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Title: The Jew and American Ideals

Author: John Spargo

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Language: English

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THE JEW AND AMERICAN IDEALS

Books by
JOHN SPARGO

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[Established 1817]

THE JEW

AND

AMERICAN IDEALS

BY

JOHN SPARGO

Author of

"Bolshevism" "The Psychology of Bolshevism"
"Russia as an American Problem" "The
Greatest Failure in All History" "Social
Democracy Explained" Etc.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Jew and American Ideals
Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

This little book was written without the knowledge of any Jew. It is not a defense of the Jew. It is not a pro-Jewish argument. It is a defense of American ideals and institutions against anti-Semitism; a plea for Christian civilization.

John Spargo.

"Nestledown,"
Old Bennington, Vermont.
January, 1921.

THE JEW AND AMERICAN IDEALS

THE JEW AND AMERICAN IDEALS

I

A PACIFIST TURNED ANTI-SEMITE

About five years ago I was honored by an invitation to join with a well-known American capitalist and certain other men and women in an attempt to bring about the termination of the great World War. The manufacturer in question believed that it was possible to "get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas," and to that end organized an expedition which is now remembered chiefly for the bellicosity and belligerency of many of the "pacifists" who journeyed to Europe upon the "Peace Ship."

[2]In declining the invitation to associate myself with this expedition, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to explain that, while I doubted the wisdom of the undertaking and felt that it might do harm instead of good, I honored the noble and unselfish motives by which Mr. Ford was inspired. His hatred of war and blood-shed, and his desire to promote peace and good will among all peoples and races, seemed to me to be both profound and sincere and evoked my heartfelt admiration and sympathy. The more I doubted his political judgment—believing that he was being used as a dupe and tool in a very dangerous intrigue—the more willing I was to acknowledge those qualities of mind and heart which distinguished the famous manufacturer, and which the authors of the intrigue sought to exploit and use for sinister ends. On many occasions I have given public expression to my belief in Mr. Ford's sincere and unselfish idealism.

If any justification is required for my [3]now associating the name of Henry Ford with a matter of grave international political importance, I venture to suggest that it can be found in the pre-eminent position which he occupies in one of the great branches of modern industry and in the fact that as recently as two years ago he aspired to a seat in the United States Senate, being nominated for that position by the Democratic party in the great state of Michigan. Upon both counts views expressed by Mr. Ford upon international questions which may involve great and serious national or racial conflicts become the subject of legitimate public interest, and when in furtherance of such views he associates himself with an active policy which deals with one of the most difficult and dangerous problems confronting civilized mankind, his views and his acts assume public importance and invite and compel attention and discussion. Therefore, believing as I do that Mr. Ford is primarily responsible for a propaganda which is subversive of the best [4]traditions and institutions of this Republic, and which has everywhere and at all times resulted in shameful crimes against humanity, and in resistance to every progressive and humane movement, I feel that it is my right and duty to utter my solemn remonstrance and protest.

I have just returned from a tour through several of the European countries most seriously involved in the late war. On the one hand, I was deeply and gratefully impressed while in Europe with the manner in which some of the intensest hatreds engendered by the war appear to be dying out. On the other hand, I was deeply and painfully impressed by the fact that, in country after country, racial hatreds older than any nation in the world were being deliberately and systematically revived and intensified, threatening brutal and ugly crimes against humanity exceeding in horror the worst and most inhuman violence of the Great War which so nearly achieved the ruin of civilization. In Germany, for example, I [5]found no hatred of America, notwithstanding the fact that alone among the nations lately fighting against her we were still technically at war with her. On the contrary, there was manifest an almost universal desire for the restoration of friendship between the two countries. In Belgium I saw hundreds of little German children being fed by Belgian agencies, proving that hate was being dissolved by compassion. Even in France the fierce hatred of Germany was obviously dying.

