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Title: Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910

Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914

Author: Samuel Joseph

Release Date: February 27, 2011 [eBook #35415]

Language: English

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4

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW

EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Volume LIX] [Number 4

Whole Number 145

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO
THE UNITED STATES

FROM 1881 TO 1910

BY

SAMUEL JOSEPH

1914

To
MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER

PREFACE

In this survey of Jewish immigration to the United States for the past thirty years, my purpose has been to present the main features of a movement of population that is one of the most striking of modern times. The causes of Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe, the course of Jewish immigration to the United States and the most important social qualities of the Jewish immigrants are studied, for the light they throw upon the character of this movement. The method employed in this investigation has been largely statistical and comparative, a fact which is partly due to the kind of material that was available and partly to the point of view that has been taken. Certain economic and social factors, having a close bearing upon the past and present situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe and frequently neglected in the discussion of the various phases of this movement, have been emphasized in the examination into the causes of the emigration of the Jews from Eastern Europe and have been found vital in determining the specific character of the Jewish immigration to this country.

I desire gratefully to acknowledge my deep indebtedness to Mr. A.S. Freidus, head of the Jewish department of the New York Public Library, for his ever-ready assistance in the preparation of this work. Thanks are due as well to Dr. C.C. Williamson, head of the Economics department of the library, and to his able and courteous staff; to Professor Robert E. Chaddock for his many valuable suggestions and[8] aid in the making of the statistical tables and in the reading of the proof; and to Professor Edwin R.A. Seligman for his painstaking reading of the manuscript.

Samuel Joseph.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

STATISTICAL TABLES

CHAPTER IToC

Introduction

Thirty years have elapsed since the Jews began to enter the United States in numbers sufficiently large to make their immigration conspicuous in the general movement to this country. A study of Jewish immigration, in itself and in relation to the general movement, reveals an interesting phase of this historic and many-sided social phenomenon and throws light upon a number of important problems incident to it.

Especially does it become clear that the Jewish immigration, although in part the result of the same forces as have affected the general immigration and the separate groups composing it, differs, nevertheless, in certain marked respects, from the typical immigration. Some of these differences indeed are fundamental and far-reaching in their effects and practically stamp the Jewish immigration as a movement sui generis.

Generally speaking, in the forces which are behind the emigration of the Jews from the countries of the Old World, in the character of their immigration—its movement and its distinguishing qualities—the Jewish immigration strikes a distinctly individual note.

Three European countries—Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania—furnish the vast majority of the Jewish immigrants to the United States.[1] It is to these countries, therefore, that we must turn for light upon the causes of this movement.

[22]Geographically, these countries are closely connected; they form practically the whole of the division of Eastern Europe. Here the Slavonic races so largely predominate that the term Slavonic Europe has been applied to this section of Europe.

Eastern or Slavonic Europe is a social as well as a geographical fact. In racial stratification, economic and social institutions, cultural position and, in part, religious traditions as well, these countries present strong similarities to one another and equally strong differences in most of these respects from the countries of Western Europe.

It is here that the Jews are found concentrated in the greatest numbers. Nearly seven and a half-million Jews—more than half of the Jews of the world—live in these countries. Of this number more than five millions are in Russia, more than two millions in Austria-Hungary, and a quarter of a million in Roumania. The great majority of these are massed on the contiguous borders, in a zone which embraces Poland, and Western Russia, Galicia, and Moldavia. This is the emigration zone. The relative density of the Jews is greatest in these parts. Every seventh man in Poland, every ninth man in Western Russia and in Galicia, and every tenth man in Moldavia, is a Jew. Thus the center of gravity of the Jewish populations is still the former kingdom of Poland, as it was constituted before the partitions at the end of the eighteenth century.

United originally in Poland, the Jews of Eastern Europe still retain the same general characteristics, in spite of the changes that have been brought about by a century of rule under different governments. Speaking a common language, Yiddish, and possessing common religious traditions, as well as similar social and psychological traits, the East-European Jews present on the whole a striking uniformity of character.

[23]Through the centuries they have become deeply rooted in the East-European soil, their economic and social life intimately connected with the economic and social conditions of these countries and their history deeply influenced by the transformations that have been taking place in them for half a century.

As these conditions and transformations furnish the foundation of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and contain the explanation of the situation that has been largely responsible for the recent Jewish emigration to Western Europe and the United States, a rapid review of the economic, social and political conditions of Russia, Roumania and Austria-Hungary will be made.

FOOTNOTES:

PART I

THE CAUSES OF JEWISH EMIGRATION

CHAPTER IIToC

Eastern Europe: Economic, Social and Political Conditions

I. RUSSIA

The difficulty of the average American to understand the character of Russian life, some traits of which have been so vividly brought home to him in recent years, may be attributed to a general idea that a country rubbing elbows as it were with Western civilization for several centuries must perforce itself possess the characteristics of modern civilization. A closer survey of the economic, social and political conditions prevailing in Russia to-day, however, reveals many points of difference from those of the countries of Western Europe, and presents a remarkable contrast with those prevailing in the United States. Russia and the United States, indeed, stand, in Leroy-Beaulieu's phrase, at the two poles of modern civilization. So far apart are they in the character of their economic, social and political structures, in the degree in which they utilize the forms and institutions of modern life, and, in the difference in the mental make-up of their peoples, that there exist few, if any, points of real contact.

Up to the middle of the 19th century, Russia was, in nearly all respects, a medieval state. She was a society, which, in the words of Kovalevsky, "preserved still of feudalism, not its political spirit but its economic structure, serfdom, monopoly and the privileges of the nobility, its immunities in the matter of taxes, its exclusive right to [28]landed property, and its seignorial rights."[2] Her modern era dates from the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, when she became, at least in form, a European state. But, though the Russia of our day has witnessed great transformations in the direction of modernization, she still retains many of the conditions and much of the spirit of her medieval past.

A rapid review of the economic, social and political conditions of Russia will serve to make clearer this situation, which has an important bearing upon the exceptional position, legal, economic, social, of the Jews in the Empire, and upon the fateful events of their history for a third of a century.

The most striking fact in the economic life of present-day Russia is that it is overwhelmingly agricultural. More than three-fourths of her population are engaged in some form of agricultural labor. The vast majority are peasants living in villages. Towns are relatively few and sparsely populated. Agricultural products constitute 85 per cent of the annual exports. What a contrast does this agricultural state, this "peasant empire", present to the industrially and commercially developed countries of Western Europe and the United States!

The Russian peasant still practices a primitive system of agriculture. His method of extensive cultivation, the three-field system in vogue, his primitive implements, his domestic economy of half a century ago, with its home production for home consumption, which is still maintained in many parts of Russia to this day—all these present conditions not far removed from those of the middle ages of Western Europe.[3]

[29]The existence to our day of this almost primitive economy finds its explanation in the fact that serfdom existed in Russia, in all its unmitigated cruelty, until comparatively recent times. Its abolition through the Emancipation Act of Alexander II—antedating our own Emancipation Proclamation by a few years—struck off the chains that bound twenty millions of peasants to the soil. The emancipation, however, was not complete. The land the peasants received was insufficient for their needs. Other conditions co-operated in the course of time with this primary one, to create a situation of chronic starvation for the great mass of the Russian peasants. Forced by the government to pay heavy taxes, in addition to redemption dues for the land, which they paid until recently, and receiving little help from either government or the nobility for the improvement of their position, they are virtually exploited almost as completely as before the emancipation.

Thus, though freed in person, the peasants are to a great extent bound by economic ties to their former masters, the nobles. These two social-economic classes maintain towards each other practically the same relative position held by them before the emancipation. The manor still controls the hut.

The former servile relations have persisted psychologically as well. The Russian peasant is still largely a serf in his mentality, in his feeling of dependence, in his inertia and lack of individual enterprise, and, above all, in the smallness of his demands upon life.[4] This fact permeates, as it serves to explain, many aspects of contemporary Russian life.

The industrial and commercial stage of Russian economy began with the emancipation, which set free a great supply [30]of labor. The changes that have taken place have nevertheless not obliterated many of the landmarks of the feudal, pre-reformation period. The economic activities of the last half-century present a curious juxtaposition of old and new, medieval and modern. Cottage and village industries but little removed from the natural economy of the earlier period exist by the side of great factories and industrial establishments employing thousands of workmen. Fairs and markets still play a large part in supplying the needs of the peasants, rapidly as they are being supplanted by the commercial activities of the towns. The industrial laborers, recruited mainly from the country, retain largely their peasant interests, relations and characteristics. The payment of wages in kind, which is still in vogue in many parts, and the right of inflicting corporal punishment retained by the employers, give evidence of the strong impress of the servile conditions of the past.

Vast changes have nevertheless taken place since the emancipation. Capitalism has made rapid, if uneven, progress. Under the fostering care of the government, industry and commerce have made immense strides. The factory system has taken firm root and has been developing a specialized class of industrial laborers. Great industrial centers have sprung up; towns have grown rapidly. The middle class, hitherto insignificant, has increased in number, wealth and influence. Among the peasants as well, freedom has given birth to the spirit of individualism. The differentiation of the peasantry into wealthier peasants and landless agricultural laborers, the great mass of the peasantry occupying the middle ground, and the gradual dissolution of the two great forces of Russian agricultural life—the patriarchal family and the village community—have been the most important results.

Russia is clearly in a state of transition from the [31]agricultural or medieval to the industrial and commercial or modern economic life. This transformation of the economic structure is being effected under great difficulties and the strong opposition of the ruling classes, whose privileges are threatened by the new order of things.

The Russian social and political order reflects the medieval background which formed the setting for her entrance upon the modern stage. The class distinctions, naturally obtaining, are hardened into rigidity by the law, which divides Russian society into a hierarchy of five classes or orders—the nobles, the clergy, the merchants, the townsmen and the peasants—each with separate legal status, rights and obligations.

The individual is thus not an independent unit, as in the legal codes of Western Europe or the United States. Accompanying the legal stratification there is an exceedingly strong, almost caste-like, sense of difference between the members of the different groups.

This emphasis on the person is characteristic of the medieval social order. In Russia it finds additional expression in the control of individual movement by means of the passport, without which document a Russian may be said to have no legal existence.

Even more striking is the position of the Russian Church, as well as the religio-national conception which dominates the Russian mind and according to which orthodoxy and nationality are regarded as one. The Russian Orthodox is the only true Russian; all others are foreigners. In the alliance of church and state—which in Russia reaches a degree of strength not attained in any other European state—in the complete control exercised by the Church over the lives of the faithful and the clergy, in secular as in religious matters, in its intolerant attitude towards other creeds and its unceasing attempts to suppress them—it presents [32]characteristics strongly reminiscent of the position of the medieval church in Western Europe.

The one great political fact of Russia has been the autocracy. The degree of control which the autocratic Czars exercised unopposed over their subjects marks an important difference between the political development of Russia and that of the countries of Western Europe. At an early period the Czars had transformed the nobility into a body of state officials, thus at a blow depriving them of any real powers, apart from the will of the Crown, and making them serve the interests of the state. In this way the nobles, or the landed aristocracy, became the main source from which the members of the bureaucracy were recruited. The lack of a middle class of any real size and influence, which could play a part in the demand for political rights, explains in a measure the strength of the autocratic powers.[5] The autocracy in turn has been largely dependent upon its servant, the bureaucracy. To such an extent has the Russian government been the expression of the will and interests of this all-powerful body as to justify Leroy-Beaulieu's designation of Russia as the "Bureaucratic State".

Thus the autocracy, the nobility-bureaucracy and the church have been the dominating forces in the economic, social and political life of Russia.

In the light of this analysis, the political struggles that have been so conspicuous a feature of Russian life during the last half of the 19th century become an accompaniment as well as an expression of the progressive development of Russia towards modern economic, social and political institutions.

Russian liberalism,—largely revolutionary because of the denial of even elementary rights, such as the freedom of person, of speech, of the press and of meeting,—rights [33]which were secured to Englishmen through the Magna Charta—has had the serious task not only of securing these rights but at the same time of creating in Russia the conditions of modern civilization. For the twenty years in which its spirit ruled, during the reign of Alexander II, the reforms begun under its influence amounted to a veritable revolution. The economic, social, political and juridical reforms of this epoch generated new forces and began the modernization of Russia. These reforms encountered the formidable opposition of the nobility and the church and finally of the autocracy, when the latter felt that its position was gradually being undermined, especially by the demand for a constitution. With the assassination of Alexander II, the liberal era was brought to a close, and a reaction was ushered in which has lasted to our day.

The classes that came into power with Alexander III and Pobedonostseff were, from their economic interests, social outlook and political ideals, essentially medieval and may properly be termed the feudal party. Guided by its economic interests—which had been seriously threatened by the emancipation—and swayed by the Slavophilistic philosophy,[6] this party sought to nullify as far as possible the reforms of the epoch of emancipation and to carry through a many-sided program for putting the order of things backward to the medieval, pre-reform days. Autocracy, Greek Orthodoxy and Russian Nationalism—the famous Slavophilistic trinity—were glorified, the first two as peculiarly national institutions, the policy of russification and the repression of non-orthodox faiths by force were proclaimed as vital to the social health of Russia, the blind ignorance and illiteracy of the peasants were extolled as a virtue and the control over them by the nobility was strengthened in [34]many ways. Freedom of every form was condemned as an aping of the "rotten" civilization of the West with its decaying institutions, and as false to the true Russian national, historical development.

During this period of reaction, however, the liberal movement was kept alive, largely as revolutionary propaganda. The earlier movement had been directed by the educated classes, the "Intelligenzia" of Russia. Lately, with the growth of the middle class and a population of industrial workers in the towns and the factories, and a wealthier class of peasants, the cry for reform has become more insistent, and only recently partly successful in results.

Summarizing his impressions of Russian life and institutions obtained while serving as Ambassador to Russia, Andrew D. White remarked: "During two centuries Russia has been coming slowly out of the middle ages—indeed, out of perhaps the most cruel phases of medieval life."[7] One of the phases of this process has been the bitter struggle between the feudal and the modern forces that has occupied Russia for the last third of a century.

II. ROUMANIA

In Roumania,[8] in spite of a liberal constitution modeled upon the Belgian, granting all rights enjoyed by citizens of a free state, the underlying economic, social and, in a measure, political conditions point to a state of things little removed from the medieval forms of life. The main social-economic classes are the large landed proprietors, composed chiefly of the old nobility or boyars, and the peasants, who were formerly serfs. In the hands of the former are [35]concentrated the greater part of the land. Five thousand large landed proprietors together owned nearly half of the cultivable land. Nearly a million of peasants, on the other hand, comprising with their dependents a great majority of the population, together owned a little over two-fifths of the cultivable land.[9]

This situation is an inheritance from the servile system which existed in Roumania until 1864, when it was legally abolished. The freedom granted to the peasants was, however, more formal than real. The land given them being insufficient for their needs, and pasture land especially having been denied them, they were as a rule compelled to lease land or pasture right from their former masters at ruinous rates, often paying by labor on their former masters' estates. Thus the essential feudal services were in the main continued, especially as the lease and labor contracts, generally drawn up in the interests of the landed proprietor, were often usurious and extremely oppressive.[10] In twenty years there was little change from the previous condition of serfdom, so that a law was necessary, in 1882, to permit the peasants to work at least two days during the week on their own land.

Since this period there has been practically little change in this essentially feudal relation of the peasantry to the landed proprietors. As the owners of the great estates are a ruling power in the political life of the country, the greater part of peasants being disqualified from voting through property and educational requirements, the former have been enabled to keep the peasantry in this condition [36]of semi-servitude. The result is a state of ignorance, misery and degradation on the part of the peasantry that is difficult to parallel in another European country. That the peasants are not entirely passive under their wrongs is shown in the repeated uprisings against their masters and in the two great social revolutions of 1888 and 1907, both of which were put down by military force.

Roumania's advent into industry and commerce may be dated from the eighties of the last century, and was initiated by the industrial law of 1887, which sought to create a national industry by means of subsidies, land grants and other favors to undertakers of large industrial enterprises. Since then the growth has been sufficiently rapid to place Roumania as the industrial and commercial leader of the Balkan States. Relatively, however, it is still very backward. Only 14 per cent of the population is urban. The industrial laborers are estimated at no more than 40,000. There are only a few cities. Only the largest—Bucarest—has above 100,000 inhabitants, three other cities have between fifty and seventy-five thousand inhabitants. The chief industrial establishments, such as saw mills, flour mills and distilleries, are concerned mainly in the working up of the raw materials produced in the country. Nevertheless, industrial progress has made for the growth of a small but influential middle class, which divides the control of affairs with the large landed proprietors. Its influence can be traced in the electoral law, which gives the urban classes, constituting the backbone of the liberal party, a majority in the Chamber of Deputies.

III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

Though relatively far advanced along the road of modern civilization, Austria-Hungary, through its prevailing mode of economic and social life, and through its large [37]Slavic populations, belongs rather to Eastern than to Western Europe. Historically, it began its modern career about the same time as Russia, when it abolished, in 1867, the feudal services and dues, survivals of the previous servile institutions. Nevertheless, in its large agricultural population, in the primitive system of cultivation generally in vogue, in the scattered character of the peasant holdings, in the strong contrast between the great landed estates or Latifundia, held chiefly by the nobility, and the small, even minute, estates of the majority of the peasant proprietors, and in the natural economy prevailing in many parts of the Dual Monarchy and constituting the main foundation upon which the life of the peasants rests—in all these characteristics, is reflected the almost medieval economy which existed in the empire before 1848 and which is not yet entirely outgrown.

Industrially and commercially, Austria, far more than Hungary, has indeed made really remarkable progress. Yet in this respect the greatest contrast exists between the various Austrian provinces. Certain of these—Galicia and Bukowina, for instance—are not only the most backward in these pursuits, but their agricultural population is even relatively increasing. Even in the industrially advanced provinces, such as Lower Austria and Bohemia, the transitional nature of the industrial life is evident in the unspecialized character of a larger portion of the town laborers, many of whom are peasants temporarily employed in factories and mines.

The Austrian organization of industry and commerce is a modernized version of the guilds and crafts of medieval Western Europe. How these medieval economic forms with their underlying psychologic forces still live and dominate Austria, especially its Slavic nationalities, is shown by the revival in 1859 of the Austrian guilds, the direct [38]descendants of the medieval Innungen. These were, in 1883, developed in the form of Zwangsgenossenschaften or compulsory trade-guilds, which, in their regulations concerning the Befähigungsnachweis or certificate of capacity, the three orders of master, journeyman and apprentice, the principle of compulsory entrance into the local guild, the workman's passport or Arbeitsbuch, unite the methods of regulating and restricting industry and trade characteristic of the Middle Ages, with modern methods of combination, arbitration, and assistance of members. By the side of these compulsory guilds are to be found the Gewerkschaften, or the modern voluntary trade-unions.

The transition to modern economic and social conditions is, nevertheless, well advanced. This is seen in a decrease of the agricultural classes and an increase of the industrial and commercial classes in the thirty years from 1869 to 1900. Another sign is the fairly strong differentiation of the economic-social classes, in both the agricultural and the industrial groups, which has advanced quite rapidly. The middle class, while neither as large nor as influential as in the countries of Western Europe, has played an important rôle towards hastening this transition.

