The Maccabaean

THE success or failure of the new American-Jewish Congress depends now on nothing so much as on the form of organization and the system of election which are being drafted for it by the temporary Executive Committee.

The first, and now dissolved, Congress was constituted of national organizations and of individuals. Every national organization was allowed representation in the Congress according to numbers and importance. On its part, every organization was required to contribute to the expense of the Congress in proportion to the number of delegates allotted to it. Altogether, the national organizations could appoint no more than one-fourth of the entire Congress. The remaining three-fourths were elected directly by the people, that is, by the individual voters in the various election districts into which the whole country was divided—each voter being taxed ten cents.

Essentially, this system was based upon the suffrage of the individual. The special recognition accorded the national organizations proved necessary for two reasons, due to the newness of the undertaking. First, it was practically sure that certain elements in American Jewry would not so readily put themselves out to go to the ballot-box. Thus they would have remained entirely unrepresented, were it not through their respective national organizations. Secondly, it was found politically expedient to secure a seat in the Congress for all kinds of national figures in American Jewry, without their having to run on a district ticket.

On the surface this arrangement appears altogether appropriate; it is democratic in principle yet it reckons with the special conditions of Jewish life. It was, perhaps, good enough for the requirements of the First Congress, with its temporary character and circumscribed tasks. Experience with the first elections, however, and the change in the character and circumstances of the new Congress, necessitate considerable alterations in the form of organization and the method of election.

First, as to individual voters.

Equal suffrage loses its value when there is a lack of supervision over the voting. At the first elections there was no sign of such supervision. A person might vote through a minor; a person might vote under a fictitious name; a person might vote more than once. How many such illegal acts were really committed is difficult to say, and of little importance. Much more important is the circumstance that every opponent of the Congress and every malcontent could sneer at the election, declaring it a swindle, and thus lowering the dignity of the Congress in the eyes of the people.

For the purposes of the First Congress—claiming Eretz Israel as the Jewish Homeland and demanding equal rights for Jews in the Diaspora—it mattered little if the elections were conducted with meticulous care, or not. On the tickets there ran, with negligible exceptions, men who were whole-hearted nationalists: whether elected as members of the General Zionist Organization, or as Mizrachists, or as Poale-Zionists, or merely as being nationalistically disposed, they were all agreed on the principal programme of the Congress.

But what was proper for the first, temporary and restricted Congress is unthinkable for a permanent and unrestricted Congress. A permanent Congress could not be conceived, and would be of little value, if the democratic character of the elections could be sneered at as being mere sham and delusion. It would lose at the very outset the confidence of the people. And for an unrestricted Congress, which embraces all sorts of Jewish problems, oftimes developing the finest differentiations, it is of the greatest importance that the election of every delegate shall be unquestioned. But this is possible only if there be a satisfactory supervision over the legality of the election.

But since we have not the complex governmental machinery and the legal power, which are employed in the control of democratic elections, we must find other means enabling us to exercise such control as far as the prevailing circumstances permit.

And now as to the national organizations.

The task of the First Congress was chiefly political. It was necessary to make an impression upon the outside world. It was imperative for the Congress to speak in the name of the whole American Jewry. This object was attained most effectively because the Congress, in addition to representing a large number of individual voters, could speak in the name of all the important national organizations. This is on the one hand. On the other hand the object of the Congress was of so urgent and incontestable a nature, so overwhelmingly justified, that every more or less democratic organization was compelled to join, even though its leaders felt very bitter about the prospective success the Congress would bring—and as a matter of fact did bring—to the Jewish-national idea.

Therefore, for the purposes of the First Congress it was quite correct to lay the chief stress upon the national organizations, rather than upon their constituent local societies. It was necessary to draw the national organizations into the movement; it was possible to draw them in, and drawn in they were.

The tasks, however, of the new permanent Congress will be practical rather than political. There is no manifest need that it should speak for All-Israel in America, neither can it so speak. In time, perhaps after years and years, the next Congress will very likely become such a universal spokesman, provided it places itself on a sound basis and keeps to a high political level. In the meantime Congress will have to do without the participation of some prominent national organizations. The compelling motives of the First Congress do not obtain at present, or are not as compelling as they were.

On account of this, the policy of the Congress must be altered also in regard to the Jewish organizations.

If would not be correct to assume that the attitude of the executive committee of a national organization is binding upon all its members. Such is certainly not the case with organizations of a purely or largely economic character. The Jewish Fraternal Organizations, for instance, choose their officers to administer the affairs of the Order, and not to decide in the name (Continued on page 58)