The Maccabaean

THE PITTSBURG CONVENTION.

A number of our readers have asked us to give them more than the official account of the Pittsburg convention. . THE MAcCABAEAN has not felt inclined to enter into the controversies that have excited the Zionist organization since last June, because it is not its province to take sides in matters that involve the internal policies of the Federation of American Zionists, whose organ it is. Had it done so while the controversy was alive, it would have been open to the charge of partisanship and its comment might have been subject to the just criticism of the organization to which it owes its life.

But the controversies, we are glad to say, have all died away. There may be here and there a spark of the old animosities, the instigators of the numerous scandalous rumors that flew about the Pittsburg convention may still nurse their grievances, but in the main, the parties to the struggle in Pittsburg have regained their bearings, and are now preparing to discuss the issues dispassionately. THE MACCABAEAN therfore does not believe that it violates its implied agreement with the Federation by en tering,, briefly, into the subject matter of the Pittsburg convention.

We confess that thirty days before the convention, the Federation stood in a precarious position. It was facing a deficit, that had been accumulating for the past two or three years. Its president had declined a renomination, and there was no commanding personality prepared to take his place. The partisan warfare that ed- died about the oflice of the secretary had reached a point where principles could not be dissociated from personalities, and factions had arisen throughout the country proclaiming dissatisfaction, on issues un- krown to the leaders of the organization iıı New York but virulent enough in their

anonymity to cause unrest among thise who felt the responsibility for the continued existence of the Federation. It was the bar mitzvah convention, but the celebration seemed destined to be a stormy one

The principles involved were not easily discerned, owing to their being involved with the personal equation, but if one may venture an opinion, it seems that there was one principle apparent amid all the hubbub. It was that of representative government. It seemed to be the prevailing opinion that the Federation had reached its legal majority and was entitled to choose its own leaders without the dictation of those leaders who had been occupying their places for a number of years, and who had not made their work particularly successful. It was felt that the leaders were too far from the people, the workers in the cause, not so much because they were not in touch with the latter,; but' because they did not feel their responsibility directly to them.

The Pittsburg convention was successful in adjusting this matter, and strange to say, on this point there was little controversy when it came to the elections. It is true that the so-called opposition succeeded in eliminating one or two persons of the old executive committee by a direct vote, and several others by the adoption of the rule that the executive committee be reduced in numbers, but in the instance of the elimination of the one member, it was not claimed that this particular Zionist was not a devoted Zionist, entitled to the esteem and confidence of all good Zionists; he was involved in the rumors, referred to above as scandalous, and was a victim of the unfair election methods employed by the opposition that concentrated its votes on the person they desired to have elected, and thus by negation,