the effect was disastrous. Only the courtesy of the delegates won him a hearing. Then Lipsky arose. Perhaps never in his whole career did he acquit himself so splendidly. His body shook with his intense forcefulness; his words were a torrent of logic, a masterly review of the situation, of the present need of the movement, of its great possibilities, and of the duty of Zionists to place the movement above personal pride. When he was through the delegates as with one impulse hastened downstairs to the assembly hall and proceeded to vote.
After Dr. Friedenwald had been elected by such a decisive vote, Mr. Mayer declined to accept the Vice-Presidency. A delegate sprang to his feet, and nominated the man whom everybody wanted—Cyrus L. Sulzberger. An acclamation that shook the rafters of the convention hall made a ballot unnecessary.
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When the Cleveland "boomers" carried off the prize last year we felt sincerely sorry for them. The "Pittsburg Standard" seemed just a bit too high for others to equal, not to speak of eclipsing. But the Clevelandites merely smiled and said "watch us." They were well worth watching—the tribe of the Kolinskys, Morgensterns, the thoroughbreds, who never stopped working until there was nothing left to do; Mrs. Spectorsky, whose speaking voice is far sweeter music than one often hears on a gala night at the opera, and whose very presence is a guarantee that all will be well; father, mother and daughter of Gross family, whose hospitality was so charmingly and so distinctly Zionistic; and Wolinsky, Laufman, the Messrs. Randall, Miss Zacherov, Miss Rosenberg and the others.
They were well worth watching, from the time we arrived in the city. Woodland Avenue was a sea of Zionist colors; every shopkeeper had a legend of greeting in his window, and drays rumbling through the streets on workaday errands, flaunted the Zionist colors much to the chagrin of a very prominent American of the Jewish persuasion, who was fearful that his Christian neighbor would imagine that the flaunting of the blue and white might mean the signal for a Jewish revolt against the American Government.
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Personally, I have only one grievance against Cleveland. The weather clerk might have been "seen" in advance and the frightful heat kept under lock and key until we were ready to go home. But owing to the naivete of the local Zionists we incurred the wrath of the weather-tchinovik who gave us several kinds of slow murder.
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If the Cleveland Convention had accomplished nothing else, the conferences on Monday morning would have been "Dayenu." These, more than anything else, proved the breadth of the Zionist platform and brought out latent forces, pent-up activities; achieved reconciliations, which will make the movement stronger and better. Of these conferences two were particularly brilliant. The conference on Ladies' Organizations demonstrated that when the United States of Palestine is organized, it will not be necessary to have an agitation for Woman Suffrage. Our sister-Zionists have begun the agitation already. Their conference was a model for seriousness and intelligent grasp of the basic principles of organization. Our girls and our matron are parliamentarians, their discussions sedate and dignified, their conclusions direct and practical.
The great conference, however, was that of the Mizrachi, which was combined with the conferences on Education and Hebrew Literature. "Rabbonim," pedagogues of the highest type, "maskilim," and culturists of the old school and the modern, and those who stand between the two, discussed the spiritual and educational needs of American Jewry. The conference lasted for hours, and at its conclusion it came to the rather remarkable resolution that all of the work of organizing a conference of pedagogues to draft a curriculum for Hebrew Education, of creating an Examining Board to pass upon pedagogic qualifications, and of establishing a Bureau of Information for the guidance of Talmud Torah Schools, should be directed by one of the most modern of the delegates who attended this conference.
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A new spirit was displayed by the "Rabbonim." They were proud to be with the "Yinglach and Maidlach." Their eyes glisten-