IGHTS AND THEIR ENEMIES

BY MAXIM KOVALEVSKY

If the question should be put as to who at present stands in the way
of Jewish equal rights and who demands still further limitations of
the Jews' participation in both military and civil service, the answer
is that no one class follows a more systematic and more definite
programme in this connection than the League of United Nobility. In
the year 1913 one of their conventions made the following
recommendations, recorded in a volume published in the name of the
league, and here quoted literally:

"I. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to serve in the
army and navy either as regular recruits or as volunteers, nor
should they be admitted to military schools.

"II. Jews and converted Jews should not be allowed to take part
in the electoral conventions of the Zemstvos.

"III. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in
the Zemstvos.

"IV. Jews and converted Jews are not to be permitted to serve in
any municipal capacity.

"V. Jews and converted Jews should not be permitted to enter the
civil service.

"VI. Jews and converted Jews should not be included in the lists
of jurors; they may not be appointed or elected to serve in
courts, they may not practice as either advocates or attorneys."

These recommendations are clearly at variance with the trend of
Russian legislation throughout the reigns of Peter the Great,
Catherine the Second and Alexander the First. Peter the Great called
into the service of the Russian government all subjects irrespective
of their nationality or religion. His fellow champions were
representatives of different nationalities such as Bruce, Bauer,
Repnin, Menshicov and Yaguzhinsky. As to Catherine the Second, our
code of laws still retains the expression of her wish that all the
peoples of Russia, each according to the precepts of its religion,
should pray to the Almighty for the welfare of its rulers, and should
all be equally benefited by its government.

In his "Principles of the Russian Governmental Law" Professor
Gradovsky says: "In the reign of Peter the Great there were no general
regulations concerning the Jews." Measures against the Jews date from
the reign of Catherine the First. During the reign of Catherine the
Second, little was added to the existing array of limitations. In the
districts in which the first Partition of Poland found them, the Jews
at that time