Politically, the Dual Monarchy occupies a middle ground between absolutist Russia and constitutional England. The court, the nobility and the Roman Church with its strong aristocratic leanings, represent the dominant power in Austria. The economic and social changes of the transitional period have been accompanied by politico-economic struggles which have played a vital part and have cut through and across the racial, national and religious conflicts of this much-distracted conglomeration of peoples. Amid the confusion of parties, with their complexity of programs, may be distinguished the German-Austrian liberals, representatives of the middle class or industrialists, whose historic [39]mission was to create a modern state in Austria, and who carried out, in large measure, their program of constitutionalism, economic freedom and the secular state. Against them were arrayed the powerful forces of the agrarian party or the landed aristocracy—the upholders of the feudal economic-social order of privilege and class distinction, the clericals—the upholders of the idea of the Christian State—and the representatives of the lower middle class, composed chiefly of petty artisans and traders, whose ideal was the medieval industrial organization, largely co-operative and regulated, as opposed to the individualistic and competitive system of the modern era, with its great concentration of wealth, capital and power in the hands of the middle class. That the present structure of Austria is so much of a compromise and crosspatch between modern and medieval economic, social and political forms, and contains so much that is essentially incongruous, is due largely to the successful struggle which the chief parties of the medieval order—the feudal-clericals—the party of the upper classes, and the Christian Socialists—the party of the lower classes—have waged against the growing constitutionalization, industrialization and secularization of Austria—in short, against the transformation of Austria into a modern state.

It is in Galicia that the conditions obtaining in Russia are largely duplicated. Geographically, racially and socially, Galicia is a part of Russia. Galicia is a preponderatingly agricultural land and possesses the densest agricultural population in Europe. Modern industry is relatively little developed, its place being held to a great extent by the domestic system of industry. The contrast between the large and small estates is sharper here than perhaps in any other section of Europe. The Polish nobility, in whose hands the large estates are mostly found, are the ruling social and political, as well as economic, power in Galicia. [40]The autonomous Galician Diet is practically the instrument of their interests. A middle class has been gradually rising and contesting their supremacy. The peasantry is one of the most illiterate, degraded, and oppressed in all Europe.

IV. SUMMARY

This brief review of the economic and social conditions in Russia, Roumania and Austria-Hungary has shown that, broadly speaking, these countries present points of similarity in their situation and their recent movement. In all of these countries, economic and social conditions closely resembling those that obtained in the countries of Western Europe several centuries ago were found until comparatively recent times. The abolition of serfdom in Russia and in Roumania, and of feudal dues in Austria-Hungary, paved the way for the entrance of these states into modern European civilization. The succeeding period has been marked by a rapid transition from the old domestic economy to a modern exchange economy, through the growth of industry and commerce. The medieval conditions of the earlier period have nevertheless not been entirely obliterated. They exist, in Russia, in the privileges and powers of the nobility, in the inferior status and oppressed condition of the peasantry, in the strong class distinctions, in the restraints upon economic activity and upon movement. Though in smaller measure, the same conditions are found in Austria-Hungary, especially in Galicia. In Roumania, so far as the peasantry is concerned, the pre-emancipation conditions remain practically, if not legally, in force. Owing to the increase of population, the minute subdivision of the estates of the peasants, the backwardness of their agricultural methods, and their over-taxation, the position of the peasants has been rendered precarious. Revolutionary uprisings directed chiefly against [41]the landed proprietors have been a recurring expression of their discontent.

An important consequence has been the rapid evolution of the industrial and commercial, or the middle class. The growth of the middle class has been accompanied by a struggle in each of these countries between the privileged classes of the feudal state and the middle class, including in the latter the educated classes and the industrial workers of the towns.

It is in this middle class that the Jews are chiefly to be found. Owing to this fact, as well as through the action of historical conditions, the Jews occupy an exceptional position in the economic activities and the social life of each of the countries of Eastern Europe. A survey of their economic and social position in each country will serve to clarify the last thirty years of their history in Eastern Europe and to give some of the causes underlying their vast movement from these countries to Western Europe and particularly to the United States.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IIIToC

The Jews in Eastern Europe: Economic and Social Position

The economic and social life of the Jews in Eastern Europe has moved along the familiar channels of commerce, industry and urban life characteristic of the Jews in all countries during the middle ages. An examination of the economic position and function and the principal social characteristics of the Jews reveals the fact that they play an important part in each of these countries. This we shall see by tracing their principal economic activities and some significant phases of their social life.

I. RUSSIA

A review of the occupations of the Jews in the Russian Empire shows that those engaged in the manufacturing and mechanical pursuits constituted 39 per cent of the total Jewish population gainfully employed. This was the largest occupational group. Commerce engaged 32 per cent. Together the industrial and commercial classes comprised seven-tenths of all Jews engaged in gainful occupations. On the other hand, only 3 per cent were employed in agricultural pursuits.

It is in comparison with the occupations of the non-Jewish population in Russia that the significance of this distribution becomes evident. Of the non-Jews in Russia, agricultural pursuits engaged 61 per cent, manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 15 per cent, and commerce only 3 per cent. The non-Jews engaged in industry and [43]commerce thus constituted somewhat less than one-fifth of the total non-Jewish population gainfully employed. More than twice as many Jews, relatively, as non-Jews were engaged in industrial pursuits and practically twelve times as many Jews as non-Jews in commercial pursuits.[11]

This difference of occupational grouping makes itself felt in the participation of the Jews in the principal occupational groups. Of the total Russian population gainfully employed, the Jews were 5 per cent. They constituted, however, 11 per cent of all engaged in industry, and 36 per cent of all engaged in commerce.[12] Thus, in the Russian Empire the Jews formed a considerable proportion of the commercial classes and a large proportion of those engaged in industrial pursuits.

Properly to gauge the economic function of the Jews in Russia, comparison should be made not with the population of the Russian Empire but rather with that of the Pale of Settlement, where nearly 95 per cent of the Jews live. There the contrast was even stronger. Of the Jews, 70 per cent were employed in industry and commerce as compared with 13 per cent on the part of the non-Jews. Though the Jews are only 12 per cent of the total working population of the Pale, they formed 32 per cent of all engaged in industry and 77 per cent of all engaged in commerce.[13] This clearly shows that the Jews constituted the commercial classes and a significant part of the industrial classes of the Pale. In other words, what is true of the place of the Jews in the occupational distribution of all Russia is still more true of the Pale. The Jews are [44]preponderatingly industrial and commercial, in striking contrast to the rest of the population, which is preponderatingly agricultural.

What is the nature of their activities and their function in the industrial and commercial life of Russia? The great majority of Jews engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits are artisans. In the present relatively backward stage of Russian industrial development these are chiefly handicraftsmen, who mainly supply the needs of local consumers. These artisans, who number more than half a million,[14] support nearly one-third of the Jewish population.

The most important industry is the manufacture of clothing and wearing apparel, which employed more than one-third of the Jewish working population and supported more than one-seventh of the total Jewish population. It is in effect a Jewish industry: practically all the tailors and shoemakers in the Pale are Jews. They predominate as well in the preparation of food products, in the building trades, in the metal, wood and tobacco industries.[15] Hampered by legal restrictions, lack of technical education, and lack of capital, they nevertheless have become an essential part of the economic life of the Pale, supplying the needs for industrial products not only of the Jews but of the entire Pale, and, especially of the peasants.

In the development of large-scale industry, the Jews have taken a smaller part than the Germans or foreigners, owing to the conditions above referred to. Yet, in 1898, in the fifteen provinces of the Pale, more than one-third of the factories were in Jewish hands.[16] Jewish factory [45]workers were estimated at one-fifth of all the factory workers in the Pale.[17]

Trade and commerce engage Jews chiefly, supporting nearly two-thirds of the total Jewish population.[18]

As Russia is essentially an agricultural country, trade in agricultural products, such as grain, cattle, furs and hides, etc., is of prime importance. Nearly half of the Jewish merchants in the Pale were dealers in these products. Of the dealers in the principal grain products, Jews formed an overwhelming majority. Relatively twenty-six times as many Jews as Russians, in the Pale, were grain dealers.[19] Four-fifths of all the dealers in furs and hides, three-fourths of all the dealers in cattle were Jews.[20] The Jewish traders are agents in the movement of the crops, in the various stages from the direct purchase of the grain from the peasant to its export for the world markets. In view of the lack of development in Russia of modern methods for marketing the agricultural produce, and in view of the fact that the Russian peasant is ignorant of the most elementary principles of trade, the Jewish merchants, with their knowledge of the market and their skillful use of credit, play a vital part in the organization of the Russian grain trade, and control this trade in the Pale and on the Black Sea.

In other branches of commerce, the Jews are almost as strongly represented. As sellers to the village and city populations, they carry on the largest part of the retail trade of the Pale. The great majority of the merchants, however, are petty traders or store-keepers. The wholesale merchants enrolled in the guilds, on the other hand, constitute a large proportion of all the guild merchants.

[46]Thus, through their activity as petty artisans, traders and merchants, the Jews preponderate in the industrial and commercial life of the Pale. As manufacturers and wholesale merchants they play a less important but nevertheless significant part in all Russia.

In general the Jewish merchants are quite strongly distinguished from the Russian merchants in their employment of the competitive principles and methods common to the commercial operations of Western Europe and the United States. Their principle of a quick turnover with a small profit, and their use of credit, are not in vogue among the Russian merchants who operate on the basis of customary prices and long credits.

In their social characteristics as well, the Jews are strongly set off from the rest of the population. The Jews are essentially urban, the non-Jews are overwhelmingly rural. In all Russia, 51 per cent of the Jews lived in incorporated towns, as against only 12 per cent of the non-Jews. Though the Jews constituted 4 per cent of the total population, they constituted 16 per cent of the town population.[21] In the Pale, where they constituted 12 per cent of the total population, they comprised 38 per cent of the urban population.[22] Their concentration in the cities of the Pale is striking. In nine out of the fifteen provinces of the Pale, they constituted a majority of the urban population. In twenty-four towns, they were from two-fifths to seven-tenths of the population. In the important cities of Warsaw and Odessa they were one-third of the population.[23]

The urban and occupational distribution of the Jews places them higher than the great majority of the non-Jews [47]among the social classes into which the Russian people are legally divided. Townsmen are of a higher rank than peasants. Nearly 95 per cent of the Jews belong to this category and only 7 per cent of the Russians. The vast majority of the Russians—86 per cent—are peasants. Only 4 per cent of the Jews are of this class. Again, 2 per cent of the Jews are merchants, as against only .2 per cent of the Russians. Thus in these two classes of townsmen and merchants there were twelve times as many Jews, relatively, as Russians.[24]

The higher cultural standing of the Jews may be partly measured by the relative literacy of the Jews and of the total population. According to the census of 1897, in the Jewish population ten years of age or over there were relatively one and a half times as many literates as in the total population of the corresponding group. In each of the age-groups there were relatively more literates among the Jews than among the total population. In the highest age-group, that of sixty years of age and over, the Jews had relatively more literates than any of the age-groups of the total population, indicating that the educational standing of the Jews half a century ago was higher than that of the Russian population of to-day.[25]

The fact that the Jews dwell chiefly in towns has considerably to do with their higher educational standing. If the statistics of relative literacy of the Jewish and the non-Jewish population in the towns were obtainable, the chances are strong that they would not show a much higher rate of literacy on the part of the Jews. At the same time the difficulties that are put in the way of Jewish attendance in the [48]elementary schools must be regarded as a considerable factor in explaining this possibility.[26]

The participation of the Jews in the liberal professions, which implies the possession of a higher education, is also very large, even with the great obstacles that have been placed in the way of the entrance of the Jews into the universities, into the liberal professions and the state service. Relatively seven times as many Jews as Russians are found in the liberal professions.[27]

II. ROUMANIA

The economic activities of the Jews in Roumanian industry and commerce closely resemble those of their Russian brethren.[28] The large part taken by the Jews in Roumanian commerce may be gathered from the fact that, in 1904, one-fifth of those who paid the merchant-license tax were Jews. Equally great is their participation in large-scale industry, where, as an inquiry in 1901-2 shows, nearly one-fifth of the large industries were conducted by Jewish entrepreneurs. In some of the most important ones—the glass industry, the clothing industry, the wood and furniture industry and the textile industry—from one-fourth to one-half of the total number of entrepreneurs were Jews.

As in the case of Russia, it is in Klein-industrie or handicraft, which is more nearly characteristic of the [49]present form of Roumanian industrial economy, that the Jews are mostly concentrated and where they participate so largely as to constitute "the backbone of the young Roumanian industry".

The latest inquiry—that of 1908—shows that the Jews were one-fifth of all inscribed in the corporations as artisans. They formed more than one-fourth of the master-workmen and nearly one-sixth of the laborers. In the five principal industries Jewish master-workmen formed from nearly one-tenth to nearly one-half. In the following trades Jews formed between one-fourth and nearly two-thirds of the entire workers: watchmakers, tinners, modistes, tailors, glazers, housepainters, coopers and bookbinders. In all the garment industries nearly one-third of the workers were Jews. The principal trades of the Jews, in which two-thirds of the Jewish industrial workers were found, were, in order: tailors, shoemakers, tinners, joiners and planers, and bakers.[29] The Jews in Roumania were thus more strongly concentrated in industry and less in commerce than their Russian brethren.

As masters and workmen they play a part in Roumanian large-scale and small-scale industry nearly four and a half times as large as their proportion in the total population. Their participation in commerce is equally large.

The Jews in Roumania present the same social characteristics, relatively to the surrounding population, as the Jews in Russia. The Jews were overwhelmingly concentrated in the towns. 80 per cent of the Jews dwelt in the towns; 84 per cent of the non-Jews dwelt in the villages. Of the population in the department-capitals the Jews constituted one-fifth. Of the population of the other towns they constituted more than one-tenth. In some of the [50]department-capitals, notably Jassi, the Jews were a majority of the total population. In six other department-capitals they constituted from one-fourth to one-half of the population.

That the Jews are of a higher educational standing than the Roumanians is seen in the fact that they possessed a higher rate of literacy, having relatively twice as many literates among the males and nearly twice as many among the females. Confining this comparison to the cities, however, we find that the Jews had a higher literacy only in the age-groups above fifteen. The Roumanian urban population between the ages of seven and fifteen showed a higher literacy than the corresponding group among the Jews, indicating the influence of the special restrictions on Jewish education which will later be discussed.

While the higher literacy of the Jews in Russia and Roumania is due partly to residence in towns, the restrictions on the Jewish participation in the educational facilities afforded by the Russian and Roumanian governments have been so great as to make the higher educational standing of the Jews practically a product of their own efforts.

III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

The economic position of the Jews in Austria-Hungary presents a close parallel to that in Russia. The largest proportion of the Jews—44 per cent—were engaged in commerce and in trade, and 29 per cent were engaged in industry.[30] A significantly large proportion were engaged in public service and in the liberal professions. A surprisingly large proportion—11 per cent—were engaged in agriculture and allied occupations. Thus, a little over seven-tenths of the Jews were concentrated in commerce and trade, and industry.

[51]The contrast between the Jewish and the non-Jewish population is most striking in the relative proportions of those engaged in agriculture, and commerce and trade. 54 per cent of the non-Jews were engaged in agriculture, or five times as many, relatively, as Jews. On the other hand, only 8 per cent were engaged in commerce and trade, or relatively one-fifth as many as Jews.

Of the total population engaged in commerce and trade the Jews constituted 21 per cent. They constituted, on the other hand, 5 per cent of all engaged in industry. Thus, the Jews in Austria-Hungary were concentrated in commerce and trade to a much larger extent than in all other occupations, constituting an important part of all engaged in this branch.

It is in Galicia, however, where conditions in general most resemble those in Russia, that the Jews are seen to occupy relatively the same position as their brethren in Russia. In Galicia, 29 per cent of the Jews were engaged in commerce and trade, and 26 per cent in industry. Together the Jews engaged in these two branches constituted more than half of the total Jewish working population.

By far the largest part of the non-Jewish population—86 per cent—were engaged in agriculture. In industry only 4 per cent of the non-Jews were engaged and in commerce only 1 per cent. Thus the Jews were largely concentrated in commerce and industry, the non-Jews preponderatingly concentrated in agriculture.

As compared with the Jews in Russia and Roumania the Galician Jews engaged in agriculture show a surprising proportion—18 per cent being so engaged—a larger proportion than in any other country.

The Jews in East Galicia were 13 per cent of the total [52]population.[31] Of all the "independents" engaged in commerce in East Galicia 92 per cent were Jews; of all the "independents" engaged in industry 48 per cent were Jews. The Jews in West Galicia were 8 per cent of the total population. Of all "independents" engaged in commerce they constituted 82 per cent; of all "independents" engaged in industry they constituted 33 per cent. This gives the crux of the economic position of the Jews in Galicia. They play an overwhelming part in its commercial life, practically monopolizing it. In industry their participation is very significant.

Socially the Jews in Austria-Hungary and especially in Galicia, present characteristics similar to those in Russia and Roumania. In the forty cities in Galicia with a population above five thousand there dwelt 34 per cent of the total Jewish population. Only 7 per cent of the non-Jewish population lived in these cities. Thus, relatively five times as many Jews as non-Jews were urban. Though the Jews in Galicia were 11 per cent of the total population, they constituted 37 per cent of the population in these cities, thus being represented in the cities by more than three times their proportion in the total population. In nine of these towns they formed a majority of the population. They were more than one-third in twelve, and more than one-fourth in eleven other towns. In the two chief cities in Galicia—Lemberg and Cracow—they constituted a third of the total population.

The figures regarding literacy are not available for Austria-Hungary or Galicia, but there is every reason to believe that essentially the same situation exists as in Russia and Roumania. In the liberal professions in Austria-Hungary there were 16 per cent of the Jews so engaged as [53]compared with 11 per cent of the non-Jews. In Galicia the contrast is much sharper. Relatively ten times as many Jews as non-Jews were represented in the liberal professions.[32]

IV. SUMMARY

A review of the occupations, economic function and social characteristics of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe reveals them in an important and essentially similar rôle in each country. Pursuing mainly industrial and commercial occupations, the Jews constitute by far the largest part of the middle classes of each country. The historical position which they held in the ancient kingdom of Poland as the middle class has been practically maintained to this day.

By virtue of their occupations, the Jews are possessed of liquid wealth to a greater extent than the nobility or the peasantry, and in the lack of proper credit facilities still serve as bankers and money-lenders. The Jews have also been conspicuous in Eastern Europe as stewards or administrators of the estates of the nobility, who are, as a rule, absentee landlords, distinguished as a class by their serious lack of interest or ability in the management of their estates. The Jewish Hofjuden, as they were known, were particularly useful in the utilization of the products of the soil, through distilleries, mills, trade with agricultural products and exploitation of the forests.[33] In this way, however, Jews often acted as intermediaries in the oppression of the peasantry by the nobles. They were often keepers or lessees of the taverns, the ownership of which was formerly vested in the nobles as one of their feudal privileges.

It is, however, as artisans, industrial laborers and [54]merchants, retail and wholesale, that Jews chiefly obtain their living. Their monopoly of industry and commerce has given them an influence far above their numerical proportions.

In each of these countries, again, the Jews are essentially town dwellers in the midst of preponderatingly rural populations. That the degree of the contrast is due to the artificial workings of restrictive laws is unquestioned. The chief reason for this, however, is occupational. The Jews as an industrial and commercial people constitute one of the main elements out of which the town populations are recruited. Towns are ordinarily the foci of all the cultural forces and the movement and enterprise of a country. In Eastern Europe, where the number of towns is so few, this is much more the case than in Western Europe. The fact that the Jews are so largely concentrated in these comparatively few towns serves to give them a cultural position and influence far out of proportion to their numbers. Their economic activities and their relatively large participation in the liberal professions strengthens this position considerably.

Amidst populations preponderatingly devoted to agricultural occupations and dwelling in villages, the Jews represent an industrial and commercial people, strongly concentrated in towns. This economic and social position of the Jews is of the greatest significance, especially in the present period of transition in these countries. Possessed of the characteristics of a modern people in their economic and social life and in their mentality, they present a sharp contrast with the peoples among whom they dwell and whose economic and social life are only now taking on modern forms. It is this that makes the Jews personify in a large degree the forces of economic enterprise and of social progress in these countries.

On the other hand, the exceptional economic and social [55]position held by the Jews among the East-European peoples has made them peculiarly susceptible to the changes that have been taking place, as their inferior legal status and sharp differentiation from the mass of the people have made them favorable objects of attack in the politico-economic struggles that have largely accompanied the transition.

