Congressional Record, 1922 House of Representatives, June 30, 1922B National Home in Palestine for the Jewish People, con=t. Pages 9809-9820

Remarks by Mr. Appleby

This is all splendid and inspiring sentiment, and when the Jews at Richmond proclaimed America their Zion we are compelled to applaud their patriotism. But I know that they will pardon me if I remind them, even with a slight touch of sarcasm and cynicism, that the Zionist movement is not intended primarily for American Jews, who are happy in the possession of American citizenship and in comparative freedom from religious persecution. It is intended primarily for the wretched Jews of Russia, Rumania, and Poland who are practically shut out from this American Zion by Foolishly rigid immigration laws.

Doctor Philipson and the Jews at Richmond, in drawing too nice distinctions concerning the meaning and mission of Judaism. Seem to have forgotten that there are certainly differences at times between a Jew as a man and a Jew as a religionist. A certain analyst is said to have discovered that Jews and Judaism are identical, and that if Jewish blood be examined under a microscope floating particles of the Bible and the Talmud may be found. This is all well as a matter of humor, but I insist that there is such a thing as a Jew who is a man, a human being, a citizen and a patriot, and this aside from any consideration of religion or religious belief. I further contend that this man is entitled to the rights of a freeman, which include benefits of independent nationality and citizenship, and protection furthermore against bodily oppression as well as religious persecution.

Believing this, I shall support this resolution and vote for it because it tends to establish and preserve these rights to the oppressed and persecuted Jews of southeastern Europe who will never be able to reach our shores because of the inhospitable barriers that have been erected against them.

Mr. Speaker, I respectfully submit that the attitude of Doctor Philipson and of the Jews of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations at Richmond and their attempt to define Jewish citizenship and nationality are nothing new in history. They are merely a revival of recurring inquiries and discussions of the subject that have taken place in every age of the world since the beginning of the Jewish dispersion. I ask the indulgence of the House while I discuss briefly this phase of the subject.

After the fall of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) the Jew was a wanderer for many centuries upon the earth without a home and country. Until the closing years of the eighteenth century the Christian governments of Europe denied him the simplest rights of a free man and a citizen. While not a slave in the sense of chattel property, the Jews were frequently regarded as an attachment of the soil, like the ancient Spartan helots, and were transferred from one sovereign to another. At other times, having been despoiled of their goods, they were expelled by wholesale and without ceremony from the countries which they had come to regard as their homes.

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 by an edict of Ferdinand and Isabella was a most painful epoch in the history of the Hebrew race. The real reason of this wholesale persecution was the fact that the Jews refused to become Christians when commanded to do so by the fanatically pious Spanish sovereign. According to Isidore Loeb 165,000 Jews left their homes and wandered away into exile in foreign lands. History relates many pathetic incidents that marked the beginning of this dispersion. Great numbers of the Jewish community of Segovia passed the last three days of their stay in the City in the Jewish cemetery, fasting and wailing over being parted from their beloved dead. Jews are not permitted to inhabit Spain again until 1858, when a Republic was established, and a repeal of the ancient edict of expulsion was secured from General Prim through the influence of H. Guedella, of London. But even then they were not allowed rights of unrestricted citizenship.

The French Revolution brought liberty and equality to Jews as well as to gentiles in France, and gave rights of citizenship to all.

The Jews were not completely emancipated in England until 1858, when they were admitted to Parliament without being compelled to take the oath, A On the faith of a true Christian.@

It must not be imagined, however, that the free and enlightened policies of France, England, and the United States have been elsewhere pursued. Very few substantial rights of citizenship were enjoyed prior to the Russian Revolution under Kerensky by either Russian or Rumanian Jews; and, it may be added, nearly 7,000,000 Jews, about on-half of the total Jewish population of the earth, lived at that time in Russia and Rumania.

The political status of the Jew 150 years ago was a puzzle to the brainiest statesmen of Europe. Although the year 1793 witnessed the revolutionary emancipation of the Jews in France, Napoleon did not afterwards regard them as citizens. He once said:

AThe Jews are not in the same category with the Christians. We have to judge them by the political not the civil right , for they are not citizens.@

And to gain desired information concerning them for the purpose of framing appropriate legislation for the Jews in the general reconstruction of the Empire after the French Revolution, he propounded the following 12 questions to the Sanhedrin of France:

1. Is it lawful for Jews to have more than one wife?

2. Is divorce allowed by the Jewish religion? Is divorce valid, although pronounced not by the courts of justice but by virtue of laws in contradiction to the French Code?

3. May a Jewess marry a Christian, or a Jew a Christian woman, or does Jewish law order that the Jews should intermarry among themselves?

4. In the eyes of the Jews are Frenchmen not of the Jewish religion considered as brethren or as strangers?

5. What conduct does Jewish law prescribe toward Frenchmen not of the Jewish religion?

6. Do the Jews born in France and treated by the law as French citizens acknowledge France as their country? Are they bound to defend it? Are they bound to obey the laws and follow the directions of the Civil Code?

7. Who elects the rabbis?

8. What kind of police jurisdiction do the rabbis exercise over the Jews? What judicial powers do they exercise over them?

9. Are the police jurisdiction of the rabbis and the forms of election regulated by Jewish law or are they only sanctioned by custom?

10. Are there professions from which the Jews are excluded by their law?

11. Does Jewish law forbid the Jews to take usury from their brethren?

12. Does it forbid or does it allow usury in dealing with strangers?

To these questions the French Sanhedrin made the following replies:

1. That, in conformity with the decree of R. Gershom, polygamy is forbidden to the Israelites.

2. That divorce by the Jewish law is valid only after provious decision by the civil authorities.

3. That the religious act of marriage must be preceded by a civil contract.

4. That every Israelite is religiously bound to consider his non-Jewish fellow citizens as brothers and to aid, protect, and love them as though they were coreligionists.

5. That the Israelite is required to consider the land of his birth or adoption as his fatherland, and shall love and defend it when called upon.

6. That Judaism does not forbid any kind of handicraft or occupation.

7. That it is commendable for Israelites to engage in agriculture, manual labor, and the arts, as their ancestors in Palestine were want to do.

8. That, finally Israelites are forbidden to exact usury from Jew or Christian.

These questions and answers formed the basis of all subsequent legislation by the French Government in regard to Jewish religious affairs and plans.

Ascher, the great Jewish teacher, framed this catechism for the Jewish youth of England:

AHas the Jew a fatherland besides Jerusalem?

Yes, the country wherein he is bred and born, and in which he has the liberty to practice his religion, and where he is allowed to carry on traffic and trade and enjoy all the advantages and protection of the law in common with the citizens of other creeds, this country the Israelite is bound to acknowledge as his fatherland, to the benefit of which he must do his best to contribute. The sovereign who rules over this land is )after God) his sovereign; its laws so long as they are not contradictory to the divine law, are also the Israelite=s laws, and the duties of his fellow citizens are also his duties.@

This catechism and the answer of the French Sanhedrin defined clearly the Jewish notion of the citizenship and fatherland of the Jews under the dispersion.

But it must be conceded that in the case of this strange and extraordinary people there is a peculiar kind of fatherland known to no other race; a fatherland not based upon the soil of earth, nor bounded by streams or mountains, nor subject to the pains and penalties of physical decay and death; a fatherland whose kingdom is of the spirit and whose law is the word of God. Her Heine describe this fatherland:

AThe Jews may console themselves for having lost Jerusalem and the temple, and the Ark of the Covenant, and the golden vessels and the precious things of Solomon. Such a loss is merely insignificant in comparison with the Bible, the imperishable treasure which they have rescued. If I don not err, it was Mahomet who named the Jews Athe people of the Book,@ a name which has remained theirs to the present day on the earth and which is deeply characteristic. A book, is their very fatherland, their treasure, their governor, their bliss, and their bane. They live within the peaceful boundaries of this book. Here they exercise their inalienable rights. Here they can neither be driven along nor despised. Here they are strong and worthy of admiration. Absorbed in the city of this book, they observed little of the changes which went on about them in the real world; nations arose and perished; States bloomed and disappeared; revolutions stormed forth out of the soil; but they laid bowed down over their book and observed nothing of the wild tumult of the times which passed over their heads.@

Zebulon B. Vance, quoting Prof. Maury, compares the great human current of this strange Jewish father land to the Gulf Stream:

AThere is a river in the ocean; in the severest droughts it never fails and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of water. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon and its volume more than a thousand times greater. Its waters as far out from the Gulf as the Carolina coasts are of an indigo blue; they are so distinctly marked that their lines of junction with the common sea water may be traced by the eye. Often on-half of a vessel may be perceived floating in the Gulf Stream water while the other half is in common water of the sea, so sharp is the line and such is the want of affinity between these waters, and such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of the Gulf Stream to mingle with the common water of the sea. ((Prof. M.F. Maury.)

This curious phenomenon in the physical world has its counterpart in the moral. There is a lonely river in the midst of the ocean of mankind. The mightiest flood of human temptation has never caused it to overflow and the fiercest fires of human cruelty, though seven times heated in the furnace of religious bigotry, have never cause it to dry up, although its waves for 2,000 years have rolled crimson with the blood of its martyrs. Its fountain is in the gray dawn of the world=s history and its mouth is somewhere in the shadows of eternity. It, too refused to mingle with the surrounding waves, and the line which divides its restless billows from the common waters of humanity is also plainly visible to the eye. It is the Jewish race. (Vance).@

This conception of a fatherland above the earth and having no physical boundaries may seem to many a far-fetched thought, a strained political metaphor, but the idea is not new nor is it confined to spiritual kingdoms. Waldstein says:

AThe abolition of slavery and the Renaissance are as much a fatherland as are England, Germany, France, or the United States.@

Kosciusko was once asked where his country was. AWhere freedom is not,@ was the reply of the valiant Pole; and whether in the wilderness of America or on the plains of Poland, Kosciusko felt at home and within the boundaries of his fatherland, provided his sword was unsheathed in the name of liberty.

Mr. Speaker the historical considerations that I have just presented to the House merely show that the contentions of Doctor Philipson and his coreligionists ar Richmond are nothing new, since the political status of the Jew for centuries past has been settled not only by the catechism of Ascher and the answers of the French Sanhedrin but also by the terms of the oaths taken by Jews under the naturalization laws of the different countries in which they have settled. The Ascher catechism says emphatically that Athe country wherin he is bred and born@ is the fatherland of the Jew. The French Sanhedrin emphatically answered the inquiry of Napoleon by saying Athat the Israelite is required to consider the land of his birth or adoption as his fatherland.@

Al this is sensible and logical enough; indeed, it is the only rational solution of the problem of Jewish citizenship and nationality, while the Jews are scattered throughout the world and have no country of their own. No other solution or determination of the political status of the Jew could be made unless we admit the correctness of the principle that there can be a State within a State, imperium in imperio, or unless we make the Jew an outcast upon the earth, without home or country.

