has driven from their homes, whose houses and hearths have been plundered and destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of our unfortunate brethren are staring in hopeless despair into a future that seems to spell nothing but new tears and sufferings....

According to the data collected by the General Polish Relief Committee, in Poland, alone there are at least 200 towns and about 9,000 townlets and villages that have suffered from the war, the material damage amounting to the gigantic figure of over a milliard roubles ($500,000,000). Besides the terrible losses sustained by the rural population, the whole industrial production, amounting to nearly 800 million roubles a year, has been ruined. About three million townspeople are destitute, and of these three million at least half, i. e., 1,500,000, are Jews. To this number of unfortunate victims we have to add the population of the provinces of Kovno and Grodno in the northwestern region of the Pale, the provinces of Bessarabia, Podolia and Volynia in the southern and southwestern regions. These provinces, bordering upon Germany and Austria, have a Jewish population of at least 500,000 people. Thus the total number of Jews that have, in one way or another, suffered immediately from the conditions of warfare equals over two million people, representing one-third, of the total Jewish population of Russia.

Besides, there are hundred thousands of destitute Jews in Galicia (within Russian occupation) looking forward to relief from this country.

To the utter ruin of their material welfare there are added the unspeakable sufferings that the population of the war area has to endure. In the most favorable of cases the inhabitants of the border places escape from the zone of fire, taking refuge in the inner parts of the country; while a large proportion of those unfortunate Jewish families have remained in the ruined places, facing the phantoms of starvation and disease that gather a rich harvest among them.

Such is the devotion and love of the Jews to their native places, to their own corner, that they prefer to stay in the devastated towns and townlets and villages, if only permitted to do so. And those who have fled from their homes take the first opportunity of returning, heedless of the terrible disasters lying in store for them. A vivid example, typical of many other instances, is given by the Jews in the villages of Vissiltsy, District Busak, province Kielce. Our delegate found the place razed by hostile shells. The population—mostly Jews—for over three months had been huddling together in cellars, where they had taken refuge. They were not to leave their shelter by day; no food was to be cooked, no fire lighted at night—such were the stringent orders from military quarters. A humane military chief permitted them to crawl out of their dingy holes by night and feed out of the soldiers’ cauldron. But soon another chief took his place and the unfortunate Jews were left to starve in their cellars. Those that succumbed were buried in holes that the survivors dug for them in the very same cellars....

Infinitely tragic too is the fate of those Jews who, by rigorous orders of the military authorities at a notice of from three to twenty-four hours are expelled from whole provinces of Poland, their presence near the area of hostilities being considered “a danger to the safety of the Russian arms.” Leaving their homes and belongings, the fruit of years of hard toil, an open prey, the unfortunate exiles by the thousands wend their weary way to towns and villages, thirty or more miles distant, that have not yet come within the decrees of the military authorities. Old men, sick women, clasping little children in their arms, carrying bundles with some scanty belongings that they had snatched up in haste, fill the silent roads with the sound of their moans and sobs. Here an old man breaks down, breathing his last sigh in the middle of the road. There a woman kneels by the roadside staring in despair too deep for tears, at the child that lies dead in her arms.... Many are those who succumb on their way; indescribable are the sufferings of those who survive. Scarcely have they found shelter in a hospitable town or townlet when—alas! too frequently—the prohibition of the authorities is a few days later extended also to these places, and again the Jewish population must start upon its weary pilgrimage....

The total number of refugees from the war zone and of exiles can scarcely be calculated with precision because large numbers have made their way to numerous small townlets throughout the Pale, thus frustrating systematic registration, while, at the same time, the progress of the war tends to swell the host of refugees daily.

Some idea of their number is given by the following approximate figures:

Warsaw	75,000 people		Radom	2,000 people
Vilna	12,000 people		Gussiatin	1,000 people
Kielce	3,000 people		Shakvi (Suvalki)	[56]1,500 people
Konsk	4,000 people		Lomzha	5,000 people
Minsk	2,000 people		Khmelnik
Prassnysh	1,500 people		(Prov. Kielce)	1,500 people

And yet these figures only show the number of refugees who have applied for assistance; hundreds of thousands of others are meanwhile living upon their savings and do not come under the registration. But they also will be at the end of their scant resources one of these days and will join the ranks of the destitute.... Thus, for the above-named places and for many other dozens of towns and townlets the number of refugees within their walls may be doubled without fear of exaggeration.