A consideration of the legal status of the Jews in each of the countries of Eastern Europe and of the chief forces that have ruled their history for more than a third of a century will enable us to see some of the dynamic aspects of the recent history of the East-European Jews and the underlying causes of their recent emigration.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IVToC

Thirty Years of Jewish History in Eastern Europe

I. RUSSIA

Religious intolerance had been the prime motive of Russia's policy of completely excluding the Jews from her borders. Through the partitions of Poland from 1772 to 1795, she became the unwilling ruler over the destinies of millions of Jews living in Lithuania, Western and Southwestern Russia and Poland proper. The historic medieval principle by which the Jews were regarded as an alien and heretic race living among the Christian peoples—a principle that had, with the growth of modern ideas, been rapidly losing its hold upon the West-European nations—expressed Russia's attitude towards the Jews and conformed to her strongly medieval outlook and organization of this period. Thus, at the time when the emancipation of the Jews had begun to be in Western Europe a concomitant of social progress, Russia set to work to recreate almost typically medieval conditions for a vaster Jewish population than had ever before been assembled in any European country.

The Jews were placed in the position practically of aliens, whose activities were regulated by special laws. The first and the most far-reaching of these laws limited their right of residence to those provinces in which they lived at the time of the Polish partitions. In this way originated that reproduction on a vast scale of the medieval [57]Ghetto—the Pale of Jewish Settlement. The elementary right of free movement and choice of residence, which was denied to the Jews, has remained the principal restriction to which they are subjected.

The Pale of Jewish Settlement, continued with but few changes to our day, includes the fifteen provinces of Western and Southwestern Russia—Vilna, Kovno, Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk, Mohileff, Volhynia, Podolia, Kiev (except the city of Kiev), Chernigov, Poltava, Bessarabia, Kherson, Jekaterinoslav, Taurida (except the city of Yalta), and the ten provinces into which Poland is divided—Warsaw, Kalisz, Kielce, Lomza, Lublin, Petrikow, Plock, Radom, Suvalk and Siedlec. From the rest of the eighty-nine provinces and territories—constituting nearly 95 per cent of the total territory of the Russian Empire—the Jews were excluded.

In the course of a century the special laws relating to the Jews have multiplied greatly until they now consist of more than a thousand articles, regulating their religious and communal life, economic activities and occupations, military service, property rights, education, etc., and imposing special taxes over and above those borne by all other Russian subjects. The direct consequence of these laws was to mark the status of the Jews as the lowest in the Empire, placing them in the position of aliens as to rights and citizens as to obligations.[34]

The policy of the Russian government throughout the 19th century has been full of contrasts and contradictions. Attempts at forcible russification and assimilation, which with Nicholas I practically spelled conversion, have alternated with methods of repression which sought to prevent [58]closer contact between the Jewish and the native populations.

It was the liberal epoch of Alexander II that gave the first real promise of emancipation to Russian Jewry. The great reforms of this era benefited the Jews along with the other subjects of the Empire. With the influence of the liberals over the government there came a new attitude regarding the Jews and their value as economic and cultural forces. Partly to relieve the intense competition in the Pale, harmful both to the Christian and the Jewish populations, but chiefly to give the provinces of interior Russia the benefit of the superior industrial and commercial, and professional abilities of the Jews, laws were enacted allowing certain classes of Jews to live outside of the Pale. These were, chiefly, master-artisans, merchants of the first guild, students and graduates of universities and higher educational institutions, and members of the liberal professions.

With these laws and with the opening of the high schools and universities to the Jews, the movement for Russianization received a mighty impetus. Though these reforms, hedged about and limited by onerous conditions, affected comparatively few and hardly touched the life of the Jewish masses in a radical way, nevertheless, the impulse which even these relatively slight reforms gave to the current of Jewish life in Russia was far out of proportion to the relief they afforded. Jewish hopes for a final emancipation soared high: it seemed as if the walls of the Pale needed but little more to be broken down.

The reaction that followed the assassination of Alexander II fell upon the Jews as a national calamity. To the feudal party which now came into control, the Jews seemed the very embodiment of the forces in the Empire whose progress they were seeking to stem. No other nationality [59]in the Russian Empire concentrated in itself so many characteristics and tendencies opposed to the ideals and interests of the Russian ruling classes. To the Church, dominated by a religio-national point of view, they were the very opposite of her ideal type of Russian orthodox, their very existence in Russia being regarded as an anomaly and as an actual and possible influence in disintegrating the religious faith of the orthodox peasants. To the nationalists they were an alien people racially and religiously, whose assimilation with the Russian people was neither possible nor desirable. To the autocracy and the bureaucracy there was the added fear from their intellectual superiority and their zeal for education of their playing a powerful part among the liberal forces seeking political freedom. Indeed, the Jews, whose economic and cultural activities and interests bound them closely to Western Europe and were in themselves modernizing and liberalizing influences, growing all the stronger through the greater freedom offered them during the liberal epoch, excited the deep repugnance of the feudal forces now directing the destinies of the state. To them the Jews spelled anathema. Separated from the great masses of the Russian people by race, nationality, religion, occupations and other social and psychological characteristics, they offered an unusually favorable object of attack.

It soon became clear that the new régime had determined upon making the Jews a central feature in their policy of reaction. At once a many-sided campaign against the Jews was begun. A powerful machinery of persecution was at hand in the existing Jewish laws. All that was necessary was to revive them, to interpret them rigorously, to tighten the legislative screws which had become loosened during the preceding liberal régime. This, however, seemed insufficient. It was determined that a powerful and definitive [60]blow must be struck at the roots of their very existence in Russia.

The main attack was economic. The industrial and commercial activities of the Jews, especially in the Pale, make them, as we have seen, among the chief industrial producers for the peasants, as well as the chief buyers of their agricultural produce. This contact between the Jews and the peasants was a vital need in the economic life of both. The familiar charge that the Jews were exploiters of the peasantry was revived. Behind this charge lay the medieval economic prejudice, which attributes no really useful rôle to the merchant or trader.[35] In a custom-ridden economic order, the competitive methods of the Jewish traders smacked of commercial deceit. Principally, however, this charge served for a convenient explanation of the change of policy towards the Jews.

In this wise were introduced the "Temporary Regulations" of May, 1882, or the May Laws, the main clauses of which are the following:

[61]The May Laws may be regarded as an extension of the general principle underlying the creation of the Pale. Through the first clause they were now to be forbidden free movement even within the Pale. As far as possible, their contact with the peasantry was to be cut off. The second clause aimed to put an end to the ownership by Jews of land in rural districts and the employment of Jews as stewards or managers of estates. A further construction of this clause forbade Jews to be connected with any business directly or indirectly depending upon the purchase of landed property outside of the towns of the Pale, thus debarring them from the utilization of land for industrial and commercial, as well as for agricultural purposes.

In the actual execution of these laws, and in the legal interpretations given them by the highest courts, the effect was far greater. A series of wholesale expulsions from the villages into the towns of the Pale began, on the ground of illegal residence. This was increased by the device, which became normal, of renaming towns as villages—easily possible in Russia where towns are frequently only administrative units—the resident Jews then being expelled as illegal settlers. Again, movement within the villages even on the part of Jews who had the right to live in villages was prohibited.

A further effect of this change in policy was upon the position of the Jews outside of the Pale, who enjoyed the right of residence in the interior of Russia, through the laws of the preceding régime. A stricter interpretation of these laws, added to a change in the administrative policy, had the effect not only of stopping the comparatively slight current of Jewish artisans into the interior of Russia, but also of starting a never-ending series of expulsions from the interior to the Pale. These expulsions have since continued, with individuals, families and whole groups, until [62]they have become a constant phenomenon of Jewish life in Russia and a familiar item of world news.

While the May Laws thus touched to the quick the economic life of the Russian Jews, another series of laws sought to break down their cultural life by barring them from the higher educational and professional institutions. The contrast with the policy of the preceding régime was here as complete as possible. The principle of liberal assimilation with regard to the Jews had dictated the policy of opening wide to them the doors of the secondary schools and universities, and the liberal professions. The new régime, however, not only opposed education generally, and higher education particularly, as the means by which the reform and westernization of Russia was being accomplished, but it regarded the russification of the Jews as a special evil. Culturally as well, the Jews were to be separated from the Russian people.

Hence the introduction of the "percentage rule" in 1886 and 1887, restricting the proportion of Jewish students admitted to the secondary and high schools, and universities, within the Pale, to 10 per cent of the total number of students admitted. Outside of the Pale, the proportion was 5 per cent, except in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where it was placed at 3 per cent. In addition, the Jews were completely barred from a number of these institutions. As the Jews constituted so large a part of the populations in the towns of the Pale and had distinguished themselves in Russia as elsewhere by the eagerness with which they grasped the educational and professional opportunities offered them, the introduction of the "percentage rule" meant that the vast majority of the Jewish youth were to be deprived of the normal chances for education. Thus the "percentage rule", which was extended to institutions founded by the Jews themselves, was almost as great a blow [63]as the May Laws. It threatened the cultural ruin of Russian Jewry. Bound up as the admission to these schools was with the liberal professions and with the opportunity of escaping from the limits of the Pale, it meant that one of the main highways to freedom in Russia had been closed to the Jews.

The most striking method of repression introduced by the new régime and its feudal supporters was that combination of murder, outrage and pillage—the pogrom. The revival of this characteristic expression of the antisemitism of the middle ages was not the result of spontaneous outbreaks of fury on the part of the Russian masses, but a deliberate and calculated awakening of latent racial and religious prejudices, evoked as powerful aids to inflame against the Jews the Russian masses, who are, religiously speaking, a tolerant people and whose relations to the Jews had been marked, on the whole, with friendliness.

The first pogroms began a month after the accession of Alexander III to the throne, and extended in the course of a year to 160 places in Southern Russia. Though the connivance of the local authorities was clearly established, the originators of the pogroms were never found.[36] However, moral support was lent by the government in the promulgation of the May Laws which closely followed. The doctrine that the misery of the peasants was due to their exploitation by the Jews, and that the pogroms were the instinctive expression of the fury of the peasants, was officially sanctioned. The pogroms of 1881-2 served as notice to all Russia and particularly to Russian Jewry, that the old order had given place to the new. Apart from the loss of life and damage to property they left the Russian [64]Jews in a state of stupefaction and horror, with the sense of living on the brink of a precipice.

The first decade of Alexander III's reign had opened with these pogroms. The second decade opened with the wholesale expulsions from Moscow. Within six months, more than ten thousand Jews were expelled from the city on the ground of illegal residence. So vast a number of Jewish families was affected and so summary was the manner of executing the decree of expulsion, that several governments, among them our own, protested to the Russian government. President Harrison, discussing this protest in his message to Congress, frankly stated that

The expulsions were preceded by a year of ominous rumors of a program of new restrictions beside which the May Laws would pale into insignificance. An offer of ten million dollars for the cause of Jewish education made by Baron de Hirsch to the Russian government was refused. His scheme, however, for the organization of a mass-emigration of Jews to Argentine was sanctioned. All these facts lent strength to the feeling of the Jews that they had nothing to hope for under the existing régime. Thus closed the reign of Alexander III and a memorable chapter in Russian Jewish history.

The early years of Nicholas II were marked by a [65]relaxation in the strict administration and interpretation of the existing restrictive laws. Hopes for the amelioration of the Jewish situation began to be entertained. These hopes were destined shortly to be shattered.

The first decade of the twentieth century opened with threatening unrest. Economic depression began and was accompanied by revolutionary attacks. For the Jews, the most alarming symptom was the rise and uninterrupted progress of a group of antisemitic agitators and Russian loyalists, who sought to counteract the revolutionary movement by denouncing the Jews as the leaders of the revolution and the enemies of the autocracy and the Orthodox religion. Thus was sown the seed of the Kishineff massacre of April, 1903, which lasted three days. Before the echoes of Kishineff had died away, the massacre at Gomel followed.

But Kishineff proved to be merely a bloody prelude. The air was surcharged with explosives. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war and of the first organized revolution created a dangerous combination of events for the Jews. To the discontent of the peasants, forced to go to the front in a war for which they had no enthusiasm, and sore with the reverses of the Russian army, was added the increased activity of the agitators who declared that the war with Japan had been forced upon Russia by the Jews, eager to profit through its ruin, and who called upon their followers and the peasants through propaganda and proclamations to revenge themselves upon the Jews. The government at bay, on the verge of breakdown under the revolutionary attacks, and anxious to excuse its incompetency and failure in the conduct of the war, sought a means of diverting the peasants from the uprisings against the landed proprietors spreading over the land, and, above all, of stifling the revolution, which had met with such opportune and [66]unlooked-for success among all classes. This was a situation alive with danger for the Jews, whose proletarians in the cities had taken an active part in the revolution. The organization of Jewish massacres by responsible agents of the government became the central feature of its program of counter-revolution.[38] A veritable holocaust ensued in nearly every province of the Empire for two years, only the climaxes of which became known to the world in Zhitomir, Odessa, Bialystok, and Siedlec.

The rôle of the bureaucracy in the creation of the pogroms, especially in 1906, in which year there took place hundreds of pogroms, was made abundantly clear by the Russian press, by Prince Urussov's disclosures in the Duma, and by the report of the Duma Commission appointed to investigate the causes of the Bialystok pogrom of 1906. As announced in their official report, an investigation had shown that the relations between the Jews and the Christians of Bialystok previous to the bloodshed had been amicable, and that preparations for a pogrom had been deliberately and carefully made by agents of the bureaucracy and carried out with the aid of the local authorities.

Both periods of pogroms in these thirty years were periods of revolution. In both the government had felt the ground shaking under its feet from terroristic attacks and from peasant uprisings. In the first period Jews had taken only slight part. In the late revolution, however, the participation of the Jews of the Pale, through the Jewish labor organization, the Bund, was quite strong. The earlier pogroms gave a hint as to the policy of the new régime. The later ones occurred at the end of years of [67]repression and persecution, and were a culminating point in the fury of the reactionary forces at their failure to stem the tide of liberalism in the struggle for parliamentary institutions and for the rights of citizens in a modern state.

The results of these thirty years of reaction remain to be considered. Though the effects of the pogroms upon the Russian Jews can hardly be overestimated, the less evident, because less spectacular, methods of restrictive law and administrative action have in the long run left a far more enduring impress.

The introduction of the May Laws at the very beginning of the eighties awakened the Jews to the realization that their future in Russia was threatened. The May Laws and the laws that were developed from them, the obstacles that were placed in the way of Jewish education and, in general, the administrative difficulties that were created, have affected every movement of their life.

Freedom of movement of the individual is the very essence of the life of modern states and the basis of their economic, social and political institutions. The lack of this freedom, especially to the extent created by the May Laws, bars the Jews from the possibilities of normal economic growth and progress. The Jewish manufacturers and capitalists are prevented from participating in the industrial and commercial development of Russia, which is so rapidly proceeding and to which, owing to their economic position and capacities, they could powerfully contribute. Legal interference with economic activities, so frequently the rule in Russia, is emphasized in the case of the Jews.

A far more serious situation confronts the great mass of the Jewish artisans, petty merchants and factory workers, to which the vast majority of the Jews belong. Largely prevented access to their natural customers, the peasants, by the prohibition of rural residence, and confined to the [68]relatively few towns of the Pale, where over-crowding and over-competition are the necessary and unavoidable results, the Jewish artisans and petty merchants have a bitter struggle to maintain a position of economic independence.

Added to this, there is the social pressure to which the Jews have been subjected. Not until this period has the century-long position of the Jews as the "pariahs of the Empire" been so sharply emphasized. Enmeshed in a net of special laws and regulations, at the mercy of ministerial decree, secret circular, arbitrary administrative act, law has lost all meaning for the Jews. In this atmosphere they exist mainly through bribery, at once their bane and their salvation.

The unusual economic and social pressure exerted by the reactionary régime upon its Jewish subjects, through the new restrictive laws that were put into operation during the last thirty years, the administrative harrying that became the order of the day and the introduction of the hitherto unused method of physical repression, the pogrom, becomes clear in the light of its policy. Beginning as a movement to suppress the Jews in their economic and cultural activities, and to separate them as far as possible from their Russian neighbors, the anti-Jewish program became in its final form the expulsion and extermination of the Jews from Russia. The historic sentence of Count Ignatiev, author of the May Laws, at the very beginning of this period, "the Western borders are open to you Jews", strikes the keynote of this policy. And, in fact, for practically the first time in its history, the Russian government relaxed in 1892 its rigorous rules forbidding emigration, and gave its sanction to Baron de Hirsch's plan of organizing a vast emigration of Jews from Russia, which its author hoped would, at the end of a quarter of a century, result in the complete transplantation of the Jews from Russia. The [69]famous principle of the Russian government, "once a Russian always a Russian", was for once put aside in favor of the Jews. They were given one right not enjoyed by other Russians, that of leaving Russia under the obligation of abandoning Russian citizenship forever.[39]

II. ROUMANIA

Up to very recent years, the history of the Jews in Roumania centers about those resident in Moldavia. Its proximity to ancient Poland and close association with Bessarabia, naturally made for a back-and-forth movement of the Polish and Russian Jews, whose settlement was invited by the boyars or landed nobility because of resulting industrial and commercial advantages.

The position of the Jews in Moldavia up to the middle of the nineteenth century did not differ to any extent from that of their brethren in Russia. Moldavia, as a Christian state, denied civil and political rights to all non-Christians. The Jews in Moldavia were regarded as aliens, whose activities were subject to special regulation. The beginning of the last century witnessed the first special Jewish laws. The Jews were forbidden to buy the products of the soil, to acquire real property; non-resident Jews were debarred unless they could prove an occupation and show the possession of property. Definite restrictions as to occupation, residence in the villages, the ownership, in villages, of houses, land, vineyards, etc., existed. As vagabonds they could be expelled from the country by administrative decree. Thus was their legal status fixed.

The emancipation of Jews was first demanded by the liberal party during the revolutionary days of 1848. But no practical change resulted until the Convention of Paris in 1856, which, in granting autonomy to the two provinces, [70]guaranteed civil rights to all Moldavians, regardless of creed. Though political rights were granted only to Christian Moldo-Wallachians, the provision was made that, by legislative arrangements, the enjoyment of political rights could be extended to other creeds. Thus was established the possibility of a gradual emancipation of the Jews, foreshadowed in the communal law of 1864, which granted the right of naturalization to certain classes of native Roumanian Jews. Those who had passed through college or had a recognized foreign degree, or who had founded a factory in the land employing at least fifty workmen were among the favored classes.

Shortly afterwards, this section was abrogated, and, with the abdication of the liberal Couza and the accession of Charles Hohenzollern, the present king, to the throne, the situation changed. Article VII of the constitution of the newly-created kingdom read that foreigners not of the Christian faith could not be naturalized. As within the term foreigner the great mass of the Jews residing in the land was included, this was a denial of the conditions laid down in the Treaty of Paris. At the same time, old laws against the Jews which had fallen into abeyance were revived, expulsions of the Jews from the villages into the towns began to take place with great frequency, laws requiring all sellers of liquor in rural communes to be naturalized Roumanians deprived many Jewish families of a livelihood—in short, the usual symptoms of anti-Jewish activity became the order of the day.

