telligent discussion was adequate to the emergency.
We beg to report, also, the importation of one thousand copies of each of the publications of the Odessa Kopeck library. These excellent brochures have met with the approval of all classes of Zionists and deserve the praise of every body interested in the spread of good Yiddish literature on the immediate questions of the movement.
The press work of the committee was con- dvcted this year by arrangement with the Jewish Press Bureau. The bureau has done its work with ability and has kept the outside world generously informed of news of the movement. It may safely be said that the American Jewish press especially owes a greater part of its news, for which it seldom pays, to the contributions of our press bureau. Thus we not only add to the sum total of general knowledge about our movement free of charge and so help the movement in the essentials of its propaganda, but we also, to our shame be it said, help to maintain the American Jewish press in its unhonored and undeserved poverty.
The chairman of your committee, in conclusion, having enumerated his own failings, begs, in the name of his successor, for the co-operation of the deed, which should take form as a definite allowance in the budget of this convention.
Respectfully submitted,LOUIS LIPSKY,Chairman.
YIDDISH PUBLICATION COMMITTEE.
From the appended list of subscriptions to the Yiddish Press Fund, you know already that we succeeded in carrying out only one half of the task entrusted to us by the tenth convention. The subscriptions to the first of July amount to $2,772.40 (not including a few hundred dollars in doubtful promises). You are undoubtedly also aware of the establishing of the Zion Press Association, with a capital stock of $7,500 in $5.00 shares, of which we have informed all the societies in due time, and that the constitution of the association places it permanently under the
control of the Federation of American Zionists.
The causes which have impeded the collection of the fund are manifold. Some Zionist workers have not recognized the full importance of a good Zionist organ in Yiddish; others doubted the possibility of collecting the required fund for the purpose within a reasonable time. The main obstacle in our way, however, was the general depression in business, which made itself felt in all Zionist activities.
Still we must admit that much better results could have been obtained after all, but for the negligence of many societies, or rather the lack of energetic leaders in those societies. For what we ask is after all so little, that there is hardly a society so weak as not to have been able to comply with it within a year's time. This is shown by a number of small societies in very small communities, who have contributed their full share, or even more, during the last year.
Out of at least one hundred and fifty good standing societies, only seventy-one have responded to our appeal so far, and only thirty-one of these have actually paid not less than $25.00 each. That we now have more than half of the fund is due to a number of individual subscriptions and to some societies, especially in New York and Philadelphia, which have contributed two and threefold the minimum amount. And it is to be noted that no society can complain of not having been appealed to in behalf of the fund. Aside from the four circular letters mailed to all societies, we have had a good deal of private correspondence with many of them.
Still, wherever the fault lies, the results so far obtained place the possibility of completing our fund in a short time beyond doubt. And we really hope that the good work of many of our fellow Zionists on the one hand, and the prospect of realizing our object in the nearest future on the other, will encourage all other Zionists and delinquent societies to do at once their full duty to the Yiddish Press Fund.
We therefore recommend that this convention request all constituent societies, who have not done so, to remit not less than $25.00