While endeavoring to justify its policy of oppression by all kinds of libellous charges against the Russian Jews, it gave at the same time repeated assurance to the American Minister that no new proscriptive laws were contemplated, and the latter reported accordingly to his Government.

[1] On February 10, 1891, the American Minister, writing to Secretary Blaine, gives a detailed account of the conversation he had had with the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, de Giers.

The latter went out of his way to discuss with him unreservedly the entire Jewish situation in Russia, and, while making all kinds of subtle insinuations against the character of the Russian Jew, he expressed himself in a manner which was calculated to convince the American representative of the conciliatory disposition of the Russian Government.

[2] Less than three weeks later followed the cruel expulsion edict against the Jews of Moscow.
[Footnote 1: Compare in particular his dispatch, dated September 25, 1890, published in _Executive Document_ No.

470, p.