APPENDIX II.
PRESIDENT FRIEDENWALD'SADDRESS.
DELEGATES TO THE CONVENTION, LADIES ANDGENTLEMEN :
The honor again falls upon me to open the annual Convention of the Federation of American Zionists, and to bid you welcome who have come from far and near to join in the deliberations of this Convention and to assist in the furtherance of the great movement which it is our privilege to represent. The officers and chairmen of committees will report on the work they have done during the year, and you will determine how satisfactorily they have carried out the trust you have imposed upon them. You will pleased, I am sure, to learn of their progress and success in many directions, but you will agree with me that the great need of our Federation lies in the direction of organization; not only in winning over more and more to our cause, but still more in gathering in the thousands who are sympathetic and ready to join our body when lines of activity are placed before them in which they shall find interest and pleasure. I trust, therefore, that the chief efforts of this Convention will be directed toward finding the ways and means for strengthening the organization and each of the links of which it is formed. With a strong organization, we shall be able to aid effectively the central body, the Palestine Commission, and all the agencies working for the redemption and regeneration of Palestine, as well as the financial instruments of our movement.
‘It is needless for me to enter into any of the details which will be covered by the reports. I may be permitted, however, to give a general statement as to the progress of our movement in this country during the past year. The Federation itself has shown all the evidences of healthful life and activity. It has grown in numbers and in strength, andthis in spite of the fact that the energy of many of our most ardent workers has in many places been absorbed completely by the
immediate needs of philanthropic and other communal demands.. Many new societies have sprung up. And, more important still, new and powerful forces have joined our ranks. A clearer understanding, and a more correct appreciation of the aims and methods of our movement, are slowly but steadily forging their way in American Jewry. The publication and dissemination by the Federation of a number of important pamphlets, and the growth and increasing influence of our magazine, THE MACCABAEAN, have in a measure contributed to this result. But the chief influence in bringing it about is to be attributed to Dr. Schmaryahu Lewin, whom the Executive Committee invited to come to America, and whose eloquence, brilliant intel- let and broad sympathies won over his hearers in the many cities in which he was able to address our people. His visit we reckon as one of the great achievements of our year’s work; it gave the American Jews hrst-hand information as to the political condition, possibilities and prospects of their brethren in Russia; it opened up to them the reality of the Jewish question, and its solution; and it enabled Dr. Lewin to return to our brethren in Europe with a knowledge of American Jewish conditions such as only a clear-sighted observer like Dr. Lewin could gather. The tie binding together Western and Eastern Jewry has been drawn firmer and stronger by Dr. Lewin. In thus acknowledging our indebtedness to him, it is with pleasure that I am able to report that Dr. Lewin is now, at our request, in Palestine studying its condition and its possibilities, and that we may look forward to his return to America in the fall. We await eagerly the report of his experience and his views."
In another direction, we see a great advance which our movement has made within the past year. I refer to the depth to which the Zionist view has penetrated, as was manifested in the courage and self-sacrificing devotion of our young scholars who relinquished positions on which their livelihood depended, rather than prove unfaithful to our people and to our ideal.
It is not surprising that the advance which