In his forceful address the Liberal PM said “When we read of the cruelties, of the barbarities … when we hear that able-bodied men, with weapons in their hands, have fallen upon law-abiding people, upon defenceless women and helpless children, killing and murdering until the number of dead has piled up into the thousands, the blood runs cold in one’s veins.”

It is estimated that 400 Jews were murdered at Odessa and countless more wounded as the pogrom continued.

You can read a more complete report, courtesy of the Toronto Globe’s next day coverage of the rally Laurier attended below. In addition, Canada’s History magazine examine Laurier’s larger record involving Jews written by Abraham Arnold. You can read his article at this link.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier: The object for which we are assembled … is to express our sense of horror at the atrocities which have been taking place daily for some time in Russia; which have drenched with blood the soil of that country, and which the greatest friends of Russia must admit have brought an indelible blot upon its fair name.

When we read of the cruelties, of the barbarities … when we hear that able-bodied men, with weapons in their hands, have fallen upon law-abiding people, upon defenceless women and helpless children, killing and murdering until the number of dead has piled up into the thousands, and the wounded and maimed number a hundred thousand, it makes the blood run cold in one’s veins, and we feel the blush of shame that such cruelties can dishonour the present age.

I have small hope, indeed that anything that we may say this evening may reach St. Petersburg, but it will swell the volume of the remonstrances of the objurgations, which from all parts of the civilized world will be conveyed to the authorities at St. Petersburg, and compel them, if possible, to put an end to the existing atrocities.

There is another lesson to be derived from the calamities which now exist in Russia. We cannot bring all the Jewish people to this country, but whoever chooses to come to Canada is sure to find a hearty welcome We cherish the institutions under which we live, we appreciate perhaps more than ever those institutions in which there are equal rights for all, and under which every man, no matter what his origin, his creed or his race maybe, is sure to find an equal share of liberty, of justice, of equity and of sunshine. I am here as a citizen of Canada because I believed it my duty to be here, when as a Canadian and a British subject one must be proud to assert the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.

(Prolonged cheering.)[caption id="attachment_1361" align="alignleft" width="509"] Sir Wilfrid Laurier, circa 1906.[/caption]Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.