While numerous towns and townlets have, in generous hospitality, opened their gates to the unfortunate refugees and exiles from the war area, the native Jewish population of these places is itself suffering a severe economic crisis, an acute attack of unemployment, which as a matter of fact, is further intensified by the influx of refugees eager to offer their services, for the smallest remuneration. Thus poverty and misery are growing in these places too, the burden of relief becoming too heavy for the local community to bear.

We have already stated that the industrial life of Poland and in a large part of the Pale has been laid waste as a consequence of the war. Hundreds of factories have been destroyed, hundreds others have had to stop work for want of capital, raw material, fuel and—first and foremost—for want of a market for their articles of production. Many thousands of workmen who were formerly employed by these factories have remained without bread.

Whole branches of trade have been shattered, burying the welfare of the artisans under their ruins. The tailors, weavers, bootmakers, builders, trades, normally sustaining a large percentage of Jews in Poland and in the Pale, are dead; the artisans are left to starve, unless something can be done to save them.

Commercial life also has been laid waste. The merchants—great and small—are ruined; hundreds of merchant’s clerks are thrown out of work and have to apply to public charity.

There is yet another class of sufferers whose wants and needs have to be attended to. About 300,000 Jews are fighting in the ranks of the Russian army. Their mothers, wives and children are receiving but scanty support (about 2 roubles a head) from the Government. About half of them, however, are not getting any Government aid at all, their marriages, although legally solemnized, not having been entered in the official marriage registers. (It is a well known fact that the uneducated Jews of Poland and in the Pale frequently omit to have their marriages registered, failing to realize the full importance of this formality.) Rent and food having become considerably dearer with the outbreak of the war, the soldiers’ families often suffer acute want, which necessitates immediate help lest these people become charges on their community. Many of the soldiers will never return from the battlefields; others will come back as cripples, unfit to support themselves or their families. They will all want support of some kind or another....

It is a boundless sea of troubles that has to be coped with and the full weight of the task is falling upon Jewish shoulders. The gulf dividing the bulk of Russian society from Jewish life and needs and sorrows has not been bridged over by the horrors of war. Though now and again a voice of sympathy is heard from Russian quarters, here and there a Russian hand is extended to feed a starving Jewish child, both moral and material assistance offered by non-Jews to our stricken people is but infinitesimal as compared with the magnitude of the distress.

Nor do we now wish to dwell specifically on Polish-Jewish relations, it being too well known to what extent they have become pointed during the recent months, bearing in their train infinite, yea, unbearable sufferings for our Jewish brethren.

In order to unite the efforts of Jewish society towards the relief of the Jewish sufferers from the war, at the very outbreak of the European conflagration there was formed at Petrograd a General Jewish Relief Committee, with the sanction of the Russian authorities, to act as a center for the collection and distribution of funds to the destitute and needy Jews. At the very beginning of its activity the General Committee issued an appeal to the Jewish public calling it to its duty to the unfortunate sufferers, just as the Jewish soldiers fighting and distinguishing themselves in the ranks of the Russian army are doing their duty by their mother country.

Jewish society at large has shown its usual responsiveness and material support has been forthcoming in as large a measure as individual means and circumstances would permit.

Committees, similar to the General Committee, working on the same lines and in close unity with it have since been organized in prominent centers of the stricken area and outside of it—e. g., in Warsaw, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, and in addition the existing Jewish organizations, such as the Central Committee of the Jewish Colonization Association, the Society for the Promotion of Education in Russia, the Jewish Health Society, the Society for the Promotion of Trade and Industry among Russian Jews, etc., etc., are taking active part in the relief work. Representatives of the various committees and societies working in the war zone and outside it meet periodically in order to discuss new measures and schemes for the alleviation of the terrible distress.

The conditions and extent of distress in towns, townlets and villages of Poland and of the Pale are being ascertained through delegates of the General Relief Committee working actively and energetically towards the organization of various forms of relief in the several districts. In a number of places the local Jewish community has readily joined in the relief work, doing its utmost to meet the demand for food, shelter, clothing; the local philanthropic and communal Jewish institutions thus becoming valuable agencies of the General Relief Committee. On the whole, however—particularly as far as Poland is concerned:—the organization of assistance to the war sufferers is meeting with endless difficulties, due largely to the fact that the suffering population is in such a state of frantic terror, that many Jews do not even dream of applying to anyone for assistance. In many instances the first terror has given way to complete apathy.

