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Rev. S. B. Roliold 149
Those who have travelled through Russia, know what it means to
live there and the terror of that life, and yet there is an extraordinary-
love for the country. We see it among the people. They have been
persecuted dreadfully and yet they stay and live there.
Creating the Ghettos
In 1882 the new May Laws were put in force, and it was ordained
that all Jews, with the exception of the very rich, were expelled, and
forced to move into the larger cities, thus creating the fearful ghettos,
with conditions impossible to describe. All universities were closed
to the Jews. If a young Jew wanted to attend the university, there
was only one door open to him, and that was by apostatizing to the
Greek Catholic Church. The condition of the Jewish girl was still
worse. If she wanted to enter a university and obtain a higher edu-
cation, there was only one door open to her, and that was by securing
a "yellow ticket." In an audience like this I am afraid to explain in
plain language what a "yellow ticket" means. Life in Russia became
so oppressive that all kinds of societies were formed to remove the
Jews from Russia and plant them in another country. During the
past thirty years Baron Edmund de Rothschild spent no less than one
hundred million francs in settling the Jews in Palestine. Baron
Hirsch left fifteen million sterling (£15,000,000) and besides this,
money has been gathered throughout the world to remove the Jews
from Russia. During the past thirty years no less than one hundred
million ($100,000,000) has been spent on settling the Jews in Pales-
tine. The influx of the Jews from Russia into Palestine was something
like one thousand a year. When the Balkan war broke out the new
immigrant in Palestine would not go to fight a battle which was not
his own, and perhaps half of the young people who had been settled
in Palestine during these years fied away from the country and came
to America. During the years 1899 to 1913, 1,347,590 Jews came from
Russia and settled in this country; nearly half a million Jews set-
tled in Great Britain, Germany and in other parts of Europe; but when
the new census appeared in Russia, it was found that there was an
increase of the Russian Jewry to 6,060,000, an actual increase of
845,000 during the preceding fifteen years. This revealed a most
disappointing and disquieting situation. It meant that the constant
and heavy emigration was more than counterbalanced by the natural
increase of the population. In spite of the trains and ships that carry
the Russian Jews by scores of thousands to other lands, there is a
bigger Jewish population than ever. Such a fact may well engender
a feeling of despair in the hearts of the Jews who rely entirely on
philanthropic methods to cope with the Jewish problem. After all
the Russian Jewish problem has not advanced an inch from where it
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