The Maccabaean

MY are those who claim to be heirs of the Sultan of Turkey, "the sick man of Europe"; but with respect to a certain portion of the Sultan's domain, Palestine, there is one heir apparent who is pressing his claims steadily, and yet so slowly that the world has hardly noticed it. And this claimant has some semblance of right—he says that the estate which he demands is the land of his forefathers, the ground made fertile by the blood of his ancestors and consecrated by the graves of his Patriarchs. This claimant is the Jew. Thousands of Russian Jews, nourishing in their breasts their love for the "Holy Land" and forced by economic pressure and inhuman persecutions to migrate from their Fatherland, have turned to their Motherland—Palestine. And when I tell you that these settlers, these immigrants, coming year after year, are destined to realize the old dream of an old people, that eventually the prophecy of re-establishment of the Hebrew state shall be fulfilled, it may seem to some the sentimentalism of visionaries, whose dreams are founded on happy fancies rather than hard facts. Let us examine these facts:

For the establishment of a state there are two prerequisites: (1) A land capable of sustaining and developing a nation; and (2) a people both willing and able to erect a state. Palestine fulfills admirably the first condition. A few years ago, a commission of German engineers and, more recently still, Col. C. E. Conder, the well-known English engineer, after a thorough survey of the country, have proclaimed that Palestine has lost nothing of its ancient fertility and that an energetic people could speedily transform all its latent resources into actual wealth. Furthermore, Palestine has a geographical position of inestimable value. The Mediterranean Sea washes its shores; Italy, the Balkan

States, Southern Russia and Northern Africa are not far distant; while in its rear lies all the wealth of China and India. Palestine is the connecting link between three continents; the junction of the East and the West; the meeting point of two diverse civilizations. A people possessing great commercial ability would make Palestine the industrial exchange between the Occident and the Orient.

Historians tell us that three thousand years ago, in the reign of King Solomon, when railroads and scientific agriculture were unknown, when all the complex factors of modern economic life were unthought of, this small territory (with an area of only 11,000 square miles) supported over three million people. To-day it has a population of only seven hundred thousand, and the land that once flowed with milk and honey lies undeveloped by economic life and barren of the fruits of civilization. It is the misrule of centuries that has wrought this change. The state of Massachusetts, with its severe climate and unfruitful soil, although considerably smaller than Palestine sustains a population of over three million. What has made the Bay State one of the brightest stars in the American Union? There is but one answer: The people of Massachusetts; the Puritan character; the Anglo-Saxon blood; the xerling qualities of English manhood. Even so, Palestine lacks only a modern government and, an industrial people, capable of utilizing the results of the modern economic system, to make it again the home of a great nation.

But is the Jew capable of erecting a state? The nation that has succeeded so gloriously in the days of old, can succeed to-day. The Jew is old in years but young in vitality. Iron becomes stronger as it passes through fire, and the fires of persecution have tended only to strengthen the Jew, to develop the power that