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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 590. 



citizens are moving to Canada to escape 

 competition with these very immigrants at 

 home. The remedy is a head tax, in- 

 creased from two to twenty-five dollars to 

 prevent assisted immigration, and a re- 

 quirement to read and write the constitu- 

 tion of the United States in some language. 



The Jews in Bussia: Their Economic and 

 Social Position: I. M. Rubinow, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



Of the five millions of Jews living in 

 Russia, 95 per cent, live in the pale— that 

 part of Russia in which Jews are permitted 

 to live, and which constitutes only one fifth 

 of European Russia. Only rich business 

 men and professional people are permitted 

 to live outside the pale. Even within the 

 pale a Jew may not live outside the city 

 limits. Many professions and trades and 

 even agriculture are practically forbidden 

 fields. In high schools and universities 

 the Jews must not exceed a small percent>- 

 age of the total number of the students. 

 Petty commerce and hand trades and fac- 

 tory labor are, therefore, the only occupa- 

 tions left open to the majority of the Rus- 

 sian Jews. The result is congestion in 

 these trades, cut-throat competition and 

 poverty. To these conditions the Russian 

 government intentionally remained blind 

 and encouraged the preposterous claim that 

 the Jews were prosperous exploiters of the 

 Russian people, using the prejudice against 

 the Jew as a safety-valve of the popular 

 discontent, and not stopping short of direct 

 organization of anti-Jewish riots, whenever 

 the discontent became very acute. 



But out of these abnormal conditions the 

 remedy is gradually evolving. The pov- 

 erty and congestion of the towns in western 

 Russia produced a free labor market, which 

 stimulated growth of manufacturing in- 

 dustry. And factories brought with them 

 a powerful labor movement, more power- 



ful for the many battles it had to wage, the 

 battle of the Jew, of the Russian citizen 

 and the horribly exploited workingman. 



An organization was formed seven years 

 ago, the so-called 'Bund,' which combined 

 all these elements, and the results of its 

 short activity are wonderful. It shortened 

 the labor day from sixteen hours to ten or 

 eleven, raised the pay of the workingmen 

 and commercial employees about fifty per 

 cent., and besides this narrow activity, has 

 taught the Jews to stand up for their 

 rights, to demand and not to beg reforms, 

 to organize in self-defence against the anti- 

 Jewish excesses, and what is more impor- 

 tant, to create a strong movement for a free 

 democratic government in Russia. The 

 movement inevitably had far-reaching psy- 

 chological effects. The patient, suffering 

 and defenseless Jew of olden days was 

 transformed into the energetic fighter for 

 civic liberty, the enthusiastic labor-union 

 man. The Russian Jew has finally re- 

 gained his self-reliance and self-respect. 



These important changes have a signifi- 

 cant bearing upon the question of Jewish 

 immigration into the United States. The 

 Russian Jew, having determined to fight 

 for his rights in his own land, is sure of 

 accomplishing his purpose in the not dis- 

 tant future, and the victory will greatly 

 diminish, if not altogether stop, the Jewish 

 immigration to the United States. In the 

 immediate future, however, due to the 

 awful events in the southern cities, the 

 current of immigration will continue un- 

 abated for some time. But the Jewish 

 immigrant, being an ardent union man and 

 enthusiastic warrior for the rights of labor, 

 the usual objections against the immigrant 

 from eastern Europe can not be applied to 

 him; the new Russian Jewish immigrant is 

 not a danger, but a powerful ally, of the 

 American workingman in his struggle for 

 economic and social betterment. 



