Appeal To Powers For Rumanian Jews.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 6, 1913:
Intervention Urged as Necessary and Proper Under International Law by Correspondent on Ground.
HEEDING ITALIAN PROTEST
Our State Department Recently Asked to Take Up Cudgels for Treaty Rights of Jews in Rumania.
    A plea for international intervention in behalf of Rumanian Jews, particularly Jews in the Bulgarian territory which Rumania is likely to take over in the settlement of claims in the Balkans, is made in a letter in the May number of The B'nai B'rith News from its correspondent in Rumania. The correspondent holds that such intervention is both necessary and proper under international law, inasmuch as the question of assuring Jews in Rumania of the rights and immunities of citizens and of freedom from persecution and exploitation has been from the time of the recognition of Rumanian independence, a matter within the province of the powers signatory to the Berlin Treaty. Appeal was made recently by the order of B'nai B'rith, one of the largest Jewish fraternal orders in the world, to the State Department at Washington for intervention in behalf of exploited Jews of Rumania.
    The Rumanian correspondent of The B'nai B'rith News asserts that since the spirited appeal recently made to those powers signatory to the Berlin Treaty by Signor Luigi Luzzatti, the former Prime Minister of Italy, on behalf of the Rumanian Jews, a profound and beneficent impression has been produced throughout Rumania; that the journals of all political parties have begun to use another language, admitting for the first time the existence of a Jewish question and speaking of the necessity of some solution. The correspondent says:
    The tone of the polemic has also changed; it is no longer menacing; they do not crush us with insults. A certain anxiety has taken hold of the mind; in official circles a certain conviction is beginning to form itself that this Jewish question, which was believed to be dead and forgotten, is very much alive, that it is a real danger, a vulnerable point in Rumania, which must be eliminated as quickly as possible.
    Signor Luzzatti's intervention had also an immediate result. In the last few days the Chamber voted the naturalization of a great number of Jews. It is no secret for anybody here that this is the consequence of the sudden change produced by Luzzatti's appeal. It proves that the voice of the people of other nations is heard even in Rumania.
    Rumanian cannot be trusted to do anything of her own free will to solve the Jewish question satisfactorily. Promises will not do, agreements are of no avail. Public opinion roused against her in foreign countries has already helped the Rumanian Jews to some extent. It is not yet morning, it is only a feeble glimmer of light upon the horizon. The mental evolution proceeds slowly, the prejudices which have taken root have a tenacious life. The signatory powers of the Berlin Treaty should force her to grant to all the native Jews full civil and religious rights the same as granted to Christians. Slavery in any form ought not to be tolerated.

Official Rumanian View.
    The correspondent quotes an interview recently granted by Take Jonescu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rumania, to the editor of a German paper in Bucharest, in which the Minister said:
    The reason why Rumania disposed in her own way of the agreements of the Berlin Treaty in regard to the Jews of Rumania, is because the question ceased to be a part of international law from the day when the signatory powers of the Berlin Treaty recognized the independence of Rumania, they at the same time acknowledging that Rumania had fulfilled the obligations which they had imposed upon her. Since that time the Jewish question in Rumania has remained a question of internal law, just as it is in Russia and in other countries that have the right to independent legislation. The question cannot become the object of foreign discussion, and all the attempts to mix into the internal affairs of Rumania are useless.