But, in the name of reason and common sense, what is there in all this that offers a serious objection to the Zionist movement or to the passage of this resolution? Is there anything fixed, eternal, unchangeable, and irrevocable in Jewish citizenship that holds the Jew forever chained to the county of his birth or adoption? Does not international law sanction change of citizenship from one country to another? Do not the immigration and naturalization laws of all nations permit expatriation and repatriation without the slightest trace of a stain of treason? Is anything more required by the laws of man, nature or God of the Jewish citizen or of the citizen of any other act than loyalty to his country during the continuance of his citizenship?

Furthermore, is it not well to remember that the duties and obligations of the citizen toward the country and the country toward the citizen are mutual and reciprocal/ Should the citizen by required to render obedience to the laws of the country, to pay taxes, to support the Government, and to defend the flag in times of war, unless the country is willing and able to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of his rights of life, liberty, and property, as well as the pursuit of happiness, at all times? If the country fails in its obligations, is not the citizen absolved from his duties?

American Jews are obedient to the laws of the country and have shown themselves true patriots in every period of our history, both in peace and war, and the Government of our county has protected them in the enjoyment of their legal and political rights. There would be no Zionist question if this state of things existed throughout the world. But what about the Jews of Russia, Rumania, and Poland? Will the opponents of this resolution seriously contend that they owe any particular love, loyalty, or allegiance to the governments of their countries?

Permit me at this point, Mr. Speaker, to consider the second of the main objections to political Zionism and to the passage of this resolution. It has been urged by the opponents of this measure that the principle of the right of self-determination would be violated by the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine with the Jews in dominant control. It is pointed out by these opponents that the entire population of Palestine is about 700,000 and that of this number about 500,000 are Mahometan Arabs, about 110,000 are Christians of various sects and denominations, and that about 90,000 are Jews. It is urged that, upon the principle of the right of self-determination, these 500,000 Arabs should not be compelled to submit to the domination of a Jewish minority in the country.

Mr. Speaker, I believe firmly in the doctrine of self-government or self-determination as representing a sacred principle in government. Lincoln=s Agovernment of the people, by the people, and for the people= is not possible without strict observance and application of the rights of self-determination. But I must insist that it does not become the American Congress or the American Government to prate too loudly at this time about the sacred rights of the Arabs in Palestine, in the light of our treatment of the Filipinos during the last quarter of a century, and in view of the fact that every civilized nation of the earth, excepting the United States, has acknowledged the independence de jure of Esthonia and Latvia upon principles of self-determination.

Our American theories of government are always glittering successes, but our practices are ofttimes dismal failures. We boast of personal liberty in America and they tolerate the Volstead Act upon the statute books. I say to you that there will be no genuine personal liberty in America again until that act is repealed or radically modified. But I shall not stop to discuss or denounce prohibition, since the subject of debate is the Zionist movement.

I want to make at this time, Mr. Speaker and gentlemen of the House, my attitude and views upon the Arab question in Palestine very clear and emphatic. I am in favor of carrying out one of the three following policies, to be preferred in the order in which they are named:

(1) That the Arabs shall be permitted to remain in Palestine under Jewish government and domination, and with their civil and religious rights guaranteed to them through the British mandate and under terms of the Balfour declaration.

(2) That if they will not consent to Jewish government and domination, they shall be required to well their lands at a just valuation and retire into the Arab territory which has been assigned to them by the League of Nations in the general reconstruction of the countries of the east.

(1) That if they will not consent to Jewish government and domination, under conditions of right and justice, or to sell their lands at a just valuation and to retire into their own countries, they shall be driven from Palestine by force.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to discuss briefly each of these alternatives in order. And first let me read the now celebrated Balfour declaration of date of November 2, 1917, during the progress of the Great War, and afterwards incorporated in the preamble of the British mandate authorized by the League of Nations. The Balfour declaration was in the following language:

AHis Majesty=s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country.@

If this is not a condensed and at the same time a complete bill of rights both for the Arabs of Palestine and for the Jews who intend to remain in their present homelands outside of Palestine, I have never read or seen one. It is conceded by the Arabs themselves that the present government of the country under the British mandate and through the Zionist organization as an administrative agency is infinitely better than the government of the Turks who were chased out of the country by Allenby, the British general. It is probably better than any that the Arabs could created and maintain for themselves.

I respectfully submit that the Arabs in Palestine should be and would be happy and contented under the present government of that country if it were not for Turkish and Arab agitators, who travel around over the land stirring up trouble by making false representations concerning the true character of the Zionist movement, and by preaching a kind of holy war against the immigrant Jews who arrive from day to day. The Arabs are well represented in the personnel of the present Palestine administration, which has recognized their language as one of the official languages of the country, and has given official standing to the Moslem religion.

There is no good reason why the Jews and Arabs should not live together in perfect peace and harmony in Palestine. They are all Semitic in blood and language, and all worship the same God and the same Hebrew prophets. Instead of being antagonistic there is every race and religious reason for peace and harmony.

In the second place, if the Arabs do not wish to remain in Palestine under Jewish government and domination there is plenty of room outside in purely Arab surroundings. The British Government and her allies made overtures and gave pledges to the Arab people to furnish them lands and protect their freedom in consideration of Arab alliance with the Allies during the World War. That pledge has been kept. The Hedjaz kingdom was established in ancient Arabia, and Hussein, Grand Sheriff of Mecca, was made king and freed from all Turkish influence. The son of King Hussein, Prince Feisal, is now the head of the kingdom of Mesopotamia, and Arab predominance in that country has been assured by the Allies to the Arab people.

Mesopotamia is alone capable of absorbing 30,000,000 people, according to a report submitted to the British Government by the Great English engineer, Sir William Wilcocks. Arab rights are also fully recognized and protected by the French mandate over Syria. There are also several flourishing Arabic cultural and political colonies in Egypt. In short, the Arab-speaking populations of Asia and Africa number about 38,000,000 of souls and occupy approximately 2,375,000 square miles, many times larger than the territory of Great Britain. In other words under the reconstruction of the map of the east, the Arabs have been given practical control of Greater Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and parts of Egypt, which gives them an average of 38 acres per person. It the Arabs are compelled to leave Palestine and turn it over entirely to the Jews, it is admitted that the Arab race would still be one of the wealthiest landowning races on the earth. Therefore, I contend that if they will not consent to live peaceably with the Jews, they should be made to sell their lands and retire to places reserved for them somewhere in Arabia, Syria, Mesopotamia, or Egypt, that suit them best, and where they can worship Allah, Mahomet, and the Koran to their heart=s content. After all is said, the fact remains that the Arabs have more lands than they need, and the Jews have none. I am in favor of a readjustment under the Balfour declaration, without too great regard to nice distinctions in the matter of the question of self-determination. This thought brings me to my third proposal heretofore mentioned, that the Arabs should be driven out of Palestine by the British and Jews, or by somebody else, if they will not listen to the voice of reason and of justice.

I shall probably be told that, regardless of the question of land and property rights, the Arabs have an interest in the holy places around Jerusalem. Admitting that their claims in this regard are just, there should be no trouble along this line. There is no reason to believe that Jews and Christians would deny them access to the holy places in the pilgrimages that they might desire to make from their Arab countries. But if the rights of the Jews to their ancient homeland are to be made dependent, as a final question, upon Moslem interests in the holy places around Jerusalem, I am willing and prepared to repudiate these rights entirely and to shut the Arabs out altogether.

Mr. Speaker, I despise and hate race prejudice and religious bigotry worse than I do the devil and all his ways. But, I must confess that feelings of intolerance arise in my mind and heart when I hear any attempted justification of Mahomet, his message, and his mission. My respect for homage go for the even reverently to all the great ethical and religious teachers of history, to those spiritual and intellectual leaders of the race who, at times in agony and in martyrdom, have delivered messages of regeneration to mankind.

I make my respectful salute to Confucius and Buddha, the ethical teachers, in whose writings are found many passages of sublimity and beauty. I pay my deep homage and reverence to the Hebrew prophets and teachers, to Moses, to Abraham , to Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, to the gentle Hillel, and to Akiba. My reverence and adoration go up to Jesus of Nazareth, the most precious gem of human life, Athe noblest blossom of a noble tree, the crown of the cedar of Israel.@ But I draw the line on Mahomet, the military conqueror and robber, the forger of oracles, the polygamist.

I have read the Koran through twice from beginning to end. I have also read several standard lives of Mohamet, among them those of Washington Irving, Higgins, Sale, and Gibbon. Furthermore, I have made it a point to read translations from the books of his own Turkish and Arabian biographers. I feel justified, then, in saying that I am pretty well acquainted with Mahomet and his teachings and I trust that you will not think that I am guilty of too great digression if I now pay my respects to both Mahomet and his followers.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that we Christians should encourage the reestablishment of the Jews in Palestine for selfish and sentimental reasons as well as from motives of gratitude and a sentiment of Justice. We should rush to the assistance of the Jews in the matter of the Zionist movement as Lord Byron went to Greece to fight for the independence of the Greeks. We should speak in Congress with the same feelings and the same inspiration that caused him to write AThe Isles of Greece,@ feelings born of a love of freedom and of passionate desire to preserve a civilization and a type.

No garden of flowers is perfect or complete without the presence of the rose and the orchid, of the violet and the lily, and indeed, of every kind of flower of tenderness and beauty. Nor can the garden of life be perfect and complete without the presence and preservation of all the fine types of intellect and spirit that have come from the trails and sufferings, the struggles and sacrifices of the various peoples of our race. Civilization would certainly be made imperfect by the loss of any one of the great types, for its essential elements, after all, are but the component parts of a blending of the varying attributes and excellencies of all human life.

Rome gave laws, Greece gave letters, and Palestine gave religion to mankind. Thus runs the judgment of the world. We are interested in the preservation of all these colossal types, and especially those of the Hebrew and the Greek, and above all that of the Hebrew, for beyond the boundaries of kingdoms and above distinctions of creed or blood is a colossal universal spiritual type established by the Hebrew. This type reflects the sacred and spiritual in every human heat that looks above idols and beyond the stars; a type that ignores self and attributes every splendid, righteous act to the Author of all things; that spurns a self-development whose maker and molder is not God; that hears in rolling thunder the awful voice of Jehovah sending warnings to his children, and sees in lightning as manifestation of eternal wrath; a type that gave Pharisees to Judea, Stoics to Rome, and Puritans to England.

These latter characterizations suggest integral opposites somewhere B the needed complements of a perfect whole B and reflection at once begins to classify along lines of nature and of history, grouping Pharisees with Sadducees, Stoics with Epicureans, and Puritans with Cavaliers.

