The space at our command here prevents the expansion of these ideas, and we shall revert to them in the course of the year, but we suggest that the subject of the program of our conventions be taken up the Executive Committee at an early date. It is a subject of great moment, for to continue the method of past years means a loss of good educational work among those who are fortunate enough to be sent as delegates to our conventions.
THE TROUBLE OF ZIONISTS IN ENGLAND.
ZIONISTS in England are suffering from “gast[e]ric” trouble, and they don’t know what to do about it. The eminent Haham has become President of the English Federation, whose singular policy it is to exclude all those Zionists who have carried on the movement before he was invested with power. That this policy has been harmful to the movement is evident from the financial returns to the Actions Comite from England.
But there is a much more serious aspect to the situation. Dr. Gaster’s evident desire to keep out of his organization all who differ with him on questions of policy, or all those who do not hail him as a master-mind of diplomacy and organizing energy is a serious menace to the movement in general.
The organization of Zionism is a democratic organization, in which diversified views as to the conduct of the movement are naturally to be found, which should, naturally, be expressed in our councils, but after discussion, the 'majority should rule. Our constitution is fixed merely by the Basel program, but all else is subject to the suffrages of our members. The views of any one man, except for his power to convince others, has an equal value with that of any other man. We need unanimity onlyin one thing, in the progress of those institutions which the organization, by a majority vote, has declared to be our immediate objects.
Whoever seeks by force, or the denial of constitutional rights, or by the limitation of the suffrage, to restrict any Zionist, great or small, from the exercise of his right to free speech, is guilty, in a manner, of subjecting
the entire movement to an act of tyranny; and no amount of eloquence, or devotion to Zionism as he sees it, will right the wrong he has perpetrated.
This much is known to us: Messrs. Greenberg and Cowen have given years of their lives to the Zionist movement without hope of favor or reward; they have supported Herzl, when the present leader of the Federation looked with suspicion upon the entire movement; they have suffered defeat in our congresses and accepted defeat in the spirit of genuine democrats; they have an inalienable right to their own views of policies affecting the movement; and to outlaw them by presidential fiat is an act which deserves universal condemnation. M. Ussischkin at one of our congresses represented a number of excellent ideas, he had been an energetic worker for Palestinian colonization, he had freely expressed his opposition to Herzl, and no one has charged it up against him, but when he attempted to coerce delegates and to act the part of the despot to gain his ends, few Zionists had anything to say in his favor. Much less will they approve of the course Dr. Gaster has taken. Had Zionists wished to subject him to the treatment he now accords Messrs. Greenberg and Cowen, they would not have so easily forgotten his un-Zionist conduct in Spain.
AN INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE TO THE RESCUE.
It has become known that the rulers of the destiny of the Jews have formed a combination, and that now we shall be governed by an international committee composed of the Alliance, the Hilfsverein, a number of other societies whose main claim to existence is derived from the Hirsch millions, and our own American Jewish Committee. It is said that the Zionist organization has not been invited to join the conclave, but that it will be called upon, when it is found necessary.
The objections to this international committee are not objections to the principle of international Jewish organization. We repudiatethis committee, as we do the subsidiary committees which compose it, because they are not