tiles. Mr. Morgenthau's reply to our request for information was to consent to complete at once the article which follows, which he had already planned as one of the last chapters in his forthcoming autobiography. The magazine had

Z

IONISM is the most stupendous fallacy in Jewish history. I assert that it is wrong in principle, and impossible of realization; that it is unsound in its economics, fantastical in its politics, and sterile in its spiritual ideals. Where it is not pathetically visionary, it is a cruel playing with the hopes of a people blindly seeking their way out of age-long miseries. These are bold and sweeping assertions, but in this article I shall undertake to make them good.

The very fervor of my feeling for the oppressed of every race and every land, especially for the Jews, those of my own blood and faith, to whom I am bound by every tender tie, impels me to fight with all the greater force against this scheme, which my intelligence tells me can only lead them deeper into the mire of the past, while it professes to be leading them to the heights.

Zionism is a surrender, not a solution. It is a retrogression into the blackest error, and not progress toward the light. I will go further, and say that it is a betrayal; it is an eastern European proposal, fathered in this country by American Jews, which, if it were to succeed, would cost the Jews of America most that they have gained of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

I claim to speak with knowledge on this subject. I have had occasion to know the Jew intimately in all the lands where he dwells in numbers, and to study his problems on his own ground, with the intensity and sympathy which were required by my duty to help in each place to formulate the plans for his immediate assistance. I was born among the Jews of Germany, and by natural association with German Jews in New York, and by repeated visits to Germany, am familiar with their life and problems. As an American of fifty-five years' residence, as a director of the Educational Alliance and of Mt. Sinai Hospital, as president of the Bronx House and the Free Synagogue for more than ten years, and as one who has traveled on speaking tours from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to New Orleans on behalf of the American Jewish Relief Committee, I am thoroughly familiar

already gone to press when this opportunity came, and for this reason an additional eight pages has been added to make space for this article and inserted at the only place in the text that was feasible for binding.-THE EDITORS.

with the American Jews. As American Ambassador to Turkey, I came into daily official contact with the Jews from all parts of the Near East, not only the Jews of Turkey and of the Turkish Protectorate in Palestine itself, but also the Jews of Egypt, Asia Minor, Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria, to say nothing of the accredited representatives of the Zionist Party in Constantinople. As the head of President Wilson's Commission, which was sent to investigate the alleged pogroms of the Jews of Poland following the Armistice in 1919, I spent several months on the ground in Poland and Galicia, and talked with thousands of Jews in every walk of life in that greatest centre of Jewish population in the world. They told me their troubles; the indignities and the perils they endured; the hatred of their neighbors because of their religion; the deliberate efforts that were being made to stifle their economic life; the political discriminations to which they were subjected; and the social barriers which did not permit them to enjoy a full life as members of their community.

I speak as a Jew. I speak with fullest sympathy for the Jew everywhere. I have seen him in his poverty-despised, hated, spat upon, beaten, murdered. My blood boils with his at the thought of the indignities and outrages to which he is subjected. I, too, would find for him, for me, the way out of this morass of poverty, hatred, political inequality, and social discrimination.

But, is Zionism that way? I assert emphatically that it is not. I deny it, not merely from an intellectual recoil from the fallacy of its reasoning, but from my very experience of life: as a seeker after religious truth, as a practical business man, as an active participant in politics, as one who has had experience in international affairs, and as a Jew who has at heart the best interests of his co-religionists.

THE ORIGINS OF ZIONISM

'IRST, let me trace briefly the origins of Zionism. I shall not attempt to give a complete resumé of these origins, but shall sketch only a broad picture of the facts.

Zionism is based upon a literal acceptance of

the promises made to the Jews by their prophets in the Old Testament, that Zion should be restored to them, and that they should resume their once glorious place as a peculiar people, singled out by God for His especial favor, exercising dominion over their neighbors in His name, and enjoying all the freedom and blessings of a race under the unique protection of the Almighty. Of course, the prophets meant these things symbolically, and were dealing only with the spiritual life. They did not mean earthly power, or materialistic blessings. But most Jews accepted them in the physical sense; and they fed upon this glowing dream of earthly grandeur as a relief from the sordid realities of the daily life which they were compelled to lead.

Zionism arose out of the miseries of the Jews. It was offered as a remedy, a release, a plan of action which would provide a road to happiness. This is the secret of its hold upon its adherents. The promises which it offers are so dazzling, that Jews everywhere have rushed to embrace its faith, without stopping to examine them closely, or to calculate whether they can be made good.

Zionism is not a new idea, but it gained a fresh impetus following the outbreak of wholesale massacres in Russia beginning with Kiev and Kishinef, and all through that ghastly trail of bloodshed following the recrudescence of anti-Semitism. The Jews, in their agony and peril, sought afresh for a path toward safety. Zionism was then re-stated as the remedy. Theodore Herzl gained new power as its fiery apostle, and Jews the world over embraced the doctrine as a drowning man grasps at a straw. This largely accounts for the present intense agitation of the Zionists.