It was at the famous Berlin Congress, convened to decide questions created by the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, that the subject of the Jewish disabilities in Roumania was brought up, in connection with the demand of Roumania for recognition as an independent state. The chief objection made especially by the representatives of three of the [71]European powers—France, England and Germany—was Roumania's treatment of the Jews. It was finally decided by the Congress to recognize her independence on the condition that she grant civil and political equality to all her citizens without distinction of race or creed. This was expressed in Article 44 of the historic Berlin Treaty, which read as follows:

In the constituante which was convoked soon after to discuss the question of giving the Jews equal political rights, an interesting picture is obtained of the sentiment of the upper and middle classes of Roumania.[40] An overwhelming majority was opposed to the granting of political rights to the Jews on the ground that Roumania was a Christian-Latin State, or on the purely nationalistic ground that the Jews were an alien and utterly unassimilable element of the population. To meet the demands of the Powers the principle of individual naturalization was adopted, by which an alien could be granted naturalization individually and only by a special vote of the Chamber of Deputies. Other [72]onerous conditions, such as the requirement of a ten years' residence in the country for citizenship, and the prohibition of the purchase by aliens of rural estates, showed conclusively that Roumania was prepared to give only formal assent to the demand of the Powers.[41] After a year of negotiations, the three Powers agreed to the recognition of her independence, expressing the hope that the Roumanian government would recognize the inadequacy of the revised article and especially of the principle of individual naturalization as meeting the conditions of the Berlin Treaty, and would aim towards a complete emancipation of all her subjects.[42]

The situation at the beginning of the eighties presented but little hope of improvement in the political condition of the Jews. Eight hundred and eighty-three Jews who had fought in the war for independence had been naturalized en masse. With the exception of this small number, the Jews were legally classed as foreigners.[43] Shortly after, owing to the fact that Austria-Hungary had withdrawn its protection from several thousands of its Jewish citizens resident in Roumania, the entire body of Jews received a new legal status, that of "foreigners not subject to any foreign Power". In other words, they were stateless, though subject to all the obligations of Roumanian citizens, including military service and the payment of taxes. This legal status of the Jews has received the attention of the world and marks a condition of things which according to Bluntschli is "a denial of the entire development of European states".[44]

[73]Freed from the control of the Powers, Roumania now entered on a new campaign of discrimination against the Jews. The first decade of the eighties saw this begun in a series of laws which for completeness finds no parallel even in Russia. At the very beginning, a law giving the police the right of domiciliary visitation and of expelling under the vagabond law anyone in the rural districts, was employed against the Jews, resulting in their frequent expulsions into the towns. The enforcement of the law against rural residence was so strict as to create practically the same situation as exists in the Russian Pale. The law of 1883, prohibiting lotteries, and in the following year the law prohibiting hawking or any form of sale from house to house or on the streets deprived several thousands of Jewish families of their livelihood.

It was in 1886 and 1887, however, when the laws which were to create a national industry and commerce were introduced, that a serious step was taken to exclude the Jews from economic activity. On the assumption that occupations were a civil right to which aliens could or could not be admitted, the Jews were systematically deprived even of the civil rights which had been theirs, to a great extent, before the Berlin Congress sought to make them politically free. As foreigners, the Jews were prohibited the right of choosing electors for the newly-created Chambers of Commerce and Trade, or of becoming members of these chambers although they formed a large majority of the merchants and manufacturers represented in these important bodies. A still more serious provision was that which decreed that five years after the foundation of a factory two-thirds of the workingmen employed therein must be Roumanians. Jews were also partly excluded from the administrative positions in joint-stock companies. They were completely excluded from employment in the financial [74]institutions of the state, from the state railway service, and, by a provision that two-thirds of the employes on private railways must be Roumanians, were practically excluded from these as well. The sharpest blow, however, was struck in 1902, when a new law for the organization of trades, popularly known as the Artisans' Bill, was passed. In this law there is to be seen a revival of the guild organizations of the Middle Ages. To pursue his occupation every artisan was required to obtain a certificate from a guild. Jewish master artisans and workmen were hit by the requirement that aliens in order to have the right of working in accordance with this law must prove that in their own country reciprocal rights existed for Roumanians, or obtain an authorization from a Chamber of Commerce or Industry. Whatever value this requirement may have had for the protection of Roumanian workmen in foreign countries, its chief effect was to place in a position of economic helplessness the majority of the Jewish workmen as "aliens not subject to any foreign Power", and largely unable to secure authorization from such chambers controlled by competitors. Other clauses, requiring that all workingmen belong to a guild, and that fifty workmen possessing civil and political rights are empowered to form a guild, put the control of trades into the hands of non-Jews, although the majority of the artisans in many of the trades were Jews.

A similar policy was pursued with reference to the cultural activities of the Jews. A circular of the minister of public instruction, issued in 1887, ordered that preference should be given to Roumanian children, in cases where there was not enough room in the elementary schools for all. This began the gradual exclusion of Jewish children from the Roumanian elementary schools. The formal treatment of the Jews as aliens in the educational system was introduced in 1893, when all aliens were required to pay [75]fees for entrance into the public schools, and were admitted only in case there was enough room for them. The effect of these laws was seen in the diminished proportion of Jewish children in the elementary schools. Similar provisions for the secondary and high schools and universities largely closed the doors of these institutions to the Jews. From schools of agriculture and forestry, and of commerce they were completely excluded.

To the educational restrictions were added restrictions to professional service. As aliens, they were forbidden to be employed in the public sanitary service and health department as physicians, pharmacists, etc., from owning as well as working in private pharmacies, and from entering other professional fields.

The almost complete agreement of the two principal parties—liberal and conservative—explains the thoroughness and uninterrupted progress of this process of piling up disability upon disability. The explanation is partly to be found in the constitution of Roumania, the electoral law of which places the political powers in the hands of two classes—the landed aristocracy and the urban, or middle class. The vast majority of the peasants are excluded by educational and property qualifications, obtaining only indirect representation. Had the Jews been granted political rights, they would have shared political power with the other two classes. It is through the second electoral college, of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, that the middle class is represented politically. As manufacturers and merchants, as urban dwellers, as members of the liberal professions and as graduates of the elementary schools, the Jews would have become the most important part of this electoral college.

Again, the creation of an industry and commerce along national lines was largely a course of action in the interests [76]of this middle class of Roumanian merchants, artisans and laborers. It was in favor of this class that the laws were passed debarring Jews from various occupations and seeking essentially to wrest the industrial and commercial monopoly from their hands.

In this course of action, powerful aid was extended by the bureaucracy, recruited mainly from the lower nobility and the middle classes. Depending for their support upon the urbans, and seeking to prevent the entrance of Jews into state service, which would have resulted from the granting of political rights to the Jews, the bureaucracy have acted in harmony with the middle classes in the attempt to make the Jews politically, economically, and culturally powerless.

Thus the situation that the Jews in Roumania have been facing for thirty years is abnormal, from every standpoint. At no time within thirty years has there been any serious question of giving to the Jews the political rights, the granting of which had been made the condition of the recognition of Roumania's independence by the Powers. The history of the succeeding thirty years has been one of gradual, steady and systematic deprivation of one civil right after another. To the prohibition of freedom of movement has been added that of work; one occupation after another has been prohibited to Jews under the mask of foreigners. From all the branches of state service Jews have been almost completely debarred. Participation in important private and public enterprises has similarly been limited. The schools have been largely closed to them. The effect has been partly registered in a rate of illiteracy higher in the cities among the Jewish children between seven and fifteen than among the non-Jewish children of the same age.

Thus the conscious policy of Roumania has been that of oppression, political, economic and social, with the [77]deliberate aim of making it impossible for the Jews to live in Roumania. This method of indirect expulsion is the essence of her policy of thirty years. As such it was recognized and openly stated in the only formal protest against her manner of fulfilling the conditions of the Berlin Treaty, made by the United States, through its Secretary of State, John Hay, whose circular to the Powers signatory to the Treaty demanded that Roumania be called to account for her treatment of the Jews, and her dishonesty in violating the pledges given by her to the Powers.[45]

III. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the legal position of the Jews in Austria-Hungary differed from that of their brethren in Russia and Roumania only in degree. Prohibited the free exercise of their religion, the right to hold real property, and to enter certain occupations, and burdened by special Jewish taxes, the Jews remained a class apart and governed in all their activities by special laws. Their legal emancipation, begun in 1848, was definitely established by the promulgation in each division of the Empire of the Fundamental Law of 1867, declaring that religion should not be a ground for discrimination in civil and political rights.

The civil and political equality of the Jews was a cardinal principle of the creed of German-Austrian liberalism and one of a number of its victories embodied in the Constitution of 1867. Austrian economic and social life at this period was, however, too saturated with medievalism to allow for a complete revolution in the attitude toward the Jews. On the other hand, the influential part played by the Jews in the liberal movement and the fact that a group of wealthy [78]Jews were powerful factors in the haute finance and in the commercial life of the country were made the basis of an attack by the feudal-clericals upon the Jews.

The great financial crash of 1873, in which several Jewish financial houses were concerned, was the starting-point of political antisemitism in Austria. The Jews were denounced as the representatives of the capitalist order of society, with its overwhelming concentration of wealth and its exploitation of the industrial and the agricultural proletariat. The Christian-Socialist movement began with antisemitism as the corner-stone of its economic and social doctrines. Its opposition to the Jews and to capitalism was largely due to medieval prejudices in favor of the Christian-feudal state and the medieval industrial organization. In the early eighties it began to triumph when the "small man" or petty industrialist received political power through an extension of the suffrage.

It reached its height in the nineties, when, under the combined influence of feudal-clerical nobles, the clergy and the lower middle class, a period of reaction set in. In Vienna, in 1895, the antisemite Lueger was elected mayor. Powerless though they were to change the legal status of the Jews, the antisemites succeeded in creating in both upper and lower circles of Austrian society an atmosphere of antagonism to the Jews which has prevented the complete fulfillment of the principle of equality as set forth in the constitution.

The clericals have fanned the flames of religious hatred especially among the peasantry by ritual-murder accusations, which have been rife and have played a large part in strengthening the sentiment of hostility toward the Jews.

In Galicia, the position of the Jews became unsettled, owing to a variety of causes.[46] Although one of the [79]least advanced among the Austrian crown lands, Galicia has experienced within the last half-century an industrial and commercial development along with the rest of the Empire. This resulted in the growth of a middle class particularly among the Poles, which began to compete for supremacy with the Jews. The improvements in transportation and communication, the organization of agricultural syndicates, for the purpose of directly purchasing and selling the produce of the peasants, and the creation of rural credit societies, helped considerably to displace the Jewish middlemen and traders as well as the Jewish money-lenders, who dealt largely with the peasantry. The movement to develop Galicia industrially was fostered on national lines by these Polish organizations, which carried on an extensive propaganda and systematically organized economic boycotts against the Jews. "Do not buy of Jews", "Do not patronize Jewish artisans", became familiar cries in Galicia as in other parts of Austria.

The process of wrestling the monopoly of industry, trade and commerce from the Jews in favor of the Polish petty merchants and artisans was considerably accelerated by the official bodies, the autonomous Galician Diet and the municipal boards, controlled chiefly by the Polish-Catholic nobility, who saw in the national-industry movement a means of capturing the votes of the middle class and of thus retaining their position as leaders of the Polish people. Communal funds were used to establish Poles in business. Attempts were made to take away from the Jews the small-salt and tobacco trades. The taxes on the taverns were increased. In the public financial institutions organized for various purposes Jews were not given representation. In nearly all the activities designed to promote the interest of the urban population and the peasantry, the Jews were systematically excluded by the local authorities.

[80]Added to this, the increasing distress of the Galician peasants has reacted strongly upon the Jews, who depend so largely upon their buying power. The poverty of the peasantry, the competition for the control of the rural market created by public and private agencies, added to the increasing competition in the towns from other sections of the population, have all co-operated to create a great surplus, in proportion to the population, of petty merchants and artisans among the Jews. This had its effect in an over-competition from the side of the Jews themselves.

The Jews have suffered as well from their historical rôle of intermediaries between a most avaricious nobility and a bitterly exploited peasantry. Acting as stewards and as tavern keepers for the Polish nobles, who are mainly absentee landlords, and who, until very recently, enjoyed the right of keeping taverns as one of their feudal privileges, the Jews have become the buffers of the deep-seated antagonism between the two chief classes of Galicia.

Agrarian uprisings have been frequent of late, particularly after the failure of the crops, which here as in Russia and Roumania spells a crisis. These, chiefly directed against the nobles, have frequently been diverted toward the Jews, to whom the peasants are largely indebted, and in whom they see the visible instruments of the oppression of their lords.

Economic antagonism has been intensified by the religious hatred which has been fostered by the Polish clergy and which has been the basis of numerous ritual-murder charges.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VToC

Conclusion

An intimate connection has thus been established between the present state of economic and social transition through which the countries of Eastern Europe are passing and the situation which has confronted the Jews in each of these countries and has profoundly influenced their position and their history for the last third of a century. What the forces are behind the emigration of the Jews from these countries to Western Europe and the United States during this period now become clear.

The industrial and commercial development of the recent decades brought about changes in themselves unfavorable to the economic activities of the Jews. The improvements in communication and transportation through the extension of railroads, the building of roads, and the creation of credit facilities especially for the peasantry served partly to displace the Jews, whose economic position had been largely based upon the services they rendered in a relatively backward industrial and commercial civilization. The rise of a middle class among the Christian populations, chiefly engaged in industry, added an element of competition not before present. Not the least important in its effects was the increasing poverty of the peasantry, which seriously affected the Jews, as the principal buyers of their produce and sellers of finished products. Agricultural crises, so frequent in recent years in Eastern Europe, have often involved the Jews in financial ruin.[47]

[82]These purely economic factors served to weaken the position of the Jews and to cause an over-concentration in trade and industry, to their detriment. The gradual readjustment that would have followed naturally was, however, prevented by the existence of other forces, in the action of which we find the key to the situation faced by the Jews and the impelling forces of Jewish emigration.

One of these was the economic antisemitism that rose partly from the competition of the middle classes of both populations. This competitive jealousy awakened racial and religious prejudices and found particularly in Galicia an active expression in the organization of economic boycotts, and in the co-operative agencies that were created to foster the growth of the Christian artisans and merchants. The sufferings of the agricultural population, again, were charged to the Jews, with whom the peasants were in close business relations and to whom they were deeply indebted. Preached from platform, press and pulpit, the doctrine of Jewish exploitation of the peasantry found a ready acceptance among all classes.

Economic and social hostility was furthered by the feudal ruling classes whose antagonism to the Jews was deep-seated and many-sided. As these formed the ruling economic, social and political power in Eastern Europe, they were the chief instrument in creating a situation that was full of danger for the Jews. In the politico-economic struggles between these privileged classes and the liberal middle classes that accompanied the transition, the Jews were found, consciously or unconsciously, on the side of the liberals, who sought to introduce the economic, social and political conditions of modern civilization. Thus they served as a convenient object of attack. In Russia, where, since the reaction, the control of the feudal classes over the government was complete, the new laws restricting [83]residence, movement, occupations and economic activity in general, checked the economic growth of the Jews and put them at a great disadvantage in the struggle for existence. This situation was created to an even greater degree in Roumania, where the economic interests of the Roumanian middle class were furthered at the expense of the Jews. Economic helplessness was essentially the condition created for the Jews, so narrow was the margin left for the exercise of their powers. The social pressure that was added, through laws limiting the entrance of Jews to the educational institutions and the liberal professions, seeking to limit their cultural influence, was part and parcel of the same policy. In the case of Russia, repression reached the form of massacres of Jews, when these were found politically useful.

Governmental oppression was thus the chief force in unsettling the economic and social position of the Jews. Throughout the course of thirty years the leading motive of the Russian and Roumanian governments was the reduction, through every possible means, of the number of their Jewish populations.

This governmental pressure which began to be applied at the beginning of the eighties became equivalent in the course of time to an expulsive force. The only outlet to the intolerable conditions that had been created by the forces of governmental repression and oppression was emigration. This was sensed by the Jews at the very beginning of the period. How eagerly it has been seized upon the following pages will show. It is enough for the moment to point out that the vast and steadily increasing stream of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States alone, has risen to such proportions that its average for the past decade has approached the estimated annual increase of the Jews in Russia. In other words, emigration has begun to mean the [84]decline, not only relatively, but even absolutely, of the Jewish population in Russia.

The fact that the persecution of the Jews in the case of Russia and Roumania amounts to a force of rejection has been widely recognized during the course of the emigration of the Jews from Eastern Europe. In England, where the number of Jewish immigrants increased rapidly, it found expression in the official reports, and in the United States, it became a subject of direct diplomatic correspondence in the formal protest to Russia in 1891 by President Harrison, and in 1902 in the circular note to the Powers by Secretary Hay, regarding Roumania's treatment of the Jews.

A still more significant recognition of the exceptional forces behind the Jewish immigration was given by the Jews of Western Europe and the United States, living in a state of freedom, security and comparative wealth, to whom the oncoming of thousands of Jewish refugees at all the critical periods, and the steady stream of Jewish immigrants at other times has meant a taking-up of onerous burdens and a sharing of the hardships of the situation thus suddenly thrust upon them. The attempt to organize and regulate Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe was a task early undertaken by the Alliance Israélite Universelle. The Jewish Colonization Association was expressly founded by Baron de Hirsch to open up, in various countries, new paths for the Jewish emigrants. At all periods of exceptional emigration, national and international committees met to consider the problems of the immigrants thrown upon their responsibility.

The vast majority of the emigrants made the United States their goal. In their movement and their economic and social characteristics we shall find a striking reflection of the impelling forces of their emigration.

FOOTNOTES:

PART II

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

A. ITS MOVEMENT

CHAPTER IToC

Determination of Number of Jewish Immigrants

In a study of Jewish immigration to the United States the first problem is to determine the number of Jews who entered this country during the thirty years from 1881 to 1910, and their nationality, or their countries of nativity. The determination of these figures meets with the difficulty that prior to 1899, immigrants were classified in the official statistics by country of nativity or residence, and not by race or nationality. Thus the figures regarding Jewish immigration are obtainable from official sources only from 1899. Those relating to previous years have to be sought for elsewhere.

The main sources that have been used to obtain the figures before 1899 are the reports of three Jewish societies which were concerned with the care of the Jewish immigrants arriving at the principal ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. These were the United Hebrew Charities, of New York; the Association for the Protection of Jewish Immigrants, of Philadelphia; and the Hebrew Benevolent Society, of Baltimore. Each of these maintained an agent who, besides his other duties, collected statistical information concerning the sex, age, country of nativity, occupation, destination, etc., of the Jewish immigrants, partly from the ships' manifests and partly through personal inquiry. The statistical information thus obtained was regularly included in the annual reports of these societies. These records were begun by the New York and [88]Philadelphia societies, in 1884, and by the Baltimore society, in 1891.

As the yearly statistical tables of these reports were made to correspond with the annual meeting of these societies,[48] it was found advisable to rearrange them from July to June, in order to have them correspond with the fiscal year, and thus allow for a proper comparison with the official data furnished by the immigration authorities.

As rearranged, the tables presented the number of Jewish immigrants entering the ports of New York and Philadelphia from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1898, and the number of Jewish immigrants entering the port of Baltimore from July 1, 1891, to June 30, 1898.[49] As these three ports were, up to recent years, the places of entry of all but a very small number of Jewish immigrants, the figures thus obtained represent practically the total Jewish immigration to the United States from 1886 to 1898.

To ascertain the nationality or country of nativity of the Jewish immigrants from 1886 to 1898, it was necessary to redistribute in accordance with the fiscal year the monthly arrivals found in the tables of the United Hebrew Charities, which contain the figures for each nationality.[50] As the reports of the Philadelphia society gave only the totals of arrivals of each nationality for each year but not distributed by months, the following method was employed. The percentage the immigration of each nativity constituted of the total immigration from November to October (the society's year) was used as the basis for calculating the annual [89]immigration of each nativity from July to June.[51] There being no essential difference between Baltimore and Philadelphia, so far as Jewish immigrants of each nationality are concerned, the same percentages were used as for Philadelphia.[52]

The discrepancy between the official figures of the total immigration from Roumania from 1886 to 1898 and those of the Jewish societies for the Jewish immigrants from Roumania for the same period is worthy of note. In each of four years the number of Jewish immigrants from Roumania as reported by the Jewish societies exceeded the total immigration from Roumania as reported in the official statistics. For two years, 1892 and 1893, the official statistics do not report any immigrants from Roumania, whereas the Jewish societies report,[53] respectively, 740 and 555 Jewish immigrants from Roumania, which represented a normal number from this country, as the other years indicate.[54]

[90]The total number of immigrants of each nationality arriving from July 1, 1886, to June 30, 1898, was thus obtained. The total number of Jewish immigrants arriving from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania, at each of the principal ports, for each year from 1886 to 1898, are summarized in table V.[55]

The figures of Jewish immigration before 1886 were not obtainable either from the official or the Jewish sources, there being only an estimate of the number of the Jewish immigrants from 1881 to 1884 in the American Jewish Year Book of 1899-1900 (as 74,310), and in the Jewish Encyclopedia (as 62,022), without any indications as to how these were obtained. To secure a fairly accurate statement, the proportion the Russian Jewish immigration from 1886 to 1898 bore to the total Russian immigration was used as the basis for calculating the total number of Russian Jewish immigrants from 1881 to 1885.[56] This was distributed yearly according to the proportion of each year's contribution to the five years' total. By a similar calculation the number of Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary was obtained.[57] For Roumania, the proportion of Jews being [91]more than ninety per cent, and at this period practically the entire Roumanian immigration being Jewish, the figures were taken in toto. The results for each year added together constituted the total Jewish immigration for the year.

