The first act of the Congress was the adoption of a resolution of thanks to the Sultan of Turkey. Then Herzl rose and walked over to the pulpit. It was no longer the elegant Dr. Herzl of Vienna, it was no longer the easy-going literary man, the critic, the feuilletonist. As one reporter said: "It was a scion of the House of David, risen from among the dead, clothed in legend and fantasy and beauty." The first words uttered by Herzl were: "We are here to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation." "We Zionists," he stressed, "seek for the solution of the Jewish question, not an international society, but an international discussion.... We have nothing to do with conspiracy, secret intervention or indirect methods. We wish to place the question under the control of free public opinion." His First Congress address contained the ideas which he had already expressed in previous speeches and articles, but there was a great difference between the views in "The Jewish State" and the address delivered at the first session of the Zionist Congress. The latter is the carefully considered public statement of one who knew he represented tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of followers. His words were not those of a seer, but of a statesman. Almost as profound was the effect produced. It was at this Congress that the Basle Program was adopted.... "Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured home (or homeland) in Palestine." The second important task of the First Congress was the creation of an organization. The Congress was declared to be "the chief organ of the Zionist movement." The basis of electoral right was to be the payment of a shekel, which at that time was equivalent to twenty-five cents. There was to be an Executive Committee with its permanent seat in Vienna. Everything which was to unfold later in Zionism, both in the way of affirmative forces and inner contradictions, was already visible or latent in the first Congress. There was discussion of a bank, of a land redemption fund to be called The National Fund, the creation of a Hebrew University, and the clashes between practical and political Zionism. On his return to Vienna, Herzl made the following entry in his diary: "If I were to sum up the Basle Congress in a single phrase I would say: In Basle I created the Jewish State. Were I to say this aloud I would be greeted by universal laughter. But perhaps five years hence, in any case, certainly fifty years hence, everyone will perceive it. The state exists as essence in the will-to-the-state of a people, yes, even in that will in a single powerful person.... The territory is only the concrete basis, and the state itself, with a territory beneath it, is still in the nature of an abstract thing ... In Basle I created the abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the great majority."