The essential complement of the Hebrew type was furnished by Greece, the first great rival of Judea in intellect and spirit. The civilizations of the earth circle around these names as smaller planets revolve around great central suns. The essential elements of opposing Hebrew and Hellenic growths are everywhere reflected in national and individual life.

In the organization of every man on earth two antagonistic forces are forever active- the heavenly and earthly, the spiritual and natural, the ascetic and voluptuous. If the spiritual predominates, the man is Hebrew in structure and temperament. If the sensuous and voluptuous are the controlling attributes, the man is Greek.

If in the solitude of deep forests he hears the rustle of the leaves as fleeing nymphs depart, and sees in every tree and rock and stream the reflected image of some deity of nature; if while standing on the famous battle fields of earth, he hears again the tread and tramp of embattled millions, feels again the sublime thrill and fierce rapture of a bayonet charge, hears again the brazen lips of hostile cannon thunder alternate anthems to the god of battle; if Awith color, form, and music he is touched to tears,: and while standing in the Vatican or Louvre feels within himself the thrilling power that corresponds to the magic force that painted a Madonna or carved a marble god, then this man is a Greek of the age of Pericles, a figure from the antique world.

A full development of these attributes on a colossal scale and along collective lines stamps a nation=s history with character and distinctive life reflecting in the whole the characteristic traits of all component parts. To verify this thought, cast a glance across the pages of Hellenic history.

An old blind bard sings; the Iliad is born, and under the spell of the Homeric muse all the grace and grandeur of Grecian life blossom into perfect beauty.

A million Persians advance upon a mountain pass. 300 Lacedaemonians defend, and the chivalry of the ages has a standard and a metaphor in the death-devoted sacrifice of Leonidas and his band.

Ctesiphon moves the Greek Assembly to vote Demosthenes a golden crown in consideration of public services, the motion is illegal, Ctesiphon is accused, and at the trial of the indictment the oratorical prodigies of antiquity appear as combatants. AEschines is exiled, Demosthenes is apotheosized, and mankind receives the priceless legacy of the incomparable oration, AOn the Crown.@

Zeuxis and Parrhusius, as a trial of skill, paint two pictures. That of Zeuxis represents a bunch of grapes and is so perfectly executed that the birds come and pick at it. Flushed with pride and confident of success Zeuxis calls upon his rival to draw aside the curtain which conceals his picture. But, lo! The curtain itself is the painting of Parrhasius, and Zeuxis is beaten, for he who has deceived the birds is himself deceived by his antagonist.

Phidias, Praxiteles, and other sculptors carve from cold and pulseless marble those forms of life and beauty that thrill the human soul with perfect joy, and the frieze of the Parhenon, the Apollo Belvedere, the Benus di Medici, the Venus de Milo become the perpetual heritage of a sensuous and beauty-loving world.

Marvelous and magnificent history this. And from alpha to omega how superbly Greek-every line and lineament stamped with Hellenic imprint. But how radically different all this from everything Judean. The accentuated antithesis of every chapter of Grecian history describes all the glories and splendors of Hebrew life.

The Greek relied upon himself and his javelin for safety and preservation in time of danger. The Hebrew placed his trust in God and believed that prayer would save him from all harm. In the temples of the Acropolis, in the pages of the Odyssey, in the victories of Marathon and Salamis, the Greek acknowledged the handiwork of man and dedicated monuments to those who had brought renown to Greece. The Hebrew ascribed to the omnipotence of Jehovah every grand and righteous act and covered with benedictions the prophet who had most completely revealed the will of Heaven. Every transcendent deed of righteousness was credited to the Lord of Hosts.

Yes, I repeat that if all else be lost mankind must preserve at any hazard both the Hebrew and Grecian types of intellect and spirit, for they are fundamental in our natures and are deeply interwoven in the very warp and woof of all that is grandly spiritual and superbly intellectual in our history, literature, and civilization. The loss of the spiritual and intellectual products of Greece and Palestine to civilization would cause mankind to relapse with frightful speed into savage and barbaric night.

The Greeks have Greece. Let us give Palestine back to the Jews.

Then will the prophecies of the Hebrew seers be fulfilled; then will justice be done; then will the demands of liberty, humanity, and civilization be satisfied; then, and only then, will Byron=s muse be answered:

Oh! Weep for Those.

Oh! Weep for those that wept by Babel=s stream,

Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream;

Weep for the harp of Judah=s broken shell;

Mourn B where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell!

And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?

And when shall Zion=s song again seem sweet?

And Judah=s melody once more rejoice

The hearts that leap=d before its heavenly voice?

On Jordan=s Banks.

On Jordan=s banks the Arab=s camels stray.

On Zion=s hill the False One=s votaries pray,

The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai=s steep B

Yet there B even there B Oh God! Thy thunders sleep:

There B where Thy finger scorch=d the tablet stone!

There B where Thy shadow to Thy people shone!

Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire;

Thyself B none living see and not expire!

Oh! In the lightning let Thy glance appear!

Sweep from the shiver=d hand the oppressor=s spear:

How long by tyrants shall Thy land be trod?

How long Thy temples worshipless, O God?

---Lord Byron, Hebrew Melodies.

Mr. FESS. Mr. Speaker, the lessons taught us in the tender years of our childhood sink the deepest and abide with us the longest. Those of us who in those early days heard in the home, Sunday school, or church the recital of the famous Bible stories vividly remember the tragedy of the Achosen people@ driven from their homeland, and the promise that in time these people would return to occupy the land of their ancestors. This prophetic decree was the more significant because of the persecution that pursued this people as they fled to the four corners of the earth. Through all the vicissitudes inherent to such treatment 14,000,000 Jews have in the main preserved their national traits.

When Palestine was entered by our allied armies the first thought of the modern world was the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy that Jerusalem, the cradle of religion, would some day be restored to the Jewish people. When Britain accepted the mandatory of the ancient Holy Land new impetus was given to the historic promise. It was quite natural that a tremendous sentiment would be aroused among the hundreds of thousands of this people, scattered to the four winds of earth, in favor of the establishment of a homeland where their ancient civilization was born and from whence their people had been either excluded or mad servile subjects.

A response to the sentiment was made by the so-called Balfour declaration expressing British favor of the plan of the Jews to reestablish a homeland in Palestine, which, as I understand, has met with the approval of our won country, especially the advances made in that direction by Britain, the mandatory of the country.

This resolution, as far as is our ability, expresses our sympathy for the success of the proposed homeland for the Jewish people. It seems to me a perfectly proper attitude for us to take, eminently sound in diplomatic relations, correct in principle, humanitarian in design, elevating in sentiment and commendable from the viewpoint of policy and expediency. This resolution displays our opportunity to express our appreciation of the aspirations of a great people in history.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Speaker, the proposed resolution is in the following language:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected.

It is similar in the so-called Balfour declaration for the Government of Great Britain issued November 2, 1917, which is in the following language:

His Majesty=s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The pending resolution omits reference to the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries because that is not necessary in any declaration by the United States.

On the 25^th of April, 1920, the supreme council of the allied powers at San Remo gave a mandate for Palestine to Great Britain. The British forces had wrested Palestine from the Turks I 1917. Under this mandate a high commissioner was appointed July 1, 1920. This high commissioner has appointed an advisory council composed of the heads of the administrative departments and 10 unofficial members representing the various communities. The Jewish population have chosen an elected assembly which selected a national committee to represent the Jewish population of Palestine in its dealings with the administration. Palestine has en area of 13,724 square miles and a population of about 675,000. The very large majority of the population are Moslems, numbering something over 500,000. In the last two years Jewish immigration into the country has been very considerable, amounting to 7,200 last year. The population of Jerusalem is about 60,000. The proportion of the total number of inhabitants in the Holy city to that of Palestine is about the same as that set forth in the first verse of the eleventh chapter of the book of Nehemiah. In the adjustment then made Jerusalem was to contain one-tenth of the population.

Several objections have been urged to the passage of this resolution. First, that it is not the function of Congress or of the House to pass resolutions of this nature relating to foreign affairs. In ever case of recognition of a new government or of a condition of belligerency, the question has been decided solely by the Executive. It would be instructive to give a list of all action by Congress in this regard. The question has been repeatedly before Congress. I will cite a few instances: Early in 1822 the House by an overwhelming majority passed a resolution promising support to the President in any action which he might take for recognition of the South American republics. In the session of 1823-24, Mr. Webster introduced a resolution which was then in rebellion against Turkey. This resolution was supported by most eloquent speeches by Mr. Webster and Henry Clay, but no final action was taken upon it. A familiar example of procedure in Congress has been the introduction of bills providing for diplomatic officials in a country where recognition was contemplated. In 1848-49 a representative was sent to Hungary with a view to expressing the sympathy of our Government at the time of the insurrection against Austria. I view of the failure of this insurrection the representative was recalled. There is another class of resolutions, merely expressing sympathy or good will.

In 1861, almost immediately after the convening of the special session of Congress at the beginning of the Civil War, Mr. Sumner introduced in the Senate a resolution expressing sympathy with the suffering people of Crete in their struggle against Turkey. This resolution passed the Senate in July, 1861, and was adopted in the House on the same day. In 1868 Mr. William Loughridge, of Iowa, introduced a similar resolution of sympathy for the Cretans, which was adopted. No action seems to have been taken in the Senate. In the Fifty-first Congress, first session, a resolution was introduced in the Senate by Mr. John Sherman congratulating the Republic of Brazil upon the recent adoption of a republican form of government. This resolution also passed the House upon the motion of Mr. R.R. Hitt, of Illinois. This resolution was transmitted by Secretary Blaine and evoked very cordial response from the Congress of Brazil.

In the fifty-sixth Congress, at the first session in 1899 and 1900, resolutions of sympathy with the South African Republic, then in a contest for independence from Great Britain, were introduced by Senators Mason, Pettegrew, Allen, and Teller. These resolutions varied in form, all expressing sympathy, one expressing best wishes for the success of their determined fight. These resolutions were referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, and no report seems to have been made upon them, or at least nothing further was done. As regards this objection it should be said that action by Congress in matters involving foreign affairs should be very carefully guarded, except upon subjects within its undoubted jurisdiction. In the case of Cuba the final action expressing sympathy was accompanied by a declaration of war.

This present resolution, however, is restricted in its scope. It expresses the sympathy of the United States for the Jewish people in their desire for the establishment of a national home in Palestine, but provides that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected. No one here would tolerate any plan under which the feelings of Christians dwelling there or visiting the Holy Land should be disregarded.

Objection is made to the term ANational@ on the ground that it implies political control. This is not a fair inference from the resolution. It does, however, convey an assertion of sympathy for the political security of Jews who may be located in Palestine and for their protection against the aggression of any other people or nationality, a security which has been denied for centuries. These steps already taken for a separate national assembly indicate the probable developments there, namely, the selection of a legislative assembly by the Jews for the purpose of securing their rights under the government established there. It is to be noted that in past years and to an extent even now there have been separate communities in Jerusalem, the Mohammedans in one quarter, the Jews in another, Christians in another, and those of other nationalities or religions still in another. Very probably if the Jews should ever constitute a majority in Palestine their aspirations would be for political control.

