San Antonio Light · San Antonio, Texas · 10 October 1920

CP-1920-004

Palestine’s Regeneration a Great Success

American engineer, returning after a visit, says the plan of the Zionists is working out, with American Jews taking the leadership and working out the problems

Edward Marshall, interviewing the engineer H. T. Cory

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Transcribed from the clipping

“Thus in Palestine mankind really has a better natural opportunity than is found in the best of the wonderful American Pacific coast, but there is some lack of merit in the human material at hand. The problem is terrific, largely because of the deeply-rooted antipathies existing between the various inhabitant races.

It seems to me that the task is far less that of getting the Hebrews into Palestine (they are coming so fast that the trouble seems to be to keep them out) than of getting Palestine fully and efficiently ready for their coming.”

Life in the New Palestine. “Not all was profound peace during my stay in Jerusalem. Sir Herbert Samuel, the new British governor general, arrived while I was there and troops lined both sides of the way from the railroad station to the palace. The night before five men had been arrested because they had sworn to kill him before he took office.

Before I left Jerusalem the Bedouins came up on the west side of the Dead Sea district and attacked Jericho. But these same Arabs were courteous enough to our Zionist party en route to Jaffa.”… “It is interesting to note that the American Jew is taking a large part in Palestine.

He is better developed than his blood-brother from elsewhere and is showing his superiority.”

It Is a Big Problem. “I was very much impressed by many of the things the Zionists are accomplishing, but I also was impressed by the magnitude of the problems they must meet.

Certainly, however, the Arab has no more chance if the Jew stays and keeps up his drive than the negro has to submerge the white man in America.”… “So here, in the scene of Christ’s travels, we see active, energetic and progressive life suddenly renewed. I am not at all doubtful about the permanence of the effort. I am not pessimistic.”

Context added by this archive

H. T. Cory is an American engineer home from the Nile Projects Commission, and the paper is careful to say he is “not a Jew” and speaks of Palestine “as an interested visitor.” He went, he says, at Justice Brandeis’s invitation.

Asked what becomes of the people already there, he answers with an analogy to Black Americans and does not treat the outcome as in doubt.

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• Criticizes Zionists' MethodsThe American Israelite · 26 February 1920
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