So much for the bright side of the European situation as I saw it. Unfortunately, to complete the picture, it is necessary to acknowledge the numerous evidences of a widespread revival of one of the most despicable, brutal, and dangerous forms of racial hatred and antagonism known to mankind—anti-Semitism. Even in England, long hitherto so free from Jew-baiting, the land in which the Jew Disraeli became Prime Minister, I found an extensive, active, and skillfully organized [6]campaign directed against Jews, as Jews. It was and is a campaign differing hardly at all from similar campaigns against the Jews in Russia under tsarism, in Rumania, in Poland, and, to a less extent, in Germany under the Hohenzollern. Unless this propaganda is checked, unless the intelligence and the conscience of England can be marshaled against it, England will take the place of the Russia of the Romanovs as the land of pogroms, and infamies like the horrible pogroms of Kishinev may occur in British cities.

I found in England great nation-wide organizations, obviously financed, devoted to the sinister purpose of creating anti-Jewish feeling and sentiment. I found special articles in influential newspapers devoted to the same evil purpose. I found at least one journal, obviously well financed again, exclusively devoted to the fostering of suspicion, fear, and hatred against the Jew. Nothing that the Black Hundreds of Russia under the tsars said of the Jews, [7]in order to inflame the ignorant masses and inspire them to savage attacks upon the Jewish population, could have been worse than much of this propaganda. It appealed to every passion, charged the Jews as a race with every crime calculated to rouse the frenzied anger of the non-Jewish population. And in the bookstores I discovered a whole library of books devoted to the same end. One of the greatest living statesmen of England, who is not a Jew, told me that in his judgment this systematically propagated anti-Semitism is likely to bring greater difficulty and shame to England than the Irish question, even.

And now, returning to the United States, I find America confronted by the same peril and shame. Here, too, I find anti-Jewish meetings being held. To my great astonishment and regret, I find that the personal influence and the vast fortune of the erstwhile pacifist-philanthropist are apparently enlisted in the same cruel and vicious propaganda. The Dearborn Independent, [8]which is the personal organ of Mr. Henry Ford, maintained for the promulgation of his personal political and sociological views, has been devoting a large amount of its space to the creation of anti-Jewish feeling and sentiment. One of the first pieces of accumulated mail to claim my attention on my return was a pamphlet, sent to me by some unknown correspondent, obviously a Jew hater in view of the coarse and brutal comments written upon the margins. This pamphlet contains a reprint of nine articles which originally appeared in the Dearborn Independent. It is, therefore, apparently impossible for Mr. Ford to disclaim personal and direct responsibility for the contents of the pamphlet. If I am wrong in any of these particulars I shall be very glad to be corrected and to apologize for the error. To find any American engaged in such a propaganda seems to me such a pity and such an outrage against our national ideals that I should welcome proof that my information and inferences are all wrong [9]and unfounded so far as Mr. Ford is concerned.

In this discussion of the anti-Semitic propaganda, and of the share of the Dearborn Independent in that propaganda, I have not the slightest intention of attacking Mr. Ford personally. While I find myself deeply interested in the psychology of the transformation of an extremely idealistic pacifist into an aggressive propagandist of race hatred, with that I am not here and now concerned.

IIToC

THE ALLEGED "GREAT JEWISH CONSPIRACY"

Just as in the case of the British anti-Semitic press, the Jew-baiting campaign in the Dearborn Independent and other newspapers makes much of the so-called "protocols" of the Wise Men of Zion, first published in Russia in 1905, but lately translated into English and published in England and the United States. In a sense it is not my business to expose the dubious origin and history of these documents. That is a Jewish task, to which various Jewish scholars have devoted their attention. In the London Spectator Mr. Lucien Wolff has performed it with distinction. I am not a Jew, racially or otherwise, and can lay no claim to any special ability or knowledge which would impose such a task upon me. [11]There are, however, some things which must be said concerning the above-mentioned protocols, things which do not require specialized scholarship, and which even the non-Jew can say with confidence.

