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Show ; II THE HAY LETTER. II The appeal of Secretary Hay to the seven pow- Iw era tliat were signers of the treaty of Berlin to B stop the oppressions of the Jews in Itoumania. is H a most important, and, in spme respects, an al- M most startling document. It is an indirect notice, H though couched in the gentlest terms, that the H tyranies of the Old World must cease: that the i ( nations must sacredly enforce their treaties; that Hi j j the oppression of men because of race or faith H m ! must cease. This is a gentle appeal, but it is easy H iB to imagine that, as the world is sweeping on, fifty flji tm years hence it will not be strange if some Anier- H ; M : lean Secretary of State writes what is now an ap- H ' 2 j peal in the form of a demand. The spirit of lib- H s K erty is growing more and more potential every IB; 9 year. h ' Thus far the rule of our country has been to H1 "avoid all entangling alliances," but it will be !$ji ' noticed that in this appeal of Secretary Hay the Hl , argument is founded on reasons which go directly H Mm I to the self-preservation of our own country, and H MM ' it is not difficult to imagine some future case when Hii that same argument will be held as a sufficient HSB f cause for an appeal to the higher argument of 11 ! the sword in order to stop a manifest wrong. HB : Again, the dignified words of the circular note HII make vivid in a few sentences the conditions in HK ' "tne Old "World and in the New. How the Jews are proscribed in Roumania can be seen by this statement, taken from the circular letter: "The political disabilities of the Jews of Rou-mania, Rou-mania, their exclusion from the public service and tho learned professions, the limitations of their oivil rights and the imposition on them of exceptional excep-tional taxes, involving as they do wrongs repugnant repug-nant to the moral sense of liberal modern peoples, are not so directly in point for my present purpose pur-pose as the public acts which attack the inherent right of man as a bread-winner in the ways of agriculture and trade. The Jews are prohibited from owning land or even from cultivating it as common laborera. They are debarred from residing resid-ing in the rural districts. Many branches of petty trade and manual production are closed to them in tne overcrowded cities where they are forced to dwell and engage against fearful odds, In the desperate struggle for existence. Even as ordinary artisans or hired laborers they may only find employment em-ployment in the proportion of one 'protected alien' to two 'Roumanians' under any one employer. In short, by the cumulative effect of successive restrictions restric-tions the Jews of Roumania have become reduced to a state of wretched misery. Shut out from nearly near-ly every avenue of self-support which is opento the poor of other lands, and ground down by poverty pov-erty as the natural result of their discriminatory treatment, they are rendered incapable of lifting themselves from the enforced degradation they endure." That shows conditions which are almost incomprehensible incom-prehensible to free-born Americans and gives glimpses of the tyrannies which have ruled in Asia and Western Europe from the beginning. Roumania Rou-mania is but a day's travel from where the cross was upraised nineteen hundred years ago, and that fact makes clear that real enlightenment does not expand under the scepter of Kings or under the restrictions which, when given political power, priests interpose to hold shackles upon souls that should be free. It shows, too, by indirection, why our own country has in a single century advanced to the foremost place among: the earth's nations, I There have been no clamps upon men's brainB, no I clouds upon men's souls, no limit to their hopes H no fears in their paths. The result has not only been a material progress unparalleled, but we see I a man who was but a private citizen yesterday, who is liable to be only a private citizen tomor- I row, serving a notice upon seven of the great pow- I ers of the Old "World, which notice analyzed is in fact an arraignment of them for neglecting to I enforce their treaties and protesting against their I unfaithfulness to a high trust. B It is a clearer notice that a new world power B has come, a new power on sea and land, which fl the nations must accept and heed, than were the B notices sent from shotted guns in Manila bay and fl from above the tumbling seas off Santiago. fl Finally it is a reminder to our own country, fl men that they must never relax their own vigil, fl ance, that the plan established by the fathers fl must be kept inviolate; that in their thoughts the fl man who in this country would persecute others fl because of race or faith, or who, following his fl superstitious fears, would give to any church po- fl litical functions; the power to interpose the rul9 I of a creed in association with or in superiority to fl any functions of the State, is an enemy of this fl country. fl The paper has a double significance. It is not fl only a protest against the Old World powers neg- I lecting their obligations, but an appeal to all Amer- 8 icans to guard the sanctity of their own institu- I tions against all tyrannies, whether they be of I power, of wealth or of creed. fl |