Only the Zionists in America could afford to watch the battle and continue on their own way. All the countries of Europe have witnessed fights, something like a day by day struggle having been in progress in England and Russia. Every man with a grievance hung to the skirt tails of these quarrels; nay, more, every man with ambition used this opportunity to his advantage. The spectacle has not been pleasant, but it, too, has served its purposes—great struggles prove that things worth having are being fought for.
Nor has this been a mere war of words. One demented fool endeavored to mark his opinion with a revolver on the person of Dr. Max Nordau. Our doughty champion has escaped, on which we congratulate him. He of all men has least to do with the quarrel, but he has been called upon to pay one of the risks of leadership. We put it coldly because it is years since we first calculated that such a thing would happen, though no one could foresee time, circumstance, place and the intended victim. We pity the attempted assassin—he has exposed his weaknesses to a not overpitying world—and done the particular cause he sought so stupidly to serve considerable damage. Revolvers make bad mental coercionists.
Less dangerous but quite as injudicious, was the decision of some six or eight Russian members of the Greater Actions Comite who met and decided that unless Dr. Herzl dropped the East African project at their bidding they would take steps to deprive him of the leadership of the movement. This is caucus politics with a vengeance and stupid at that—and we are
more inclined to forgive the mischief of this proposition than the gross unintelligence of it. Dr. Herzl is far from a place hunter, the office he holds is one that any man would willingly quit if he were not conscientiously bound to hold it. He is moreover not the man to retreat in the face of fight —so far this caucus did not think clear. Besides that, every other member has a right to a voice and a vote, and it is not ever permissible for Dr. Herzl to negative the decision of a congress unless the whole of the Greater Actions Comite agrees such action has become necessary. The affair has an unsavory appearance—it looks very much like the kind of politics from which Zionism has been free; magnified Chevra politics, a disease which we are trying slowly to rid the Jews of.
Here then are the causes of much trouble and mental anxiety which need never have been. Zionism expresses the idea of the Jewish people. If Zionism had been foisted on Israel if it were a spurious growth it would have been so proved in this contention. If the Zionists had been conjuring the masses by their eloquence then the hand of the nation would have grasped the East African project. But the sufferers in Russia prefer the sheen of Zion to the real gold of Africa, and as the months have sped by it has become apparent that however glowing the report of those who go to inspect the land, the masses of Israel will stubbornly refuse to be moved to turn from Zion to East Africa. At the moment Dr. Nordau escaped assassination Dr. Herzl penned the four conditions that to him seem necessary to give actuality to the East African