These protocols are offered as evidence of the existence of a world-wide conspiracy far more serious and extensive than anything else of the kind recorded in history. By comparison, the greatest conspiracy hitherto revealed seems like a kindergarten game. It is charged, and these documents are submitted as evidence in support of the charge, that there, exists, and has existed for centuries, a Jewish imperialistic program; that Jews in all lands have been and are united in a highly organized and subtly directed secret movement to bring about the overthrow of all non-Jewish governments, to substitute therefor a Jewish world government, to obliterate all national boundaries, and to destroy all religions other than Judaism. This, it is alleged, is the concrete form in which the Jews [12]visualize their destiny as the Chosen People. In order to attain this grandiose ideal, every means to weaken the non-Jewish elements and institutions in civilization is encouraged by the invisible Jewish government, the leaders of this vast conspiracy.

If we are to place credence in these documents, the principal agency through which the Jewish conspirators have worked is Freemasonry. The Masonic orders throughout the world have been the blind dupes and tools of this superimperialism of the Jews, if the statements made in these protocols are true. Indeed, there can hardly be any question at all that if the truth of these documents can be established, there is, to say the least, quite as much reason for suppressing Masonic lodges, and making them illegal, as there is for suppressing Bolshevist or other conspiratory organizations. I should just as little expect to find sympathy for Bolshevism in a Masonic lodge as in the College of Cardinals, or in the Union League Club, let us say. When we enter into the [13]mysteries of this "Jewish conspiracy" we encounter many surprises.

According to the statements made in these protocols, practically all the revolutionary movements of modern times have been instigated and directed by Jews. They have caused the assassination of rulers and heads of states, so that behind the murderous fanaticism of individuals there has generally been the cold calculation of the most cunning and unscrupulous intellects of the human race. According to the same evidence, the wars which have drenched the world with blood and rent it with passion, including racial wars in Asia and Africa, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Russo-Japanese War, and the recent World War, were all brought about deliberately by Jewish cunning, for the purpose of weakening the fabric of non-Jewish states and providing the Jews with new sources of strength and power to be used to establish their universal dominion.

All this is terrible enough. But there is [14]even worse to follow. We must remember that these documents were first published in Russia in 1905, and they purport to be the procès-verbaux of a conference held eight or nine years prior to that time. It is rather startling, therefore, to find outlined therein a program of revolutionary action, to be initiated in Russia and developed throughout the civilized world, remarkably like the Bolshevist program, not merely in the precise measures contained in the program, but also, and especially, in the general conception of policy underlying it. We find in this alleged Jewish program the same negation of all the accepted principles of law and honor and morality that the Bolshevist policy has so conspicuously manifested. It is brazenly stated that bribery, deceit, and treachery are to be used (Protocol I). A vast army of spies and secret agents abundantly supplied with funds is to be relied on to promote revolt and dissension in all the principal countries (Protocol 2). "Ferments, discords, and hostility" are to be [15]deliberately created and fostered throughout Europe and, through the international relations of the European countries, to the other continents also (Protocol 7). Efforts are to be made to compromise the honor and besmirch the reputations of the most influential statesmen and to use blackmail in order to make these statesmen serve the purposes of the conspirators (Protocol 10). Revolutionary movements, anarchistic, communistic, and socialistic, are to be fostered for the purpose of destroying non-Jewish civilization (Protocol 3). In the event of unfavorable action by any power or group of powers, it is to be met by resistance in the form of universal war (Protocol 7). Disorganization of the economic life of the world through the debasement and ruin of the credit and currency systems, of the principal nations, and the creation of "a universal economic crisis" are also to be used to the same end (Protocol 3).

I have briefly summarized only a few of the more important items in this monstrous [16]program. There is more of the same general type of fiendishness. Concerning the character of the program itself, there can be no difference of opinion between honest Americans. It is as diabolical as it is fantastic. What importance we ought to attach to it, however, must necessarily depend upon our judgment concerning its origin. If these protocols, and the program contained in them, are to be seriously accepted for what they pretend to be—namely, a deliberate statement of the purposes and aims of the leaders of the Jewish people throughout the world, with practically the entire Jewish race behind them—then the matter assumes enormous importance. If, on the other hand, there is no substantial evidence of this—and such evidence as is available indicates that the protocols are the product of a single diseased and depraved mind—the documents cease to possess any great significance and the terrible injustice and frightfully dangerous consequences of charging them against the Jewish people are obvious. [17]We must, therefore, pay critical attention to the origin of the protocols and the circumstances surrounding their publication, as well as to any internal evidences of their genuineness or otherwise.

