[1] The Memorial was motivated by concern over the plight of the Jews in Russia where they were being murdered in government-incited pogroms.
"[2] "Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews?
It was signed by 431 prominent citizens from those cities: financiers John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan, future President William McKinley, and Chief Justice Melville Fuller; many members of Congress; the editors of all major newspapers in those five cities, including the still-extant The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post; and a long list of university and seminary presidents, mayors, and leading businessmen.
All knowledge of the Blackstone Memorial are derived from newspaper reports of the period and biographies of the major people involved.
A copy of the Memorial can be found in the Blackstone archives at the Billy Graham Center on the campus of Wheaton College.
[citation needed] May 16, 1916, Nathan Straus, at the behest of (later Supreme Court Justice) Louis Brandeis wrote Rev.
The Memorial strongly influenced President Wilson to let the British government of Lloyd George know of American sympathy in favor of the Balfour Declaration.