This Congress can not deny an expression of sympathy for this race. Their longing for their old homeland is more pathetic and more appealing than that of any other race in the world. Their traditions, which are associated with Jerusalem, go back to the splendid days of David and Solomon, nearly 3,000 years ago. Since that time Palestine, which is a gateway for the trade and political movements of the near Orient, has been conquered by Assyria, Babylon, and for more than 200 years was under the Hellenic monarchies which ruled over Egypt and Syria; then the Romans under Pompey gained control in 63 B.C. The city and the temple were destroyed by Titus 70 A.D. , and 70 years later a heathen temple was established by Hadriah, and pagan worship supplanted the Christian and Jewish religions. Under the reign of Constantine in the fourth century Christian worship was established and continued for nearly 300 years. Early in the seventh century the disciples of Mohamet conquered the country and their rule has continued until 1917, with the exception of the nearly 200 years when it was under Christian control after the capture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099. During all these centuries a considerable population of Jews has remained in Palestine, the remnant of a race scattered over the earth. It is impossible to exaggerate the yearning of many Jews for a location in that country which witnessed the beginning of their power and the growth of their religion. The poetic imagery in the One hundred and thirty-first PsalmC

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,

Yes, we wept when we remembered ZionC

has been accepted for ages as the most touching lamentation of a people in captivity.

The Jewish race ever since that time has been the victim of discrimination, persecuted in many countries, but always retaining its religion and distinctive traits, has looked to Palestine and Jerusalem with a never-dying aspiration for its homeland.

This resolution does not contemplate any substantial migration from the United States or England to Palestine. In the two great Anglo-Saxon countries, in the United States from the very foundation of the Government, with its principles of religious equality, and in Great Britain in more recent years, the Jews have enjoyed equal opportunity. Among the great progressive movements of the time has been that toward toleration, but in other countries they are persecuted as of old, and constant animosity and frequent programs threaten their security and very life. For many of these Palestine will no doubt be chosen as a home, and they will resort there with joy in the thought of returning to the ancient seat of the prosperity and prestige of their race.

It may be asserted that the problem of establishing a national home for them does not promise greater difficulties than in several countries of Europe where those of different races and religions inhabit the same areas and have learned to dwell together without friction.

A second objection is alleged that a very considerable proportion of the Jews themselves, including many of those most advanced in their views, are opposed to any action which shall look to the establishment of those of their race in a separate political organization. It is alleged by them that their people whose allegiance to the countries in which they belong, although this allegiance is given with much misgiving in countries where they are unfairly treated. They insist that they are devotees of a religion and not seeking political power. The opinions of those who hold this view are entitled to great respect. It must be said of them, however, that they are for the most part tolerant to the feelings of others of their race, who are in a very large majority, and who join in the Zionist and similar movements.

A third objection is that the location of the Jews in Palestine, in view of the large preponderance of Moslem population, will arouse strife and military protection will have to be offered them. What has already been said as to the combination of various peoples and religions in Europe applies to this also. It is not to be presumed that there will be injustice to the Moslems, Arabs, or other peoples in Palestine. The lands which have been acquired from them, amounting to some 2,000 square miles in Palestine have been purchased at prices far in advance of those formerly current, and it must be said that the settlement of the Jews there has resulted in very marked improvements in the utilization of the resources of the country. Improved methods of cultivation have been adopted and Palestine gives promise of a restoration to its old-time productiveness. It should be stated that the Senate has passed this resolution unanimously. President Wilson, in a letter dated August 31, 1918, wrote: AI welcome an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have felt in the progress of the Zionese movement in the United States, and in the allied countries, since the declaration of Mr. Balfour.@ President Harding more recently said: A It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home.@

It is to be hoped that one of the most beneficent results of the Great War will be the establishment in Palestine of a stable government, in which justice and equality shall be vouchsafed to all classes of its varied population, that the sacred shrines of all religious may be protected, and an opportunity granted to the Jews to return to this homeland with a revival of some of the ancient grandeur which through centuries has made this country most conspicuous in the world=s history.

Mr. ANSORGE. Mr. Speaker, in these days of pogroms and of religious and racial intolerance and persecution in other parts of the world, it is, indeed, refreshing to support a resolution in the Congress of the United States which will breathe the breath of hope in the hearts of millions of persecuted and oppressed Jews in Poland, Galicia, Russia, Hungary, Rumania, and the Ukraine, and at the same time recognize and encourage the aspirations and historical claims of many Jewish people in their desire to establish a national home in Palestine.

I am the son of an immigrant who humbly walked through Castle Garden in 1857, and I am proud of my heritage. I would be untrue to my faith and convictions if I did not support this resolution.

I voted against the 3 per cent restricted immigration law which shut down the bars to the persecuted of other lands. Many of them are blood relatives of American citizens. It is meet and proper that the United States, which closed the doors of hope to the persecuted of other lands, should not lend its encouragement to the establishment of a haven in which these persecuted people may seek refuge.

The United States Senate has recently passed by unanimous vote the Lodge resolution favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The resolution before the House recites that whereas the Jewish people have for many centuries believed in and yearned for the rebuilding of their ancient homeland, and owing to the outcome of the World War and their part therein are to be enabled to re-create a national home which will give to the house of Israel its long-denied opportunity to reestablish a fruitful Jewish life and culture in the ancient Jewish land, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled resolves that we favor the establishment in Palestine of the National home for the Jewish people.

Both the Lodge resolution and the resolution before the House specifically recite that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected

It will be seen, therefore, that the Senate and House by expressing their approval of a national Jewish home in Palestine fully protect the civil rights and religious liberty of all other communities in Palestine. The resolutions commit us to no foreign obligations or entanglements, but express our moral interest and favorable attitude toward the establishment in Palestine of a national home for Jewish people along the lines laid down in the now famous Balfour declaration of November 2, 1917.

I had the honor of appearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs in support of the resolution now before the House. I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Balfour, and of hearing him address the Zionist committee which called upon him in Washington. Although the Balfour declaration was proclaimed during the heat of the war, mr. Balfour, in his address to the Zionists, voiced the same sentiment as is contained in the Balfour declaration. In other words in 1922 Mr. Balfour feels as he did in 1917.

The Balfour Declaration expressed the favorable view of the British Government of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and stated that it would use its best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being understood that nothing would be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

This declaration was presented by Mr. Balfour to the cabinet and approved by it before it was issued. It was subsequently approved by France, Italy, Japan, and other nations.

In my opinion, the recent action of the House of Lords was not intended as a repudiation of the Balfour declaration. It merely voiced opposition to the terms of the mandate. The mandate should be amended, if necessary, to protect Christians and other non-Jews in the civil and religious rights in Palestine. The mandate should carry out the thought of the Balfour declaration which expressly provides that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. This reservation, and the reservation in the Lodge resolution, as well as the reservation in the resolution before the House, protects all religions, and the mandate should do likewise. Any objection to the terms of the mandate can not properly be directed against this resolution which follows the Balfour and Lodge resolutions and provides full protection to all religions as it properly should do.

Man Jews in America who are not actively affiliated with Zionist movements are nevertheless in through sympathy and accord with the heart-beats and yearnings of the Zionists for a restoration of the homeland in Palestine. Palestine has been the object of the veneration of many pious and devoted Jews for over 4,000 years.

I have here a small booklet, Mr. Speaker, which is published by the Palestine Foundation Fund in New York. It is addressed o the workers of the Zionist fund, and I just want to read a very short paragraph from this booklet.

It says:

Forty centuries of history close with this question. Will you, Jews of America, redeem the Holy Land?

That promise that was made 4,000 years ago is to be fulfilled through you, or is to remain unfulfilled.

You are the guardians of Jewish history today. With you Jewish history ends, or through you it begin a new and glorious chapter.

Forty centuries of history are watching you today. The far-off generations look to you out of the twilight of the past. The warriors and prophets and teachers of ancient Judea are watching you. The martyrs of Spain and Poland and Russia, they who died that our people might live, are watching you. The young heroes who fell on a hundred fields in the Great War are watching you. The victims of a hundred pogroms, men and women and children, are watching you.

In the eyes of all of them there is the single question, AWill the land of our fathers be restored to our people, or have we lived and died in vain?@

Many prominent Americans, both Jews and gentiles, have expressed their interest and approval of the restoration of Palestine.

President Harding on June 1, 1921, said:

AIt is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter on a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity.@

President Harding on May 11, 1922, wrote to the Palestine Foundation Fund as follows:

AI am very glad to express my approval and hearty sympathy for the effort of the Palestine Foundation fund I behalf of the restoration of Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people. I have always viewed with an interest, which I think is quite as much practical s sentimental the proposal for the rehabilitation of Palestine and the restoration of a real Jewish nationality, and I hope the efforts now being carried on in this and other countries in this behalf may meet the fullest measure of success.@

More recently, on June 25, 1922, the President wrote to the Zionist Organization of America, at its twenty-fifth annual convention n Philadelphia:

AA long time interest, both sentimental and practical, in the Zionist movement cause me to wish that I might meet the members of the organization and express the esteem which I feel in behalf of the great movement.@

Ex-President Woodrow Wilson, in a letter dated August 31, 1918, said:

I welcome an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have felt in the progress of the Zionese movement in the United States and in the allied countries since the declaration of Mr. Balfour, on behalf of the British Government, of Great Britain=s approval of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and his promise that the British Government would use its best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that object, with the understanding that nothing would be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish people in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries.

Hon. Louis Marshall, one of the most brilliant minds and one of the foremost Jews in America, in a letter accompanying his contribution to the Palestine Foundation Fund, writes:

AI feel it to be the duty of every Jew to help in the rebuilding of Palestine in order that those who desire to take up their homes in the ancient dwelling place of Israel may have an opportunity to do so under the most favorable auspices.

There is no Jew, whoever he may be who has the right to shirk the duty of assisting in giving due effect to the beneficent purposes which underlie the Balfour declaration.@

Mr. Samuel Untermeyer, at the dinner given by the Palestine Foundation Fund to Senator Lodge at the Hotel Astor in New York City on June 18, 1922, said:

AThe most important and practical instrument for achieving these lofty ideals is the Palestine Foundation Fund, or Keren Hayesod. Here is an instrument which makes it possible for the Jews to pool the necessary resources for restoring the waste places of the Holy Land and re-peopling it with prosperous Jewish communities.

