hile the pogrom was going on, the governor-general of Warsaw
refused to comply with the request of a number of Poles, who applied for
permission to organize a civil guard, pledging themselves to restore
order in the city in one day. It would seem as if the official pogrom
ritual did not allow of the slightest modification. The disorders had to
proceed in accordance with the established routine, so as not to violate
the humane commandment: "Two days shalt thou plunder, and on the third
day shalt thou rest." Evidently some one had an interest in having the
capital of Poland repeat the experiment of Kiev and Odessa, and in
seeing to it that the "cultured Poles" should not fall behind the
Russian barbarians in order to convince Europe that the pogrom was not
exclusively a Russian manufacture.

As a matter of fact, the opposite result was attained. The revolting
events at Warsaw, which completed the pogrom cycle of 1881, made a much
stronger impression upon Europe and America than all the preceding
pogroms, for the reason that Warsaw stood in close commercial relations
with the West, and the havoc wrought there had an immediate effect upon
the European market.

CHAPTER XXIII

NEW MEASURES OF OPPRESSION AND PUBLIC
PROTESTS

1. THE DESPAIR OF RUSSIAN JEWRY

The civil New Year of 1882 found the Jews of Russia in a depressed state
of mind: they were under the fresh impression of the excesses at Warsaw
and were harassed by rumors of new measures of oppression. The
sufferings of the Jewish people, far from stilling the anti-Jewish fury
of the Government, had merely helped to fan it. "You are maltreated,
_ergo_ you are guilty"--such was the logic of the ruling spheres of
Russia. The official historian of that period is honest enough to
confess that "the enforced role of a defender of the Jews against the
Russian population [by suppressing the riots] weighed heavily upon the
the Government." Upon reading the report of the governor-general of
Warsaw for the year 1882, in which reference was made to the
suppression of the anti-Jewish excesses by military force, Alexander
III. appended the following marginal note: "This is the sad thing in
all these Jewish disorders."

Those among Russian Jewry who could look further ahead were not slow in
realizing the consequences which were bound to result from this hostile
attitude of the ruling classes. Those of a less sensitive frame of mind
found it necessary to inquire of the Go