Nov 17, 1882 letter from HEAS to Jewish Messenger on Schwartz report.

I thought I was posting in date order, but I found a couple more articles stashed in my files.  This one is from an unknown author, published in the Jewish Messenger, Nov 17, 1882.  From the content, though, it appears this was someone from the Hebrew Emigrant Aid Society in NYC.

The Jewish Messenger1882 Nov 17p 2, c 3

The Russian Emigrants
There was quite a large attendance of Directors of the Aid Society, at the regular meeting held on Monday evening, and an amount of Important business was transacted.  Mr. Edward Lanterbach presented an interesting report of his action while in Europe, representing the Society, and at its conclusion, the following was adopted:

“Resolved, That the thanks of this Society are due and hereby tendered to our worthy colleague, Mr. Edward Lauterbach, for the kind and valuable services he has rendered us during his presence in Europe, not only by representing us at the different aid societies, and vindicating our past course, but also by advocating our cause at the Vienna Convention, and procuring for us Important financial aid, whereby this society has been enabled to carry on its labors.”

Various communications were received and acted upon, among others one from the officers of the United Hebrew Charities, expressing their willingness to cooperate with the society in the work of providing relief to the Russian refugees, in the city.  Mr. E. S. Hart of the Cotopaxi Colony, submitted a flattering and encouraging report of its conditions, stating that the males are earning from two to three dollars a day, and the entire number of colonists are happy and contented, and in good health.

We have not found this report from E. S. Hart.  It would have been written to HEAS prior to November 1882...so before the first crop failed.  If you recall, Hart, and Ashkenazi Jew as the colonists were, owned the store at Cotopaxi.  He was a 1st cousin, once removed to E. H. Saltiel, a Sephardic Jew who owned/controlled the mines at Cotopaxi.

The number of refugees on Ward’s Island are gradually being reduced in number, mainly by distribution among the various colonies, under the management of the society.  There are now between five and six hundred persons on the Island, and peace and harmony on the whole prevails.  All the children are to be sent to the school maintained by the City on the Island, and applications wil be made to the Board of Education, for additional teachers. 

Mr. Julius Schwarz has prepared a detailed and comprehensive report of the Cotopaxi Colony, in which he pays the following compliments to the good qualities of the refugees:
“Your folks are first-class workers,” that is what I was pleased to hear about the laboring capacities our our people.  There is no doubt that the refugees have shown that they are not the lazy mob for which they were taken.  Under favorable circumstances they have done more than could have been expected.  Only one who knows what it means to break up virgin ground with a common shovel, can appreciate the industrious efforts of the refugees.  They have broken up the ground with a shovel, they have done the hardest part of the work required to make a wagon bridge; they have filled the ditches with rocks, which they have been compelled to cut and hew from the mountains; they went up to their throats in the swift Arkansas River, to make a foot bridge, to enable them to reach their lands; they worked in dark, damp mines, as good and as perserveringly as trained miners; they worked on the railroad giving entire satisfaction to their employers; they carried lumber on their shoulders, to spread the erection of their houses; they walked often twenty miles a day to chop wood in the forests for the purpose of putting fence posts around their farms.

This report can be seen here , and then the following 2 posts as it is in 3 parts.

They left out several paragraphs of the original report, but continue here:

Where these are facts, no theories are needed.  The argument of facts conjuers all other arguments.   The facts are, that the Colony in Cotopaxi is a success, the facts are, that those who advocated the idea that a Hebrew cannot make a farmer, have been refuted   They brought forward opinions, weapons of eloquences and of phrases, which we encounter with the weapons of facts  Facts speak.  Sixty Russian refugees left New York as paupers, five months ago.  Today they are self-supporting citizens.  They had been colonized, thus they became self-supporting; that is the logic of facts.  Do not spend lavishly your money for the purpose of distributing it to a desperate mob—-the mob will ever remain a mob—even if you give each individual the amount he gets now.  The system of money distribution mitigates the pains of the wounds, but does not heal the wound.  Colonize them, give them land, settle them, give them a home, and the mob will become a class of peaceful citizens, who love the spot to which their faith has tied them.  There is a great and sublime principle in colonization.  The principle of the qualification of Judaism.  There never was a better opportunity to show the never dying perseverance of the Jewish race, never a better chance to prove to the world that agriculture is not adverse to the Jewish feelings and inclinations, whereby can be utilized the ? power of the soil.  Distribute money, spend thousands of dollars for supplying daily wants, and you will breed and raise paupers and beggars; colonize and you will make self-supporting men.

All of this is a copy of the Schwartz report.

No author listed

This would be our evidence that HEAS had a copy of the Schwartz report by at least November, 1882.  

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