The Keren Hayesod stands high above and beyond and far removed from the strifes and discords of party or politics. Its platform is big and broad; it is one on which Jews of all shades of opinion find a common meeting place.@

Vice President Calvin Coolidge, in a letter to the Philadelphia Campaign Palestine Foundation Fund Workers, says:

AThe proposed plan furnishes to the Jewish people an opportunity to devote their great qualities to the up-building and preservation of their own homeland and in their own sphere, and I feel sure that the people of the United States will not fail to give that earnest and substantial aid which will be necessary if it is to meet with a full measure of success.@

Representative Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, a Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, reporting favorably on behalf of the committee the resolution before the House with the recommendation that it pass has made an able and learned report, which I desire to read:

The Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom was referred House Joint Resolution No. 322, favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, having considered the same, report favorable thereon, with the recommendation that the resolution do pass.

This report expresses our moral interest in and our favorable attitude toward the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It commits us to no foreign obligation or entanglement. The protection of the holy places is carefully provided for, as well as the rights of Christian and all non-Jewish communities. There is a strong religious and humanitarian appeal in this recognition accorded to the Jewish people that toes beyond its purely material aspects and the discharge of such obligations assumed by the allied Governments as expressed in the Balfour declaration of November 2, 1917, which has been indorsed by France, Italy, Japan, and other nations.

The Jews of America are profoundly interested in establishing a national home in the ancient land of their race. Indeed, this is the ideal of the Jewish people everywhere, for, despite their dispersion, Palestine has been the object of their veneration since they were expelled by the Romans. For generations they have prayed for the return to Zion. During the past century this prayer has assumed practical form.

Palestine the ancient homeland of the Jew, is today a comparatively sterile country, due to the wanton and deplorable policy of desolation systematically carried out by its rulers, the Turks, for many centuries. What was once the country of milk and honey has become through misrule and oppression, a devastated and sparsely settled land.

Jewish colonization began in Palestine over 40 years ago. In 1897, Theodor Harzl, the founder of the modern Zionist movement, established an organization for the purpose of securing legal recognition of the Jewish right in Palestine and began the practical work of settling the land. A great deal of labor and effort has been put into Palestine by Jews. They have established 72 flourishing colonies on a soil which before thy reclaimed it, was merely sand, stone, and swamp. With the investment of Jewish capital and labor, part of this land has been transformed into beautiful gardens that evoke the admiration of visitors to the Holy Land. They have created and maintained a modern school system and laid the foundations of a national Jewish university in Jerusalem. They have introduced modern sanitation, opened hospitals and clinics, and founded many industries. Banks have been established to provide credit for the smaller trade and business man. They are now prepared to develop a plan harnessing the water power of the Jordan River, which will provide Palestine with ample electric light and power for a large industrial development.

In this work of regenerating land that has become desolate and waste through governmental oppression the Jews of America have participated to a large and generous extent, maintaining the American Zionese Medical Unit and making large contributions to the purchase of land and for the creation of credit institutions.

We of America should be glad to give our moral support to a project which is based upon justice and humanity. To give this recognition to so laudable an endeavor of a people seeking to create a haven of refuge for the oppressed and homeless of their race is to act in consonance with the loftiest American ideals. The Jews have suffered greatly during the war. There are now countless thousands of innocent members of the Jewish race in Poland, Galicia, Russia, Hungary, Ukraine, and Rumania, who have been utterly ruined and for who there is no lace in the lands where thy had formerly lived. The World War has overwhelmed them. They are seeking a home where, with the generous help of their brethren of other lands who are to more comfortable circumstances, they may recreate their own forms of life and realize their ideals.

Leaders of the Jewish people here and abroad, who have studied Jewish conditions and needs and are thoroughly familiar with the problems of Jewish life, anticipate the eventual creation of an enlightened State which shall be a center of Jewish culture, a blessing to humanity and to the Jewish race in that ancient land which was given by Jehovah to Abraham, and which is consecrated in all Jewish hearts as the birth place of their traditions and ideals. The realization of this hope should be given the moral encouragement of the American people speaking through their Representatives in Congress.@

I hope the resolution before the House will pass unanimously. It will lend encouragement and hope to many afflicted and downtrodden people at a time when they are yearning for a home where persecutions and pogroms will be unknown.

Mr. HOGAN. Mr. Speaker, let us not be sparing today in our endorsement of a cause so thoroughly American, so near to the heart of liberty, so fruitful to national aspiration, so fraught with meaning to the welfare of the human race as the return of the Jew who desires to go to what he had always loved to term the AGlorious Land.@

It should be as natural for the Congress of the United States to extend sympathy for the downtrodden and oppressed as for us to breathe the air. Our Government was founded upon the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and surely the governed are entitled to the government of their home land.. Our Declaration of Independence averred that all men should be assured equality of opportunity. In our early days as a people sparsely strewn along the Atlantic seaboard we fought British tyranny and with the assistance of France won the opportunity to prove what liberty and right could do under a flag which guaranteed them both. Because we were once small and inconsequential in a world of mighty empires and because we depended solely upon our God, our conscience, and our effort for the attainment of might, we have become the greatest servant of mankind. Three-quarters of a century ago we extended sympathy to Hungary when she fought the power of Austria. In 1898 we gave our sympathy to Cuba and helped her shatter the shackles of Spain. In 1917 we did not withhold our sympathy from the allied peoples who were menaced by the autocratic lords of Germany and Austria and, as a result, we freed the world. Two years ago we declared sympathy for Ireland and now, largely as the result of that expression of opinion by this Congress, she is emerging from darkness and chaos to order and opportunity and a greater measure of liberty that she has enjoyed for 800 years. We should not be less generous to the Jewish race.

Certainly if ever any people was downtrodden and oppressed and deserving of the hand of fellowship from us it is the Hebrew people. In spite of the fact that the Jew first gave to humanity the idea of the one infinite God and of His love and mercy to man; in spite of the fact that it is a Jewish commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself; in spite of the fact that it was one of the great Hebrew prophets who asked, AWhat doth the Lord require of thee but to do justice, toe lobe kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?@ In spite of the fact that our Savior , who taught us so much of the brotherhood of the human spirit, was a Jew, his race has been the victim of persecution and injustice for more than 2,000 years. In all the bitterness with which the struggle of the Jew for independence was put down by the Romans, in the terrible hatred with which he was pursued in the darkest period of Spain, in the worst pogroms under the Ramanoffs, he was never pursued more relentlessly than by the Slavs of present Europe. Out of the hatreds engendered in many countries he calls to a world which makes much pretense of enlightenment and civilization for a little spot in Palestine, the original home so dear to Catholic, Protestant, and Mahometan, where he may at last find rest from persecution, where he may tend his flocks as David did of old, and where he may gather his own unto himself and find full and unhampered expression.

Let us remember that we in this Congress are the representatives of the Nation which has guaranteed to each citizen the right to worship God in his own way, the right of conscience, the right of opinion. Under that guaranty Catholic and Protestant and Jew alike have thrived in America as nowhere else. The age of bigotry is passing. As men turn from persecuting their brothers of other faiths in the name of God, they learn to love both God and each other more. He is the best Catholic or Protestant or Jew who has most of the love and kindness and mercy of the Son of Man toward all. And it is a striking fact that the empires which have most oppressed the Jew have crumbled and fallen while this Nation, which has given him most of liberty and opportunity, has prosper more than any in history.

The Turk as an oppressor of the territory of Palestine has been destroyed. He, along with the Romanoff, Hohemzollern, and Hapsburg, has disappeared as a tyrant. Under the new order of things in Palestine and throughout the world the Jew should be given a chance to work out his problems in his own way. Together with the Irish he came to our shores to escape from oppression, and with no capital but his intelligence to seek opportunity in a free land. And like the Irish he has toiled and saved and prospered and brought credit to our institutions. A good Irishman or a good Jew can not make a bad American citizen. Both having attained the blessings of liberty and equality of opportunity, both desire that the original homeland shall be free to the parent race. I am for both. I think every American should be for both, because both Irish and Jew seek merely the application of the most fundamental of American principles. And because the resolution expressing satisfaction at the recreation of Palestine as the national home of the Jewish race is couched in the best American spirit, every Member of this Congress ought to vote for it.

The grant of opportunity to the Jew in his own homeland will be a benefit not only to him but to the world, because so long as the Jew remains a problem the peace and order of the world will be disturbed, to however slight or great an extent. No problem can be permanently settled until it is settled right. The Jewish problem can not be settled right until justice is done to the Jew. And justice can not be done the Jew until he has found all of the joy and happiness under liberty and opportunity in his own land and under his own institutions which we Americans have found in America under American institutions.

Mr. KELLY. Of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, for 2,000 years the moans and groans of disinherited, dispossessed Jews have been heard at the wailing wall of Jerusalem. Seventy generations have wept over the destruction of the Holy City and prayed for its restoration. Seventy generations have passed while Athe world dove had her nest, the fox his cave, mankind their country, Israel but the grave.@

In every land of the globe these people of the wandering foot have kept their windows open toward Jerusalem. They have remained faithful to the pledge of their great psalmist, AIf I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.@

In all the history of the world there is no instance of fidelity like that of the Jew for his promised land and for his own people. They have never forgotten, though memory for them was bittersweet, both a joy and a scourge.

It was 40 centuries ago that Jehovah promised Palestine to the children of Abraham. Through slavery in Egypt, through 40 years in the wilderness, hey came at last into their possession, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Twelve tribes they were when they heard the divine command given to their leader, Joshua: AArise now, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.@

There they built a powerful nation and established Jerusalem, the city set on a hill, whose heart was the Temple.

Through the centuries divisions came and great adversities fell upon them. Great nations menaced them on the north and south. Assyria and Egypt fought for mastery across their territory. Again and again revivals of the old-time spirit brought unity and peace followed war, prosperity succeeded suffering.

Then Israel seceded from Judah in final disunion and two nations took the place of one. Babylon swept down upon them and carried them into exile. Still they were not destroyed, but those who had wept by the streams of Babylon returned and built the nation anew.

At last might Rome swept down upon this harassed people with her all-conquering legions. Alone of all the nations, Judah dared resist the mistress of the world at the height of her power. For four agonizing years they battled, making so heroic resistance that many Roman soldiers joined the defenders of Jerusalem to die with them a glorious death.

Crushed at last, they were forced to yield and their great temple was destroyed. Once again in 135 A.D. this David of a nation rose under Bar Kockbar and waged three years; war against the oppressor. But the sacrifice was in vain. Rome triumphed and exacted a fearful vengeance. The Jews were driven into exile, homeless and forlorn and the Promised Land knew them no longer as people.

Twenty centuries have passed since that dire dispersal. This people has been oppressed and persecuted with massacre and pogroms in many lands. The sons of Abraham have been victims of unexampled hatred and bigotry, but they have refused to die.

Cherishing the faith of their fathers, holding steadfast to the glowing promises of their prophets, priests, and patriots, they have maintained their racial solidarity and their identity as a people in the face of an opposing world.