The general tendency among writers on the subject of Jewish immigration has been to exaggerate the magnitude of this movement. In a discussion in the Jewish Encyclopedia regarding the dimensions of the Jewish immigration before 1899, exact figures were given that are on their face erroneous.[58] The inaccuracy of these figures is explained by the fact that the writer committed a gross error in making his table. The total Russian immigration to the United States from 1880 to 1898 was designated as the Jewish immigration from Russia, though it should have been evident that the number of other peoples coming from Russia and included in these figures must have been very large. Another column gave as Jewish immigrants coming from countries other than Russia, the totals of the Jewish immigrants entering the United States from 1885 to 1898, as reported in the American Jewish Year Book of 1899 (the [92]latter figures of which included Russian Jews as well as those of other nativities), thereby doubling the number of Russian Jewish immigrants for this period. The result has been to more than triple the numbers of the Jewish immigrants. These figures have been widely used and quoted, and have generally created the impression of a Jewish immigration larger by several hundred thousands than is really the case.[59]

The results of the foregoing are summarized in Table VI, which gives the number of Jewish immigrants arriving in each of the thirty years from 1881 to 1910, and the principal countries of nativity of these immigrants. We are thus in a position closely to study the movement of Jewish immigration for practically the entire period since it became a significant part of the recent immigration to the United States, and thereby to throw light upon the character of this movement, in itself and as a part of the general immigration.

Table VI

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1881 TO 1910

Table VII[94]

PERCENTAGE OF ANNUAL JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
CONTRIBUTED BY EACH COUNTRY OF NATIVITY, 1881 TO 1910

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IIToC

Immigration of Jews from Eastern Europe

In the thirty years between 1881 and 1910, 1,562,800 Jews entered the United States. An examination of Tables VI and VII reveals the fact that the great majority of the immigrants came from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Roumania. Of the total number, Russia contributed 1,119,059 immigrants, or 71.6 percent; Austria-Hungary 281,150 immigrants, or 17.9 per cent, and Roumania 67,057 immigrants, or 4.3 per cent. Together these three countries contributed 93.8 per cent of the total for the thirty years. The great majority of the Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom and British North America are not English or Canadian Jews but transmigrants or transient East-European Jews, to whom England and Canada were a halfway house from the countries of Eastern Europe to the United States.[60] If we included these immigrants, the Jewish immigration from these three countries of Eastern Europe would be considerably above 95 per cent. The Jewish immigration of the last third of a century is thus practically wholly from Eastern Europe.

Summarizing the results for the three decades,[61] we find that the Jewish immigrants from Russia maintained a fairly constant proportion to the total Jewish immigration, contributing 135,003, in the decade between 1881 and 1890 or 69.9 per cent of the total for the decade, 279,811 or 71.1 [96]per cent in the decade between 1891 and 1900, and 704,245, or 72.1 per cent, in the decade between 1901 and 1910.

Roumanian Jewish immigration was relatively smaller in the earlier decades, numbering 6,967 in the first, 12,789 in the second decade, comprising 3.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent, respectively, of the total, and in the last decade, numbering 47,301 and constituting 4.8 per cent of the total immigration of the decade.

The Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary bore a proportion to the total higher in the first two decades, contributing 44,619 immigrants in the first decade and 83,720 immigrants in the second decade, or 23.1 per cent and 21.3 per cent, respectively, of the total, and 152,810 immigrants, or 15.7 per cent, in the last decade.

The Jewish immigrants from the United Kingdom and British North America, which, in the first two decades constituting less than one per cent of the total of each decade, were included in the rubric "all others", rose in the last decade to 42,589, constituting 4.4 per cent, and to 9,701, constituting one per cent, of the total of this decade.

An examination of the yearly contributions made by the Jews of the principal countries[62] shows that the immigrants from Russia formed the majority of the immigrants for each year of the entire period, and as a rule, did not deviate far from the general proportion established for the thirty years. The greatest increases occurred during the years of maximum Jewish immigration, in 1882, 1891, 1892 and 1906, when the Russian Jewish immigrants constituted four-fifths or more of the total for the year.

The immigrants from Roumania showed higher percentages than their average in 1887 and in 1888, and a remarkable increase of their contribution from 1900 to 1903, [97]in which years they constituted more than a tenth of the total number of immigrants.

The immigrants from Austria-Hungary formed, on the average, less than one-fifth of the total, but varied considerably in their proportions. In general, they maintained a rate higher than their average during the earlier years of their movement. In the later years they showed a relative decline, especially during the last decade, owing to the greater relative increase of the Jewish immigration from Russia and Roumania, though their absolute numbers increased greatly during this period. Their highest ratios of contribution were made from 1883 to 1886 and from 1896 to 1900, the latter period marking their maximum relative contributions.

The influence of the Russian Jewish immigration is thus paramount. It dominates and controls the entire movement, owing to its great preponderance of numbers. To a closer consideration of its movement we shall now turn.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IIIToC

Immigration of Jews from Russia

The mass-movement of the Russian Jews to the United States began in the first year of Alexander III's reign. Though in this year the number of Russian Jews entering this country amounted to a little over three thousand, the immigration grew so rapidly and in such proportions that at the end of thirty years, more than a million Russian Jews had been admitted to the United States.

An examination of the figures of the Russian Jewish immigration for the thirty years[63] reveals that it is a movement of steady growth. The Russian Jewish immigration falls practically into two periods; the first culminating in 1892, the second culminating in 1906. Considering it by decades,[64] we find that the movement is one of geometrical progression. In the first decade, from 1881 to 1890, 135,003 Russian Jews entered the country, 12.1 per cent of the total Russian Jewish immigrants. Between 1891 and 1900, 279,811 Russian Jews entered, constituting 25.0 per cent of the total. In the last decade, from 1901 to 1910, there entered 704,245 Russian Jews, or 62.9 per cent of the total.

The annual variations are, nevertheless, considerable and largely explainable by the special conditions in Russia that have influenced the lives of the Jews throughout this period. At the beginning of this period, in 1881, the immigration of Russian Jews was small. The pogroms of 1881-2 were [99]reflected in the sudden rise in 1882 to 10,489 immigrants, more than three times the number of the preceding year. The immigration of this year was rather a flight than a normal movement. The great majority of the immigrants were refugees, fleeing from massacre and pillage.[65]

In this year Russian Jewish immigration began its upward course. Another high point was reached in 1887 with 23,103 immigrants, when the educational restrictions and the expulsions that followed a strict application of the May Laws indicated a renewal of the policy of the Russian government.

The rumors of new restrictions that marked the beginning of the nineties, and the opening of the second decade of Alexander III's reign, were followed by the wholesale expulsions from Moscow. The immigration in 1891 of 43,457 and in 1892 of 64,253 Russian Jews—the latter the highest number reached in two decades—reflects this situation. Nearly a tenth of the total immigration entered in these two years.

The direct effect of the administrative activity of this year and especially of the Moscow expulsions upon the Russian Jewish immigration is seen in the number of Russian Jews who entered New York during the months closely following these expulsions.[66] For the first five months of 1891, the immigration averaged approximately 2,300, evidently a normal figure for this decade. It reached its lowest in May, when 1,225 Jews entered the country. In June, two months after the order of expulsion, the number of immigrants jumped to 8,667—a six-fold increase—which up to this year was the largest number of Russian Jews entering this country in one month. [100]This figure was surpassed in the immigration of August and September. Out of a total of 60,261 Russian Jews who entered in 1891, 11,449 came the first five months from January to May, and 40,706, or more than three times the previous immigration, came the next five months from June to October. The following five months there came only 16,832, less than half the number of immigrants of the months of June to October. And, finally, taking the year as a whole, there came over 60,261 Russian Jews in 1891, the year of the Moscow expulsions, as compared with the 28,834 Russian Jews who entered in 1892, when no exceptional circumstances occurred to affect their immigration tendency.

The six years from 1893 to 1898 were relatively mild years for the Russian Jews. The change of rulers in Russia and the comparatively lenient attitude shown by Nicholas II toward the Jews in the beginning of his reign resulted in a less stringent administration of the special Jewish laws. The financial depression in the United States which began in 1893 and embraced this period, was an additional influence in diminishing the flow of Russian Jewish immigrants. The fall, however, was not as large as the existence of unfavorable economic conditions in this country might lead one to expect. For in spite of it, Russian Jewish immigration resumed the rate it maintained in the years before 1891. From 1893 to 1898 there entered this country 110,815 Russian Jews as against the 107,378 Russian Jews who entered in the six years from 1885 to 1890.

Another rise began in 1899. Economic depression, revolutionary terrorism and anti-Jewish propaganda paved the way for a great inpouring of Russian Jews to the United States. The Kishineff massacre of 1903 sent thousands of Jews in veritable flight to the United States, a fact which is reflected in an immigration of 77,544 Russian Jews in 1904, [101]the greatest number up to this year. With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war, the outbreak of the revolution and, above all, of the Jewish massacres the immigration rose in 1905 to 92,388. In 1906, a year of pogroms, it reached the number of 125,234, the highest in the entire period—and in 1907, 114,932, the second largest immigration. The diminution in the numbers in 1908 reflects largely the relative change for the better that took place in the situation in Russia, with the beginning of parliamentary government, as well as the panic conditions in the United States of the preceding year. How great still was the impulse to leave is shown by the fact that in spite of the panic of 1907, the number of immigrants for 1908 was 71,978. The great rise of the immigration from the United Kingdom during these years was also due to the number of Russian Jews that came to the United States by way of England. In all, during these five years which form an epoch in contemporary Russian Jewish history, there streamed into the United States half a million Russian Jews, constituting more than two-fifths of the total immigration for the entire thirty years.

Of special significance is the part the Jewish immigrants play in the total Russian immigration to the United States.[67] By far the largest group of immigrants coming from Russia are Jews. For the entire thirty years they constituted 48.3 per cent of the total Russian immigration.

As a general rule, the proportion of the Jewish in the total Russian immigration rises during the critical periods of these thirty years. Thus in 1891, the year of the Moscow expulsions, the Jewish immigrants constituted 91.6 per cent of the total immigration from Russia, and in the following year, under the same influences, 78.8 per cent. The [102]years 1886 and 1887 are also signalized by the great proportion of the Jewish immigrants, who formed 79.2 per cent and 75.1 per cent, respectively, of the total Russian immigration for these years. In the last decade, when the Jewish participation in the total immigration had become relatively lessened, the three years which represented the climax of the movement, 1904, 1905 and 1906, show a higher relative proportion, 53.4 per cent, 50 per cent and 58.1 per cent, respectively, than the average for the decade or for the entire period.

Considering the proportions by decades,[68] we find that of the total of 213,282 Russian immigrants entering in the decade from 1881 to 1890, the Jewish immigrants contributed 135,003, or 63.3 per cent. Of a total of 505,280 Russian immigrants in the decade from 1891 to 1900, the Jewish immigrants numbered 279,811, or 55.4 per cent. In the last decade, from 1901 to 1910, of a total of 1,597,306 Russian immigrants, the Jewish immigrants were 704,245, or 44.1 per cent. The diminishing importance of the Jewish in the total Russian immigration, in spite of the fact that the former shows so great an increase, is due to the rapid growth of the immigration tendency among the other races in Russia, especially in the last decade.

Nevertheless, a closer examination of the relative participation by the various peoples of Russia in the immigration from that country from 1899 to 1910[69] shows that the Jews maintain their position of predominance, contributing a larger proportion to the total Russian immigration than any other people throughout this period, except in 1910, when the Poles contributed a slightly higher proportion to the immigration of that year. The Polish contribution is next [103]to that of the Jews, attaining its maximum at a point where the Jewish immigration is at its lowest, relatively, in the twelve years.

The preceding sufficiently indicates the abnormal extent of the Russian Jewish immigration but its intensity may be judged further from the fact that though the Jews in Russia were less than one-twentieth of the total Russian population, they formed nearly half of the Russian immigrants to the United States. In other words, they were represented in the Russian immigration by more than eleven times their proportion in the Russian population. As, however, the emigration movement of the Russians proper is directed chiefly to Siberia, we may limit the comparison to the Pale, where the Jews are overwhelmingly concentrated, and where they constitute more than a tenth of the total population. Even with this limitation they were represented in the immigration to the United States by more than four times their proportion of the population.

Another method of judging the degree of intensity of the Russian Jewish movement is to compare the proportion the number of Jewish immigrants for a period bears to the total Jewish population in Russia—their rate of immigration—with that of the other Russian peoples represented in the immigration to the United States. The rate of immigration of the Jews is by far the highest among the peoples of Russia. From 1899 to 1910 the Jewish immigrants to the United States constituted on the average one out of every 79 of the Jewish population in Russia.[70] The Finnish immigrants constituted one out of every 191 Finns, the Polish immigrants one out of every 200 Poles, and the Russian immigrants proper one out of every 11,552 of the Russian population. The relative position of the Jews [104]is thus strikingly indicated. The rate of immigration truly becomes an index of the economic and social pressure to which the Jews have been subjected for a third of a century. This rate of immigration for the Jews, moreover, shows large fluctuations in the twelve years from 1899 to 1910.[71] Of every 10,000 Jews in Russia there came to this country on the average for the twelve years from 1899 to 1910, 125 Jews. From 1899 to 1903 the annual rate of immigration was much lower than the average. In 1904, with the beginning of the critical years, the annual rate rose to 152, and in 1905, to 181. It reached its climax in 1906, with 246, almost twice as large as the average for the entire period. It fell slightly below this in 1907 with 226. In 1908, there was a great fall to 141, though the rate was still above the average for the period.

The movement of the Russian Jews to this country in the last thirty years is seen to be steadily rising and to reach enormous dimensions in the last decade. The Jews are more largely represented in the movement from Russia than any other people, and predominate practically for the entire thirty years. The rate of immigration is abnormally high, as compared with that of any other of the immigrant races from Russia. For the most part the Russian Jewish immigration reflects the unusual situation confronting the Jews in Russia.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IVToC

Immigration of Jews from Roumania

The immigration of Roumanian Jews to the United States began as a small stream at the end of the sixties, and assumed significant dimensions in the eighties. Two important periods of rising immigration are clearly distinguishable. The first period attains its maximum between 1885 and 1889. The second attains its maximum and that of the entire movement between 1900 and 1904.

In the thirty years between 1881 and 1910, 67,057 immigrants entered the United States.[72] In the first decade, 6,967 immigrants, or 10.4 per cent of the total, arrived. In the second decade, 12,789 immigrants arrived, or 19.1 per cent of the total. The great majority, 47,301 immigrants, or 70.5 per cent of the total, arrived in the last decade, more than twice as many as had arrived in the two preceding decades. The Roumanian Jews thus began to take a significant part in the Jewish movement only within the last decade.

The annual variations are closely connected with the conditions in Roumania which have been previously discussed.[73] The rise in 1885 to 803 immigrants, the first number of any consequence, reflects the measures taken in Roumania to restrict the economic activity of the Jews, chiefly through the hawkers' law of 1884. The continuation of the administrative activities against the Jews, the expulsion of many [106]from the villages, and particularly the beginning in earnest of the attempt to drive them from industry and commerce, by the law of 1887, are responsible for the wholesale exodus in that and the following two years. In these three years more than 7 per cent of the total Roumanian Jewish immigration entered the country.

After 1889 and for nearly a decade the immigration of Jews from Roumania subsided, resuming the proportions established before 1887.

Another rise began in 1899. In 1900, the Roumanian Jewish immigration reached the relatively great number of 6,183, around which point it stood for the next two years. In 1903, it reached its maximum with an immigration of 8,562 Jews, one-eighth of the entire Roumanian Jewish immigration for the thirty years. In the following year the immigration still held to the high numbers reached before 1903. The years following 1904 show a fall to less than 4,000, which was interrupted in 1908, when the immigration rose to 4,455. In 1909, a sharp fall ensued to 1,390, and in 1910 to 1,701.

The great rise from 1900 to 1904, during which period there came more than half of the total number of Jewish immigrants from Roumania, was largely due to the resumption of the government program against the Jews. The chief form of restriction was the passing of the Artisans' Law in 1902, preceded by some years of agitation and administrative activity directed against the Jews, which aimed to make it impossible for the Jewish artisans to secure work. The feeling that the Jews had nothing to hope from the government, as much as the actual distress occasioned, was largely responsible for the unprecedented immigration.[74]

[107]The Jewish forms so large a part of the Roumanian immigration as to be practically synonymous with it. As we have before noted, the figures obtained from the Jewish sources indicate a larger immigration from 1886 to 1898 on the part of the Jews alone than the official figures give for the entire immigration from Roumania for this period. Confining our attention to the figures of immigration from 1899 to 1910,[75] we find that, from 1899 to 1910, of the 61,073 immigrants from Roumania who entered the United States, 54,827, or 89.8 per cent, were Jews. Thus practically nine-tenths of the immigrants from Roumania are Jews. In the five years in which the Jewish movement was at its height, the Jews constituted from 91 per cent to 95.7 per cent of the Roumanian immigration. The immigration [108]of other peoples from Roumania is insignificant. The highest number entering in any of the twelve years amounted to less than 800.

Still more significant is the intensity of immigration of the Roumanian Jews, especially in view of the negligible number of immigrants from Roumania other than Jews. The rate of immigration of the Roumanian Jews is far higher than that even of their Russian brethren.[76] The average annual immigration of Roumanian Jews, for the twelve years, from 1899 to 1910, amounted to 4,569, which represented an average rate of immigration for the Roumanian Jews of 175 per 10,000 of the Jewish population in Roumania. In the five years of maximum immigration, from 1900 to 1904, the rate was considerably higher, reaching in 1903 the enormous proportion of 329 immigrants to every 10,000 Jews in Roumania. The lowest rate during this period, that of 1900, was only slightly smaller than the maximum rate approached by the Jewish immigrants from Russia. However, in the three years which represented the highest point of the rate of immigration of the Jews from Russia, from 1905 to 1907, the rate of immigration for the corresponding years in Roumania was considerably smaller.

The Jewish immigration from Roumania is thus a product chiefly of the last decade. The rise in the first decade and the relatively tremendous rise in the last decade are a result largely of the activities of the Roumanian government. The vast majority of the immigrants from Roumania are Jews, whose rate of immigration is unprecedented.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VToC

Immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary

The immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary began before the eighties of the last century, becoming at the beginning of the nineties a relatively strong and steady current. Until recently, this immigration was almost exclusively from Galicia.[77]

Summarizing the movement by decades,[78] we find that 44,619 Jews, or 15.9 per cent of the total, came during the decade from 1881 to 1890; 83,720 immigrants, or 29.8 per cent of the total, came during the decade from 1891 to 1900. In the last decade, from 1901 to 1910, there entered 152,811 immigrants, or 54.3 per cent of the total. Thus there is a nearly steady rise of the movement, though it is not as great as that found in the Jewish immigration from Russia.