Often our representatives have to seek these people out in their hiding places, to rouse them from their lethargy, to exercise moral pressure on the more prominent members of the community, before anything can be done for the sufferers. This attitude of the people becomes intelligible when we consider the conditions that they live in under ordinary circumstances—their poverty, their lack of education, the contempt they are accustomed to meet with on the part of the non-Jewish population.

Similar conditions prevail in the Galician Provinces within Russian occupation:

“I found them huddling together in damp and dark cellars, half-naked, sick and starving”—these are the words of one of our representatives who visited some of the places that had witnessed all the horrors of the war. “They showed complete apathy, appeared to be in a trance of terror. Only a madman—he had become insane because of superhuman suffering—followed me into the street, shrieking for bread. I handed him a coin, but he threw it down and clamored for bread....”

The ever changing conditions of war, that open up new regions for relief work today, and close other districts tomorrow, that throw ever new crowds of sufferers upon public charity—these, to a large extent baffle all our efforts towards relief, destroying today what was organized yesterday. Add to this the peculiar circumstances of Jewish life in Russia, the unfavorable attitude of the authorities towards the Jewish population in the war area—and the difficulties that the organization of relief has to cope with will stand out in their full significance.

Owing to these and other conditions the General Relief Committee up till now has had to concentrate largely on extending “first aid,” this term being here used to comprise feeding and sheltering of the sufferers. Distribution of food (at low rates or free of charge), of fuel, clothes, foot-wear; organization of feeding centres, amelioration of sheltering and housing conditions, of sanitation and hygiene among the war sufferers—are the chief forms relief has taken so far.

At the present moment there are being equipped by the General Relief Committee two so-called “sanitary and feeding expeditions” whose object it will be to offer medical assistance and provide free food to the sufferers in the war area of Poland, irrespective of religious denomination. (The money for this purpose has been received from London with the express condition that no distinction be made between Jews and non-Jews).

Moreover, insofar as this has been possible, efforts have been made to secure work for the refugees and for those who have lost their employment as a result of the war. Thus in Warsaw there has been opened a workshop where refugees are employed in manufacturing various articles of underclothing for distribution among the war sufferers. In Vilna there has been established a workshop for bootmakers who are filling Government orders for army boots. Similar workshops have been organized at Dvinsk, Fastov, etc. Further, there has been opened at Warsaw a labor-bureau which is obtaining work for a considerable number of artisans.

A large number of small merchants and artisans being in urgent need of credit to enable them to re-establish and operate their business and to prevent them from lapsing into utter destitution, credit is being afforded them through the medium of the Jewish cooperative credit societies that are working throughout the Pale of Settlement and Poland. So far, by way of experiment, about 23,000 roubles have been invested in this operation; however, should this useful form of assistance be enlarged, considerable means will be required for the purpose.

At the present moment the General Relief Committee, working in close cooperation with the committees in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, is extending relief to over 300 centres of population situated in the following provinces:

Poland—		Approximate Number of Populated Centers
Province Warsaw (including city of Warsaw where a large number of refugees are concentrated)		46
Province Vilna		18
Province Kovno		40
Province Suvalki		20
Province Liublin (only part of it being accessible to relief work)		25
Province Kielce (only part of it being accessible to relief work)		12
Province Radom		15
Province Grodno (now included in sphere of activity of Moscow Committee)		5
Province Lomzha (now included in sphere of activity of Moscow Committee)		10
Province Plotsk (now included in sphere of activity of Moscow Committee)		8
Province Kholm (now within activity of Kiev and Odessa Committee)		10
Southwestern Province—
Province: Podolia, Bessarabia and Volynia (Border districts)		10
Galicia—
Petrograd Committee (cooperating with Kiev and Odessa Committee)		75
Outside War Area		10
		—
Total		304

Some idea of the expenditures of the General Relief Committee in Petrograd is given by the following figures:

FOR GENERAL RELIEF

According to approximate estimates within the next months the General Jewish Relief Committee, working conjointly with the Jewish Committees in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa, will require the following sums to satisfy the most urgent needs of the organizations now in full operation and yet to be started:

[Expressed in United States currency, the sum of $242,000 to $325,000 per month will be required, according to this early estimate, to satisfy the most urgent needs of the sufferers.]

