Die Welt

Appears every Friday.

Editorial Office and Administration: VIENNA, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Telephone 14199.

Communications are to be addressed not to individual persons, but to the Editorial Office or the Administration: Vienna, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Unstamped letters are not accepted, and manuscripts are not returned. Office hours of the Editorial Office: Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 3 to 4 o'clock.

Advertisement rates: the four-column brevier line, 20 Heller. The advertisement section closes Tuesday evening. Single numbers 30 Heller.

Subscription rates: Austria-Hungary: 12 Kronen for the whole year, 6 Kronen for the half-year. For abroad: Germany 13 Mk. 70 Pf. for the whole year, 6 Mk. 85 Pf. for the half-year; England 14 Shg. for the whole year, 7 Shg. for the half-year; Russia 7 R. for the whole year, 3 R. 50 Kop. for the half-year; Switzerland, France, Italy, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Egypt 17 Frcs. for the whole year, 8 Frcs. 50 Cts. for the half-year; America 3 Doll. 40 Ct. for the whole year.

No. 4. | Vienna, 25 January 1901. | Fifth Year

We are in the gratifying position of being able to inform our esteemed readers that the well-known writer Sch. Rosenfeld has entered the editorial staff of our Jargon paper.

As an excellent means of agitation we send out the remaining stock of old numbers gratis against the mere prepayment of the postage of 72 Heller for a 5-kilo parcel, about 100 numbers, to Austria and Germany; 50 Kopecks for 5 Russian pounds, about 60 numbers, to Russia.

The Press and Agitation.

The importance of our press for our movement is so plain, so self-evident, that for once a few words really must be said about it. For that is precisely the curious thing about matters of course of this kind: that at bottom one bestows far less attention upon them than upon other things whose necessity or importance must first be laboriously demonstrated.

We do not therefore mean to repeat old commonplaces. We wish merely to take up the fact that the so-called "party press" constitutes the best and most vigorous means of agitation for every movement. The Zionist who has at any time been active in agitation or in organisation knows that in the long run one cannot make shift with the spoken word, quite apart from the fact that the present extension of our movement already makes extraordinary demands upon a whole army of speakers. Advantageous as it is to open the agitation by meetings and speeches, it is equally indispensable, once it has been opened, to carry it on by the dissemination of Zionist writings, above all of our journalistic organs. This follows from inward grounds alone: it is certain that a good speech kindles enthusiasm more quickly than a good article or a good book. The good speaker — we mean the man who understands how to deliver truths well — has much over the best writer: the suggestive power of the voice, of the gesture, of the temperament, and above all the shortness of the time, which makes it hard for more critical minds to doubt long or overmuch, while susceptible hearers simply let themselves be carried along by the speaker. But if the speaker works more quickly than the writer, the effect of the written word is in return the more lasting and the more firm. From this it follows that the best agitation — that is to say, the agitation which would win new adherents quickly, but would also hold them permanently — must employ both means of agitation, speech and writing, in equal measure.

To the extraordinary progress and the extension of the Zionist movement there corresponds the abundance of new Zionist literature which the last few years have brought us. But if the writers have thus met the needs of the propaganda, our fellow-adherents are still far from having made corresponding use of the material of agitation placed at their disposal. Of the most purposeful employment and the most practical manner of distributing our books and writings we shall speak another time.

To-day we will confine ourselves to the Zionist press, which of course constitutes the best among the journalistic means of agitation.

The number of Zionist papers has increased extraordinarily, certainly only in proportion to the needs of the Jews in the several countries. All these papers have been founded with the most disinterested intention and make great demands upon the readiness for sacrifice of their publishers and editors. But to the worth and the importance of our papers and to the diligence of their conductors there does not correspond, on the side of our fellow-adherents, a corresponding zeal for the spread of the press. That means not only an injury to our papers; it means above all a hampering of the agitation, which often, in spite of an exemplary propagandist activity in public functions, meetings and so forth, "unaccountably" fails to bear such fruit as had been expected. The reason: the Zionist papers are too little circulated. And there is a third point besides, again something self-evident: the papers become the more efficient, and can develop themselves the more, inwardly and outwardly, the more readers they have and the more extended their sphere of action is — which of course in turn redounds indirectly to the benefit of the agitation.