The annual variations are also not as large as are found in the Russian Jewish movement.[79] The greatest number that came in any year in the first decade was in 1887, when 6,898 immigrants arrived, contributing 2.4 per cent of the total for the year. The highest number that came in the second decade was in 1899, when 11,071 immigrants arrived, contributing 3.9 per cent of the total. From this year there began a great rise which reached its maximum in 1904 with an immigration of 20,211 Jews, [110]constituting 7.2 per cent of the total—the highest point attained in the entire movement.

A comparison of the fluctuations of the Jewish with those of the total Austro-Hungarian immigration shows that the former follows the general movement quite closely, though there are minor differences and the maximum periods of both movements do not coincide.[80]

An examination of the part the Jewish played in the general immigration from Austria-Hungary shows that during the entire period of thirty years there entered into the United States from Austria-Hungary 3,091,692 immigrants, to which the Jews contributed 281,150 immigrants, or 9.1 per cent.[81] That the Jewish movement was relatively stronger in the earlier period than the general movement from Austria-Hungary is indicated by the fact that the Jews participate to a much larger extent in the movement of the first decades than in that of the last. In the first decade, from 1881 to 1890, of the 353,719 immigrants from Austria-Hungary, the Jews were 44,619, or 12.6 per cent of the total for the decade. In the decade from 1891 to 1900, of the 592,707 immigrants they were 83,720, or 14.1 per cent of the total. In the last decade, of 2,145,266 immigrants, they were 158,811, or 7.4 per cent of the entire movement. The Jewish movement is thus seen to be relatively the strongest in the second decade. Its fall in the last decade to almost half the proportion of the preceding decade was due to the tremendous growth in the immigration of the other races from Austria-Hungary. Whereas the general movement nearly quadrupled its numbers in the last decade, the Jewish movement did not quite double its numbers.

The largest part in the movement from Austria-Hungary [111]was taken by the Jews during the earlier years.[82] The highest point was reached in 1886, when the Jews constituted 18.6 per cent of the total movement. In the following year the Jewish immigrants constituted 17.1 per cent. Other years in which the Jews participated strongly were 1895, and from 1897 to 1899. In 1898 the second highest point was reached, the Jews constituting 18.5 per cent of the movement. From 1904 a great fall ensued. The lowest point was reached in 1909, when the Jews constituted only 5 per cent of the total movement.

A clearer idea of the situation would be obtained if the figures for the years and decades could be ascertained for Austria and Hungary separately, as the Jews in each of the divisions of the Dual Monarchy differ considerably in their immigration tendency. Austria and Hungary are distinguished in the immigration statistics only since 1910. Nevertheless, the three years from 1910 to 1912 serve to show that the Jews from Austria immigrate to the United States in much larger numbers than their brethren in Hungary. From 1910 to 1912, out of a total of 36,684 Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary, 29,340, or fully four-fifths, came from Austria. The participation of the Austrian Jews in the general movement is also correspondingly larger. From 1910 to 1912, the Jewish immigrants from Austria numbered 29,340 out of a total of 303,776, constituting 9.7 per cent of the total Austrian immigration. For the same period the Jewish immigrants from Hungary numbered only 7,344 out of a total of 292,900, constituting 2.5 per cent of the total. Thus the Jews participate in the movement from Austria practically four times as much as in the movement from Hungary.

The relative position of the Jews among the peoples [112]immigrating from Austria is of interest in this connection. The peoples with which comparison must be maintained are those concentrated in Galicia, the chief source of the Jewish, Polish and Ruthenian immigration.[83] For the seven years between 1899 and 1905, the Jewish immigrants constituted the second largest group. From 1906, they fell into the third position (excepting in 1908), owing to the rapid increase of immigration among the Ruthenians.

The average rate of immigration of the Jews of Austria-Hungary for the twelve-year period from 1899 to 1910, is 74 for every 10,000 Jews in the Empire.[84] The maximum rate was 97, which was reached in the immigration of 1904. In comparison with the Russian and Roumanian Jewish immigrants, those from Austria-Hungary have a far lower rate of immigration. This is true for the average as well as for the single years. However, in the first two years, 1899 and 1900, the rate of immigration was higher among the Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary. In comparison with the rate of immigration of the Poles and the Ruthenians, the Jews occupy an intermediate position, having a lower rate than the Poles and a higher rate than the Ruthenians.[85]

The Jewish movement from Austria-Hungary thus shows a fairly steady rise, but neither in its yearly variations nor its rate of immigration does it give evidence of any exceptional characteristics.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIToC

Total Jewish Immigration

The movement of the total Jewish immigration for the thirty years becomes clear in the light of the preceding pages. It is a rising movement, divided into two parts, the first culminating in 1892 and the second culminating in 1906. Like the Russian Jewish immigration which underlies it, the movement is one of geometrical progression.[86] From 1881 to 1890, 193,021 Jewish immigrants entered this country, 12.3 per cent of the total Jewish immigration. From 1891 to 1900, 393,516 Jewish immigrants, or 25.2 per cent entered. In the last decade there entered the enormous number of 976,263 Jewish immigrants, representing 62.5 per cent of the total Jewish immigration for the thirty years. This was more than twice as many as had entered the preceding decade, and more than five times the number of those who had entered the first decade. The Jewish immigration is in its largest part a product of the last decade.

The rise has not, however, been uniformly steady, as a division of the entire period into five six-year periods shows.[87] In the period from 1893 to 1898, there was a fall in the Jewish immigration. This period coincides with the years of depression in the United States following the panic of 1893. The fall was chiefly due to that in the Russian Jewish immigration. The Jewish immigration from Austria-Hungary on the contrary showed a relative rise. For [114]this period, as well as for a few years before, the Roumanian Jewish immigration contributed smaller numbers than in the previous decade. As in the case of the Russian Jewish movement, if we compare the immigration of the six-year period from 1885 to 1890, with that from 1893 to 1898, omitting the years 1891 and 1892 which are influenced in their great rise by the exceptional circumstances occurring within these two years, we find that the Jewish immigration was higher during the latter period of depression in the United States than during the earlier period, the total number of immigrants being 167,567 for the latter period, and 153,951 for the former.

In the period from 1899 to 1904 there was a great rise. A quarter of the entire immigration came in this period. The largest number of immigrants—more than two-fifths of the total of thirty years—came in the period from 1905 to 1910. If we included the immigration of 1904, which properly belongs to the later movement, we find that half of the entire Jewish immigration came within the seven years from 1904 to 1910.

The yearly variations of the total Jewish immigration correspond closely in the main to those of the Russian Jewish movement.[88] The influence of the other movements is, however, felt, at times quite strongly. Before 1885 the total Jewish immigration was quite small; less than 10,000 (except in 1882) or less than 1 per cent of the total, arrived each year. The rise of the immigration in 1882 to 13,202 was wholly due to the increase in the number of Russian Jewish immigrants. The second half of this decade was marked by a rising tide in the Jewish immigration from all the countries of Eastern Europe, which reached a height in 1887, with an immigration of 33,044, [115]constituting more than 2 per cent of the total number. This was but a prelude to the great rise at the opening of the second decade which in 1892 reached the number of 76,373 Jewish immigrants, the highest number attained in the first two decades. The immigration for this year alone constituted nearly one-twentieth of the total Jewish immigration. The increase of these years is due solely to the increase in the Russian Jewish immigration. From this point a fall ensued, which lasted until 1899. The fall was strongest in the Russian and the Roumanian movements. The absolute numbers and the relative proportions in the Jewish movement from Austria-Hungary increased. The tremendous rise of the last decade began in 1899. In 1900 the number of Jewish arrivals rose to 60,764. This increase was general, though it reached unusual proportions in the immigration from Roumania.

The fall in the next two years was due to a decrease in the number of immigrants from Austria-Hungary. That from Russia remained the same as in 1900, and the Roumanian Jewish immigration maintained the high level established in that year.

The immigration of 1903 surpassed the great numbers attained in 1892. The rise of nearly 20,000 of this year was general, though relatively greatest in the Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary.

The next three years marks the heights of the movement. In 1904, the 30,000 immigrants which represented the increase from the preceding year were Russian Jews. This is equally true of the large increase of 1905. In this year a fall took place both in the Austrian and Roumanian Jewish immigration. The Jewish immigration from the United Kingdom rose tremendously from 817 of the preceding year to 14,299,[89] an increase which reflects the [116]influences of the Russian Jewish movement for this year, and indicates that this movement from the United Kingdom must be considered as largely Russian Jewish.

The year 1906 marked the high-water mark of Jewish immigration for thirty years. 153,748 immigrants, practically one-tenth of the total movement, came in this year. As in the preceding year, the increase in the immigration from Russia (including the numbers from the United Kingdom) was the basis of the increase in the total.

From this point on we have a decline. The decline in 1907 to 149,182 immigrants reflected the decline in the numbers of the Russian Jewish immigrants, those from Austria-Hungary increasing. In this year the number of immigrants from British North America became conspicuous. In 1908 the immigration fell to 103,387, reflecting almost wholly the fall in the numbers of the Russian Jewish immigrants. The year 1909 marked a tremendous decline of the Jewish immigration to 57,551 immigrants. This decline was general, though relatively the greatest in the Austro-Hungarian and the Roumanian immigration.

A speedy recovery in numbers was shown in 1910 when the immigration rose to 84,260, recurring to the numbers at the beginning of the recent great rise, and higher than the immigration of any year before 1904. The rise was felt equally in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian immigration, relatively little in the Roumanian.

Thus by far the chief influence in the movement of the Jewish immigration for these thirty years has been the Russian Jewish immigration. In its growth of numbers, and in its rise and fall, the total Jewish immigration of the last thirty years is a reflection of the movement of the Russian Jews to this country.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIIToC

Participation of Jews in Total Immigration

We turn now to a consideration of the part played by the Jewish immigration in the total immigration to this country for these thirty years.[90] A general rise is revealed in the proportions the Jewish bore to the total immigration. In the decade between 1881 and 1890, of the 5,246,613 immigrants, the Jewish immigrants were 193,021, or 3.7 per cent of the total. In the decade between 1891 and 1900, of the 3,687,564 immigrants, the Jewish immigrants numbered 393,516. The Jewish proportion of the total rose to 10.7 per cent. This really tremendous rise was due to the fact that while the total number of immigrants fell off one-third in this decade, the Jewish immigrants doubled their numbers. It is from this decade that the Jewish immigrants become conspicuous in the immigration to the United States. In the decade between 1901 and 1910, of the 8,795,386 immigrants, the Jewish immigrants numbered 976,263. The proportion of the Jewish immigrants to the total rose to 11.1 per cent. Even in this decade of tremendous increase in the general immigration, the Jewish immigration rose at a still greater rate.

For the entire period the Jewish immigration was 8.8 per cent of the total immigration.[91] This proportion was not reached before 1891. The maximum in the first decade was in 1887, when the Jewish immigration constituted 6.7 per [118]cent of the total for the year. In 1891, this proportion rose to 9.2 per cent. It reached its highest point during nineteen years, in 1892, when the Jewish immigrants constituted 13.2 per cent of the total for the year. Throughout the period of depression, from 1893 to 1898, the contribution of the Jewish to the total immigration was, with two exceptions, above its average for the thirty years. In 1893, when the number of Jewish immigrants fell to half of that of the preceding year, its contribution to the total was 8 per cent. In 1897, a year of lowest Jewish as well as general immigration, its proportion was the same as the average. In the following years the contribution of the Jewish immigration rose proportionately, and in 1900 it reached the maximum for thirty years, constituting 13.5 per cent of the total for the year. The next highest proportion was reached in the year of maximum Jewish immigration, 1906, when the Jewish immigrants represented 13.4 per cent of the total for the year. Throughout the years from 1904 to 1908, the Jewish immigrants contributed above their average for the period. In 1908, when the numbers both of the Jewish and the total immigration had been greatly reduced, the Jewish immigrants contributed 13.2 per cent of the total, one of the highest proportions in the entire period, a fact which indicates that the Jewish immigrant tide recedes more slowly than that of the total immigration. In 1909, the year in which the effect of the panic of 1907 was registered in the Jewish immigration, the proportion of the Jewish immigrants to the total fell to 7.7 per cent. A slight relative rise took place in 1910 to 8.1 per cent.

A comparison of the annual fluctuations of the Jewish and the total immigration enables us to distinguish some points of difference.[92] Though, on the whole, the Jewish [119]corresponds with the total immigration in its rise and fall, there are significant differences. Thus, 1882 represents a year of high immigration in each, but the rise is in the case of the total immigration one of 17.9 per cent over that of the preceding year, but in the case of the Jewish, it represents a rise of 131.9 per cent over that of the preceding year, proportionately more than seven times as great. Another period of rising movement is in 1891 and 1892. Where, however, in 1891 the total immigration rose 20.9 per cent, the Jewish rose 79.5 per cent. In 1892, the total rose 3.4 per cent, the Jewish rose 48.6 per cent. In all these cases the difference is so great as to indicate the working of special influences in the Jewish movement.

The existence of these special influences is again evident in the last decade. In 1904, the total immigration fell off 5.2 per cent, but the Jewish immigration rose 39.4 per cent. In 1906, in spite of the great total immigration of that year, and its increase of 7.2 per cent over the preceding year, the increase of the Jewish was 18.2 per cent—more than double that of the total. Again, the maximum periods of the two movements do not coincide. The total immigration reached its highest point for the thirty years in 1907. The maximum of the Jewish movement was in 1906.

The panic of 1907 also appears to have influenced the Jewish immigration more slowly than the total. The greatest fall in the latter took place in 1908, immediately after the panic. The greatest fall of the Jewish immigration took place in 1909. This is another indication of the slowness of the response of the Jewish immigration to business conditions in this country, as compared with the rapid response of the general body of immigrants.

As the racial classification was introduced only in 1899, it is impossible to determine for the entire thirty [120]years the exact place the Jews occupy in the movement of peoples from the Old World to the New. During the twelve years from 1899 to 1910, there entered the United States a total of 1,074,442 Jewish immigrants, an annual average of nearly ninety thousand. This was the second largest body of immigrants, constituting more than a tenth of the total immigration for this period. In this regard the Jews were surpassed only by the South Italians.[93]

This is an immense volume of immigration, both relatively and absolutely, and indicates to what an extent the immigration tendency has seized the Jews. In this tendency, however, the Jews from the different countries of Europe differ very strongly. As practically only three countries of Eastern Europe—Russia, Roumania and Austria-Hungary—are represented in the recent Jewish immigration, a rate of immigration established for the Jews should be based upon the population of these countries rather than upon the total Jewish population in Europe. Thus established, the Jews have the highest rate of immigration of any immigrant peoples. In 1906, during the maximum period of Jewish immigration, the rate of immigration of the East-European Jews was twenty out of every thousand. In 1907, the rate of the Jewish immigration was nineteen out of every thousand. The Jews are approached in this respect only by the Slovaks, who, in 1907, had a rate of immigration of eighteen per thousand. In this respect, the Jewish immigration is seen to occupy an exceptional position in the recent movement of peoples from Europe to this country.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIIIToC

Summary

The preceding analysis of the movement of the Jewish immigration to the United States and that of its Russian, Roumanian and Austro-Hungarian tributaries, from 1881 to 1910, has revealed certain facts of importance.

The progressive nature of the Jewish movement has been disclosed. The greatest numbers have come within the last decade. This is particularly true of the movement from Roumania, and to a less extent of the movement from Russia. On the other hand, a larger relative proportion of the Jews from Austria-Hungary came during the first two decades. Throughout, the Jews from Russia have predominated in the total movement, governing its course for practically the entire period.

In the total movement from the three countries of Eastern Europe, the Jews have participated most strongly in the Roumanian immigration, constituting nine-tenths of this immigration. The Jews are nearly a half of the immigrants from Russia. Their participation in the immigration from Austria-Hungary is relatively much smaller, being less than a tenth of the total immigration. In the immigration of the two latter countries, the Jews show a lessening participation, due to the great growth of the immigration of the other peoples. In the movements from Russia and Roumania, the participation of the Jewish immigrants rises greatly in all periods significant in the situation of the Jews in these countries. The influence of the unusual conditions [122]facing the Jews in Russia and Roumania and of the principal events in their history for these thirty years is reflected in the annual fluctuations of the Jewish immigration of each of these countries to the United States. The economic and social pressure exerted upon the Jews in Russia and Roumania is reflected in the degree emigration is utilized by them. The Jews from Russia have a much higher rate of immigration than any other people immigrating from Russia. The rate of immigration of the Jews from Roumania is the highest among the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In both annual fluctuations and rate of immigration the movement of the Jews from Austria-Hungary does not indicate the existence of special influences.

The participation of the Jews in the total immigration to the United States is large and increasing in importance. For the last fifteen years they formed the second largest body of immigrants. Their fate of immigration is also higher than that of any other immigrant people. Of note, too, is the slow response of their immigration to unfavorable economic conditions in this country. When these facts are joined to those which have shown the striking relative participation of the Jews in the movements from Russia and Roumania, and the existence of special causes operating in these countries and indicating their influence in the yearly variations and in an extraordinary rate of immigration, it becomes clear that for the largest part of this period of thirty years Jewish immigration is controlled mainly by the conditions and events affecting the fate of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe.

That the conditions in the United States exercise an influence, favorable or unfavorable, upon the immigration of Jews is undoubted. The influences, however, exerted by the [123]conditions abroad are far stronger and steadier, and, on the whole, override the latter.

The conclusion previously reached that the Jewish immigration is for the largest part the result of the expulsive and rejective forces of governmental persecution is thus strengthened by this examination into the situation as presented by the figures of the Jewish immigration to the United States. With it as a guiding principle, some of the main characteristics peculiar to the Jewish immigration are explained. To these we now turn.

PART II

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

B. ITS CHARACTERISTICS

CHAPTER IToC

Family Movement

Vital aspects of an immigrant people are revealed in its sex and age distribution. Generally speaking, whether an immigration is composed of individuals or of families is shown in the relative proportion of males and females, and of adults and children, of which it is composed.

That the Jewish movement is essentially a family movement is shown by the great proportion of females and children found in it.[94] From 1899 to 1910, out of a total immigration of 1,074,442 Jews, 607,822, or 56.6 per cent were males, and 466,620, or 43.4 per cent, were females. These proportions have varied but slightly throughout the period. The greatest departures were in the years 1904 and 1905. The increase of the immigration of males in these years is explained by the unusual conditions existing in Russia at this time—economic unrest, revolution—which had the effect of sending over the men as an avantgarde to prepare the way for their families. Young men fleeing to escape conscription also swelled the numbers. In 1906, however, the number of males decreased by 2,000, but that of females increased by more than 25,000. In this tremendous increase of females is registered the effect of the pogroms of 1905-6, in which years the movement became a veritable flight.

The general tendency has been towards an increase in the proportion of females. For the thirteen years [128]preceding, from 1886 to 1898,[95] out of a total immigration at the port of New York of 251,623 Jewish adults, 147,053, or 58.4 per cent, were males, and 104,570, or 41.6 per cent, were females. The proportion of males is here somewhat higher than that for the period from 1899 to 1910. The difference is, however, relatively small. The tendency, previously noted, towards the increase in the proportion of females is found here. The greater relative diminution of the males in the later years—in 1894 reaching the point where there were more females—is even striking.

Turning to a consideration of the ages of the Jewish immigrants, we learn that, between 1899 and 1910, 267,656, or practically one-fourth of all the Jewish immigrants, were children under fourteen years.[96] The large part that is taken in the Jewish immigration by the children is apparent.

Here, again, 1904 and 1905 represent periods of great increase in the immigration of those between fourteen and forty-four years. As was the case with the females, the proportion of children in the immigration is at its greatest in the year 1906, by far the largest part of the increase for this year being children, thus giving a significant indication of the extent and literalness of the flight from Russia in this year of pogroms.[97] In the thirteen years preceding, from 1886 to 1898, of the 380,278 Jewish immigrants that entered the port of New York for this period, 128,655, or 33.8 per cent, were children under sixteen years of age.[98] A steady increase in the latter years is noted in the proportion of children, which harmonizes with a similar tendency noted of the females for the same period.

