Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/194

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178
GREAT RUSSIA

must be prepared to pay the penalty, and no State can protect them against the contempt or the hatred of the community. But the retaliation of individuals for injustice done in private life cannot be allowed to the Government. The argument of revenge or retribution is therefore entirely irrelevant. To indulge in a spirit of vindictiveness is not a duty of the State. The State is not a Corsican community organized for vendetta, it is not even an instrument of moral retaliation. Its function is not to dispense retributive justice. The one primary and essential duty of a State is to secure equal and civil rights to all its citizens, and the Russian State of to-morrow will have to discharge that duty to all the members of the Hebrew race.