Dr. Weizmann

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26886, 12 November 1952, Page 8

Dr. Weizmann

Dr. Chaim Weizmann, first president of Israel, was a dreamer who made his dream come true. He has died, it is true, before the State that he did more than anyone else to found has become securely established, but it cannot be doubted that he was among those few leaders who have decisively influenced the fate of nations. He attended every Zionist conference except the first, which he missed because travelling was too slow in 1897, and for half a century he skilfully directed Zionist opinion, sometimes criticised by one extreme and sometimes by the other, but always drawing them together in the common aspiration of a home for the Jews. Y-et his influence in world Jewry was his lesser service to his people. The Balfour Declaration, which brought a home for the Jews within the bounds of possibility, was almost entirely his personal achievement, won by his devotion to the cause of his then adopted country, Britain. His signal contribution to Britain in the First World War was in chemical research by which certain organisms in horse chestnuts were used for the continued manu-

facture of smokeless powder. In the ■ Second World War he was to win 1 the regard of the American Government for a significant part in ■ the success of the synthetic rubber f programme. For these and much s other scientific work of distinction f he desired no honours but help in the cause that was in his heart. To his scientific ability he added great ' diplomatic gifts and the art of • making friends. It is seldom that the birthday of the head of a foreign State is celebrated in London in his 1 absence by such a distinguished company as met on Dr. Weizmann’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1949. Among those who spoke was Lord Samuel, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Jowitt), Mr Eden, and General Smuts, who, although an old man himself, had flown from South Africa specially for the occasion. As a scientist Dr. Weizmann lived a full and a useful life. As a politician he lived an exciting and triumphant one. He saw the birth of an idea, he nourished it with his own vitality, and he lived till it had grown to maturity. As a box he saw the pogroms in his native Russia, in middle age he won for his people the promise of a national home, and in old age he played his part in the fierce struggle which brought a new nation out of the persecutions of Hitlerite Germany. Whatever the future of Israel, Dr. Weizmann’s place in history as the father of his country is certain. And Israel has secured his memory for many generations by planting a forest on the stony Judean hills in his honour. If they have had a sense of the fitting, the foresters have not forgotten a proportion of the horse chestnuts for whose secret Lloyd George was willing to recommend the King to grant any honour Dr. Weizmann might wish. He chose a greater distinction than any one • sovereign could give.