3. THE PROBLEM OF EMIGRATION AND THE POGROM AT BALTA

In Russia itself a large number of emigration societies came into being
about the same time, which had for their object the transfer of Russian
Jews to the United States, the land of the free. The organizers of these
societies evidently relied on some miraculous assistance from the
outside, such as the _Alliance Israélite_ of Paris and similar Jewish
bodies in Europe and America. Under the immediate effect of Ignatyev's
statement to Dr. Orshanski in which the Russian Minister referred to the
"Western frontier" as the only escape for the Jews, the Russian-Jewish
press was flooded with reports from hundreds of cities, particularly in
the South of Russia, telling of the formation, of emigrant groups. "Our
poor classes have only one hope left to them, that of leaving the
country. 'Emigration, America,' are the slogans of our brethren"--this
phrase occurs at that time with stereotyped frequency in all the reports
from the provinces.

Many Russian-Jewish intellectuals dreamed of establishing Jewish
agricultural and farming colonies in the United States, where some
batches of emigrants who had left during the year 1881 had already
managed to settle on the land. A part of the Jewish youth was carried
away by the idea of settling in Palestine, and conducted a vigorous
propaganda on behalf of this national idea among the refugees from the
modern Egypt. There was urgent need of uniting these emigration
societies scattered all over the Pale of Settlement and of establishing
central emigration committees to regulate the movement which had gripped
the people with elemental force.

Unfortunately, there was no unity of purpose among the Jewish leaders in
Russia. The intellectuals who stood nearer to the people, such as the