"audacious conduct"
of the Jews who, on meeting Russian officials, failed to take off their
hats by way of greeting. The governor of Moghilev instructed the police
of his province to impress the local Jewish population with the
necessity of "polite manners," in the sense of a more reverent attitude
towards the representatives of Russian authority. In compliance with
this order, the district chiefs of police compelled the rabbis to
inculcate their flock in the synagogues with reverence for Russian
officialdom. In Mstislavl, a town in the government of Moghilev, the
president of the nobility [1] assembled the leading members of the
Jewish community, and cautioned them that those Jews who would fail to
comply with the governor's circular would be subjected to a public
whipping by the police. The governor of Odessa, the well-known despot
Zelenoy, issued a police ordinance for the purpose of "curbing the
impudence displayed by the Jews in places of public gathering and
particularly in the suburban trolley cars" where they do not give up
their seats and altogether show disrespect towards "persons of advanced
age or those wearing a uniform, testifying to their high position." Even
more brutal was the conduct of the governor-general of Vilna, Kakhanov,
who, despite his high rank, allowed himself, in replying to the speech
of welcome of a Jewish deputation, to animadvert not only on Jewish
"clannishness" but also on the "licentiousness" of the Jewish
population, manifesting itself in congregating on the streets, and
similar grave crimes.

[Footnote 1: See above, p. 303.]

The simultaneous occurrence of this sort of official actions in widely
separated places point to a common source, probably to some secret
instructions from St. Petersburg. It would seem, however, that the
provincial henchmen of the central Government had overreached themselves
in their eagerness to carry out the behest of "curbing the Jews." The
pettiness of their demands, which, moreover, were illegal, such as the
order to take off the hats before the officials, or to give up the seats
in the trolley cars, merely served to ridicule the representatives of
Russian officialdom, giving frequent rise to tragi-comic conflicts in
public and to utterances of indignation in the press. The public
pronouncements of these genteel _chinovniks_ who were anxious to train
the Jewish masses in the fear of Russian bureaucracy and inculcate in
them polite manners aroused the