At the second meeting of the conference, the rabbi of St. Petersburg,
Dr. Drabkin, reported to the delegates about his last conversation with
Ignatyev. In reply to the rabbi who had stated that the Jews were
waiting for an imperial word ordering the suppression of the pogroms,
and were anticipating the removal of their legal disabilities, the
Minister had characterized these assertions as "commonplaces," and had
added in an irritated tone: "The Jews themselves are responsible for the
pogroms. By joining the Nihilists they thereby deprive the Government of
the possibility of sheltering them against violence." The sophistry of
the Minister was refuted on the spot by his own confession that the
Balta pogrom was due to "a false rumor charging the Jews with having
undermined the local Greek-Orthodox church," in other words, that the
cause of the Balta pogrom was not to be traced to any tendencies within
Jewry but rather to the agitation of evil-minded Jew-baiters.

At the same session, the discussion of the emigration question was
side-tracked by a new design of the slippery Minister. The financier
Samuel Polakov, who was close to Ignatyev, declared in a spirit of base
flunkeyism that the labors of the conference would prove fruitless
unless they were carried on in accordance with "Government
instructions." On this occasion he informed the conference that in a
talk which he had with the Minister the latter had branded the
endeavors to stimulate emigration as "an incitement to sedition," on the
ground that "emigration does not exist for Russian citizens." Asked by
the Minister for suggestions as to the best means of relieving the
congestion of the Jews in the Pale, Polakov had replied: "By settling
them all over Russia." To this the Minister had retorted that he could
not allow the settlement of Jews except in Central Asia and in the newly
conquered oasis of Akhal-Tekke, [1] In obedience to these ministerial