That these facts reveal a family movement of [129]considerable size, there is no question. They become truly significant when comparison is made with the proportions of the females and the children in the general immigration and with those of the peoples of which it is composed.

A comparison of the proportion of males and females in the total and the Jewish immigration from 1899 to 1910 shows that for the entire period the percentage of females in the Jewish was much higher than in the total immigration, 43.4 per cent of the Jewish immigration being females as compared with 30.5 per cent of the total.[99] The percentage of females in the Jewish immigration was higher for every year from 1899 to 1910.

While the percentage of males in the total immigration was above 70 per cent in five years, the percentage of males in the Jewish immigration was less than 60 per cent in all but two years, 1904 and 1905, when it rose to 61.2 per cent and 63.2 per cent. The latter, which represents the highest point in the percentage of males in the Jewish immigration, was smaller than the percentage of males in the total immigration for every year but 1899. In other words the maximum percentage of males in the Jewish and the minimum percentage in the total immigration practically coincide.

In the period between 1899 and 1909 the proportion of children under fourteen years of age in the Jewish immigration was 24.8 per cent, while that in the total immigration was only 12.3 per cent.[100] The Jewish thus had proportionately twice as many children as the total immigration.

The exceptional position of the Jews in regard to their family movement is most strikingly shown when the [130]composition of the Jewish immigration by sex and age is compared with that of the other immigrant peoples.[101] In a comparison with immigrant races which contributed more than 100,000 to the total immigration from 1899 to 1910, the Jews are seen to have a higher proportion of females than any other people except the Irish. The Irish present in this regard an anomaly, in that they have more females than males in their immigration. That it is not in the main a family movement is shown by reference to the proportion of children under fourteen in the Irish immigration, which is only 5 per cent, one of the lowest in the entire series. The anomaly is easily explained by the well-known fact that their females for the most part are single, who come to the United States to work as servants.[102]

Only one other people, the Bohemian and Moravian, approached the Jewish in its high proportion of females. On the other hand, the one people with a larger immigration than the Jewish, the South Italian, presents a striking contrast to the Jewish immigration, in that its proportion of females was about half that of the Jews. Although its immigrants numbered twice as many as the Jewish, the females in the Italian movement were only 408,965, as compared with 466,620 females in the Jewish immigration.

A comparison of the immigrant peoples with reference to their composition by age shows that the Jewish movement contains without any exception the largest proportion of children.[103] Out of a total of 990,182 Jewish immigrants from 1899 to 1909, 245,787, or 24.8 per cent, were children under fourteen. In this regard, again, the Bohemian and Moravian approach the Jewish, though [131]not as closely as in the proportion of females. The contrast with the South Italians obtains here as well. As the Jewish immigration, during the twelve years from 1899 to 1910, was the second highest in numbers, contributing more than a million to the total, the number of females and children found in its movement was higher than that of any other immigrant race, not only relatively but absolutely as well.

Most striking, indeed, is the contrast in these respects between the Jewish immigrants and the other races coming from the countries of Eastern Europe, particularly the Slavic immigrant races with whom the Jews have been associated in the official statistics.[104] An examination of the proportion of females in the immigration of the eight races composing the Slavic group, shows that, with the exception of the Bohemians and Moravians (whose movement presents strong similarities to that of the Jews), the percentage of females was less than a third of the total immigration of each race, the highest being that of the Poles, which was 30.5 per cent. The contrast is even more striking in respect to children under fourteen. Here, again, excluding the Bohemians and Moravians, the highest percentage in the group was that of the Poles, 9.5 per cent. In this respect, therefore, the association of the Jewish immigrants with the other immigrants from Eastern Europe, under the rubric "Slavic races", is seen to be untenable.

Strongest of all is the contrast between the Jewish immigration and that of the Roumanian people.[105] The Roumanian movement is seen to be composed practically wholly of individuals, only 9 per cent being females, while that of the people from Roumania (nine-tenths of whom are [132]Jews[106]) is seen to have a proportion of females higher even than that in the total Jewish immigration. Even greater is the contrast with respect to age, only 2.2 per cent of the Roumanians being children under fourteen.

The division of the peoples represented in the immigration to the United States into "old" and "new", the former consisting of the peoples from Northern and Western Europe, the latter of the peoples from Southern and Eastern Europe, is a convenient classification essentially of two periods of immigration coinciding largely with changes in the economic conditions in the United States.

A comparison of the proportion of females and children in the "old" and the "new" immigration with that in the Jewish shows that the Jewish immigration has proportionately almost twice as many females as the "new" immigration (Jews excepted), and surpasses even the "old" immigration in this regard.[107] Of children under fourteen the Jewish movement has proportionately more than two and one-half times as many as the "new" immigration (Jews excepted), and nearly twice as many as the "old" immigration.

This analysis shows conclusively that the Jewish immigration is essentially a family movement; that it is approached by no other immigrant people in this regard; that it not only cannot be classed with the "new" immigration, but shows a tendency towards family movement far stronger than that of the peoples composing the "old" immigration.

The significance of this characteristic of the Jewish immigration is obvious. Their unequaled family movement gives one of the clearest indications that the Jewish immigrants are essentially composed of permanent settlers.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IIToC

Permanent Settlement

Our studies of the sex and age distribution of the Jewish immigrants have shown a family movement unsurpassed in degree. This in itself is sufficient indication that the Jews are essentially permanent settlers in this country and not transients, "who have no intention of permanently changing their residence and whose only purpose in coming to America is temporarily to take advantage of greater wages paid for industrial labor in this country."[108]

Equally convincing evidence is afforded by a survey of the facts regarding the outward movement of Jews from this country.[109] The figures of Jewish immigration are obtainable only from 1908, the law of 1907 having required all steamship companies to furnish information regarding their emigrant passengers.

The relative stability of an immigration may be determined by contrasting the departure of the aliens composing the immigration with the arriving immigrants of this group for the same period. From 1908 to 1912, 33,315 Jews left the United States—an average annual emigration of 6,660 Jews. This is a strikingly low number, especially when compared with the large Jewish immigration for the same period, which numbered 417,016, and averaged annually 83,400 Jewish immigrants. Thus, for every hundred Jews admitted, only eight [134]Jews left the country. This average proportion was largely exceeded only in 1909, not, however, because of any great increase in the absolute numbers of the Jewish emigrants, but because of the great fall in the number of Jewish immigrants of this year.

The part that is taken by the Jewish emigrants in the total emigration is insignificant and is in striking contrast with the great part taken by the Jewish immigrants in the total immigration.[110] From 1908 to 1912, the Jewish immigrants constituted 9.7 per cent of the total immigrants. In the same period, the Jewish emigrants constituted only 2.3 per cent of the total emigrants. Moreover, while the proportion that the Jewish immigrants constituted of the total immigrants exhibited a considerable and significant variation, fluctuating from 7.7 per cent to 13.2 per cent, the proportion the Jewish emigrants constituted of the total emigrants remained around 2 per cent and showed practically no variation. Relatively both to the number of Jewish immigrants and of total emigrants, therefore, the number of the Jewish emigrants is exceedingly small and practically negligible.

How great the relative stability of the Jewish immigration is may be seen when its return movement is compared with that of the total immigration and of other peoples conspicuous in the immigration to the United States.[111] Whereas, from 1908 to 1910, for every hundred admitted in the total immigration, thirty-two departed—the outward movement thus approximating one-third of the inward—in the case of the Jewish immigration, only eight departed, an outward movement only one-quarter as large, relatively, as the total. This was the smallest outward movement, relatively to the inward, of any immigrant [135]people, except the Irish, whose outward movement was 6 per cent of the inward. Relatively to the inward movement, the Jews had an outward movement one-seventh as large as the South Italians, almost one-fourth as large as the Poles, and less than one-half as large as the Germans.

In the total immigration for these years, the Jews were the third largest group with 236,100 immigrants, which constituted 10.2 per cent of the total immigration. To the outward movement for this period, however, they contributed 18,543 Jews, which constituted only 2.5 per cent of the total number of emigrants, one of the smallest contributions. The Poles, who constituted 11.7 per cent of the immigration for the three years, contributed practically the same proportion, 11.4 per cent, to the outward movement. Even more striking is the contrast with the Italian movement. The Italians contributed 19.8 per cent of the inward movement for the period and 35.7 per cent of the outward movement for the three years. Though their immigration for these three years was only twice as large as that of the Jews, their emigration was more than fourteen times that of the Jews. In other words, no people combined in an equal degree as the Jews so small a number of emigrants with so large a number of immigrants.

It is interesting to determine what is the emigration tendency of the Jews coming from Russia, Roumania and Austria-Hungary. This may be gathered from the number of emigrants returned for each of these countries, from 1908 to 1912, as compared with the number admitted.[112] From 1908 to 1912, 294,813 Jews from Russia entered the United States and 20,546 Jews departed for Russia; 11,246 Jews from Roumania entered the United States and 546 Jews departed for Roumania; 60,408 Jews from [136]Austria-Hungary entered the United States, and 8,513 Jews departed for Austria-Hungary. In other words, for every hundred Jews entering from Russia seven departed, for every hundred Jews entering from Roumania five Jews departed, for every hundred Jews entering from Austria-Hungary fourteen departed for their respective countries. The emigration tendency was thus smaller with the Roumanian and the Russian Jews than with the Austro-Hungarian Jews. This held true for each of the five years. Relatively twice as many Jews from Austria-Hungary as from Russia returned. The Roumanian Jews showed the smallest tendency to return.

Of importance is the question of the relative stability of the Jewish movement from Russia and Austria-Hungary and that of their close neighbors in these countries, the Poles, who contributed almost as large a current of immigrants to the United States as the Jews, and who, since they constitute the most important Slavic group, may be taken as the type of the Slavic movement to this country.

From 1908 to 1912, 265,964 Polish immigrants from Russia were admitted to the United States and 60,290 Poles departed for Russia, this constituting an average emigration of twenty-two per hundred admitted.[113] As, for every hundred Russian Jews admitted in this period, only seven departed, this constituted a relative emigration one-third as large as that of the Poles. For the same period, 214,931 Poles were admitted from Austria-Hungary and 88,994 Poles left for that country, which constituted an average emigration of forty-one per hundred admitted. The average emigration of the Jews from Austria-Hungary was fourteen per hundred admitted or practically one-third as large as that of the Poles. Thus, the Jewish immigrants [137]from Russia and Austria-Hungary present relatively three times as stable a movement as the Polish immigrants from these countries.

The fact that the Jewish emigration from Galicia was a movement of families and was essentially a movement of permanent settlement in their new home was noted by Buzek as characteristic of this emigration even in the early eighties, and as strongly contrasted with the emigration of the Poles from Galicia.[114]

A comparison of the return movement of the "old" and the "new" immigration with that of the Jewish immigration gives similar results.[115] For every hundred admitted, there were, in the "new" immigration, forty-two emigrants, relatively more than five times as many as among the Jews. Even in the "old" immigration, which is largely accepted as the type of permanent immigration, for every hundred admitted, there were thirteen emigrants, about one and a half times as many relatively as among the Jews. The Jewish immigration must thus be accorded the place of distinction in American immigration for permanence of settlement.

An unusual test of this conclusion was afforded by the remarkable emigration following the crisis of 1907.[116] The general opinion that "the causes which retard emigration from abroad also accelerate the exodus from the United States", was considerably strengthened by the great exodus of 1908. To this rule the Jewish immigration forms, again, a most striking exception. Although its number in 1907—149,182 immigrants—was only slightly below its maximum for thirty years, and constituted the second highest immigration for the year, only 7,702 Jews left the country in [138]1908. This constituted only two per cent of the total emigration for that year. Relatively to the number admitted the Jewish emigration was, without exception, the lowest, being only five departed for every hundred admitted. The remarkable disparity in this regard with the Poles and the Italian was again shown here. For every hundred Poles entering in 1907, thirty-three emigrated in 1908. For every hundred South Italians entering in 1907, sixty emigrated in 1908.

That the business conditions of this country affect Jewish immigration is unquestioned, but the difference in the degree and the manner of the response puts it in a class apart. A comparison of the total gain in population in 1908 and 1909 in the immigration of Italians and Jews shows that whereas in the Italian inward and outward movement in 1908 there was a net loss to this country of 79,966, but in 1909 a net gain of 94,806, in the Jewish inward and outward movement in 1908 there was a net gain of 95,685, and in 1909 a net gain of 50,705.[117] The Jewish immigration responds in its inward movement much more slowly and less completely to the pressure of unfavorable conditions in this country. In its outward movement it shows practically no response.

The conclusion that the Jewish immigrants constitute to an unusual degree a body of permanent settlers is strengthened by an examination of the figures concerning immigrants who have been in the United States previously.[118] Of the total from 1899 to 1910 of 9,220,066 immigrants, [139]1,108,948, or 12 per cent, had been here before. Of the 1,074,442 Jews who entered the country during this period, only 22,914, or 2.1 per cent, had been previously in the United States. The proportion of Jews who have been in this country before is by far the lowest of any immigrant peoples.

As the total Jewish exodus is insignificant as compared both with the total emigration and the proportion of the Jewish immigration in the total inward movement; as the Jewish outward movement shows practically no response to unfavorable economic conditions in this country, and as the Jewish inward movement presents the phenomenon of a practically new body of immigrants, we are led to conclude that the Jewish immigration exhibits a quality of permanence and stability to so great a degree as to render this fact one of its distinguishing characteristics.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER III

OccupationsToC

The occupations of an immigrant people throw light upon their industrial equipment and their probable future occupations in this country. A study of the occupational distribution of the Jewish immigrants from 1899 to 1910 will serve to illuminate some of the characteristics of their movement.[119]

The largest group is that classed as having "no occupation". This group comprises 484,175 immigrants, and is 45.1 per cent of the total. In the fact that it holds so large a place in the occupational distribution, there is reflected the great number of women and children among the Jewish immigrants. The rise in the proportion of the "no occupation" group in the second half of the twelve years follows a similar rise in the proportion of women and children in the Jewish movement, which has been previously noted.[120] These are, in the main, economically dependent, a fact which is of the highest importance with reference to the character of this immigration, as well as in its influence upon the economic and social problems facing the immigrant Jews in their new home.

Skilled laborers were the second largest group, numbering 395,823 immigrants and comprising 36.8 per cent of the total. Next in order was the group classed as "miscellaneous", with 186,989 immigrants, representing 17.4 [141]per cent of the total. This group included common and farm laborers, servants, merchants and dealers, etc. In professional occupations there were 7,455 immigrants, comprising 7 per cent of the total.

Omitting the "no occupation" group, and considering the 590,267 Jewish immigrants reporting occupations, we find that of these the great majority—67.1 per cent—were skilled laborers.[121] Laborers numbered 69,444 and comprised 11.8 per cent. Next in order of numbers were servants, 65,532, who comprised 11.1 per cent. A much smaller group was that composed of merchants and dealers (chiefly petty merchants, hucksters, and peddlers), who numbered 31,491 and were 5.3 per cent of the total. Of farm laborers there were 11,460, comprising 1.9 per cent. The entire professional class comprised 1.3 per cent of the total. There were 1,000 farmers, who comprised .2 per cent.

In the professional classes the teachers were the largest group, represented by 2,192, and comprising 29.4 per cent.[122] The next class were the musicians, who numbered 1,624, comprising 21.8 per cent of the total. Together these two groups were more than half of the total.

Thus, by far the most important occupational group was that of the skilled laborers.[123] An examination of the distribution of this group shows that they were represented in thirty-five trades. By far the largest group of the skilled laborers were the tailors, numbering 145,272, and comprising 36.6 per cent. The dressmakers and seamstresses numbered 39,482, and comprised one-tenth of the total. Including the closely allied trades such as hat and cap makers, milliners, etc., the garment workers composed practically one-half of the entire body of skilled laborers. Second in rank were the carpenters and joiners, who, together with the [142]cabinet makers and woodworkers (not specified) numbered 40,901, and comprised more than one-tenth of the total. The fourth highest group were the shoemakers, with 23,519, or 5.9 per cent of the total. Clerks and accountants, and painters and glaziers contributed an almost equal number—the former 17,066, the latter 16,387—representing 4.3 per cent and 4.1 per cent respectively of the total. Of butchers there were 11,413, or 2.9 per cent, and of bakers 10,925, or 2.8 per cent. There were also 9,385 locksmiths, or 2.4 per cent, and 8,517 blacksmiths, or 2.2 per cent. Together, these ten groups comprised 318,104, or 80.4 per cent of the Jews in skilled occupations.

Another skilled occupation represented by more than 5,000 was tinners. Trade groups of more than 3,000 were watch and clock makers, tobacco workers, hat and cap makers, barbers and hairdressers, weavers and spinners, tanners and curriers, furriers and fur workers, and bookbinders. More than a thousand skilled laborers were found in the following trades: photographers and upholsterers, mechanics (not specified), masons, printers, saddlers and harness makers, milliners, metal workers (other than iron, steel and tin), machinists, jewelers and millers. Less than a thousand laborers were found in two groups: iron and steel workers, and textile workers (not specified).

The Jewish immigrants were therefore concentrated in the two groups of "no occupation" and "skilled laborers", to which belonged more than four-fifths of the total number.

In the part taken by the Jewish immigrants in the occupational distribution of the total immigrants from 1899 to 1909, these two groups are prominent.[124] To the 1,247,674 skilled laborers, the Jewish immigrants [143]contributed 362,936, or 29.1 per cent. This was more than twice the proportion of the Jewish immigrants in the total number of immigrants. They were also represented in the "no occupation" group by more than one and one-half times their proportion of the total immigration, contributing to a total of 2,165,287 immigrants, 445,728, or 20.6 per cent. In striking contrast with the great contribution to these two classes is their insignificant contributions to the groups of common laborers and farmers, and farm laborers, to which they contributed respectively 2.9 per cent, 1.1 per cent, and 0.1 per cent.

It is, however, in comparison with the occupational grouping of the other races that the peculiarities of the distribution of the Jewish immigrants are most clearly seen.[125] An examination of the number of those classed as having "no occupation" of each European immigrant people and the percentage this group comprised of the total immigration of each people, shows that the Jews have the highest proportion, 45.1 per cent, of all immigrants belonging to this group. The Bohemians and Moravians are next in order, with 39.5 per cent. The absolute numbers of the Jews belonging to this group are also higher than those of any other people. The Italians have only 440,274 immigrants in the "no occupation" group, as compared with the 484,175 Jewish immigrants in this group. Even more striking is the contrast with the Poles, who have only 200,634 immigrants belonging to this group. This corresponds closely with similar facts as to the relative proportions of females and children found in the Jewish immigration and among the other immigrant races.

An even greater contrast exists in the proportions of skilled laborers between the Jewish and the other [144]immigrant peoples.[126] Of those reporting occupations the Jews have, by far, the highest proportion of those in skilled occupations. The nearest approach to their proportion of skilled laborers is found among the Scotch, with 57.9 per cent. The next in order are the English, with 48.7 per cent. A much smaller proportion is found among the Bohemians and Moravians and the Germans. All these races contribute not only much smaller proportions than the Jews, but very much smaller absolute numbers to the total body of skilled laborers.

Of laborers (including farm laborers), the Jews, on the other hand, have a smaller proportion, 13.7 per cent, than any people, except the Scotch (who resemble the Jews most strongly in their high proportion of skilled laborers and their low proportion of common laborers).

The most striking contrast, in occupational distribution, however, is presented with the Slavic peoples.[127] Of those reporting occupations, the Slavic peoples, with the exception of the Bohemians and Moravians, are seen to be overwhelmingly concentrated in the two related groups of common and farm laborers, whereas the Jews are mostly to be found in the group of skilled laborers. Relatively ten times as many Jews as Poles, for instance, are in the skilled occupations.

