Over 2,500 visitors’ cards have been sold for tonight’s opening session of the 17th Zionist Congress. More than 230 journalists representing the world’s leading news agencies and papers, in addition to nearly 300 delegates are here for the Congress. The guests include student groups from various countries as well as a number of uniformed Zionist workers, members of the Palestine Sports Union who came to the Congress on bicycles. The uniformed members of the Brith Trumpeldor, the Revisionist youth organization, are also prominent.
At 5 P. M. all caucuses and conferences were interrupted to clear the immense Mustermesse Hall for the opening, while the delegates and visitors returned to their hotels to dress in evening clothes. Dr. Chaim Weizmann and his wife are staying at a hotel at Rheinfelden, half an hour distant from Basle. Nahum Sokolow and his daughter are at the Dreikoenige Hotel, the hostelry frequented by the late Theodor Herzl, and one that is replete with the earliest Zionist traditions. Vladimir Jabotinsky and Dr. Stephen S. Wise are at the same modest hotel, the Krafft am Rhein.
CANADIANS HOPE FOR SEATS
The Canadian delegation, barred by the credentials committee because of a Revisionist protest, hope to be seated, although they may yield one place to the Revisionists. On the other hand, the Congress Court has annulled the credential of Dr. Max Soloweitchik, leading Radical from Berlin. In his place Dr. Alfred Landesberg, former president of the German Zionist Federation, and a prominent General Zionist, was recognized.
The chances for a complete union of the General Zionists were weakened this afternoon when Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation, Dr. Landesberg and others walked out of a conference in protest against Dr. Stephen S. Wise’s heated attack on the Juedische Rundschau, German Zionist organ, for its alleged Brith Sholom tendencies. It is not yet clear who will lead the Revisionist attack on Dr. Weizmann, as Jabotinsky is understood to prefer to wait until Dr. Weizmann has spoken before deciding who will be the Revisionist spokesman.
The united Labor bloc has been in almost continuous session to determine its stand on the Weizmann issue. A majority of this bloc are unalterably for Weizmann and his policy and wish an Executive based on a broad coalition of all parties except the Revisionists, although S. Kaplansky, one of the Laborite leaders, strongly attacked Dr. Weizmann’s regime.
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