The Jews have suffered as well from their historical role of intermediaries between a most avaricious nobility and a bitterly exploited peasantry. Acting as stewards and as tavern keepers for the Polish nobles, who are mainly absentee landlords, and who, until very recently, enjoyed the right of keeping taverns as one of their feudal privileges, the Jews have become the buffers of the deep-seated antagonism between the two chief classes of Galicia. Agrarian uprisings have been frequent of late, particularly after the failure of the crops, which here as in Russia and Roumania spells a crisis. These, chiefly directed against the nobles, have frequently been diverted toward the Jews, to whom the peasants are largely indebted, and in whom they see the visible instruments of the oppression of their lords. Economic antagonism has been intensified by the religious hatred which has been fostered by the Polish clergy and which has been the basis of numerous ritual-murder charges. FOOTNOTES: [34] Leroy-Beaulieu, _The Empire of the Tsars_ (New York, 1894), vol. iii, p. 558. [35] For an example of typically medieval economic notions regarding trade and commerce prevalent among the feudal classes of Eastern Europe, _cf._ Carmen Sylva's criticism on the economic activities of the Jews in Roumania in _Century_, March, 1906. [36] The part played by the authorities in these _pogroms_ is discussed by A. Linden in _Die Judenpogromen_, vol. i, pp. 12-96. [37] President Harrison's Message is given in Appendix A, page 199. [38] Semenoff, _The Russian Government and the Jewish Massacres_ (London, 1907), pp. 147-167. [39] Immigration Commission: _Emigration Conditions in Europe_, pp. 261-262. [40] The discussions are presented in _La question juive_. [41] Article VII is given in Appendix B, p. 200. [42] _Cf. English Parliamentary Papers_, 1880, vol. lxxix, Correspondence relative to the recognition of Roumania. [43] In the following twenty years only 85 Jews were granted citizenship. [44] Bluntschli's pamphlet is a valuable statement of the situation. For title _cf._ Bibliography. [45] The Hay note is given in Appendix C, pp. 201-206. [46] _Juedische Statistik_, p. 208 et seq. CHAPTER V CONCLUSION An intimate connection has thus been established between the present state of economic and social transition through which the countries of Eastern Europe are passing and the situation which has confronted the Jews in each of these countries and has profoundly influenced their position and their history for the last third of a century. What the forces are behind the emigration of the Jews from these countries to Western Europe and the United States during this period now become clear.