As already pointed out, the sphere and extent of distress are ever increasing with the progress of the war. The Jewish relief organizations in Russia thus stand before the alarming problem: whence to obtain adequate funds to satisfy the ever growing demand. This problem becomes the more urgent as new forms of relief must be devised as the time goes on. It will not do merely to feed and shelter the stricken population. Many of the sufferers are able and willing to work, if they but had the possibility of doing so.

The attention of the Jewish public will therefore have to be concentrated on a new problem: to help the ruined artisans to rehabilitate themselves, to rebuild their shattered homes and to restore their ruined business by means of cheap credit provided for them. The solution of this problem will, however, require infinitely larger means, which Russian Jewry is unable to raise....

II.

SPEECH OF DEPUTY FRIEDMAN
IN THE DUMA

(August 2, 1915)

(Translated from Petrograd “Retch,” of August 3, 1915, and
published in the New York “Times,” September 23, 1915)

In spite of their oppressed condition, in spite of their status of outlawry, the Jews have risen to the exalted mood of the nation and in the course of the last year have participated in the war in a noteworthy manner. They fell short of the others in no respect. They mobilized their entire enrollment, but, indeed, with this difference, that they have also sent their only sons into the war. The newspapers at the beginning of the war had a remarkable number of Jewish volunteers to record. Gentlemen, those were volunteers who were entitled through their educational qualifications to the rank of officers. They knew that they would not receive this rank; and nevertheless they entered the war.

The Jewish youth, which, as a result of the restrictions as to admission to the high schools of the country, had been forced to study abroad, returned home when war was declared, or entered the armies of the allied nations. A large number of Jewish students fell at the defense of Liege and also at other points on the western front.

The Zionist youths, when they were confronted with the dilemma of accepting Turkish sovereignty or being compelled to emigrate from Palestine, preferred to go to Alexandria and there to join the English army.

The Jews built hospitals, contributed money, and participated in the war in every respect just as did the other citizens. Many Jews received marks of distinction for their conduct at the front.

Before me lies the letter of a Jew who returned from the United States of America:

“I risked my life,” he writes, “and if, nevertheless, I came as far as Archangel, it was only because I loved my fatherland more than my life or that American freedom which I was permitted to enjoy. I became a soldier, and lost my left arm almost to the shoulder. I was brought into the governmental district of Courland. Scarcely had I reached Riga when I met at the station my mother and my relatives, who had just arrived there, and who on that same day were compelled to leave their hearth and home at the order of the military authorities. Tell the gentlemen who sit on the benches of the Right that I do not mourn my lost arm, but that I do mourn deeply the self-respect that was not denied to me in alien lands but is now lost to me.”

Such was the sentiment of the Jews that found expression in numerous appeals and manifestations in the press, and finally also in this House. Surely these sentiments should have been taken into account. One should have a right to assume that the Government would adopt measures for the amelioration of the fate of the Jews who found themselves in the very centre of the war-like occurrences. Likewise, one should have taken into account the sentiments of hundreds of thousands of Jews who shed their blood on the field of battle.

Instead of that, however, we see that from the beginning of the war the measures of reprisals against the Jewish populace were not only not weakened but, on the contrary, made much stronger. Banished were Jewish men and women whose husbands, children, and brothers, were shedding their blood for the fatherland. A wounded soldier named Alexander Roskhov, who had been shot in the eye, came to Charkof for further treatment. On his passport were the words, “To be sent to a settlement.” The private soldier Godlewski, one of whose legs had been amputated, and who found himself at Rostof on the Don for recuperation, they tried to send to his native village in the Government of Kalisch, already under German occupation; and it was only due to the activities of the Rural League that he was permitted to stay. An apothecary’s helper, who likewise had been wounded on the battlefield, was not allowed to remain in Petrograd for his cure, and it was only by virtue of special intercession that he was later allowed to sojourn two months more at Petrograd, with the notice, however, that at the expiration of this period no further extension of his sojourn would be granted.

In a long war lucky events alternate with unlucky ones, and in any case it is naturally useful to have scapegoats in reserve. For this purpose there exists the old firm; the Jew. Scarcely has the enemy reached our frontiers when the rumor is spread that Jewish gold is flowing over to the Germans, and that, too, in aeroplanes, in coffins, and—in the entrails of geese!