    "One does not know what to admire most in these announcements of the Minister," says the correspondent, "the evil intent or the courage to pervert the truth. Most of the inhabitants of Dobrodja, (who, according to the Minister, became Rumanian citizens after that province was taken from Turkey and annexed,) who, since the annexation, have enjoyed the communal rights, have been refused the rights of Rumanian citizens and are 'heimatlos.' The Jews were the first to suffer — 85 per cent. of them were despoiled of their nationality. It took thirty-two years from the time of annexation for the inhabitants of this province to gain their political rights, and only after the new interpretation of the law by Parliament — after a strong agitation — did the Jews of Dobrodja obtain citizenship.
    "This is the manner in which Rumania treats the inhabitants of an annexed country! And, after this, is it astonishing that the inhabitants of the Bulgarian territory which is claimed by Rumania are mistrusting the treatment which their new fatherland may inflict upon them?"
    Equally unfounded, according to the correspondent, is the statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rumania that the question of the Rumanian Jews ceased to be a part of international law on the day when the signatory powers of the Treaty of Berlin recognized the independence of Rumania, inasmuch as they then and there acknowledged that Rumania had fulfilled the obligations which rested upon her. Says the correspondent:

What the Documents Show.
    This is absolutely false. Here is an exact copy of the collective note of the representatives of Germany, England, and France transmitted to the Rumanian Government on Feb. 8-20, 1880:
    "The Government of * * * has been informed by the agent of his Royal Highness, the Prince of Rumania, at * * * of the promulgation, under the date of Oct. 25, 1879, of a law passed by the Chambers, destined to bring the text of the Rumanian Constitution in harmony with the stipulations inserted in article 44 of the Berlin Treaty.
    "The Government of * * * cannot consider as a compliance with the views which led the signatory powers of the Berlin Treaty, the making of new Constitutions without having previously notified them, and especially such a Constitution which makes it necessary for non-Christian persons who live in Rumania and are not allied with any foreign nationality, to submit to the formality of an individual naturalization.
    Trusting to the will of the Prince's Government to come nearer in this regard to the liberal thought, which inspired the powers and accepting the formal assurances which were submitted to them in this regard the Government of * * * in order to give the Rumanian nation proof of its amicable sentiment, had decided to recognize without delay the Rumanian Principality as an independent State.
    In addition, I will give here some extracts from a circular addressed on April 16, 1880, by Mr. de Freycinet, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the diplomatic agents of France:

    "The recognition of the independence of Rumania has been delayed on account of the difficulties which the Government of that country meets because it hesitates to comply with the conditions imposed by the Congress of 1878, which concerns the evil and political equality for all the inhabitants of the Principality without religious distinction. The powers insist upon the introduction of a form of Government legally founded upon the principles generally accepted by modern nations, they do not entertain the thought of merging artificially into the Rumanian family the numerous Jewish emigrants from the neighboring countries, who in. reality belong by intention or dependence to a foreign nationality, but the powers demand, with good right, that the native Jews, living from father to son upon Rumanian soil and being without all outside protection, be assimilated before the law of their country with the Christian population with whom they live.
    "The powers wish to meet helpfully the resisting lives and to lift the glaring preventions in Rumania. After a long delay the Rumanian Chambers decided last November to abrogate the article of the Constitution which excludes the equality of political rights of the adherents of a non-Christian religion. But the principle recommended by the Berlin Congress is proclaimed entirely, in a theoretical manner. The new law imposes upon the Rumanian Jews, because they are aliens, the necessity of individual naturalizations, each case separately being subject to a vote of the legislative power. It is evident that such a system cannot be accepted, as it is given, with complete satisfaction by the powers."

Duty of the Powers.
    In the face of these facts, what is there to support the affirmation of Take Jonescu? Has the Jewish question in Rumania really ceased to be a question of international law? Is it not, on the contrary, a condition of the independence of Rumania and have not the powers the right (and the duty) to demand to know why Rumania violated these obligations and to call upon her to respect her agreement? "Rumania," the correspondent writes, "claims that religious liberty exists in the country. Religious liberty? Yes. it exists in Rumania inasmuch as religious worship is permitted! But I must state here that the Jewish communities in Rumania are not recognized as moral persons; they have no right to acquire real estate, to accept donations, &c.; so that their temples, hospitals, schools, &c. are bought in the names of individuals. What does a liberty of worship amount to which does not permit a temple to be acquired in the name of the community in which to conduct religious service?"