wish population special
commissions should be appointed consisting of representatives of the
local estates and communes, to be presided over by the governors. These
commissions were charged with the task of finding out "which aspects of
the economic activity of the Jews in general have exerted _an injurious
influence_ upon the life of the original population, and what measures,
both legislative and administrative, should be adopted" for the purpose
of weakening that influence. In this way, the ukase, in calling for the
appointment of the commissions, indicated at once the goal towards which
their activity was to be directed: to determine the "injurious
influence" of the Jews upon Russian economic life.

The same thought was expressed even more directly by Ignatyev, who in
his circular to the governors-general, dated August 25, reproduced his
report to the Tzar, and firmly established the dogma of "the harmful
consequences of the economic activity of the Jews for the Christian
population, their racial separatism, and religious fanaticism."

We are thus made the witnesses of a singular spectacle: the ruined and
plundered Jewish population, which had a right to impeach the Government
for having failed, to protect it from violence, was itself put on trial.
The judges in this legal action were none other than the agents of the
ruling powers--the governors, some of whom had been guilty of connivance
at the pogroms--on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the
representatives of the Christian estates, urban and rural, who were
mostly the appointees of these governors. In addition, every commission
was allotted two Jewish representatives, who were to act in the capacity
of experts but without voting power; they were placed in the position of
defendants, and were made to listen to continuous accusations against
the Jews, which the; were constantly forced to deny. Altogether there
were sixteen such commissions: one in each of the fifteen governments of
the Pale of Settlement--exclusive of the Kingdom of Poland--and one in
the government of Kharkov. The commissions were granted a term of two
months within which to complete their labors and present the results to
the Minister.

The sessions of all these "gubernatorial commissions" [1] took place
simultaneously during the months of September and October.

[Footnote 1: In Russian, _Gubernskiya Kommissit_, literally, "Government
Commissions," using "Government" in the sense of "Pro