fight. At the ninth Congress in Hamburg he contributed the greater part to the adoption of the resolution to establish a co-operative colony on the basis of the National Fund and to secure the necessary operating capital by a co-operation fund. In 1910 Dr. Oppenheimer put his remarkable oratorical gifts and his captivating temperament at the service of the agitation for obtaining this fund, and since that time as chairman of the supervisory council of the co-operation fund he has been taking active part in the work of that body. In the spring of 1910 Dr. Oppenheimer visited Palestine to study the agricultural conditions of the country and to assist in the choice of a plot of land for the co-operative society. In the spring of 1913 he again visited the country in order to become acquainted with progress made by the co-operative undertaking in Merchavya, which had entered upon the second year of its operation.
A comprehensive selection from the travel letters of Dr. Oppenheimer is about
to appear in English and Yiddish and will afford the American public an opportunity to judge of the work in Palestine that is connected with Dr. Oppenheimer's name. It is to be expected that Dr. Oppenheimer during his visit to America will not be content to represent only his scientific views but that he will also not fail to carry on a propaganda for the enterprise that is designed to translate his ideas into reality. Dr. Oppenheimer may surely count upon a hospitable reception in America both as a man of science and as a man of action, in whom the Jewish impulse towards social construction is awake and active.
On March 30, 1914, Oppenheimer will pass his fiftieth birthday. He can look back upon his career with some satisfaction. Without ever having belonged to any literary or scientific clique, a man without protection and without a master, he has hewn a broad path for himself and his thoughts by his own strength and by many of the best minds is looked upon as a strong hope of our future.
THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF A RISING STAR
I was lounging away, in the comfort of home, some leisure moments of a July afternoon. The heat was oppressive and my eyelids wavered in the conflict between sleep and wakefulness. They had just closed upon a dazzling reflection of the sun on a window-pane overlooking the yard of my house when I was surprised into consciousness by the sweet and plaintive notes of a violin. I did not open my eyes; I would not for fear of destroying what seemed to me a delightful illusion. For about five minutes I listened; and then I went down to the yard from where the music seemed to come.
To my surprise I saw there a young man of about twenty or twenty-one years of age. His clothes were neat but of foreign style. His body was slight and his pale,
melancholy face indicated refinement and intelligence. It was evident that he came to this country only very recently and was compelled by necessity to earn his bread in this wretched and precarious way.
When he stopped playing I spoke to him and learned that he, Joset Schumann, had come here from Russia shortly after the recent massacres there. In his native city he was recognized as a promising violinist and was about to enter the Conservatory of Music at St. Petersburg when the massacres frustrated his plans. His parents were murdered and all their possessions robbed or destroyed. Only he escaped and fled to America.
Schumann interrupted our conversation a moment to pick up a cent thrown him from a window, and