Complete Text of Felix M. Warburg’s Address

The complete text of Felix M. Warburg’s address delivered at the U. P. A. Conference follows:

“It is a great privilege for me to be here. It means a good deal more for me than you think. To come here to address, for the first time, a meeting of your Organization, and to honor my friend, my very good friend, my warm friend, Dr. Weizmann, is a rare pleasure,” Mr. Warburg said.

“We have had some very interesting times approaching the subject of Palestine. Some of us were slower; some of you were faster; but here we are, ready to tackle the difficulties and the joys and the problems of Palestine together!

“I have had the pleasure — sometimes it was not such a pleasure at all — to preside and work for a great many different causes; but the meeting which we had in New York, to which your chairman referred, was an experience which was, as he said, unforgettable, At no time, and at no place, have I ever felt that the whole body — and the whole large body that was assembled there — was so cordial, so thoroughly in sympathy with the proceedings, It was a fact that the report presented at that meeting was prepared by an extraordinary body of experts. They were not talking about dreams, but they were talking about acts. All those who attended the Conference felt that from now on they want to bring the conditions in Palestine even faster to a happy conclusion than has been done the last few years. We all felt and recognized the great work of sincerity, the tremendous heart-breaking but also heart-warming work which was done by you, the pioncers in the field. It is a good deal easier for us now to review the situation, after the first years have passed, after the English Government has taken a sympathetic attitude, than it was for those people who started years ago with nothing in their hands, and only the ideas in their heads.

“We thank you for what has been done, and we hope that the future will be a joyous, pleasant, satisfactory work. Since that meeting, we have lost no time, We mean to put what we said into operation.

“Just before we left New York we had a meeting of the joint forces, your representatives and the last conference’s representatives. It was a short session, and I say it was short, because it was too easy. I was impudent enough to prophesy at the last meeting that a few hours after we would meet for the same cause, that we would not know who was from one side and who from the other. Just what happened !” Mr. Warburg declared. “We approached complicated problems as if they were easy, and we left each other the most cordial friends, and I feel that there is no difficulty whatsoever in the way. I am not a foolish optimist, there will be some difficulties of one kind or another, but if the Agency comes together in the same spirit as the two little committees have done, there will be just as much joy in this work as there has been in another committee where all kinds and classes were represented, as there were in the joint committee.

“I mentioned the English Government before, and I cannot help, even in the presence of Dr. Weizmann, saying that you cannot have any better representative, any wiser representative, than Dr. Weizmann is to the English Government. The people in England, more than the people in this country even, remember what he has done for the English Government. I had the pleasure of meeting them when I was over there this summer, and they speak of him with a regard that he deserves, but which is unheard of. Anybody who thinks, under the circumstances, that the things which have been achieved, would have been achieved without him, does not know what he is talking about.

“So much about the past. What next? You have to provide this year, I trust for the last time, in an independent campaign the where-with-all to bridge over, until the Agency will begin working full blast. It is a difficult task. It is not as difficult since that conference has taken place, and I feel confident that a good many people who have kept aloof, will join you in the effort which is to be made. If I had the say I would be very happy, if before the Agency is entirely complete — and that is only dependent now on the action of the different groups and the different countries that remain to be consulted — they do not have to be convinced — if I had the say I would like to do more or less the same that we did with regard to the commission — try to study what the problems of Palestine are. While they have shown us very plainly what the problems are, the question is how shall we solve them.

“We want to see progress; we want to show your contributors that we are here to do things and not to talk about them. You will have to do, during this campaign, the very best you can. You have some obligations which have to be fulfilled before you get to the Agency. You cannot fill them all, because you have many colonies too small for the many people on them. You have not been able to provide the implements, etc., for the farmers who need them if they are to make their little farms successful. You have not provided the supplies of santitation. You also have been somewhat remiss in making the payments to the teachers at work over there. We do not want to think that here we are in arrears. We want to enter the Agency with a clear page — in good standing and I hope that when you start out you will start out with a feeling that success is yours, that you have made new friends, and have kept all the old ones. I am quite sure that anybody who ever was in Palestine, in one way or another will not keep aloof.

“There is nothing that I can tell a body as ably managed as yours how things should be done. You know all the ropes. You know how to do it. All I can say is that I come to bring you my greetings. I have no right to talk for any organization, but there are some people who usually play along as I play.

“I hope that success will be yours, and that we will meet in many ways, on many occasions, cooperating successfully, envying the people who have the privilege to be connected with this cause, and always grateful to those who have done the hard work before we started in.” Mr. Warburg concluded.