IIIToC

THE MYSTERY OF THE PROTOCOLS

First of all, then, what do we actually know about the origin of these protocols? In the year 1903 a book was published at Solotarevo in Russia, entitled The Great in Little. The reputed author of the book was one Prof. Sergei Nilus, concerning whom we have no absolutely reliable information. Author of a book which has made an enormous sensation in many lands and become the subject of furious controversy, he is quite unknown. No responsible person in or out of Russia has ever positively identified Nilus, so far as I have been able to discover. From what he says of himself it is practically certain that he was in the service of the infamous Secret Police Agency of the late Tsar Nicholas II. For reasons [19]which will presently appear, I am disposed to believe that the very un-Russian name Nilus is really a pseudonym.

In a second edition of his book, published in 1905, Nilus gives a brief autobiographical account of himself. He says that he was born in 1862 of Russian parents who held liberal opinions, and that his family was well known in Moscow, its members being educated people who were firm in their allegiance to the Tsar and the Greek Church. This is hardly what a Russian of the period would describe as holding "liberal opinions," but let that pass. Nilus claims to have been graduated from Moscow University and to have held a number of civil-service posts, all of them, so far as his specifications go, connected with the police and judicial systems. He went to the government of Orel, where he became a landowner and a sort of petty noble. He entered the Troitsky-Sergevsky Monastery, near Moscow, or so he says. Although numerous efforts have been made [20]in Russia to find this Sergei Nilus, none has succeeded.

It is true that a number of persons have testified to the existence of Sergei Nilus, but in each case a different person has been referred to, though Nilus is not a Russian name or commonly found in Russia. The present writer learned of two men, father and son, each bearing this very unusual name. First information led to the belief that at last the mysterious author had been discovered. The father was of about the right age and was said to be a writer interested in religious subjects. Further inquiry elicited the information that this man had died in 1910, whereas the Nilus we are interested in was alive as late as 1917. Greatly enlarged editions of his work, with new personal matter added, appeared in 1911 and 1917. Obviously, therefore, the man who died in 1910 was not our author. The anonymous editor of an edition of the protocols issued in New York toward the end of 1920 says that "a returning traveler [21]from Siberia in August, 1919, was positive that Nilus was in Irkutsk in June of that year." No clew is given to the identity of the editor who makes this statement. And here let me remark in passing that it is a remarkable fact that all the editors of the numerous editions of the protocols, both here and abroad, are very shy persons and hide under the mask of anonymity. Nor is any clew given to the identity of the traveler from Siberia. Another report, also by a traveler returned from Siberia, who may possibly be the same person, makes it appear that the Nilus who was at Irkutsk is the son of the man who died in 1910, and is himself too young to fit the autobiographical sketch of the man born in 1862. I can only add to the foregoing, which represents all that I have been able to find out about Nilus, that there was an edition of the protocols published in Kishinev in 1906, the name of the author of the book in which they appeared being given as Butmi de Katzman.

[22]Now with respect to the protocols. No reference to these documents appeared in the first edition of the book in 1903. If the reader will kindly bear this fact in mind it will help to an understanding of what follows. A second edition of the book, greatly enlarged, appeared at Tsarskoye-Selo, near Moscow, in 1905, the added matter being given the title, "Antichrist a Near Political Possibility." This additional matter consisted of (1) an introduction written by Nilus himself, (2) twenty-four documents purporting to be disconnected portions of the report of a secret conclave of an organization of Jews called the Elders of Zion, and (3) some commentaries thereon by Nilus. Now, it is very significant that Nilus himself has given different accounts of the history of these documents—accounts which differ so radically that they cannot be reconciled.

