Session. Executive
Document No. 470, p. 53_]

A week after this visit, the deputies of Russian Jewry had occasion to
hear the same opinion expressed by the Tzar himself. The Jewish
deputation, consisting of Baron Guenzburg, the banker Sack, the lawyers
Passover and Bank, and the learned Hebraist Berlin, was awaiting this
audience with, considerable trepidation, anticipating an authoritative
imperial verdict regarding the catastrophe that had befallen the Jews.
On May 11, the audience took place in the palace at Gatchina. Baron
Guenzburg voiced the sentiments of "boundless gratitude for the measures
adopted to safeguard the Jewish population at this sad moment," and
added: "One more imperial word, and the disturbances will disappear." In
reply to the euphemistic utterances concerning "the measures adopted,"
the Tzar stated in the same tone that all Russian subjects were equal
before him, and expressed the assurance "that in the criminal disorders
in the South of Russia the Jews merely serve as a pretext, and that it
is the work of anarchists."

This pacifying portion of the Tzar's answer was published in the press.
What the public was not allowed to learn was the other portion of the
answer, in which the Tzar gave utterance to the view that the source of
the hatred against the Jews lay in their economic "domination" and
"exploitation" of the Russian population. In reply to the arguments of
the talented lawyer Passover and the other deputies, the Tzar declared:
"State all this in a special memorandum."

Such a memorandum was subsequently prepared. But it was not submitted to
the Tzar. For only a few months later the official attitude towards the
Jewish question took a turn for the worse. The Government decided to
abandon its former view on the Jewish pogroms and to adopt, instead, the
theory of Jewish "exploitation," using it as a means of justifying not
only the pogroms which had already been perpetrated upon the Jews but
also the repressive measures which were being contemplated against them.
Under these circumstances, Ignatyev did not see his way clear to allow
the memorandum in defence of Jewry to receive the attention of the Tzar.

It is not impossible that the pacifying portion of the imperial reply
which had been given at the audience of May 11 was also prompted by the
desire to appease the public opinion of Western Europe, for at that time
European opinion still carried some weight with the bureaucratic circles