The Jews of Balta were soon to learn that their humility was ill-requited by the highly-placed promoters of the riots.  In the beginning of August, Governor-General Drenteln came to Balta.  He was exceedingly irritated, not only on account of the recent circular of Tolstoi which implied a personal threat against him as one who had connived at a number of pogroms within his dominions, but also because of the steps taken by the representatives of the Balta Jewish community at St. Petersburg in the direction of exposing the spiritual fathers of the local riots.  Having arrived in the sorely stricken city, the head of the province, who ex officio should have conveyed his expression of sympathy to the sufferers, summoned the rabbi and the leaders of the Jewish community, and, in the presence of his official staff, treated them to a speech full of venomous hatred.  He told them that by their actions the Jews had “armed everybody against themselves,” that they were universally hated, that “they lived nowhere as happily as in Russia,” and that the deputation they had sent to St. Petersburg for the purpose of presenting their complaints and “slandering the city authorities and representatives as if they had incited the tumultuous mob against the Jews” had been of no avail.  In conclusion, he branded the petition of the Balta community for a commutation of the death sentence passed upon the rioters as an act of hypocrisy, adding impressively that “these persons have been pardoned irrespective of the requests of the Jews.”

The speech of the bureaucratic Jew-baiter, whose proper place was in the dock, side by side with the convicted murderers, produced a terrible panic in the whole region of Kiev.  The militant organ of the Jewish press, the Voskhod, properly remarked: 

After the speech of General-Adjutant Drenteln, our confidence in the impossibility of a repetition of the pogroms has been decidedly shaken.  Of what avail can ministerial circulars be when the highest administrators on the spot paralyze their actions in public by the living word?

The apprehensions voiced by the Jewish organ were fortunately unfounded.  True, the Minister Tolstoi was not able to punish the criminal harangue of the savage governor-general who had powerful connections at the Russian court.  But the firm resolution of the central Government to hold the heads of the administration to account for their connivance at pogroms had the desired effect.  All that the snarling dogs could do was to bark.

3.  DISABILITIES AND EMIGRATION

The pogrom machinery was thus stopped by a word of command from St. Petersburg.  As a counterbalance, the machinery for the manufacture of Jewish disabilities continued in full operation.  The “Temporary Rules” of May third established a system of legal persecutions which were directed against the Jews on the ground of their “economic injuriousness,” The fact that the Jewish population was in many regards