Let us examine these various accounts very briefly. In the introduction to the edition of 1905 Nilus tells us that in 1901 [23]he came into possession of the alleged protocols. He says that at the close of a series of secret meetings of influential leaders of this conspiracy, held under Masonic auspices, a woman stole from "one of the most influential and most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry" certain documents which turned out to be disconnected portions of the procès-verbaux of lectures or reports made at the aforesaid meetings of the Elders of Zion. He says that the protocols were "signed by representatives of Zion of the Thirty-third Degree," but he does not give the names of such signatories. This is of itself a suspicious circumstance, but a close reading of the text reveals that it is only one of several equally suspicious facts. Nilus does not claim to have seen the actual stolen documents, the original protocols. On the contrary, he tells us that what he received in 1901 was a document which he was assured was an accurate translation of the stolen documents. His own words are: "This document came into my possession [24]some four years ago (1901) with the positive assurance that it is a true copy in translation of original documents stolen by a woman from one of the most influential and the most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry." Nilus has not seen the original manuscript, nor has any other known person. We have only the word of Professor Nilus that somebody gave him assurance that certain manuscripts were true and accurate translations of stolen documents of great international importance. So far as Nilus himself knew, or cared, apparently, the manuscript given, to him might well have been a forgery.

We do not even know the date of the alleged secret meetings of the Elders of Zion at which the lectures or reports, or whatever they were, recorded in these protocols were made and, presumably, considered. We do not know the name of the "most influential and most highly initiated" leader of Freemasonry from whom the documents were said to have been stolen. [25]Neither do we know the name of the thief. We do not know the name of the author of the alleged protocols, though obviously it would make all the difference in the world whether these are summaries of statements made by a responsible leader of the Jewish people or the wild vaporings of such a crank as infests practically every conference and convention. We do not know who translated the alleged protocols, nor in what language they were written. Moreover, not one word of assurance does Professor Nilus give on his own account that he knows any of these things. He does not appear to have made any investigation of any kind. In view of the rest of his work we may be quite sure that had he done so he would have told us. He does not even tell us, in this edition of 1905, that the person from whom he acquired the "translation" was known to him as a reliable and trustworthy person. He does not profess to know anything more than I have already quoted from him. No one knows Nilus [26]himself. So much for the explanation of 1905.

Before I pass on to consider a later and different explanation made by the mysterious Nilus, a few brief observations upon the story now before us may not be out of place, especially since the Dearborn Independent has accepted it and made it the basis of its propaganda. How is it possible for any person possessing anything approaching a trained mind, and especially for one accustomed to historical study, to accept as authentic, and without adequate corroboration, documents whose origin and history are so clouded with secrecy, mystery, and ignorance? And how can men and women who are to all appearances rational and high-minded bring themselves to indict and condemn a whole race, invoking thereby the perils of world-wide racial conflict, upon the basis of such flimsy, clouded, and tainted testimony? No decent and self-respecting judge or jury anywhere in the United States would, I dare believe, convict the [27]humblest individual of even petty crime upon the basis of such testimony. Serious charges made by a complainant who does not appear in court and is not known to the court, an alleged translation of an alleged original, not produced in court, alleged to have been stolen by an anonymous thief not produced in court, from an alleged conspirator not named nor produced in court, and not a scintilla of corroborative evidence, direct or circumstantial—was ever a chain of evidence so flimsy? By comparison, the discovery of the Book of Mormon is a well-attested event.

Now let us consider another very different story told by Nilus. In January, 1917—the date is important—another edition of the book, so greatly enlarged and rewritten as to be almost a new book, appeared in Russia bearing the name of the mysterious and unknown Nilus. The title of this book is It Is Near, at the Door. It was published at Sergeiev, near Moscow, at the Monastery of Sergeiev. I have said that the date of the [28]appearance of this volume is important, and here is the reason: The overthrow of tsarism occurred in March, 1917. Toward the end of 1916 the revolutionary ferment was already apparent. What else could be expected than that the provocative agents of the Tsar's Secret Police and the Black Hundreds should strive to divert the attention of the people to some other issue? And what more natural than that they should conclude that a widespread movement against the Jews, great pogroms over a wide area, would best suit their purpose? The first publication of the alleged protocols took place in 1905, also at the beginning of a popular revolution, and it did have the effect of creating a considerable anti-Jewish agitation which weakened the revolutionary movement. The trail of the Secret Police and the Black Hundreds is plain. And now for the new version of the history of the protocols. On page 96 of this new book, which is a violent diatribe against the Jews, Nilus says:

