This success, however, while affording consolation to the sufferers, fans the aversion of the persecutors and spurs the Government to a periodical renewal of the measures of coercion. It is acknowledged that, under fair conditions, the Russian Jew, owing to his superior intelligence, versatility, perseverance, and temperance, would in a few years beat the Russian Christian in every field of activity. Hence it is the Russian Christian’s interest and resolve to crush him. This resolve is cynically avowed by Russians of the highest rank. The late M. De Plehve, Minister of the Interior, in an audience granted to a deputation of Jews in April, 1904, confessed with amazing candour that the barbarous treatment of their race was dictated by no other reason than its superiority over the Russian. “You are a superior race,” said the Minister. “Therefore, if free entrance to the High Schools were to be accorded to you, you would attain, although through worthy and honest means, too much power. It is not just that the minority should overrule the majority.” He then proceeded to inform his hearers that he held the Jews responsible for the revolutionary agitation in the Empire and for the murders of Imperial functionaries, concluding with a warning and a threat, and dismissing them with the assurance, “You need not count on obtaining equal rights with the Christian population.”[178] The eternal feud found another tragic and characteristic expression on a large scale in the spring of 1903. It was Easter Day. The good Christian folk of Kishineff, the capital city of Bessarabia, had been to church where they had heard the glad tidings of their Lord’s resurrection, had joined in the hymn of triumph, and then had greeted one another with the kiss of brotherly love and the salutation, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen, indeed!” Directly after, they fell upon their fellow-citizens--whose ancestors crucified Christ nineteen hundred years ago. The Jewish colony was sacked, many Jews were slaughtered without distinction of sex or age, and their dwellings, as well as their shops, were looted. Soldiers were seen helping the rioters in the work of destruction and carrying off their share of the spoils.