AWhere there is no vision the people perish.@ The children of Israel have lived because ever in their eyes gleamed the coming day when the God of their fathers should seek them out in the lands of their captivity Aeven as a shepherd seeketh out his sheep that are scattered in the cloudy and dark day.@ Had not their prophet Ezekiel told them of the time when AZion should put on her strength and Jerusalem her beautiful garments to become again one nation upon the mountains of Israel?@

Such an unalterable desire woven into the very web and woof of individual and national life can not be merely a dream. Defying the changes of 2,000 years, overcoming oppression and brutal wrongs, it is one of the real things in the world. It had within itself the seeds of its accomplishment and awaited but the historical moment when conditions should be ripe for its fulfillment.

Mr. Speaker, that moment has arrived. Out of the World War has come the possibility of the fruition of this age-old longing of the Jews for their homeland.

General Allenby with an army in which were Jewish regiments entered Jerusalem. The Turk, who had held the holy places for centuries, was driven out. The triumphal act of this drama of the ages is possible in the here and now.

America is preeminently the Nation to take the initiative in urging the reestablishment of Zion. We can not be indifferent to anything which concerns the welfare of this ancient people who whom we owe a vast debt for laws and literature, ideals and aspirations.

The Book of Books, which has had so vital a place in the founding and development of America, came to the world through the Jews. From them also came the very foundation doctrine in our Declaration of Independence that Aall men are created equal.@

Our idea of justice, which Madison said Ais the end of government and the aim of civil society,@ would be beyond human conception without the Bible. The first time it gleamed upon the mind of man was when the chosen people recognized the claim of brotherhood under one God, who was the protector of every son of Abraham.

The laws of Israel, which provided that the inheritance of every member of the nation was inviolable and could not be taken away from him nor even sold beyond the year of jubilee, was the declaration that justice was the covenant right of every Israelite. That was the end sought in the laws, that consideration must be given the unfortunate; that the gleanings of the field and vineyards must be left for the poor; that all debts must be released every seventh year; that oppression and injustice, thefts and false weights and measures were sins against the brotherhood. Through all the laws ran the idea that every member of the nation was equal to all others in dignity and rights and privileges and duties.

The next great step in the development of the idea of justice was when the Master Christian, Himself a son of Abraham, living and working in the land of Israel, broadened the scope of brotherhood until it included all nations and all peoples. His ideal is the brotherhood of all men under the fatherhood of one God. Only because of this sublime conception was the Declaration of Independence and the American Government possible.

Mr. Speaker, the American ideal of the home as the foundation of the Nation comes from the Jews. The first educational system for all the children was instituted in Palestine. Interwoven into our history, influencing the lives of every great American, has been the matchless social philosophy, the practical wisdom, the music, oratory, and poetry of the Jews. From them we learned the dignity of labor and the truth that righteous laws are the guardians of human liberty. But aside form such a splendid heritage, which might equally be the possession of other nations, America owes special obligations to this ancient people. The voyages of Columbus were financed by Jews, and they helped to mold the destinies of this continent since its discovery. Haym Solomon negotiated the loans from France and Holland which Washington declared made possible the triumph of American arms at Yorktown. Col. David Franks was a member of Washington=s staff.

Every war of America has seen devoted service by the Jews. Scoffed at as weaklings, they have never shrunk from facing the weapons of the enemies of this Nation. In the World War 235,000 Jews served under the Stars and Stripes. Of the 78 congressional medals, three were awarded to Jewish soldiers. The distinguished service medal was won by 150 American Jews. Ten thousand Jews were commissioned officers in the Army and 500 bore commissions in the Navy.

America has been well repaid for the treatment she has accorded the Jews, and it was here in this new land, for the first time since they ceased to have a state of their own, that they were accorded complete civil and political equality.

Today there are 3,300,000 Jews in America out of 15,000,000 in all the world. There are more here than in any other land. They have served the Nation well in war and in peace, and they have a right to sympathetic cooperation in the realization of their national aspirations. America should with generous enthusiasm help the fulfillment of so worthy a purpose.

Mr. Speaker, through all our history runs a thread of American sympathy for the restored Zion. President John Adams voiced it in a letter to Maj. Mordecai Noah, the first American Zionist. President Harrison in 1891 expressed it again upon receipt of a petition signed by many great Americans, asking consideration of the claims of the Jews to their ancient home in Palestine. President Wilson in 1918, joined in approving Athe establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.@ President Harding in 1921 gave the American expression when he said:

It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Jewish people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter upon a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity.

Today it is not alone from sentimental reasons, but from a very practical standpoint, that America is justified in lending her helping hand to this project.

The danger spot of the future is Asia. It is quite possible that there a new Asiatic Germany will develop with unlimited man power and resources to threaten again the safety of the world.

A Nation which understand s Asia and Europe, the East and the West, and can act as mediator between them, will be a blessing to the world. The Jewish State can act in that capacity as can no other nation in the world. The erection of such a Commonwealth will be a force for peace and order more powerful than any treaty between Occident and Orient. It will help to bring the time foretold by the Hebrew prophet, when men shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and nations shall learn war no more.

Christendom should welcome the reestablishment of Zion as fervently as Jewry. Twenty million Sunday school students now study weekly the history of the House of Israel. Its reestablishment in our own day and generation will mean world instruction in the Old and New Testaments.

King Frederick William of Prussia once said to his chaplain: AGive the briefest possible proof of the truth of Christianity.@ AThe Jews, Your Majesty,@ was the answer.

When the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in Jerusalem and the Jews shall build houses in their homeland and inhabit them, and shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them, the world shall have taken a long step forward, I do earnestly believer, toward the time when there shall be Apeace on earth, good will to men.@

Mr. Speaker, the Jew is God=s miracle. He dates beyond the pyramids, but his hands guide enterprises for air navigation and radio communication in the twentieth century. He is a money master, but his gold has flowed into every stream meant to relieve want and wretchedness. He is a man without a country ,but he has Zion enshrined in his heart. He is a pilgrim, but he has never lodged at Doubting Castle or supped with Giant Despair. He is of the earth, but his thoughts have been with the stars. He has borne the brunt of bigotry and the pain of persecution, but always on the >midnight sky has painted the glorious morrow.@ His golden age has always been onward, not behind, and across the centuries of his sorrow have shone the gleam and glow of a restored Jerusalem. He has been inspired and sustained by an unfaltering hope so great that his soul has grown to match it. His faith has been medicine for his misery; his love for the Holy City a charm for every woe. Chief figure in a national tragedy lasting 2,000 years, he sees today on the Amountains the feet of Him who bringeth good tidings, that publisheth salvation for the sons who come from afar and the daughters from the ends of the earth.@

The Jew is at the border of the promised land once more, America, the great Republic of the West, must help him to establish in his ancient home the commonwealth which will bring East and West into understanding and fellowship, making possible the fruition of all those hear-warm hopes of men which were cradled in the land of Israel.

Mr. Bond. This resolution is of the greatest interest and importance to the Jews of the world. From the materialistic standpoint it means little to the Jews of America, but its religious and spiritual importance can hardly be exaggerated. Through all the ages th e Jew has looked forward to the time when Palestine would again be the land of milk and honey and the homeland of the Jewish people. While probably few of the Jews of America will ever attempt to make a home in Palestine, the Jews of America are almost without exception interested in the reconstruction of Palestine because of it religious significance.

It is estimated that there are 3,000,000 Jews in America of whom perhaps 2,000,000 are in New York State, about 1,500,000 being in the city of New York. The Jews in this country are proud of America and of American institutions. They do not feel they are oppressed here, but are fully appreciative of the liberty and the freedom of opportunity which the laws of this wonderful land afford. Were the Jews treated as well in other countries as in the United States, the desire for a home for the Jews in Palestine might not be so strong, but unfortunately in many countries the Jew continues to be oppressed, and his position is made so hard that it is almost impossible for him to remain in those countries. This makes thousands of Jews wanderers on the face of the earth. To these and the other Jews of the earth who have sympathy for them the idea of a home in Palestine means much.

Were the United States called upon to initiate such a movement there might be some force to an objection that it is an interference with the affairs of foreign nations, but the Balfour declaration , issued November 2, 1917, at the height of the war, firmly established this as a policy of the British Government. This has been still more firmly established by having been incorporated in the mandate under which Great Britain exercises authority over Palestine, and the mandate has been ratified by various other Governments.

The effect of the present resolution therefore is largely moral and constitutes merely an expression of good will and sympathy of America for the aims and aspirations of the Jews. The resolution before the House commits us to no foreign obligations and constitutes no entanglement alliance. As it has the approval of Secretary Hughes, of the Department of State, and the President of the United States, we may feel assured no unfortunate diplomatic complications can or will occur. No harm can possibly come from the passing of this resolution. On the contrary, I believe it will result in much good. I therefore favor this resolution and shall gladly vote for it.

Mr. ROSSDALE: Mr. Speaker, the colonists who first settled upon the Western Hemisphere were God-fearing men and women who come to the New World to live their lives and worship God as they desired and believed. They were mostly Christians, and they believed in the Bible and the holy writ; their firm belief and faith in the Scriptures comforted and sustained them in their struggles with the savage and the wilderness and enabled them to conquer a continent and later to found the greatest Republic in the history of man.

It was this same belief in the will of the Almighty, this same firm faith in the Scriptures, that sustained the Jewish people through the centuries of oppression and persecution since their dispersal from the land of the Bible. They, too, believed; and through the long , weary centuries since the cruel might of their Roman conquerors drove them from their homeland Athey kept the faith,@ and piously each day devout Jews have turned to the east and prayed for the day of restoration and return to the land of their fathers.

This Old Testament came to birth in the land of the Jews, and although there are some few unbelievers, the great majority of the American people, both Christians and Jews, believe in the Bible. I believe in it, and I am certain that almost all Members of Congress believe in it, and that God=s promises in this Old Testament will be fulfilled. For in Deuteronomy, chapter 39, Moses said:

If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather these; and from thence will He fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thus shalt possess it; and He will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers.

And it is written in the Book of Amos, Chapter 9:

And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them. AAnd I will plant them upon their land and they shall no more be pulled out of their land which I have given them,@ saith the Lord thy God.

It has been said that the age of miracles is gone by, and lo and behold, in the cradle of the world=s civilization, in the sacred land of the Bible, a modern miracle is happening! The Jewish people after the lapse of centuries re resettling the land of their fathers. They are planting the waste lands, irrigating and afforesting the desert, draining the marshes and swamps, building houses and roads, and tilling the soil as their ancestors did.

From everywhere in the wide, wide, world, where oppression and persecution have quickened the desire and intensified the yearning of the Jewish people for the reestablishment of their ancient homeland, there come volunteers to help in the rebuilding; from those parts of Europe where anti-Semitism has had free rein and where the ghastly specter of the pogrom ever threatens come a host of refugees, splendid young men and women, who eagerly volunteer as pioneers among them numerous merchants, intellectuals from the professions and students from the universities.