[30]Is it necessary, I wonder, to waste words in exposing this pious fraud? His own statement comes pretty close to convicting him of being, as I have suggested above, a hireling of the Secret Police, an agent provocateur. Sukhotin, from whom he now claims to have received the manuscript, was a notorious anti-Semite and a despot of the worst type. Sipiagin, to whom, it is alleged, the manuscript had been previously given, was also a bitter anti-Semite and one of the most infamous of Russian bureaucrats. He was notoriously corrupt and unspeakably cruel while he was Minister of the Interior. He was assassinated by Stephen Balmashev, in March, 1902. Even if we credit this revised version of the way in which he came into possession of the manuscript, Nilus is closely identified with the secret agencies of the old regime. Let us take note, however, of other peculiarities of the canting hypocrite, Nilus. He names Sukhotin and Sipiagin only after they are dead and denial by them is impossible; he has "forgotten" the [31]name of the "noblewoman from Tshernigov," the person alleged to have stolen the original documents; he suggests that the documents need no other evidence than their own contents. Truly, a very typical criminal is the mysterious, elusive, unknown "Prof. Sergei Nilus"!

Now let me call attention to two other very interesting facts in connection with this story of 1917. The first is that Nilus omits the very important statement made in the edition of 1905 that the alleged protocols were "signed by representatives of Zion of the Thirty-third Degree," without offering the slightest explanation of that most important omission. The second fact is even more conclusive as evidence of the man's absolute untrustworthiness. Having told us in the edition of 1905 that the friend who gave him the protocols assured him that they had been "stolen by a woman," and in 1917 that it was Nicholaievich Sukhotin from whom he received the documents, who not only told him that they had been stolen [32]by a woman, but told him also the name of the thief (which he has forgotten, unfortunately), he proceeds, in the Epilogue of the 1917 edition, to tell a very different story. He says in this Epilogue that the protocols "were stealthily removed from a large book of notes on lectures. My friend found them in the safe of the headquarters offices of the Society of Zion, which is situated at present in Paris."

Was ever perjurer more confused? First we have an unknown woman stealing the documents from "one of the most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry"; next, we have a "noblewoman of Tshernigov" as the thief and Sukhotin as the intermediary through whose hands they reached his friend Nilus. Now, finally, Nilus says that his friend—i.e., Sukhotin—was the thief, and not a woman at all! Instead of being stolen from the person of "one of the most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry," they are "found" in a safe in Paris! The woman has disappeared; the highly initiated [33]Freemason has disappeared. Now it is Sukhotin who is identified as the thief, and he is pointed out as having robbed a safe in Paris. So much for the perjury of Nilus. I may add that I am assured—though I cannot vouch for the statement—that Sukhotin was not outside of Russia between 1890 and 1905.

But it may be argued, as it has been argued in the Dearborn Independent following the suggestion of Nilus—that the authenticity of the protocols, and the reality and seriousness of the Jewish conspiracy, are sufficiently demonstrated by internal evidence. I confess that I do not find in the documents any reason for reaching such a conclusion, though I have studied them with all the patience and care I could command, and have read the principal arguments made in their defense. I find not a scrap of evidence to show that there exists, or ever has existed, such a body of men as "The Elders of Zion," or "The Men of Wisdom of Zion," or any similar secret body [34]of Jews. That such a secret conspiratory body exists has been charged from time to time during more than a century, yet not a particle of evidence to sustain the charge has ever been produced. I am quite well aware of the capacity of the human mind to believe whatever accords with preconceived prejudices, suspicions, or impressions, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, and, correspondingly, to reject the most conclusive evidence when it runs counter to such prejudices, suspicions, or impressions. Laying upon my own mind the warning implied by this knowledge, and guarding myself against the danger of rejecting, or ignoring, or undervaluing unpleasant and unwelcome facts, I am bound to say that those who find in these alleged protocols a sufficient basis for bringing the Jewish race under indictment seem to me to have brought preconceived suspicion and fear of the Jew to their study of the documents themselves. Personally, I can find nothing in them which suggests any highly organized intelligence, [35]such as the leaders of the Jewish race represent and command in abundance; rather, they seem to me to clearly indicate the disordered mind and distorted vision of a very common type of monomaniac, the genus "crank."

