In all the explanations of anti-Jewish feeling which modern Jewish spokesmen make, these three alleged causes are commonly given -- these three and no more: religious prejudice, economic jealousy, social antipathy. Whether the Jew knows it or not, every Gentile knows that on his side of the Jewish Question no religious prejudice exists. Economic jealousy may exist, at least to this extent, that his uniform success has exposed the Jew to much scrutiny. A few Jewish spokesmen seek to turn this scrutiny by denying that the Jew is pre-eminent in finance, but this is loyalty in extremity. The finances of the world are in control of Jews; their decisions and their devices are themselves our economic law. But because a people excels us in finance is no sufficient reason for calling them to the bar of public judgement. If they are more intellectually able, more persistently industrious than we are, if they are endowed with faculties which have been denied us as an inferior or slower race, that is no reason for our requiring them to give an account of themselves. Economic jealousy may explain some of the anti-Jewish feeling; it cannot account for the presence of the Jewish Question except as the hidden causes of Jewish financial success may become a minor element of the larger problem. And as for social antipathy -- there are many more undesirable Gentiles in the world than there are undesirable Jews, for the simple reason that there are more Gentiles.
None of the Jewish spokesmen today mention the political cause, or if they come within suggestive distance of it, they limit and localize it. It is not a question of the patriotism of the Jew, though this too is very widely questioned in all the countries. You hear it in England, in France, in Germany, in Poland, in Russia, in Rumania -- and, with a shock, you hear it in the United States. Books have been written, reports published and scattered abroad, statistics skillfully set forth for the purpose of showing that the Jew does his part for the country in which he resides; and yet the fact remains that in spite of these most zealous and highly sponsored campaigns, the opposite assertion is stronger and lives longer. The Jews who did their duty in the armies of Liberty, and did it doubtless from true-hearted love and allegiance, have not been able to overcome the impression made upon officers and men and civilians by those who did not.
But that is not what is here meant as the political element in the Jewish Question. To understand why the Jew should think less of the nationalities of the world than do those who comprise them is not difficult. The Jew's history is one of wandering among them all. Considering living individuals only, there is no race of people now upon the planet who have lived in so many places, among so many peoples as have the Jewish masses. They have a clearer world-sense than any other people, because the world has been their path. And they think in world terms more than any nationally cloistered people could. The Jew can be absolved if he does not enter into national loyalties and prejudices with the same intensity as the natives; the Jew has been for centuries a cosmopolitan. While under a flag he may be correct in the conduct required of him as a citizen or resident, inevitably he has a view of flags which can hardly be shared by the man who has known but one flag.
The political element inheres in the fact that the Jews form a nation in the midst of the nations. Some of their spokesmen, particularly in America, deny that, but the genius of the Jew himself has always put these spokesmen's zeal to shame. And why this fact of nationhood should be so strenuously denied is not always clear. It may be that when Israel is brought to see that her mission in the world is not to be achieved by means of the Golden Calf, her very cosmopolitanism with regard to the world and her inescapable nationalistic integrity with regard to herself will together prove a great and serviceable factor in bringing about human unity, which the total Jewish tendency at the present time is doing much to prevent. It is not the fact that the Jews remain a nation in the midst of the nations; it is the use made of that inescapable status, which the world has found reprehensible. The nations have tried to reduce the Jew to unity with themselves; attempts toward the same end have been made by the Jews themselves; but destiny seems to have marked them out to continuous nationhood. Both the Jews and the World will have to accept that fact, find the good prophecy in it, and seek the channels for its fulfillment.
Theodor Herzl, one of the greatest of the Jews, was perhaps the farthest-seeing public exponent of the philosophy of Jewish existence that modern generations have known. And he was never in doubt of the existence of the Jewish nation. Indeed, he proclaimed its existence on every occasion. He said, "We are a people -- One people."
He clearly saw that what he called the Jewish Question was political. In his introduction to "The Jewish State" he says, "I believe that I understand anti-Semitism, which is really a highly complex movement. I consider it from a Jewish standpoint, yet without fear or hatred. I believe that I can see what elements there are in it of vulgar sport, of common trade jealousy, of inherited prejudice, of religious intolerance and also of pretended self-defense. I think the Jewish Question is no more a social than a religious one, notwithstanding that it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question, which can only be solved by making it a political world-question to be discussed and controlled by the civilized nations of the world in council."
Not only did Herzl declare that the Jews formed a nation, but when questioned by Major Evans Gordon before the British Royal Commission on Alien Immigration in August, 1902, Dr. Herzl said: "I will give you my definition of a nation, and you can add the adjective 'Jewish.' A nation is, in my mind, an historical group of men of a recognizable cohesion held together by a common enemy. That is in my view a nation. Then if you add to that the word 'Jewish' you have what I understand to be the Jewish nation."
