In Germany the Jews, although without complete social privileges, have borne their full share of the burdens of war. To Herr Ballin, the head of the mercantile marine, was given the task of organizing the national food supply, and other Jews have been prominently identified with every department of the industrial mobilization of the country. In France and Italy, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, Jews are to be found in the ministerial cabinets, in command of troops in the field, and prominent in charge of the medical service of the armies.
Thus the present war has again demonstrated the great truth that, in times of struggle as in times of peace, the Jews constitute a most valuable asset to those nations that accept them as an integral part of their population and permit them to develop freely, but wherever an autocratic government demoralizes its people by confronting them with the spectacle of an unprotected minority denied all human rights, the government itself feels the reaction and the moral tone of the nation is thereby impaired.
For the purposes of this report it has been deemed advisable to select, from the mass of material available upon the present status of the Jews in Russia, only evidence based upon:
1. Official and semi-official reports of the Russian government published in its official daily newspaper, “Pravitelstvenny Viestnik,” in its semi-official organ, “Novoe Vremya,” or in its several military organs.
2. Debates and Proceedings in the Imperial Duma and in the Council of the Empire, particularly evidence furnished by non-Jewish deputies or evidence of Jewish deputies that has passed unchallenged or has been challenged unsuccessfully by the Right benches.
3. Statements in the Liberal Russian press and the Jewish press published in Russia, all of which have been rigorously censored.
4. Protests and manifestoes of non-Jewish organizations, parties and leaders against the anti-Jewish policy of the government. These protests have been made publicly and have passed unchallenged by the Russian Government.
In brief, the present report is based exclusively upon evidence furnished by the Russian government itself, officially in its own press, or countenanced by reason of the revision applied, through its military and civil censorship, to the opposition press, or in public speeches and declarations that have passed the government benches in the imperial legislative chambers unchallenged.