I believe that historical study is not one of Mr. Ford's strong points, but, even so, he must be aware of the fact that it is one of the commonest things in history to encounter charges of conspiracy directed against religious and political sects, supported by more or less plausible arguments and believed by considerable numbers of people. Were it necessary to my purpose, and did time permit, I could quite easily fill a considerable volume with illustrations of this fact. For example, there exists a great literature devoted to the object of proving that the Vatican is the headquarters of such a conspiracy to bring about or to attain world domination. Thousands of books and pamphlets have been written to convict the Jesuits of such a conspiracy, many of [36]them far more convincing than these protocols. Pamphlets aiming to convince the American people that the Knights of Columbus is an organization aiming at the overthrow of the American Republic and the establishment of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope over the United States have been circulated by the million. It is a matter of court record that this charge has been supported by the publication of what purported to be exact copies of oaths pledging the members of that organization to the end stated. Let me say at once that I do not credit these sensational stories and charges. I have confined myself to charges made against one of the two great sections of Christianity for reasons which seem to me peculiarly cogent. The charges made against the Jews have produced the most terrible results in the countries where the Roman Catholic Church is strongest, and no leader of the Christian religion has such strong reason for denouncing such appeals to prejudice and hatred as the head of that Church.

[37]Belief in widespread conspiracies directed against individuals or the state is probably the commonest form assumed by the human mind when it loses its balance and its sense of proportion. I venture to hazard the opinion that of all the cranks who have pestered Mr. Ford since he has attained a conspicuous position, those who imagined themselves to be the victims of conspiracies have outnumbered all the others. These protocols are either preposterous forgeries deliberately wrought for the purpose of fostering anti-Semitism in Russia, or they are the pitiable ravings of a familiar type of monomaniac.

Concerning the authorship of the protocols, there has been much conjecture, especially on the part of those who have seriously regarded them as an authentic expression of Jewish opinion. It has been whispered in those places where the so-called Jewish question is discussed, that they are the work of the well-known Zionist leader, Dr. Theodor Herzl. This is the theory which Nilus [38]himself advances in the introduction to the edition of 1917. He says:

This is the first time Nilus has so much as hinted at the date of the alleged secret conclave of the Elders of Zion, at the close of which, according to the story of 1905 so elaborately contradicted in 1917, the protocols were stolen by a woman. It is perhaps as well to remark in passing that the first Zionist Congress was held in the open and its proceedings freely reported in the press. Now, Herzl stands among the foremost of the intellectual Jews of modern times. All his known work is characterized by clear, clean-cut reasoning and direct and forceful [39]statement. All his known writings are characterized by these qualities. Whatever we may think about Zionism, it must be admitted that the great Austrian journalist and critic never lacked the courage of his convictions, as may be seen by anybody who will take the trouble to read his writings or the evidence delivered by him before the British Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, in 1902. If Herzl wrote these documents he adopted the disguise of the style and method of a much inferior mentality.

Unless we are to believe that he deliberately adopted a style of writing and method of reasoning entirely unfamiliar and unlike his publicly acknowledged work, for the express purpose of hiding his authorship of the protocols—which, if we credit the story that they were presented to a secret conference of the leaders of the alleged conspiracy, is an impossible hypothesis—we are warranted in saying that, whoever wrote them, it was not Theodor Herzl. It would be as reasonable to ascribe a Walt Whitman [40]chant to Emerson, or a Bernard Shaw satire to Jonathan Edwards, as to ascribe these crude, meandering pages to the crystalline intellect of Theodor Herzl. I do not find in them any suggestion of the trained mind of a scholar and writer of Herzl's attainments; rather, they seem to me to belong in about the same intellectual category as the ordinary propaganda literature of the numerous sects, ancient and modern, based upon peculiar interpretations of Biblical prophecies. Since the outbreak of the World War in 1914, and throughout the whole chapter of revolutionary events following thereupon, there has been a steady flood of such literature. Even the much-discussed forecast of Bolshevism does not in any material respect differ from many similar "prophecies" that have appeared in recent years.

