The first two "Rules" contained in their harmless wording a cruel
punitive law which dislodged the Jews from nine-tenths of the territory
hitherto accessible to them, and tended to coop up millions of human
beings within the suffocating confines of the towns and townlets of the
Western region. And yet, notwithstanding its tremendous implications,
the law was passed outside the ordinary course of legal procedure--under
the disguise of "Temporary Rules," which, in spite of their title, have
been enforced with merciless cruelty for more than a generation.


2. ABANDONMENT OF THE POGROM POLICY

After imposing a severe and immediately effective penalty upon Russian
Jewry for having been ruined by the pogroms, the Government suddenly
remembered its duty, and dangled the threat of future penalties before
the prospective instigators of Jewish disorders. On the same fateful
third of May, the Tzar sanctioned the decision of the Committee of
Ministers concerning the necessity of declaring solemnly that "the
Government is firmly resolved to prosecute invariably any attempt at
violence on the person and property of the Jews, who are under the
protection of the general laws." In accordance with this declaration, a
senatorial ukase dated May 10 was sent out to the governors, warning
them that "the heads of the gubernatorial administrations would be held
responsible for the adoption of timely measures looking to the
prevention of the conditions leading to similar disorders and for the
suppression of these disorders at the very outset, and that any
negligence in this regard on the part of the administration and the
police authorities would result in the dismissal from office of those
found guilty." This warning was accompanied by the following confession: