“As you are aware, this government has ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the Hebrew race in foreign countries, and has viewed with abhorrence the wrongs to which they have at various periods been subjected by the followers of other creeds in the East. This Department is therefore disposed to give favorable consideration to the appeal made by the representatives of a prominent Hebrew organization in this country in behalf of their brethren in Roumania, and while I should not be warranted in making a compliance with their wishes a _sine qua non_ in the establishment of official relations with that country, yet any terms favorable to the interest of this much-injured people which you may be able to secure in the negotiations now pending with the Government of Roumania would be agreeable and gratifying to this Department. “I am, etc., “WM. M. EVARTS.” It was therefore only a continuance of its old policy when the Government of the United States, which has――as Mr. Evarts expressed it in 1879――“ever felt a deep interest in the welfare of the Hebrew race in foreign countries,” again began, in 1902, to pay attention to the pitiable condition of the Roumanian Jews. There still existed no treaty or diplomatic relations between the United States and Roumania, and a new attempt was made by our Department of State to negotiate a naturalization convention, and perhaps by these means influence that country to treat its Jews more favorably. The negotiations were carried on through the American legation at Athens, Greece, and Secretary Hay sent, on July 17, 1902, a long confidential dispatch to Mr. Charles L. Wilson, the _Charge d’Affaires ad interim_ in Athens, which contained the largest part of the famous “Roumanian Note” to the signatories of the Treaty of Berlin, which was issued in the following month. Wilson’s reply, dated August 8, states that “since the draft of the treaty approved by the Department was submitted to the Roumanian minister for foreign affairs nothing further has been accomplished, as the Roumanian Government refused to consider the project favorably.” The Roumanian Minister to Greece frankly admitted to the American representative that the King was against the proposed treaty, because, “according to His Majesty’s opinion, a naturalization treaty would be most injurious to Roumania, for the reason that it would complicate the already troublesome Jewish question in that country.” Three days after the date of that dispatch, John Hay issued, on August 11, 1902, the Roumanian Note, which was sent to the representatives of the United States to France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia and Turkey. The full text of this unique circular note, which made a profound impression in the entire civilized world, is as follows: