Moscow for a
"pro-Jewish petition." As a result, all newspapers received orders from
the Russian Press Department to refuse their columns to any collective
pronouncements touching the Jewish question.

[Footnote 1: The latter expression was a euphemism designating the
Russian Government and its reactionary henchmen in the press. The
severity of the police made this evasion necessary.]

[Footnote 2: The following extracts from this meek appeal deserve to be
quoted: "The movement against the Jews which is propagated by the
Russian press represents an unprecedented violation of the most
fundamental demands of righteousness and humanity. We consider it our
duty to recall these elementary demands to the mind of the Russian
public.... In all nationalities there are bad and ill-minded persons but
there is not, and cannot be, any bad and ill-minded nationality, for
this would abrogate the moral responsibility of the individual.... It is
unjust to make the Jews responsible for those phenomena in their lives
which are the result of thousands of years of persecution in Europe and
of the abnormal conditions in which this people has been placed.... The
fact of belonging to a Semitic tribe and professing the Mosaic creed is
nothing prejudicial and cannot of itself serve as a basis for an
exceptional civil position of the Jews, as compared with the Russian
subjects of other nationalities and denominations.... The recognition
and application of these simple truths is important and is first of all
necessary for ourselves. The increased endeavor to kindle national and
religious hatred, which is so contradictory to the spirit of
Christianity and suppresses the feelings of justice and humaneness, is
bound to demoralize society at its very root and bring about a state of
moral anarchy, particularly so in view of the decline of humanitarian
ideas and the weakness of the principle of justice already noticeable in
our life. For this reason, acting from the mere instinct of national
self-preservation, we must emphatically condemn the anti-Semitic
movement not only as immoral in itself but also as extremely dangerous
for the future of Russia."]

Solovyov addressed an impassioned appeal to Alexander III., but received
through one of the Ministers the impressive advice to refrain from
raising a cry on behalf of the Jews, under pain of administrative
penalties. In these circumstances, the plan of a public protest had to
be abandoned. Instead,