ROUMANIA. 



603 



The Jewish Question. An article in the 

 treaty of Berlin signed on July 13, 1878, runs as 

 follows: "In Roumania the difference of religious 

 creeds and confessions shall not be alleged against 

 any person as a ground for exclusion or incapac- 

 ity in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil 

 and political rights, admission to public employ- 

 ments, functions, and honors, or the exercise of 

 the various professions and industries in any local- 

 ity whatsoever." The recognition of Roumanian 

 independence by the powers was declared to be 

 conditional on the acceptance of these terms. The 

 article was inserted in the treaty at the suggestion 

 of France, supported by Great Britain. Its pur- 

 pose was to ameliorate the civil status of Rou- 

 manian Jews, who were in law, and till recently 

 have remained, aliens not under the protection of 

 any Government. In the year following the sig- 

 nature of the treaty the British and some other 

 foreign representatives at Bucharest endeavored 

 to influence the Roumanian Government to re- 

 move Jewish disabilities, without success except 

 that the article in the Roumanian Constitution 

 forbidding the naturalization of Jews was amend- 

 ed. Naturalization can, however, be granted 

 only by a special act of Parliament in each case, 

 and citizenship is not transmitted to the children 

 of a naturalized Jew. Out of a Jewish popula- 

 tion of about 400,000 not more than 80 have been 

 able to obtain naturalization, and in recent years 

 it has been withheld from nearly every applicant. 

 The legal disadvantages under which the Jews suf- 

 fered have been aggravated by a series of alien 

 laws, of which they were the objects and the vic- 

 tims, which closed to them the avenues to progress 

 and advancement and even the occupations by 

 which they were accustomed to get their living, 

 causing many thousands to emigrate in successive 

 waves, the great majority to the United States. 

 In 1884 about 5,000 Jewish peddlers were thrown 

 out of employment by a law prohibiting foreign- 

 ers from hawking. In 1886 aliens were excluded 

 from membership in boards of trade and com- 

 merce; in 1887 from employment in the public 

 service, on public works, and in the tobacco trade, 

 and their employment by Roumanian citizens in 

 the retail trade was restricted; in 1889 from prom- 

 inent positions on railroads. In 1896 Jewish chil- 

 dren were excluded from free elementary educa- 

 tion, but if there were seats after all Roumanian 

 children were accommodated they could be ad- 

 mitted by paying fees. In 1898 Jewish students 

 wese shut out from the secondary schools and the 

 universities. In 1901 Jews were prohibited from 

 keeping public houses, beer gardens, grocery stores, 

 coffee-houses, or bakeries in the rural districts. 

 They are legally incapacitated from practising law 

 or medicine. Although compelled to serve in the 

 army, they have never been eligible to commis- 

 sions. They can not own or lease agricultural 

 land. Petty ordinances depriving them of control 

 over the inspection of meat, closing their schools 

 because they do not keep them open on Saturday, 

 and other administrative annoyances stimulate 

 their desire to emigrate to a free country. Ex- 

 cluded from one employment after another, many 

 turned to the mechanical trades. In March, 1902, 

 was enacted the new industrial law prohibiting 

 the employment of foreigners in any trade or 

 calling. If applied to the Jews it would throw 

 25,000 workmen out of employment and cause a 

 fresh tide of emigration to America. Since 1893 

 about 23,000 Jews have settled in New York city 

 alone. Large numbers have flocked into the con- 

 gested districts of London and helped to 'depress 

 the wages of English workmen and exhaust the 

 Jewish charity funds. Vienna has been repeated- 



ly overrun by starving emigrants. A large pro- 

 portion of those who arrived in New Yqrk have 

 been sent back as diseased or destitute, and a 

 large proportion of those who passed the emigra- 

 tion barriers became a charge on the public or on 

 the Jewish benevolent societies. There are be- 

 lieved to be about 270,000 Jews still in Roumania. 

 In 1900 a wholesale exodus took place, resulting as 

 much from the failure of the harvest of 1899 as 

 from the new restrictive educational laws. Thou- 

 sands were stranded in Austria-Hungary and had 

 to be sent back. When a similar movement was 

 threatened in 1902 in consequence of the new 

 trade laws a Jewish colonization society took steps 

 to regulate and control the movement, assisting 

 those who were suitable emigrants of sound 

 health, men possessed of 150 lei who have per- 

 formed their military duties and women who were 

 accompanied or preceded by relatives. The cir- 

 cumstance that Jews have grown rich at the ex- 

 pense of the peasants by selling them drink, loan- 

 ing them money at usurious rates, and overreach- 

 ing them in bargains, furnishes some ground for 

 the laws of Russia and Roumania that drive them 

 into the cities; that they are a cosmopolitan and 

 migratory people and aliens by religion in coun- 

 tries where the Greek religion is an element of 

 nationality is a reason for debarring them from 

 civil and military posts. The Roumanian laws 

 are in some degree protective against an influx of 

 Jews from Russian Poland and Bessarabia. The 

 purpose of their increasing severity can be no 

 other than to drive the Roumanian Jews out of 

 the country. That has been their effect until the 

 countries where they have sought refuge have no 

 room for more Roumanian Jewish immigrants, 

 even the United States, which has been the haven 

 for the immense majority of them in the past. No 

 previous Roumanian ministry has been so hostile 

 toward the Jews in its policy and legislation as 

 that of Demeter Sturdza. 



After the trade law was passed a fresh exodus 

 to the United States began. A great many Rou- 

 manian immigrants on arriving at New York 

 were refused admittance because they were desti- 

 tute or suffering from incurable disease. Vienna 

 and London again suffered the inconvenience of 

 the pauper influx, and Hebrew benevolent organi- 

 zations in America and in Europe were burdened 

 with a task that was growing beyond their power 

 to help. Great Britain has on several occasions 

 intimated to Roumania that the article of the 

 treaty was not carried out in the spirit, if it were 

 in the letter. The Austro-Hungarian Govern- 

 ment has made representations regarding the 

 hordes of destitute wanderers that have from time 

 to time swarmed through Hungary and the Aus- 

 trian lands. 



In September Secretary Hay addressed a circu- 

 lar note to the powers that signed the Berlin 

 treaty containing an earnest appeal to them to 

 represent to the Roumanian Government the evils 

 resulting from its neglect to carry out the stipu- 

 lations of the treaty, to which the United States 

 may not authoritatively appeal as it was not and 

 can not become a signatory. The purpose of the 

 generous treatment afforded to the alien immi- 

 grant by the United States is to benefit the coun- 

 try and the immigrant alike; but not to afford an- 

 other state a field upon which to cast its own ob- 

 jectionable elements. The great number of un- 

 desirable emigrants from Roumania coming to its 

 shores furnished ground to the United States for 

 requesting the European powers to seek to give 

 effect to the public law of their making that would 

 prevent the sufferings and disappointments of 

 these emigrants. Great Britain sent a note to the 