Scarcely had the enemy pressed further, than there appeared again beyond dispute the eternal Jew “on the white horse,” perhaps the same one who once rode on the white horse through the city in order to provoke a pogrom. The Jews have set up telephones, have destroyed the telegraph lines. The legend grew, and with the eager support of the powers of Government and the agitation in official circles, assumed ever greater proportions. A series of unprecedented, unheard of, cruel measures was adopted against the Jews. These measures, which were carried out before the eyes of the entire population, suggested to the people and to the army the recognition of the fact that the Jews were treated as enemies by the Government, and that the Jewish population was outside the law.

In the first place these measures consisted of the complete transplanting of the Jewish population from many districts, to the very last man. These compulsory migrations took place in the Kingdom of Poland and in many other territories. All told, about a half million persons have been doomed to a state of beggary and vagabondage. Anyone who has seen with his own eyes how these expulsions take place, will never forget them as long as he lives. The exiling took place within twenty-four hours, sometimes within two days. Women, old men, and children, and sometimes invalids, were banished. Even the feebleminded were taken from the lunatic asylums and the Jews were forced to take these with them. In Mohilnitse, 5,000 persons were expelled within twenty-four hours. Their way led to Warsaw through Kalwayra. Meantime they were forced to travel across fields through the Government of Lublin, and were deprived of the possibility of taking along their inventories. Many were obliged to travel on foot. When they reached Lublin, the Jewish Committee there had provided bread and food for them; but they were not allowed to tarry, and they had to travel on at once.

On the way an accident occurred; a six-year-old child was killed by a fall. The parents were not permitted to bury the child.

I saw also the refugees of the Government of Kovno. Persons who only yesterday were still accounted wealthy were beggars the next day. Among the refugees I met Jewish women and girls, who had worked together with Russian women, had sewed garments with them and collected contributions with them, and who were now forced to encamp on the railway embankment. I saw families of reservists. I saw among the exiles wounded soldiers wearing the Cross of St. George. It is said that Jewish soldiers in marching through the Polish cities were forced to witness the expulsion of their wives and children. The Jews were loaded in freight cars like cattle. The bills of lading were worded as follows: “Four hundred and fifty Jews, en route to ——.”

There were cases in which the Governors refused outright to take in the Jews at all. I myself was in Vilna at the very time when a whole trainload of Jews was stalled for four days in Novo-Wilejsk station. Those were Jews who had been sent from the Government of Kovno to the Government of Poltawa, but the Governor there would not receive them and sent them back to Kovno, whence they were again reshipped to Poltawa. Imagine, at a time when every railway car is needed for the transportation of munitions, when from all sides are heard complaints about the lack of means of transportation, the Government permits itself to do such a thing! At one station there stood 110 freight cars containing Jewish exiles.

Another measure which likewise is unprecedented in the entire history of the civilized world, is the introduction of the so-called system of “Hostages,” and, indeed, hostages were taken not from the enemy, but from the country’s own subjects, its own citizens. Hostages were taken in Radom, Kieltse, Lomscha, Kovno, Riga, Lublin, etc. The hostages were held under the most rigorous rÉgime, and at present there are still under arrest in Poltava Jewish hostages from the Governments of Kieltse and Radom.

Some time ago, in commenting upon the procedure against the Jews, the leader of the Opposition, even before the outbreak of the war, used the expression that we were approaching the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. I now assert that we have already surpassed that era. No Jewish blood was shed in defence of Spain, but ours flowed the moment the Jews helped defend the Fatherland.

Yes, we are beyond the pale of the laws, we are oppressed, we have a hard life, but we know the source of that evil; it comes from those benches (pointing to the boxes of the Ministers). We are being oppressed by the Russian Government, not by the Russian people. Why, then, is it surprising if we wish to unite our destinies, not with that of the Russian Government, but with that of the Russian people? When three years ago there was pending here the Cholm law proposal, did the thought ever occur at the time to the sponsors of the bill that in a short time they would have to scrape and bow before free autonomous Poland? We likewise hope that the time is not distant when we can be citizens of the Russian State with full equality of privileges with the free Russian people.

Before the face of the entire country, before the entire civilized world, I declare that the calumnies against the Jews are the most repulsive lies and chimeras of persons who will have to be responsible for their crimes. [Applause on Left.]