Also, in relating the action of this Jewish nation to the world, Dr. Herzl wrote -- "When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse."
This view, which appears to be the true view in that it is the view which has been longest sustained in Jewish thought, is brought out also by Lord Eustace Percy, and re-published, apparently with approval, by the Canadian Jewish Chronicle. It will repay a careful reading:
"Liberalism and Nationalism, with a flourish of trumpets, threw open the doors of the ghetto and offered equal citizenship to the Jew. The Jew passed out into the Western World, say the power and the glory of it, used it and enjoyed it, laid his hand indeed upon the nerve centers of its civilization, guided, directed and exploited it, and then -- refused the offer * * * Moreover -- and this is a remarkable thing -- the Europe of nationalism and liberalism, of scientific government and democratic equality is more intolerable to him than the old oppressions and persecutions of despotism * * * In the increasing consolidation of the western nations, it is no longer possible to reckon on complete toleration * * *
"In a world of completely organized territorial sovereignties he (the Jew) has only two possible cities of refuge: he must either pull down the pillars of the whole national state system or he must create a territorial sovereignty of his own. In this perhaps lies the explanation both of Jewish Bolshevism and of Zionism, for at this moment Eastern Jewry seems to hover uncertainly between the two.
"In Eastern Europe Bolshevism and Zionism often seem to grow side by side, just as Jewish influence molded Republican and Socialist thought throughout the nineteenth century, down to the Young Turk revolution in Constantinople hardly more than a decade ago -- not because the Jew cares for the positive side of radical philosophy, not because he desires to be a partaker in Gentile nationalism or Gentile democracy, but because no existing Gentile system of government is ever anything but distasteful to him."
All that is true, and Jewish thinkers of the more fearless type always recognize it as true. The Jew is against the Gentile scheme of things. He is, when he gives his tendencies full sway, a Republican as against the monarchy, a Socialist as against the republic, and a Bolshevist as against Socialism.
What are the causes of this disruptive activity? First, his essential lack of democracy. Jewish nature is autocratic. Democracy is all right for the rest of the world, but the Jew wherever he is found forms an aristocracy of one sort or another. Democracy is merely a tool of a word which Jewish agitators use to raise themselves to the ordinary level in places where they are oppressed below it; but having reached the common level they immediately make efforts for special privileges, as being entitled to them -- a process of which the late Peace Conference will remain the most startling example. The Jews today are the only people whose special and extraordinary privileges are written into the world's Treaty of Peace. But more of that at another time.
No one now pretends to deny, except a few spokesmen who really do not rule the thought of the Jews but are set forth for the sole benefit of influencing Gentile thought, that the socially and economically disruptive elements abroad in the world today are not only manned but also moneyed by Jewish interests. For a long time this fact was held in suspense owing to the vigorous denial of the Jews and the lack of information on the part of those agencies of publicity to which the public had looked for its information. But now the facts are coming forth. Herzl's words are being proved to be true -- "when we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party" -- and these words were first published in English in 1896, or 24 years ago.
Just now these tendencies are working in two directions, one for the tearing down of the Gentile states all over the world, and the other for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. The latter project has the best wishes of the whole world, but it is far from having the best wishes of the whole, or even the larger part, of Jewry. The Zionist party makes a great deal of noise, but it is really an unrepresentative minority. It can scarcely be designated as more than an unusually ambitious colonization scheme. [NOTE 1] It is doubtless serving, however, as a very useful public screen for the carrying on of secret activities. International Jews, the controllers of the world's governmental and financial power, may meet anywhere, at any time, in war time or peace time, and by giving out that they are only considering the ways and means of opening up Palestine to the Jews, they easily escape the suspicion of being together on any other business. The Allies and enemies of the Gentile nations at war thus met and were not molested. It was at a Zionist conference -- the sixth, held in 1903 -- that the recent war was exactly predicted, its progress and outcome indicated, and the relation of the Jews to the Peace Treaty outlined.
That is to say, though Jewish nationalism exists, its enshrinement in a state to be set up in Palestine is not the project that is engaging the whole Jewish nation now. The Jews will not move to Palestine just yet; it may be said that they will not move at all merely because of the Zionist movement. Quite another motive will be the cause of the exodus out of the Gentile nations, when the time for that exodus fully comes.
