A secret document from the archives of the Czarist government, revealing the part played by the Vatican in the anti-Semitic persecutions in Czarist Russia is published in today’s “Isvestzia”, the official government organ. Last week the same paper published a document from a similar source indicating the role of the Vatican in the famous Beilis case.
The second document is a report dated April 19, 1892 from the Czarist ambassador in Rome, M. Yizvalsky, to the Russian foreign minister in St. Petersburg, wherein M. Yizvalsky points out that the Jewish banker, Seligman, from the United States, had come to Rome in order to induce the Vatican to use its influence with the Czar to raise the restrictions against the Jews in Russia.
M. Yizvalsky also reported that Seligman had brought a number of letters of introduction from high and influential persons, thanks to which he was received by Cardinal Rampolo, but the latter refused to present him at the Vatican, declaring it was hopeless to expect the highest Catholic officials to intervene in internal Russian affairs.
Inquiries in New York indicate that the Seligman referred to was Jesse M. Seligman, financier, philanthropist and one of the founders of the banking firm of Seligman Brothers. He died in 1892. Mr. Seligman was for many years the outstanding Jew of the United States and during his lifetime was to American Jewry of that day what Jacob Schiff was to his generation and Felix Warburg is to the present generation.
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