It depends upon you, gentlemen of the Imperial Duma, to speak the word of encouragement, to perform the action that can deliver the Jewish people from the terrible plight in which it is at present, and that can lead them back into the ranks of the Russian citizens who are defending their Fatherland. [Cries of “Right.”]

I do not know if the Imperial Duma will so act, but if it does so act it will be fulfilling an obligation of honor and an act of wise statesmanship that is necessary for the profit and for the greatness of the Fatherland. [Applause on the Left.]

III.

ABSTRACT OF SPEECH OF BARON R. R. ROSEN
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE EMPIRE[59]

August 22 (September 4), 1915

(Translation from “Retch,” No. 231, August 23 (September 5), 1915)

Baron Rosen began with the statement that while the question of supplies for the army and navy was paramount, there was nevertheless another side to it, and that was the question of the domestic policy of the Empire. He reminded his hearers that in May, 1913, he had warned the Council of the Empire of the catastrophe imminent in Europe, but that his statement had been met with ridicule and skepticism. The result of such an attitude is now obvious to all. In this great conflict, it has become clear that neither side will be able to crush the other, as was expected at the outset of this war. But even as it is, this war of extermination of the white race must, in the end, be decided in favor of one of the two parties at conflict. He thought that certain intangible elements entering into the question would be of great importance in the settlement of this war. Putting aside the political, economic and psychological questions that led to this conflict, he thought that the ultimate issue was the decision of the world to battle against the dictum of Germany that “might is greater than right and right is created only by might.” Under the circumstances, it would seem that the sympathies of the entire world should be on the side of the allies. But in reality this is not the case; and for this there are several reasons.

“It is undoubtedly within our power to do away with one of the factors militating against us in the public opinion of neutral countries. In the struggle that we, together with the most civilized nations of Europe, are waging against the Pan-Germanism, imperialism and absolutism, and for right and justice, for the liberty and independence of the weaker nations, we shall achieve the full sympathy of the civilized world only when we shall have put our inner front—if I may use that expression—on a level with the political ideology of our valiant allies; for instance, in the conduct of our polity with reference to the borderlands, and the so-called alien races composing its population.”

After stating that there were two diametrically opposed political systems, one current among the Allies and the other among the Germans, Baron Rosen continued:

“To the maximum injury of the true interests of Russia, we have adopted and have carried out unswervingly the true German system of politics with reference to our borderlands and the so-called foreign races and foreign faiths, a policy which has been made even more perfect by the admixture of medieval religious intolerance.

“It may be retorted that the fate of a campaign is decided by military power and not by the greater or lesser sympathy of neutral countries for the policy of a given state. The German Government does not think so; for otherwise it would not spend countless millions for pan-German propaganda in all the countries of the world, even the most remote. But we, on the other hand, not only fail to oppose anything to this propaganda, but by the course of our domestic policies we place in the hands of this propaganda powerful arguments for arousing against us public opinion of such countries as the United States, the only great neutral power, and of Sweden, our neighbor.

“It is inconceivable that the framers of our policy should fail to realize that the propaganda directed against us, conducted under official auspices and equipped with the amplest resources, will scarcely cause our own interests and the interests of our Allies one-tenth of the harm which is caused to these interests by our attitude towards the Jewish population of Russia and our systematic violation of the legal conscience of the Finnish population—an attitude which smacks of the dark times of medievalism.

“The question now is, why did not the Government find it possible to put an end to this problem decisively and forever, as it has finally, and, alas, with such delay, settled the question of the autonomy of Poland? This may be explained only by the fact that the Government hesitated to break with the traditional policy so dear to the militant nationalism.

“Accordingly the Duma and the Council are in duty bound to come to the aid of the Government in this regard and take upon themselves the initiative of introducing a bill for the abolition of all laws restricting the rights of the Jews and for the abrogation of the law of July 17 (30) concerning Finland. The passage of these measures would undoubtedly lighten the heavy task now confronting the Government in the sphere of international relations and it would be met by our valiant allies with the liveliest satisfaction.

“We must remember that this great European war is not only a struggle of interests, but is also a struggle of ideas and principles. In the battle against German militarism, Russia has placed herself on the side of right and freedom, and for the triumph of the idea for which we are now fighting, it is necessary that in Russia, too, there should be no longer any people without rights or any people oppressed.”