Economic and social hostility was furthered by the feudal ruling classes whose antagonism to the Jews was deep-seated and many-sided. As these formed the ruling economic, social and political power in Eastern Europe, they were the chief instrument in creating a situation that was full of danger for the Jews. In the politico-economic struggles between these privileged classes and the liberal middle classes that accompanied the transition, the Jews were found, consciously or unconsciously, on the side of the liberals, who sought to introduce the economic, social and political conditions of modern civilization. Thus they served as a convenient object of attack. In Russia, where, since the reaction, the control of the feudal classes over the government was complete, the new laws restricting residence, movement, occupations and economic activity in general, checked the economic growth of the Jews and put them at a great disadvantage in the struggle for existence. This situation was created to an even greater degree in Roumania, where the economic interests of the Roumanian middle class were furthered at the expense of the Jews. Economic helplessness was essentially the condition created for the Jews, so narrow was the margin left for the exercise of their powers. The social pressure that was added, through laws limiting the entrance of Jews to the educational institutions and the liberal professions, seeking to limit their cultural influence, was part and parcel of the same policy. In the case of Russia, repression reached the form of massacres of Jews, when these were found politically useful. Governmental oppression was thus the chief force in unsettling the economic and social position of the Jews. Throughout the course of thirty years the leading motive of the Russian and Roumanian governments was the reduction, through every possible means, of the number of their Jewish populations. This governmental pressure which began to be applied at the beginning of the eighties became equivalent in the course of time to an expulsive force. The only outlet to the intolerable conditions that had been created by the forces of governmental repression and oppression was emigration. This was sensed by the Jews at the very beginning of the period. How eagerly it has been seized upon the following pages will show. It is enough for the moment to point out that the vast and steadily increasing stream of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States alone, has risen to such proportions that its average for the past decade has approached the estimated annual increase of the Jews in Russia. In other words, emigration has begun to mean the decline, not only relatively, but even absolutely, of the Jewish population in Russia.