Relationship of American Jews To The U.S. Federal Government Before The 20th Century - Romanian Disabilities

Romanian Disabilities

Romanian conditions, which have so vitally interested the United States, first had attention drawn to them by the Board of Delegates in June 1867, when the good offices of the United States in behalf of the persecuted Jews of Romania were requested. In 1870 B. F. Peixotto of New York was appointed consul-general to Romania, and during the six years that he held office he exerted himself to bring about an improvement in the condition of the Jews. In 1878 John A. Kasson, minister of the United States to Austria, in a despatch to the Department of State proposed as a condition preliminary to the recognition of Romanian independence that the United States join with the European powers in exacting from Romania, at the Congress of Berlin, the recognition of the equal civil, commercial, and religious rights of all classes of her population, as also equal rights and protection under the treaty and under Romanian laws, irrespective of race or religious belief. In opening negotiations with Romania in the following year, the recognition by that country of the rights of sojourn and trade of all classes of Americans irrespective of race or creed was strongly emphasized, as it was by Kasson about the same time with respect to Servia. The continued persecutions of the Jews of Romania, her violations of the provisions of the Treaty of Berlin, and the greatly increased proportions which the Romanian emigration to the United States assumed in consequence, as also the failure to conclude a naturalization convention between the two countries, because Romania would not recognize the rights of American citizens who were Jews, moved Secretary of State John Hay to address on 11 August 1902, identical instructions to the representatives of the United States in Russia, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Turkey upon the subject of Romania's attitude. In this note he drew attention to the consequences to the United States of the continued persecutions in Romania—namely, the unnatural increase of immigration from that country—and upon this based his right to remonstrate to the signatories to the Treaty of Berlin against the acts of the Romanian government. Further, he sustained the right of the United States to ask the above-mentioned powers to intervene upon the strongest grounds of humanity. Acting upon the forcible instructions, the representatives of the United States presented this note to the government to which each was accredited. But beyond the abolition of the Oath More Judaico (1904) and some slight diminution of the harshness of the persecution, little has been accomplished, and Romania continues (1905) almost unrestrictedly to violate the treaty which established her as an independent nation. In 1905 Congress made provision for an American legation at Bucharest.