Dr. Adler On Cassini

DR. ADLER ON CASSINI

Noted Jew Answers the Ambassador's Statements.

Russia's Policy of Suppression.

Jews Are Prevented, He Says, From Living In Agricultural Communities, Then Blamed For Not Being Farmers - Restrictions That Are Placed Upon Them.

Dr. Cyrus Adler of the Smithsonian institution, secretary of the International Jewish association and editor of the Jewish Year Book, In the course of conversation the other day on the massacre of Jews In Russia, reviewed the statements of Count Cassini, the Russian ambassador, in a recent Interview given out by him, which Dr. Adler treated as an authoritative utterance, says a Washington special dispatch to the New York Times. Quoting the declaration of the ambassador that "the unfriendly attitude toward the Jews is due to the fact that they will not work in the field or engage in agriculture," Dr. Adler said:

"In 1890 there were more than 100,000 Jews in Russia engaged in agriculture, the larger portion of them being in southern Russia. It is true that the tendency toward agriculture on the part of the Jews in Russia has been rested, but this has not been since 1891, when the May laws of 1882 put a stop to the migration of the Jewish inhabitants of towns into the villages. It is not generous for a country to prevent Jews from living in an agricultural community and then blame them for not being farmers.

"Count Cassini next charges the Jews in Russia with being bankers and money brokers and taking advantage of the Russian peasants in this way. He will probably not be inclined to assert that any really large percentage of the more than 5,000,000 Jews in Russia are bankers and brokers. Moreover, the ill feeling which he describes as existing between them and the peasants does not apply to this particular incident at issue. Kishineff is a town of about 40,000 inhabitants so that the question of the fury of the villagers would hardly come into the discussion.

"Since the ambassador makes a great point of the unwillingness of the Jews to engage in agricultural pursuits, and since he proclaims the failure of the agricultural colonies, it might be interesting for him to know that in 1889 there were 278 Jewish agricultural colonies in Russia, in which were employed 63,223 people.

"The ambassador states that the Jewish genius is appreciated in Russia and the Jewish artist honored. The May laws, to which reference has been made, restricted the number of Jewish students at the universities and gymnasiums, carrying these restrictions even to private technical schools established by the Jews themselves. Jews were forbidden to be army doctors, the college for veterinary surgeons was closed to them, they were prevented from acting as engineers, excluded from the civil service and only allowed to become members of the legal profession upon a special permit from the minister of Justice.

"One of the reasons mentioned by the ambassador for the hostility on the part of the Russians is the unwillingness of the Jews to assimilate. One single incident indicating where the fault lies may be mentioned. The last figures available to me for the recruits in the Russian army are those for 1896, which show that during that year 15,831 were drafted in the Russian army, yet none of them upon any account is allowed to become a commissioned officer. The Russian Jew has, however, the privilege of being killed in defense of his country. It la thus shown from a hasty examination of the interview of the ambassador that he has in no case given an accurate statement of the causes producing the riot at Kishineff under discussion, and one is led to the painful conclusion that he either is unacquainted with affairs in his own country or that he willfully intended to mislead the American people.

"It might not be without interest for the public to know how the particular massacre was brought about. A few days before the Passover a Russian disappeared in Dubossarl The rumor spread that he had been killed by the Jews for ritual purposes. His body was examined and the conclusion reached that his death could not have been encompassed for the purpose of securing his blood. Notwithstanding, Russian paper published at Kishineff, called the Bessarabyetz, published inflammatory articles against the Jews, and especially one just before the Russian Easter Sunday, and it was upon this day, and largely after leaving the church, that the Russians began to attack the Jews. There seems, therefore, to be a much closer connection between religious hatred and those riots than between them and the economic causes which the ambassador threw out

"It may not be amiss in this connection to say, what is no doubt fresh in the minds of many American citizens, that no foreign Jew may enter the Russian empire for purposes of travel (without subjecting himself to extraordinary restrictions, nor without agreeing to Ieave the country within a definite period. Such a restriction would then apply to a member of congress of the British parliament or of the Italian cabinet, if a Jew. Something other than economic reasons enter here."