"PALESTINE RESTORED TO THE JEWS" ET me now define Zionism more fully. To the average Jew, unread in other histories than his own, ignorant of the great currents of world progress in science, industry, and the art of government, it is a blind and simple faith in the imminence of realization of the dream I have just described, of the re-erection of Zion as an earthly Kingdom. By those intellectual leaders of Jewish thought who have embraced this fallacy of a panacea, Zionism is defined in more subtle, and in more plausibly rational, terms. There are, first, those intellectual Jews who conceive of "Zion" (that is, Jerusalem restored to the Jews) as being a physical sym

bol of spiritual leadership, lifted up before their eyes and inspiring them all to a common purpose; as a demonstration of Hebraic civilization; a centre from which should proceed instruction and exhortation to the Jews of all the world.

This analogy, however, is not complete. For these leaders conceive the Jews to be, not merely a religious congregation, but to be, besides, a nation. They think that not merely should spiritual power be centralized in Zion, but temporal power as well. In their view, the discrimination against Jews in other countries will greatly diminish, once there is erected a Jewish state in Palestine.

I

A "NATIONAL HOME FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE" SAY that this is the programme of the Zionists: perhaps I should say was. It is true that they have, for the moment, altered the structure of their dream, to accept the compromise held out to them by the Balfour Declaration. They have stepped down from their plans for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine: they now accept the ideal of a "National Home for the Jewish People"-to quote the words of that declaration. This is, however, only a temporary compromise-a truce. Nothing short of the full glory of their Zion will long content the ambitious apostles of Zionism.

It is worth while at this point to digress for a moment from my main argument, to point out that the Balfour Declaration is itself not even a compromise. It is a shrewd and cunning delusion. I have been astonished to find that such an intelligent body of American. Jews as the Central Conference of American Rabbis should have fallen into a grievous misunderstanding of the purport of the Balfour Declaration. In a resolution adopted by them, they assert that the declaration says: "Palestine is to be a national home-land for the Jewish people." Not at all! The actual words of the declaration (I quote from the official text) are: "His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." These two phrases sound alike, but they are really very different. I can make this obvious by an analogy. When I first read the Balfour Declaration I was temporarily making my home in the Plaza Hotel. Therefore I could say with truth: "My home is in the Plaza Hotel." I could not say with truth: "The Plaza Hotel is my home." Plaza Hotel is my home." If it were "my

EDITOR'S NOTE-Last month, the Convention of American Zionists was the scene of the dramatic climax of an internal conflict within the world organization of Zionism. The most distinguished leaders of the American ZionistsJudge Julian W. Mack, President of the American branch, Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise of the Free Synagogue, Mr. Felix Frankfurter and Mr. Jacob de Haas of Boston, and Mr. Nathan Straus of New York-all resigned as officers, as a result of what amounted to a vote of lack of confidence. This vote took the form of the rejection by the Convention of Judge Mack's report of the activities of these officers for the past year. This dramatic event, which has stirred the Jewish community of America to its depths, and which has its echoes throughout Europe, came about in the following manner:

The situation which provoked the controversy at Cleveland arose from the arrival in this country of Dr. Chaim Weizmann from London to share in its deliberations. Dr. Weizmann is the head of the world organization of Zionists. This world organization has a highly centralized form of government. This consists of an international committee, including representatives from all countries that have a local organization. But the real control is vested in what is known as the "Inner Actions Council." This is a compact body of only seven men; and it is dominated by the Jews of Europe.

At Cleveland, Dr. Weizmann complained that Judge Mack and his associates had not succeeded in enlisting the financial support of the older, wealthier element among the American Jews. On the other hand, Judge Mack and his associates complained of Dr. Weizmann that he refused to grant representation to the American branch on the financial committee which is to control the expenditure of the money-notwith

standing that America is expected to provide the greater part of the funds of the world organization. This savored of "taxation without representation," and provoked a controversy. Dr. Weizmann settled this controversy by appealing to the Russian-Polish Jews in the Convention to reject the annual report of the officers. When this motion to reject was carried, Judge Mack and his associates resigned; and new officers, acceptable to Dr. Weizmann, were elected from the Russian-Polish contingent. In effect, this amounted to an assertion of the supreme authority of the international organization (whose headquarters are in London and whose officers are entirely of European doctrine) over the actions of the hitherto autonomous American branch. It deprived American Zionism of its "state's rights," and left the "federal," or European, committee in full control. Judge Mack and his friends have announced that they will continue as Zionists, but that their activities will be independent of the international organization.

This breach in American Jewry has thrown the whole policy of Zionism into controversy. It even suggests the advisability of re-appraising the Zionistic conception itself. That conception is gravely disputed by many American Jews of the first rank.

Mr. Henry Morgenthau is one of these leaders among the American Jews who reject the Zionist theory. The editors of the WORLD'S WORK have been following with great interest Mr. Morgenthau's recent labors in writing his autobiography, a large part of which will shortly be published serially in this magazine under the title, "All in a Lifetime." They sought Mr. Morgenthau's views on this question, because they felt that, in the light of the happenings at Cleveland, it was a subject in which not only the whole body of American Jews was interested, but also a very large percentage of the American Gen