A great many of these refugees walked thousands of miles from the interior of eastern and central Europe to a seaport to embark for Palestine. They are settling upon the land among the hills and valleys and ancient places you and I read and learned about when as children we went to Sunday school. They toil there under the blinding Palestinian sun, chanting Hebrew songs as they perform the hardest kinds of manual labor, happy in their opportunity to rebuild the land of their fathers.

The entire world is watching this romance of the return of the Jews with a great deal of interest, and liberal minds throughout the world are giving aid and encouragement to the project.

The British Government on November 2, 1917, issued the following statement of policy, which is known as the Balfour declaration:

His Majesty=s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country

The following declaration was made for the Italian Government by the Italian ambassador to Great Britain:

On the instruction of His Excellency Baron Sonnino, His Majesty=s Minister for Foreign Affairs, I have the honor to inform ou that His Majesty=s Government is pleased to confirm the declaration already made through their representatives in Washington. The Hague, and Salonica, to the effect that they will use their best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national center, it being understood that this shall not prejudice the legal or political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The French Government made the following announcement:

M. Sokolow, representing the Zionist organizations, was received today by M. Stephen Pichon. M. Pichon was happy to reaffirm that the understanding in complete between the French and the British Governments concerning the question of the Jewish establishment in Palestine.

And the other allied powers, consisting of Japan, Greece, Holland, Serbia, China, and Siam, have likewise approved it.

In 1920 the Allied Supreme Council at San Remo confirmed the Balfour declaration and gave the mandate over Palestine to England, subject to ratification by the League of Nations.

President Woodrow Wilson wrote:

I welcome an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have felt in the progress of the Zionese movement in the United States and in the allied countries since the declaration of Mr. Balfour, on behalf of the British Government, of Great Britain=s approval of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and his promise that the British Government would use its best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that object, with the understanding that nothing would be done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish people in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in other countries.

President Warren Go. Harding expressing his friendly interest in and for the Zionist movement, said:

It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Jewish people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter upon a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity.

And later Wrote:

I am very glad to express my approval and hearty sympathy for the effort of the Palestine foundation fund in behalf of the restoration of Palestine as a homeland for the Jewish people. I have always viewed with an interest which, I think is quite as much practical as sentimental the proposal for the rehabilitation of Palestine, and I hope the effort now being carried on in this and other countries in this behalf may meet with the fullest measure of success.

Before the present movement assumed concrete form, among the first to express approval of the return of the Jews to Palestine was John Adams, the second President of the Unites States, who wrote to Maj. Mordecai Manuel Noah, the first American Zionist, as follows:

I really wish the Jews again in Judea, an independent nation: for, as I believe, the most enlightened men of it have participated in the amelioration of the philosophy of the ages; once restored to an independent government and no longer persecuted, they would soon wear away some of the asperities and peculiarities of their character. I whish your nation may be admitted to all the privileges of citizens in every part of the world. This country (America) has done much; I wish it may do more and annul every narrow idea in religion, government, and commerce.

In 1891, a memorandum was presented to President Harrison by a galaxy of financiers, clergymen, lawyers, and publicists. I have not the time to read all their names, but among them are Cardinal James Gibbons, J. Peirpont Morgan, John D. Rockerfeller, Russell Sage, William E. Dodge, John A. Steward, J. Henry Harper, Charles Scribner, Bishop David H. Greer. Dr. William S. Rainsford, Dr. Robert Collier, Dr. Charles A. Parkhurst, Dr. Morgan Dix. Dr. Minot J. Savage, Henry N. Higginbotham, Dr. M. Wolsey Styker, Judge C.C. Kohlsaat, Melville W. Fuller , Bishop Charles A. Cheney, Bishop S.M. Merrill, Melville E. Stone, Bishop Edward G. Andrew, Dr. Josiah Strong.

From all parts of the earth, wherever the magic story of Israel=s return is become known, rulers and writers, preachers and publicists, all express approval. This resolution expressing America=s approval of the acceptance of the mandate by Great Britain and the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine was passed by the Senate of the United States unanimously, and I hope the House of Representatives will concur and express its satisfaction likewise.

It may appear strange to some to think of the destinies of nations and of peoples as foreordained, but that is my firm belief, for are we not witnessing the truth of the words of the prophets of the return of Israel, the assurance of whose restoration gleams through the whole vista of prophecy? We know a portion were restored from Babylon, but Isaiah says there shall be a second restoration from the four corners of the earth (Isaiah xi, 11,12). ABoth Israel and Judah shall be gathered and the sanctuary of the Lord shall be set in the midst of them forevermore@ (Ezekiel 37).

God moves in mysterious way. After the roll of many centuries, (Israel is lifting up his hands to the Gentiles@ (Isaiah, chapter xl, 22). And the mandate accepted by a gentile nation will Abring his sons and daughters from far that he may plant them again in their own land@ (Ezekiel xxxiv, 13). The gentile world to whom Israel is lifting his hands, respond and as Cyrus aided the Jews 24 centuries ago, so are the gentiles aiding them in establishing a homeland in Palestine and what words of the prophets are come true.

The establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine is not without great difficulties and as is to be expected, the project has some objectors. Lord Balfour recently characterized it as Aa beneficient adventure in Government.@ It was a certainty that the establishment of a new form of government in the Near East would bring about many difficulties but none insurmountable where the aims and purposes of the Government are upon so high a plane as the mandate for Palestine.

It has been asserted that the Arab populations of Syria, Mesopotamia, and near-by countries objected to the colonizing of Palestine by the Jews. But Emir Feisal, son of King Hussein, of the Hedjaz, shows the attitude of authorized representatives of the Arab people. Emir Feisal declared:

AWe are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist. There is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and ours, ignoring the need of cooperation of the Arabs and the Zionists, have been trying to exploit the local differences that must necessarily arise in Palestine during the early stages of our movement. Some of them have I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry and our aims to the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make capital out of what they call our differences.

I wish to give you my firm conviction that these differences are not on questions of principles but on matters of details, such as must inevitably occur in every contact with the neighboring peoples, and as are easily dissipated by mutual good will. Indeed, nearly all of them will disappear with fuller knowledge.@

There have been no doubt there will be some local differences between the Arabs and the Jews there. It could not be otherwise during a period of transformation as is now in Palestine.

The colonist Jew is bringing Western culture and civilization into the country and it is natural that the Moslem Arabs, steeped in ignorance and extreme poverty, would occasionally clash with the newcomers. This is especially true of the Bedouin Arabs, who have no civilization worth the mention. These Bedouins live in the open and have the same objection to the land being fenced in by Jewish farmers as the American Indians had in the early days of the white settlers; hence it is sometimes necessary for the Palestinian colonist Jew to labor in the fields with a hoe in one hand the a rifle in the other.

These differences will later disappear and as the Jew develops his own culture and builds up the country it is inevitable that he will raise and level up the standard of Arab life there more nearly to his own. The Arabs now occupy only a small portion of the arable land. The rest is uncultivated. The pioneer Jewish settlers purchase what is desolate and unused land and reclaim it by irrigation and scientific agricultural methods. In this manner it is proposed to settle several million Jews there without infringing upon the rights of the present inhabitants.

The real objections to the British mandate in Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish homeland there is being made by a very small number of Arab intellectuals. These are the landowning Moslem sheiks and effendis. They are mostly Turks and near Turks who have ruled and enslaved the Arab peasantry and now dispute the right of the return of the Jews to what was formerly their own country.

Although at different periods various alien people succeeded them, the Jewish people never abandoned their claim and title to Judea. Other people, when conquered, have either been allowed to remain upon their land or, if dispersed, have been absorbed and lost in other nations. But the Jews, though driven from the land over 18 centuries ago, still maintain themselves as a distinct people with unabated vitality.

Prescription can not be founded upon dereliction in their case, for they have never abandoned the land. They made no treaty, they did not even surrender. They simply succumbed, after the most desperate conflict, to the overwhelming power of the Romans, under Tutus, and were slaughtered or enslaved in A.D. 70. About 65 years later the next generation rallied to the land again under the lead of Bar Cochba, and stoutly resisted the Romans until they were completely overthrown at the siege of Bither, with a slaughter second only to the destruction of Jerusalem.

Since then, having no sovereign nor political head through whom they could speak, they have disputed the possession of the land by continues protests through their literature and their private and public worship.

In all their writings and in every form of worship they have constantly and steadfastly maintained their hope and fervent wish for the restoration of their ancient homeland. The same sentiment is expressed in the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, New Year, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles, and by orthodox Jews in the regular Sabbath service and in the morning prayers for every day in the year.

At the Awest wall@ in Jerusalem they have for years, on Friday afternoons, made the most public protests by the use of the seventy-ninth psalm and other Scriptures, until Athe wailing place@ has become known throughout the world.

It seems as if Divine Providence has directed that ancient Judea shall ever be such, for the Jews left so indelible an impress upon the land that whatever civilization is there remained Jewish; even the nomenclature is of the Bible.

It is not a very large country, but nevertheless it is capable of supporting seven or eight million people by intensive cultivation of the land. The population consists of about 600,000 Arabs, mostly Moslems, and about 80,000 Jews.

It has been in possession of the Turks every since Saladin fought the Crusaders, and the blight in destructive rule of the unspeakable Turk is seen in the general desolation, for what was once a land of milk and honey is now mostly sand, stone, swamp, and desert, except where the new Jewish colonists have restored it.

The restoration of Zion by the modern establishment of a Jewish homeland will in a measure solve the Jewish question in so far as it relates to the migratory streams of unfortunate Jewish refugees from eastern and central Europe, who have been displaced from their homes in and following the chaos of the late World War. A lessening of the Jewish populations in the lands that now oppress them will afford relief to these unhappy people, since it offers a place to which many will migrate. A famous prelate once said: AEvery land has as many Jews as it deserves.@ Spain at the height and zenith of her power numbered a large Jewish population. After the Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews her decline was rapid; indeed, it is a truism, ANo country ever prospered who oppressed them.@

It has been said that there were objections to a Jewish Palestine by some of the Jewish people themselves. To be sure there are some Jews who are indifferent, but that is because they have largely drifted away from their own people or know little or nothing about the movement. These protesting Jewish anti-Zionists constitute barely on-half of 1 per cent of the race. The great majority of the Jewish people in the United States and elsewhere are enthusiastic supporters and advocates of Zionism. It has, unfortunately, been the history of the Jewish people that always there are those of their faith and race who in their zeal for an idea become the enemies of their own people. We had an example of this in the fight made against this resolution at the hearings before the Foreign Affairs Committee, when a Acelebrated Jewish rabbi@ from Cincinnati appeared before the committee in opposition , in his campaign against Zion, which opposition happily finds few supporters among either Jews or Christians.