As Donald A. Cameron, late British Consul-General at Alexandria, a man fully in sympathy with Zionism and much quoted in the Jewish press, says: "The Jewish immigrants (into Palestine) will tire of taking in one another's washing at three per cent, of winning one another's money in the family, and their sons will hasten by train and steamer to win 10 per cent in Egypt * * * The Jew by himself in Palestine will eat his head off; he will kick his stable to pieces." Undoubtedly the time for the exodus -- at least the motive for the exodus -- is not yet here.
The political aspect of the Jewish Question which is now engaging at least three of the great nations -- France, Great Britain and the United States -- has to do with matters of the present organization of the Jewish nation. Must it wait until it reaches Palestine to have a State, or is it an organized State now? Does Jewry know what it is doing? Has it a "foreign policy" with regard to the Gentiles? Has it a department which is executing that foreign policy? Has this Jewish State, visible or invisible, if it exists, a head? Has it a Council of State? And if any of these things is so, who is aware of it?
The first impulsive answer of the Gentile mind would be "No" to all these questions -- it is a Gentile habit to answer impulsively. Never having been trained in secrets or invisible unity, the Gentile immediately concludes that such things cannot be, if for no other reason than that they have not crossed his path and advertised themselves.
The questions, however, answered thus, require some explanation of the circumstances which are visible to all men. If there is no deliberate combination of Jews in the world, then the control which they have achieved and the uniformity of the policies which they follow must be the simple result, not of deliberate decisions, but of a similar nature in all of them working out the same way. Thus, we might say that as a love for adventure on the water drove the Britisher forth, so it made him the world's greatest colonist. Not that he deliberately sat down with himself and in formal manner resolved that he would become a colonizer, but the natural outworking of his genius resulted that way. But would this be a sufficient account of the British Empire?
Doubtless the Jews have the genius to do, wherever they go, the things in which we see them excel. But does this account for the relations which exist between the Jews of every country, for their world councils, for their amazing foreknowledge of stupendous events which break with shattering surprise on the rest of the world, for the smoothness and preparedness with which they appear, at a given time in Paris, with a world program on which they all agree?
The world has long suspected -- at first only a few, then the secret departments of the governments, next the intellectuals among the people, now more and more the common people themselves -- that not only are the Jews a nation distinct from all the other nations and mysteriously unable to sink their nationality by any means they or the world may adopt to this end, but that they also constitute a state; that they are nationally conscious, not only, but consciously united for a common defense and for a common purpose. Revert to Theodor Herzl's definition of the Jewish nation, as held together by a common enemy, and then reflect that this common enemy is the Gentile world. Does this people which knows itself to be a nation remain loosely unorganized in the face of that fact? It would hardly be like Jewish astuteness in other fields. When you see how closely the Jews are united by various organizations in the United States, and when you see how with practiced hand they bring those organizations to bear as if with tried confidence in their pressure, it is at least not inconceivable that what can be done within a country can be done, or has been done, between all the countries where the Jews live.
At any rate, in the American Hebrew of June 25, 1920, Herman Bernstein writes thus: "About a year ago a representative of the Department of Justice submitted to me a copy of the manuscript of 'The Jewish Peril' by Professor Nilus, and asked for my opinion of the work. He said that the manuscript was a translation of a Russian book published in 1905 which was later suppressed. The manuscript was supposed to contain 'protocols' of the Wise Men of Zion and was supposed to have been read by Dr. Herzl at a secret conference of the Zionist Congress at Basle. He expressed the opinion that the work was probably that of Dr. Theodor Herzl. . . . . He said that some American Senators who had seen the manuscript were amazed to find that so many years ago a scheme had been elaborated by the Jews which is now being carried out, and that Bolshevism had been planned years ago by Jews who sought to destroy the world."
This quotation is made merely to put on record the fact that it was a representative of the Department of Justice of the United States Government, who introduced this document to Mr. Bernstein, and expressed a certain opinion upon it, namely, "that the work was probably that of Theodor Herzl." Also that "some American Senators" were amazed to note the comparison between what a publication of the year 1905 proposed and what the year 1920 revealed.
The incident is all the more preoccupying because it occurred by action of the representative of a government who today is very largely in the hands of, or under the influence of, Jewish interests. It is more than probable that as soon as the activity became known, the investigator was stopped. But it is equally probable that whatever orders may have been given and apparently obeyed, the investigation may not have stopped.
The United States Government was a little late in the matter, however. At least four other world powers had preceded it, some by many years. A copy of the Protocols were deposited in the British Museum and bears on it the stamp of that institution, "August 10, 1906." The notes themselves probably date from 1896, or the year of the utterances previously quoted from Dr. Herzl. The first Zionist Congress convened in 1897.
