AZR tells what lay behind the tension at the Congress: Nathan Birnbaum (later "another Matityahu") demanded that the Congress appoint him secretary; Herzl insisted that he alone would choose his secretary, "so that there would not be two opposing authorities." And here a personal testimony:
"And from then on resentment rose in Birnbaum's heart; he said to me then bitterly: 'I raised and exalted Herzl, and now this is how he repays me.'" AZR, "From the First Congress to This Day" (Sefer HaKongres, 1922/3), Ben-Yehuda read/50122. Emphasis: words AZR heard personally.
AZR uses the story to teach its main point: the value of national unity, in which "each one willingly accepts the authority of the leadership and nullifies his own will… and there is no room for separatism, even religious."
A second testimony: at the First Congress, Dr. Tsvi Shapira proposed the idea of the Jewish National Fund. One of the finest of the Hovevei Zion mocked it: "even if they ring all the bells, they will collect six or seven thousand rubles a year." And here the exchange, from AZR's mouth:
"I said to him: 'From the ridiculous to the sublime is but a single step,' and to this he answered decisively: from the ridiculous the sublime shall never come. And behold we see that it was precisely the simplicity and the plain popular feeling… that prevailed." Ibid.
Hence the conclusion that is the heart of his Zionist doctrine: unity is not an intellectual idea but a feeling:
"The necessity of national unity cannot be satisfied with intellectual recognition alone, but with a deep emotional feeling… before the deep emotional feeling there are no hesitations; it uproots mountains and settles deserts." Ibid. The essay closes with the concluding line: "Herzl, Trumpeldor, A. D. Gordon, at the head, and after them the whole camp."
In a separate essay (in memory of Pinsker), AZR paints the two fathers of the movement as a contrast: Herzl the Westerner, "his eye… an eagle's eye, and his strides the strides of a giant," but the people did not keep pace with his stride, and this is "the doubled and redoubled tragedy." Pinsker, by contrast, a son of Odessa who knew poverty, walked with the people and not before them:
"Pinsker… did not walk before them, but walked with them, in their very midst, and did not take a coarse stride but was content with little… yet he walked and walked, and the people with him." AZR, "For Pinsker's Day" (Kuntres, Tevet 5682/1922), Ben-Yehuda read/50121.
"Herzl we revere: he was a ruler by supreme grace; and Pinsker we honor: he was a merciful father. From one bowl he ate potatoes with us." Ibid., the essay's conclusion.
The two essays reveal AZR's Zionism: not politics from above but unity born of deep feeling and walking with the people in small steps toward the goal (the Pinsker model). And as historical testimony, AZR conveys from Basel details found nowhere else: Birnbaum's words to him, and the JNF debate he heard.