No great movement of a people has ever been unanimous. America in the making, during the Revolutionary War, produced a Benedict Arnold, and it is therefore regrettable but not strange that the reestablishment of Zion would produce a Jewish Benedict Arnold, who would endeavor to injure, if not destroy, what many millions of the Jewish people throughout the world are praying and striving for.

This resolution will not determine the mandate itself, for that is already an accomplished fact. Great Britain has accepted the mandate given by the allied council at San Remo in 1920, and has administered the affairs of Palestine not only since then but from the time when General Allenby=s victorious army entered Jerusalem. It remains but for the ratification of the League of Nations to complete the project. The resolution merely voices America=s favorable opinion and will not involve the United States in any possible manner, and I hope the House will pass the resolution as the Senate did, unanimously.

Mr. Siegel. Mr. Speaker, the American people are in favor of this resolution . Both Presidents Wilson and Harding have given their moral support to its contents, Secretary Hughes and a host of distinguished statesmen and eminent Americans have expressed themselves in its favor. It simply repeats that which is known to be the sentiments of every true lover of liberty. By its language it notifies the world that the people of this country favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for those of the Jewish faith, without in any way prejudicing the civil and religious rights of those of other faiths. It further provides that the holy places, religious, buildings and sites therein shall at all times be adequately protected. Palestine never has been an ordinary country, as it has always been considered as their holy land by the Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans.

At the outset let me say that it is not the desire or wish of the people of the Jewish faith to see Palestine revive as a national homeland by the ousting of the present population. On the contrary, it is their hope and wish to help that population go forward to a higher and better civilization and culture. The achievement of a people depends on the amount of help which it is able to give to other peoples, and not by degrading or oppressing them.

The entire civilized world knows the Palestine has been the permanent residing place and domicile of the Jews for thousands of years. They have had no country which may be deemed their own in the sense that there should be a center from which place cultural expansion among the Jewish people might take place. It is admitted by everyone that wherever the Jews have been and had an equal chance, they have always made their way to the front rank. They have become leaders in the field of all activities and genuine and true citizens of any country which has held out its hands to give them a place of refuge. They have been, it is true, a people in dispersion. Their conduct, however, in every country has been shown by their undiluted allegiance, devotion, and loyalty to the country and government which has sheltered them. They have always however, retained their faith and won the respect an admiration of the people of the world on account of that faith. They are always proud of being of the Jewish faith, because it is one of the most ancient faiths known to mankind and they have a right to look back to an ancestry of which they can be justly proud.

It has always, been true that where discrimination against the Jews has ended, they have by their tenacity, industry, and energy always made for the prosperity of the particular place in which they have settled for permanent residence. History records that every nation which has persecuted them has fallen from a high station to be either eradicated fro the face of the earth or to sink into practical insignificance.

When Columbus discovered America there were on board of his ship at least five Jews. God has always shaped human efforts for the good o the universe. God designed that in America there, should grow up a giant of a Republic that should always stand for justice and fair dealing to all, and tit was God=s plan that the time should come when these United States should stand as a great champion of justice and right. America was discovered in the very year when Spain expelled the Jews. The people of the Jewish faith were destined to survive despite persecution and suffering such as no other people have known. For 2,000 years it has been their dream that some day they would be able to point to Palestine as the place where enlightened civilization would find its home and make known to the world that its progress can best be advanced in times of peace. Practically every other people on the face of the earth can now point to some place where its oppressed and persecuted may find a haven of refuge. At the present time I know of no other place for them than Palestine. America is slowly shutting its doors by restrictive immigration measures. I feel confident the day is coming when the pendulum will swing the other way, but in the meantime there must be some place where the Jew can go to find a home and build up the land. In Palestine the spiritual life of the Jew will grow by leaps and bounds. It is needless to say that very few, if any, will leave the United States or Great Britain to permanently reside in Palestine. Some will, of course, go temporarily for the purpose of assisting in building it up, particularly professional men, including engineers, doctors, dentists, agricultural and electrical experts. The highest aspirations of the Jewish people will be redeemed from the moment that they are in a position to call Palestine a national homeland. When the announcement finally comes, it will bring about a great revival of culture and language. Furthermore the world will once more commence to turn to the ancient Mosaic law for a solution of many of the problems now confronting it.

Throughout the entire Old Testament and the Psalms is found constant reference to the statement that the stranger, widow and the orphan in the gates shall be protected. The religious rights, liberty, and freedom of all who are non-Jews in Palestine will always be fully recognized and protected. The Jew knows only too well how he has suffered on account of the failure of others to recognize those rights when he personally has been involved. He has struggled for centuries to bring about the liberation of this people and the establishment of their rights. The Jew typifies tolerance and breadth of spirit. As has been said by Lord Balfour, Aunder the British mandate no form of tyranny, racial or religious, will ever be permitted.@ This statement was really unnecessary, because everyone who knows the history of the Jewish people is acquainted with the fact that they have been and are unalterably opposed to tyranny of any kind. Once the mandate has been ratified, Palestine will have its resources fully developed so that it may become, as it was in the days gone by, a land of milk and honey. The Jews know that it is going to take the hardest kind of work to bring about the proper development of Palestine, but they are prepared by the intensive cultivation and by the development of the hydro-technical projects formulated by Rutenberg to undertake such work, even through the obstacles may seem in the world at large insurmountable.

It is interesting also to look at the census of the population taken January 1, 1922. According to the official returns, there were on that date in the district of Jerusalem 137,457 Moslems, 37,063 Christians, and 33,784 Jews; in the district of Jaffa119,407 Moslems, 585 Christians, and 311 Jews, and 12 persons belonging to other religions; in the district of Gaza 67,548 Moslems, 585 Christian, and 311 Jews; in the district of Galilee, 61,826 Moslems, 13,130 Christians, 11,924 Jews, and 1,725 persons belonging to other religions; in the district of Phoenicia, 69,988 Moslems, 19,915 Christians, 9,738 Jews, and 5,318 Persons belonging to other religions; in the district of Samaria, 103,529 Moslems, 1,901 Christians, no Jews, and 158 persons belonging to other religions; in the district of Beersheba, 26,516 Moslems, 205 Christians, 38 Jews, making a grand total of 761,796 persons.

The population of this same area on March 31, 1919, was 647,850; the Moslem population has increased during the period from March 31, 1919, to January 1, 1922, by 70,271, the Christians by 25,549, and the Jews by 15,963. The population of the city of Jerusalem has increased during the same period from 60,000 to 64,000, that of Jaffa from 40,000 to 54,100, that of Haifa from 20,000 to 34,100, while the population of Nablus (Shechem) has decreased from 22,000 o 20,638, and that of Hebron from 18,000 to 16,332.

At the present time it is well known that only 20 percent of the land is under cultivation. Experts admit that the almonds, wheat, grapes, and oranges grown in that country are amongst the finest to be had anywhere. The whole population of Palestine, as I have stated, is only 761,796. If we consider that it is equal in area to Belgium, which has a population of about 7,000,000, it can be seen at a glance how several millions more can finally settle there One of the arguments brought forward against declaring Palestine a Jewish homeland is that the population consists mainly of Arabs. If the grounds of opposition to such declaration were to be upheld on that score, then how can there be any justification for what has been done in the United States, Australia, India, Philippine Islands, and parts of Africa. The Arabs of Asia and Africa number in all 38,000,000. They now possess a land at least twenty times as large as the whole of Great Britain. It is estimated to be 2,375,000 square miles. For each 40 acres there is just one Arab. One on-hundred-and seventieth part of this large acreage is to e found in Palestine. If Palestine is to become a national homeland of the Jews, it still will leave the Arab race in practical ownership and control of one of the richest holdings amongst all the countries of the earth, with practically 40 acres for each Arab. The Arabs, therefore, will have more land than they ever can require of ever think of developing. I believe that this destroys all arguments which have been or can possible be advanced against the creation of a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Some of the Members have made inquiry as to whether there has been previous action along similar lines taken by Congress. It is interesting to know that when Greece was making its great struggle for separation and liberty from Turkey, on January 24, 1824, favorable action was taken by Congress. On July 22, 1872 Daniel Webster delivered one of his greatest speeches, and then Hamilton Fish, grandfather of the author of the present resolution, sent a dispatch to our representative at Constantinople reading as follows:

Department of State

Washington, July 22,1872

Sir: It has been suggested to this department, and the suggestion is concurred in , that if the sympathy which we entertain for the humanly persecuted Hebrews in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were made known to the Government to which you are accredited it might quicken an encourage the efforts of that Government to discharge its duty as a protecting power pursuant to the obligations of the treaty between certain European States. Although we are not a party, directly or indirectly, in the public affairs of that quarter, the grievance adverted to is so enormous as to impart to it as it were a cosmopolitan character in the redress of which all countries, Governments, and creeds are alike interested.

You will consequently communicate on this subject with the minister for foreign affairs of the Ottoman Empire in such a way as you may suppose might be most likely to compass the object in view.

I am, etc.,

Hamilton Fish

On August 11, 1902, John Hay, Secretary of State, one of America=s greatest statesmen, sent a dispatch protesting discrimination against the Jews in Rumania which contained the following language:

Putting together the facts now painfully brought home to this Government during the past few years that many of the inhabitants of Rumania are being forced, by artificially adverse discriminations to quit their native country; that the hospitable asylum offered by this country is almost the only refuge left to them; that they come hither unfitted, by the conditions of their exile, to take part in the new life of this land under circumstances either profitable to themselves or beneficial to the community; and that they are objects of charity from the outset and for a long time B the right of remonstrance against the acts of the Rumanian Government is clearly established in favor of this Government. Whether consciously and of purpose or not these helpless people, burdened and spurned by their native land, are forced by this sovereign power of Rumania upon the charity of the United States. This Government can not be in tacit party to such an international wrong. It is constrained to protest against the treatment to which the Jews of Rumania are subjected not alone because it has unimpeachable ground to remonstrate against the resultant injury to itself but in the name of humanity. The United States may not authoritatively appeal to the stipulations of the treaty of Berlin, to which it was not and can not become a signatory, but it does earnest appeal to the principles consigned therein, because they are the principles of international law and eternal justice, advocating the broad toleration which that solemn compact enjoins, and standing ready to lend its moral support to the fulfillment thereof by its consignatories, for the act of Rumania itself has effectively joined the United States to them as an interested party in this regard.

You will take an early occasion to read this instruction to the minister for foreign affairs and, should he request it, leave with him a copy.

We, therefore, see that there are precedents for the action which has already been taken in the Senate in this matter, and which the House is about to follow. The American people have always encouraged by their pen and voice struggling men and women seeking liberty and desirous of taking their well-earned placed amongst the peoples of the world. They are happy to do all they can to perpetuate under proper care Jerusalem, the city of God and peace.