The document was published in England recently under auspices that challenged attention for it, in spite of the unfortunate title under which it appeared. Eyre and Spottiswoode are the appointed printers to the British Government, and it was they who brought out the pamphlet. It was as if the Government Printing Office at Washington should issue them in this country. While there was the usual outcry by the Jewish press, the London Times in a review pronounced all the Jewish counter-attacks as "unsatisfactory."
The Times noticed what will probably be the case in this country also that the Jewish defenders leave the text of the protocols alone, while they lay heavy emphasis on the fact of their anonymity. When they refer to the substance of the document at all there is one form of words which recurs very often -- "it is the work of a criminal or a madman."
The protocols, without name attached, appearing for the most part in manuscripts here and there, laboriously copied out from hand to hand, being sponsored by no authority that was willing to stand behind it, assiduously studied in the secret departments of the governments and passed from one to another among higher officials, have lived on and on, increasing in power and prestige by the sheer force of their contents. A marvelous achievement for either a criminal or a madman! The only evidence it has is that which it carries within it, and that internal evidence is, as the London Times points out, the point on which attention is to be focused. and the very point from which Jewish effort has been expended to draw us away.
The interest of the Protocols at this time is their bearing on the questions: Have the Jews an organized world system? What is its policy? How is it being worked?
These questions all receive full attention in the Protocols. Whosoever was the mind that conceived them possessed a knowledge of human nature, of history and of statecraft which is dazzling in its brilliant completeness, and terrible in the objects to which it turns its powers. Neither a madman nor an intentional criminal, but more likely a super-mind mastered by devotion to a people and a faith could be the author, if indeed one mind alone conceived them. It is too terribly real for fiction, too well-sustained for speculation, too deep in its knowledge of the secret springs of life for forgery.
Jewish attacks upon it thus far make much of the fact that it came out of Russia. That is hardly true. It came by way of Russia. It was incorporated in a Russian book published about 1905 by a Professor Nilus, who attempted to interpret the Protocols by events then going forward in Russia. This publication and interpretation gave it a Russian tinge which has been useful to Jewish propagandists in this country and England, because these same propagandists have been very successful in establishing in Anglo-Saxon mentalities a certain atmosphere of thought surrounding the idea of Russia and Russians. One of the biggest humbugs ever foisted on the world has been foisted by Jewish propagandists, principally on the American public, with regard to the temper and genius of the truly Russian people. So, to intimate that the Protocols are Russian, is partially to discredit them.
The internal evidence makes it clear that the Protocols were not written by a Russian, nor originally in the Russian language, nor under the influence of Russian conditions. But they found their way to Russia and were first published there. They have been found by diplomatic officers in manuscript in all parts of the world. Wherever Jewish power is able to do so, it has suppressed them, sometimes under the supreme penalty.
Their persistence is a fact which challenges the mind. Jewish apologists may explain that persistence on the ground that the Protocols feed the anti-Semitic temper, and therefore are preserved for that service. Certainly there was no wide nor deep anti-Semitic temper in the United States to be fed or that felt the greed for agreeable lies to keep itself alive. The progress of the Protocols in the United States can only be explained on the ground that they supply light and give meaning to certain previously observed facts, and that this light and meaning is so startling as to give a certain standing and importance to these otherwise unaccredited documents. Sheer lies do not live long, their power soon dies. These Protocols are more alive than ever. They have penetrated higher places than ever before. They have compelled a more serious attitude to them than ever before.
The Protocols would not be more worthy of study if they bore, say, the name of Theodor Herzl. Their anonymity does not decrease their power any more than the omission of a painter's signature detracts from the art value of a painting. Indeed, the Protocols are better without a known source. For if it were definitely known that in France or Switzerland in the year 1896, or thereabouts, a group of International Jews, assembled in conference, drew up a program of world conquest it would still have to be shown that such a program was more than a mere vagary, that it was confirmed at large by efforts to fulfill it. The Protocols are a World Program -- there is no doubt anywhere of that. Whose program, is stated within the articles themselves. But as for outer confirmation, which would be the more valuable -- a signature, or six signatures, or twenty signatures, or a 25-year unbroken line of effort fulfilling that program?
The point of interest for this and other countries is not that a "criminal or a madman" conceived such a program, but that, when conceived, this program found means of getting itself fulfilled in its most important particulars. The document is comparatively unimportant; the conditions to which it calls attention are of a very high degree of importance.
NOTE 1: The statements indicated are those of non-Zionist Jews. The real Jewish program is that program which is executed. It was the Zionist program that was followed by the Peace Conference. It must therefore be regarded as the official program.
[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 10 July 1920]