How the "Basle Programme" Was Made
(From My First Zionist Congress Reminiscences)
THERE is no event in my reminiscences of the First Congress equal to the discussions and deliberations regarding the main question, the Programme, the so-called Basle Programme. This was the hardest task of the Congress. Herzl had brought with him from Vienna half a dozen outlines, but even his nearest co-workers made objections to the wording, which, cautious as it was, revealed some idea of a state. Shnierer, a fine and keen political intellect, was in favor of the practical, compromising methods of the "Zion Association," endeavoring to avoid anything which might prejudice the prospects of immediate work. Leopold Kahn, a sentimental enthusiast, although a lawyer by profession, with some recollection of the Talmud, insisted upon introducing into the Programme (he termed it "Principles"—Grundsatze—and had it printed in excellent German and poor Hebrew) some Biblical verse with the Sharon and the Lebanon. Alexander Mintz, another Vienna lawyer, and a short-lived Zionist, who had a facile brilliancy, but whose mind never struck root deeply into anything, proposed, instead of a programme, a declaration, which was rather in the nature of a speech. The devoted, noble-minded, restless Oscar Marmorek, and architectural artist of the most finished order, who had a passion for constructive work and hated analysis and criticism, supporting the master. The younger men with new, stimulating, and more democratic ideas, the delegates of the Vienna "Kadima," disliked all sorts of "programmatic" statements, which seemed to them an undesirable expression of conventional narrowness and dry officialdom. They wanted at once a sort of Magna Charta or a manifesto modelled on the Declaration of the great French Revolution. Herzl told me that he wanted them to draft it, but he never got it. "Mathias Ascher has set to work to write it down; it is going to be a book." But the Congress did not want books; it wanted a programme. There was also Raphael Landau with a multitude of ideas and programmes. It must have required a certain amount of nerve to be "without a Programme" when only a few days were to elapse before the opening of the Congress. The (self-appointed) delegates poured in, the whole machinery was put into action, the invitation cards, the entry tickets, the badges, and all sorts of decorative emblems were distributed, the seats secured, the honorary officers appointed, the press mobilized, the photographers prepared, the blue-white flags unfurled, the Casino transformed into a picturesque combination of a students' debating club, a rabbinical college and an Oriental bazaar—one thing, however, was still missing: the Programme.
One day I met Herzl at the "Trois Rois." He was cheerful.
"At last, we have got it!" he exclaimed, shaking hands with me in his cordial manner.
"The Programme?" I asked.
"No," he replied, "but a commission has been appointed!"
"Are you satisfied with a commission?" I asked, somewhat surprised.
"Yes," he answered, "that's the only way out of the difficulty. It was like a millstone round my neck. For me it was not the Programme that mattered, it was the thing itself, the national will and the object. The Jews
manifesting their will directly, after having achieved consciousness and cohesion—the idea becoming tangible, vocal, active—that was all for this Congress. Now, they wanted a programme; I, therefore, had prepared some sketches. The discussions began and I grew sick of them. Well, I said, let them decide collectively. I do not mind; it's not a question of formulas."
"But will they finish in time?"
"I hope so—since Nordau is there!"
The words "Nordau is there" I had already heard before as a piece of glad tidings. Several voices rang triumphantly throughout the vaulted arches of the Casino. Nordau's popularity practically equalled and in some intellectual quarters even surpassed that of Herzl.
"But," he added, "keep it to yourself. I mean the commission. No publicity!"
I was at that time a sort of middleman between the press and headquarters—a sort of Lord Northcliffe. I experienced all the woes and sorrows of a high functionary who had to communicate all the news without having any, and when it happened that I had something, I was warned: no publicity!
When I came, after this conversation, from the hotel to the Casino, a crowd of fellow-journalists threw themselves on me vehemently, asking "What is the decision of the Commission?" They not only knew already about the Commission, they were even sure that the programme had already been decided. One of the most inquisitive and insistent "representatives of the press" was a very young Galician bochur. I remember his pale face, black, burning eyes under the black, round, velvet hat. He pressed me with an extraordinary furor reportericus.
"The programme! For Heaven's sake, the programme!"
"What's the hurry?" I asked.
"I must wire," he replied, solemnly.
"What is the name of your paper?" I asked.
“The Ozar ha-Safruth,” he replied, somewhat embarrassed.
The Ozar ha-Safruth was a year book. In practice, it would appear once in three years.
"You may send your news by mail," I said, "and it will arrive just in time."
As I walked down the marble staircase of the Casino and through the shadowy hall into the "café," I met another group. It was a body of Swiss, Montpellier and Paris University students burning with passion. They stopped me. "The programme should be discussed in the plenum of the whole Congress, and not in a Commission, it is not democratic!"
I explained that this was only a preparation, and that it was going to be discussed also in the plenum. But they were still indignant.
On the square, close to the veranda of the "café," I came across a motley group of rabbis and baale-bathim. They urged me to use my influence to stop the "trouble." To them, this question was a matter of indifference. The causes of the differences their humble souls never pretended to understand.
At last I came to the meeting of the Commission. I could not fail to contrast the serene quietness of the men gathered in earnest deliberation there with the emotional excitement out-of-doors. The picture has taken