That the Jews form a striking exception in their occupational grouping is evident. A comparison of the occupational distribution of the "old" and the "new" immigrants with that of the Jewish immigrants, from 1899 to 1909, leads to the same conclusion.[128] The Jewish immigrants have twice as many in the "no occupation" group as the "new" immigrants, and a much higher percentage than the "old" immigrants. They have relatively four [145]times as many skilled laborers as the "new" immigrants, and more than one and one-half times as many as the "old" immigrants. Most remarkable is the fact that in spite of the relatively great proportion of women among the Jewish immigrants, they have a smaller proportion of servants than the "new" immigrants and one-third as large a proportion as the "old" immigrants. This indicates that the Jewish women are, as a rule, not servants, but either do not engage in work, or, if they do, are employed in skilled occupations. The latter group is, however, relatively inconspicuous.

In professional occupations the Jews occupy an intermediate position between the "old" and the "new" immigrants. In common and farm laborers, the Jews have an exceedingly low proportion as compared with the "old" and a strikingly low proportion as compared with the "new" immigrants.

Some distinctive traits in the occupational grouping of the Jewish immigrants have become evident. They are apart from all the other immigrant peoples in the great number of those having "no occupation". In other words, the Jewish immigrants are burdened with a far greater number of dependents than any other immigrant people, standing apart in this respect from the peoples of the "old" immigration and to a far greater extent from the peoples of the "new" immigration. Secondly, the Jewish immigrants are distinguished by a far greater proportion of skilled laborers. In this respect again they exceed even the peoples of the "old" immigration. The fact that the skilled laborers are more largely represented among the Jewish immigrants than they are in the occupations of the Jews in the countries of Eastern Europe is significant as showing an unusual pressure upon these classes abroad.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER IV

IlliteracyToC

The rate of illiteracy has been generally used as a rough standard for estimating the mental equipment of the immigrants. A consideration of the rate of illiteracy among the Jewish immigrants dispels the popular impression that practically every Jew is able to read and write.[129] Out of a total of 806,786 Jews fourteen years of age and over who entered this country from 1899 to 1910, 209,507 or 26 per cent, were unable to read and write. As the average rate of illiteracy among all the immigrants, from 1899 to 1910, was 26.7 per cent, the rate of Jewish illiteracy is seen to be only slightly below the average.

A number of considerations enter. One of these is the influence of sex. It is generally recognized that, as a rule, females are more usually unlettered than males. This difference of illiteracy between the sexes is also more pronounced in countries where popular education is less widely spread than in those where it is the rule. Such is the case with the countries of Eastern Europe, which are the source of the recent Jewish immigration. The contrast between male and female illiteracy is strongest among the East-European Jews, who neglect the education of their daughters as much as they strive to educate their sons. This is reflected in the relative illiteracy of males and females among the Jewish immigrants.[130] Of the 172,718 Jewish males fourteen years of age and over [147]entering this country from 1908 to 1912, 33,970, or 19.7 per cent, were illiterates. Of the 139,283 females fourteen years of age and over, 51,303, or 36.8 per cent, were illiterates. The illiteracy of Jewish females is thus almost twice as high as that of Jewish males. As the proportion of females in the Jewish immigration is so large, the influence of the sex factor in increasing the rate of illiteracy among the Jewish immigrants is considerable. A tendency from a lower to a higher rate of illiteracy is discernible. The average rate for the first six years was 23.8 per cent, that for the last six years was 27.2 per cent. This corresponds with the increase in the latter years in the proportion of females in the Jewish immigration, which has been previously noted.

A comparison of the rate of illiteracy of the Jewish immigrants with that of the other immigrant peoples shows that the Jews occupy an intermediate position.[131] They have a relatively high rate of illiteracy, as compared with the peoples from Northern and Western Europe. In comparison with the Slavs, their rate of illiteracy is also much higher than that of the Bohemians and Moravians, and, higher also, though to a far less degree, than that of the Slovaks.

The relative position of the Jews is clearly shown in a comparison of their rate of illiteracy from 1899 to 1910 with that for the same period of the "old" and the "new" immigration (from the latter of which the Jews are excepted.)[132] The rate of illiteracy of the "old" immigration is 2.5 per cent, that of the "new" immigration (Jews excepted) is 37.2 per cent, that of the Jews is 25.7 per cent. The Jews occupy a middle ground, yet near enough to the "new" immigration to be classed with it in this respect.

[148]The conclusion reached in the first part that the educational standing of the Jews is higher than that of the peoples in Eastern Europe among whom they live is reflected in the greater relative literacy of their immigrants.[133] The rate of illiteracy of the Jewish immigrants is lower than that of the peoples among whom the Jews are found. In the case of the Lithuanians and the Ruthenians the difference is considerable. This is seen to hold true for each sex.[134] The illiterates among the Jewish males constituted 21.9 per cent of the total number of Jewish males. The illiterates among the Jewish females constituted 40.0 per cent of the total number of Jewish females. In both sexes, the proportion of illiterates was lower than that prevailing among the other immigrant peoples.

Here, again, the fact is noticeable of a wider difference in the case of the Jews between the illiteracy of their males and females than exists among any of the other peoples. Owing to the fact that the Jews have in their immigration a notably higher proportion of females than any of these peoples, the difference between their rate of illiteracy and that of these peoples is lessened to some extent.

That the illiteracy of the Jews is due chiefly to their exceptional status in Russia and Roumania, our review of the conditions affecting Jewish education in those countries has shown. No more striking illustration exists of the fact that the literacy of the Jews is conditioned by their freedom than the degree in which they are taking advantage of the educational opportunities offered in this country, remarkable testimony to which is presented in the reports of the recent Immigration Commission.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VToC

Destination

The destination, or intended future residence, of immigrants is influenced by certain considerations, such as the place of residence of friends or relatives, the port arrived at, and the funds at the disposal of the immigrants.

The most important influence is that exercised by the occupations of the immigrants. The preponderance of the industrially skilled and commercial groups among the Jewish immigrants makes for residence in the industrial and commercial centers. The great majority of the Jewish immigrants arriving from 1899 to 1910 were destined for the eastern states.[135] Of the total number of Jewish immigrants from 1889 to 1910, 923,549 immigrants, or 86 per cent, gave the North Atlantic States as their destination and 110,998 immigrants, or 10.3 per cent, the North Central States. Less than one-twentieth gave all the other divisions as their destination.

A great proportion of the Jewish immigrants, numbering 690,296, or 64.2 per cent of the total, gave New York as their destination.[136] Pennsylvania was the destination of the next largest number of immigrants, 108,534, constituting 10.1 per cent of the total. For Massachusetts there were destined 66,023 immigrants, or 6.1 per cent of the total. Four-fifths of the total number of immigrants were destined for these three states. Other eastern states receiving a large number of immigrants were New Jersey, for which [150]34,279 were destined, and Connecticut, for which 16,254 immigrants were destined. Of the North Central States, Illinois was the destination of the largest number, 50,931 immigrants, constituting 4.7 per cent of the total. Ohio was the destination of the next largest number, 20,531 immigrants, or 1.9 per cent of the total. One state in the South Central division, Maryland, was given as the destination of 18,700 immigrants, constituting 1.7 per cent of the total, and the largest number of those destined for this division. The tendency of the Jewish immigrants towards industrial and commercial centers is here reflected.

The destination of the Jewish immigrants to the eastern states agrees with that of the total immigration for the same period.[137] A larger proportion of the Jewish immigrants than of the total immigrants was destined for the North Atlantic States, which contain the commercial and manufacturing centers. Less than one-half as many Jewish immigrants as total immigrants were destined for the North Central States. About an equal proportion of each was destined for the South Atlantic States. A much smaller proportion of the Jewish than of the total was destined for the Western States. In view of the industrial equipment of the Jewish immigrants discussed previously, this tendency is explained.

The Jewish immigrants destined for the eastern states play a correspondingly large part among the total number destined for these states.[138] The Jewish immigrants destined for the North Atlantic States were 14.5 per cent of all the immigrants destined for this division. Their next highest proportion was of those destined for the South Central States, of which they constituted 9.9 per cent. They constituted an almost equal proportion of the immigrants [151]destined for the North Central and the South Central States, 5.2 per cent, and 5.0 per cent, respectively. Of the immigrants destined for the Western States they constituted only 1.2 per cent.

The final destination of the immigrants very frequently is different from the destination stated at the time of landing. An examination of the disposition of Jewish immigrants landing at the port of New York from 1886 to 1906 showed that a large part of the immigrants left within a very short time for other parts.[139] Of the 918,388 immigrants that landed at the port of New York, from 1886 to 1906, 669,453, or 72.9 per cent, remained in New York, and 248,935, or 27.1 per cent, left for other points.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER VIToC

Summary and Conclusions

Some of the principal characteristics of the Jewish immigration to the United States have been presented in the preceding pages. The Jewish immigration has been shown to consist essentially of permanent settlers. Its family movement is incomparable in degree, and contains a larger relative proportion as well as absolute number of women and children, than any other immigrant people. This in turn is reflected in the greater relative proportion as well as absolute number of those classified as having "no occupation". The element of dependency thus predicated is another indication of the family composition of the Jewish immigration. Its return movement is the smallest of any, as compared both with its large immigration and the number of total emigrants. The Jewish immigrants are distinguished as well by a larger relative proportion and absolute number of skilled laborers, than any other immigrant people. In these four primary characteristics the Jewish immigrants stand apart from all the others.

It is with the neighboring Slavic races emigrating from the countries of Eastern Europe and with whom the Jewish immigrants are closely associated that the contrasts, in all these respects, are strongest. The Slavic immigrants are chiefly male adults. Their movement is largely composed of transients, as evidenced by a relatively large outward movement and emphasized by the fact that the vast majority [153]of them are unskilled laborers. An exception, in large measure, must be made of the Bohemian and Moravian immigrants who present characteristics strongly similar to those of the Jewish immigrants.

The division into "old" and "new" immigration brings out even more clearly the exceptional position of the Jews in regard to these characteristics. Although the Jewish immigration has been contemporaneous with the "new" immigration from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and is furthermore essentially East-European in origin, its characteristics place it altogether with the "old" immigration.[140] Most striking, however is the fact that in all of these respects—family composition, and small return movement (both indicating permanent settlement) and in the proportion of skilled laborers—the Jewish immigration stands apart even from the "old" immigration.

Further confirmation may be obtained, in the study of the characteristics of the Jewish immigration, of the principle established in the preceding sections that the rejective forces of governmental oppression are responsible for the largest part of this immigration. The large family movement of the Jewish immigration is a symptom of abnormal conditions and amounts almost to a reversal of the normal immigration, in which single or married men without families predominate. Even the family movement of the "old" immigrants may largely be attributed to the longer residence of their peoples in the United States as well as to their greater familiarity with the conditions and customs of the United States. That so large a part of the Jewish immigrants is composed of [154]dependent females and children creates a situation of economic disadvantage for the Jewish immigrants, all the stronger because of their relative unfamiliarity with the language or the conditions facing them in this country.

Again, the Jews respond slowly and incompletely to the pressure of unfavorable economic conditions in this country. This was emphasized by the almost complete lack of response to the panic of 1907, as well as expressed in the small, practically unchanging return movement of the Jews to their European homes.

The pressure upon the Jewish artisans, or skilled laborers, in Eastern Europe is reflected in the predominance of this class among the Jewish immigrants to this country. That so useful an element in Eastern Europe with its still relatively backward industrial development—a fact that was given express recognition by the permission accorded the Jewish artisans in Alexander II's time to live in the interior of Russia—should have been compelled to emigrate indicates that the voyage across the Atlantic was easier for them than the trip into the interior of Russia, access to which is still legally accorded to them.

That the oppressive conditions created particularly in Russia and Roumania and operating as a pressure equivalent to an expulsive force does not explain the entire Jewish immigration to this country is evident from the preceding pages. In a great measure, the immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary is an economic movement. The existence, however, of a certain degree of pressure created by economic and political antisemitism has however been recognized. The Jewish movement from Austria-Hungary shares largely with the movement from Russia and Roumania the social and economic characteristics of the Jewish immigration which we have described. A strong family movement and a relative permanence of settlement, [155]especially as compared with the Poles, and a movement of skilled laborers must be predicated of the Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary, though undoubtedly not to the same degree as in the case of the Jewish movements from Russia and Roumania.

It is also clear that the forces of economic attraction in the United States do not play an altogether passive part in the Jewish immigration. The very fact of an immigrant-nucleus formed in this country and serving as a center of attraction to relatives and friends abroad—a force which increases in direct and multiple proportion to the growth of immigration—is an active and positive force in strengthening the immigration current. This was early understood by the Alliance Israélite Universelle which had acted upon this principle in the seventies and had prophetically sought to direct a healthy movement of Jewish immigrants to this country in the hope of thereby laying a foundation for future Jewish immigration to this country. This current, however, once started and growing only by the force of its increasing attraction, would reflect in its movement almost wholly the economic conditions in this country. That so large a part of the Jewish immigration, and so many of the phenomena peculiar to it, find their explanation, for the largest part of the thirty years, in the situation and the course of events in the countries of Eastern Europe leads to the inevitable conclusion that the key to the Jewish immigration is to be found not in the force of economic attraction exercised in the United States but rather in the exceptional economic, social and legal conditions in Eastern Europe which have been created as a result of governmental persecution.

Reviewing the various phases of the history of Jewish immigration for these thirty years, we are enabled to see more closely its nature. The study of the immigration, its [156]movement and its social and economic characteristics, in comparison with those of other immigrant peoples, has revealed in it a number of distinguishing traits. In the causes of the emigration of the Jews, in the pressure exerted upon their movement as reflected in their rate of immigration, in their family movement, in the permanence of their settlement, and in their occupational distribution have been found characteristics which mark them off from the rest of the immigrant peoples. The number of these characteristics and the degree in which they are found in the Jewish immigration, put it in a class by itself.

The facts of governmental pressure amounting to an expulsive force, and reflected in an extraordinary rate of immigration, in a movement of families unsurpassed in the American immigration, the largest part economically dependent, in an occupational grouping of skilled artisans, able to earn their livelihood under normal conditions, and in a permanence of settlement in this country incomparable in degree and indicating that practically all who come stay—all these facts lead irresistibly to the conclusion that in the Jewish movement we are dealing, not with an immigration, but with a migration. What we are witnessing to-day and for these thirty years, is a Jewish migration of a kind and degree almost without a parallel in the history of the Jewish people. When speaking of the beginnings of Russian Jewish immigration to Philadelphia, David Sulzberger said: "In thirty years the movement of Jews from Russia to the United States has almost reached the dignity of the migration of a people," he used no literary phrase. In view of the facts that have developed, this statement is true without any qualification.

This migration-process explains the remarkable growth of the Jewish population in the United States, within a relatively short period of time. In this transplantation, the [157]spirit of social solidarity and communal responsibility prevalent among the Jews has played a vital part.

The family rather than the individual thus becomes the unit for the social life of the Jewish immigrant population in the United States. In this respect the latter approaches more nearly the native American population than does the foreign white or immigrant population. One of the greatest evils incident to and characteristic of the general immigration to this country is thereby minimized.

Again, the concentration of the Jewish immigrants in certain trades explains in great measure the peculiarities of the occupational and the urban distribution of the Jews in the United States. The development of the garment trades through Jewish agencies is largely explained by the recruiting of the material for this development through these laborers.

These primary characteristics of the Jewish immigration of the last thirty years will serve to explain some of the most important phases of the economic and social life of the Jews in the United States, three-fourths of whom are immigrants of this period.

Of all the features of this historic movement of the Jews from Eastern Europe to the United States, not the least interesting is their passing from civilizations whose bonds with their medieval past are still strong to a civilization which began its course unhampered by tradition and unyoked to the forms and institutions of the past. The contrast between the broad freedom of this democracy and the intolerable despotism from whose yoke most of them fled, has given them a sense of appreciation of American political and social institutions that is felt in every movement of their mental life.

FOOTNOTES:

STATISTICAL TABLESToC

TABLE IA

PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN OCCUPATIONS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, 1897[1]ToT

TABLE IB

PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN OCCUPATIONS IN THE PALE OF JEWISH SETTLEMENT, 1897[1]ToT

TABLE II

JEWISH IMMIGRATION AT THE PORTS OF NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA AND BALTIMORE, JULY TO JUNE, 1886 to 1898[1]ToT

TABLE III

JEWISH IMMIGRATION AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK, JULY, 1885, TO JUNE, 1886, BY MONTH AND COUNTRY OF NATIVITY[1]ToT

TABLE IVA

JEWISH IMMIGRATION AT THE PORT OF PHILADELPHIA, 1886 TO 1898, BY COUNTRY OF NATIVITYToT

TABLE IVB

JEWISH IMMIGRATION AT THE PORT OF BALTIMORE, 1891 TO 1898, BY COUNTRY OF NATIVITYToT

TABLE V[1]

JEWISH IMMIGRATION AT THE PORTS OF NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA AND BALTIMORE, 1886 TO 1898, BY COUNTRY OF NATIVITYToT

TABLE VIII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1881 TO 1910, ABSOLUTE NUMBERS AND PERCENTAGES, BY DECADE AND COUNTRY OF NATIVITYToT

TABLE IX

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, 1881 TO 1910, BY YEAR AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH YEARToT

TABLE X

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, 1887 to 1910, BY DECADE AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH DECADEToT

TABLE XI

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK, JANUARY 1, 1891 TO DECEMBER 31, 1891, AND JANUARY 1, 1892 TO DECEMBER 31, 1892, BY MONTHToT

(From reports of United Hebrew Charities of New York City, 1891 and 1892)

TABLE XII

TOTAL IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, 1881 TO 1910, AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XIII

TOTAL IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADE, AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XIV

IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES FROM THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, 1899 TO 1910, BY ANNUAL PERCENTAGE OF CONTRIBUTION OF PRINCIPAL PEOPLES[1]ToT

TABLE XV

RATE OF IMMIGRATION OF PEOPLES PREDOMINANT IN THE IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, 1899 TO 1910[1]ToT

TABLE XVI

RATE OF JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA, PER 10000 OF JEWISH POPULATION, 1899 TO 1910ToT

TABLE XVII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM ROUMANIA, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADE AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH DECADEToT

TABLE XVIII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM ROUMANIA, 1881 TO 1910, BY YEAR AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH YEARToT

TABLE XIX

TOTAL IMMIGRATION FROM ROUMANIA AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM ROUMANIA, 1899 TO 1910, AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XX

RATE OF JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM ROUMANIA, PER 10000 OF JEWISH POPULATION, 1899 TO 1910[1]ToT

TABLE XXI

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADE AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH DECADEToT

TABLE XXII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, 1881 TO 1910, BY YEAR, AND PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL ARRIVING EACH YEARToT

TABLE XXIII

TOTAL AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADE AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XXIV

TOTAL AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, 1881 TO 1910, AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XXV

PERCENTAGE OF ANNUAL IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY CONTRIBUTED BY PRINCIPAL PEOPLES, 1899 TO 1910[1]ToT

TABLE XXVI

RATE OF JEWISH IMMIGRATION FROM AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, PER 10000 OF JEWISH POPULATION, 1899 TO 1910[1]ToT

TABLE XXVII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADEToT

TABLE XXVIII

JEWISH IMMIGRATION, 1881 TO 1910, BY SIX-YEAR PERIODToT

TABLE XXIX

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES, 1881 TO 1910ToT

TABLE XXX

TOTAL IMMIGRATION AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION, 1881 TO 1910, BY DECADE AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XXXI

TOTAL IMMIGRATION AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION, 1881 TO 1910, BY YEAR AND PERCENTAGE JEWISH OF TOTALToT

TABLE XXXII

TOTAL AND JEWISH IMMIGRATION, 1881 TO 1910, BY NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE OR DECREASEToT