American Jewish Congress Opens Session in Washington

(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

“Let Roumania bethink herself lest she seal her moral doom by achieving the succession of Czarist Russia in the matter of wrong and injustice to the Jew. We are not and we will not be satisfied to have an avoidance of pogroms in Roumania. We demand an end to that attitude of the ruling groups and classes, which makes possible and even inevitable the student movement against the Jew. This movement will be quelled in an hour when Roumania learns, as learn Roumania will, that there is such a thing as decent respect for the opinion of mankind, and that such opinion cannot be wantonly and persistently affronted save at a terrible cost from every point of view.”

These words were directed to the Roumanian Government and people by Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, in his address opening the biennial session of the Congress at the New Willard Hotel today.

Several hundred delegates from many parts of the country are attending the sessions.

PROBLEMS TO BE CONSIDERED

The situation of the Jews in Roumania, the Weizmann-Marshall accord on the formation of the Jewish Agency, democracy in the affairs of American Jewry, the proposed creation of a Jewish national community chest in the United States and a proposal to call a European conference on Jewish rights were the subjects dealt with by Dr. Wise in his opening message.

Dr. Wise paid tribute to the memory of Israel Zangwill and Achad Ha’am.

After the delivery of the President’s address, the report of the Executive Committee was presented by Bernard G. Richards, executive secretary of the Congress.

A banquet will be tendered the delegates by the Washington Committee of the Congress tonight. Senator William E. Borah, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, will be the principal speaker.