Dr. Tschlenow delivered an Address, in the course of which he said, among other things:—
“We beg the Provisional Government to believe that it may fully depend upon our forces and our support in its heroic efforts directed toward the strengthening of the freedom and greatness of Russia.
“What is necessary, and what we strive for, is to create a national territorial centre for our scattered people. The construction of that centre is already begun, and it will continue. The centre will gradually be filled by the forces and means of the Diaspora.
“Who of you has not keenly followed for the last year and a half the life of the youngest branch of the Jewish people: the American? Hundreds of thousands of working men are unified in their demand for national rights in the Diaspora and an autonomous centre in Palestine. The New York Kehillah, representing a million and a quarter Jews, comes forward with the same slogan. Finally, the powerful Congress movement, embracing the entire three million Jewry, is to close the coming autumn with most important decisions. Weigh all the facts, and you will agree that the harmony of which we dream is already coming to pass. With hope and with love we follow the work of our Trans-oceanic champions, and send to them our brotherly greetings.
“But what could not have been prophesied and what fills our hearts with untold joy and pride, is the attitude towards our ideal on the part of the broad stratas of Jewry, which has revealed itself since the time of the Great Revolution.
“From all corners of our great Russia come to us, together with cheers of joy over the emancipation, assurances of unshattered faith in the eternal ideal—the renaissance of our native Palestine. Old and young, rich and poor, from the front and from the rear, orthodox and free-thinkers, declare in one voice: ‘Now, even now, freed from the chains of slavery, shall we be able zealously and gladly to give ourselves to the service of our ideals?’
“I cannot refrain here from underscoring, with the feeling of deepest recognition, the invaluable services which the Government of the United States has so nobly and warmly shown to our pioneers. The noble President of the United States has acted from motives of humanity and brotherly relation of peoples, but at the same time, also, from deep sympathy in our regeneration. The noble impulses of America have found a worthy instrument in the person of the former Ambassador Morgenthau, that faithful son of the Jewish people, whose services in these hard years Jewry will not forget.
“But all this time, while working and building, we have not lost sight of the basic point inscribed upon our banner—the public, legal character of the hearth which we are creating. We are convinced that the moment has come for reiterating our programme.
“We deem it necessary that the nations called upon to establish the standard of the future national political life should reckon with the definitely expressed will of the Jewish people, to populate and regenerate Palestine as its national hearth. We deem it further necessary that all obstacles should be removed from our path, and that guarantees and conditions should be created which will ensure the unobstructed and speedy development of our work in the land.”
The Conference was attended by five hundred and fifty-two delegates from six hundred and forty towns. There were delegates from Turkestan, Bokhara, and the Crimea. In addition, there were present five hundred visitors from provincial towns and over one thousand one hundred visitors from Petrograd.