Mr. Gresham to Mr. Webb.
Washington, August 28, 1893.
Sir: I have received and read with attention Mr. White’s dispatch No. 119, of the 6th ultimo, in relation to the present condition of the Israelites in Russia and to the reported enforcement of repressive edicts against them, calculated to result in an increased emigration of destitute people of that class to the United States.
The thoroughness with which the minister has answered my telegraphic inquiry of May 18 is commended.
The subject is receiving the President’s earnest consideration. It has been for some time evident that the measures adopted by the Imperial Government against the Jews, although professedly a domestic policy directly affecting the subjects of the Czar, were calculated to injuriously affect the American people by abruptly forcing upon our shores a numerous class of immigrants destitute of resources and unfitted in many important respects for absorption into our body politic. The continued enforcement of such harsh measures, necessarily forcing upon us large numbers of degraded and undesirable persons, who must, in great measure, be supported, can not be regarded as consistent with the friendship which the Russian Government has long professed for the United States.
I am, etc.,