It cannot be denied that Bolshevism actually conforms in a notable degree to the specifications contained in the protocols, which I have already summarized in the preceding chapter. Shall we, then, conclude [41]that the charge is proven and declare the case closed, or is it necessary to examine the evidence further and more critically? I think that a very brief period of honest reflection will convince any fair-minded and intelligent person of the injustice of the rendering of a verdict holding the Jews responsible for Bolshevism upon the basis of such evidence. Let me direct the attention of my readers to a coincidence of dates which once more directs suspicion against Prof. Sergei Nilus and against the alleged stolen protocols. I have already pointed out that in 1903, in the first edition of his book, Nilus did not use the alleged protocols, though he claims that they had been in his possession for two years prior to that time. That this is a suspicious circumstance will, I think, be readily conceded by the open-minded. In 1903 the Russian Social Democratic party was split into two factions, and the word "Bolshevism" came into use as the designation of the policy of one of these factions. In 1905 the first Russian revolution took [42]place. In the period between the split in the Social Democratic party in 1903 and the outbreak of the revolution in 1905 the leaders of the Bolsheviki had been active in formulating and propagating their theoretical and political views. During the revolution a sharp conflict occurred between the Bolsheviki and other factions of the Russian Socialist movement, and the Socialist press gave much space to the controversy.

It will be seen from this brief historical sketch that when Nilus published a second edition of his book, late in 1905, he could find in the Russian Socialist press all the materials for such a general description of Bolshevism as that contained in the protocols. Of course, if we believe that the documents are genuine, that they are authentic translations of documents actually stolen in 1896, delivered to Nilus in 1901, and by him first made public in 1905, we have simply a coincidence of dates. I submit, however, that there is not a shred of credible evidence that the documents were so obtained by [43]Nilus, or that they existed in 1896, 1901, 1903, or at any date earlier than 1905, the year of their first publication. I submit, furthermore, that it is highly probable that the passages in the alleged protocols which are now hailed as conclusive evidence that the Bolshevist policy had been formulated as early as 1896, were in reality written after 1903 and in the light of already published accounts of Bolshevist theories and tactics. There is not a thing that we know about these documents and their history which does not point directly to the conclusion that they are forgeries.

When I was in London in October, 1920, an English journalist of distinction, well known and influential on both sides of the Atlantic, with great earnestness and evident conviction sought to impress me with the serious importance of these alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He was quite convinced that the documents were genuine, and that they proved beyond reasonable doubt the existence of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. [44]With great solemnity and manifest sincerity he sought to enlist my co-operation in defense of what he called "Anglo-Saxon civilization," which he seemed to regard as synonymous with Christian civilization. He was quite astonished when I directed his attention to the fact that a well-known French writer, Louis Martin, had published, as far back as 1895, a book in which he attempted to prove the existence of such a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. My friend honestly believed that the existence of this conspiracy had never been known or suspected prior to the publication of the work of the mysterious Sergei Nilus. He was still more surprised when I told him that in his book, L'Anglais Est-Il un Juif?, Martin had attempted to prove that the English people are part of the Jewish race, and that the British government is the principal directing power of the conspiracy; so that the world-wide Jewish conspiracy must, according to Martin, be understood as a secret compact between the British [45]government, as a Jewish organization, and the leaders of Jewry in all other lands. Thus is the theory of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy reduced to absurdity. I confess that at that time I was not aware that in the original Russian of the 1905 edition of the work of Nilus this absurd theory of Martin had been reproduced, but carefully omitted from every English translation published in this country and in England. The reason for the omission is obvious; had the passage been given it would have made a laughing-stock of the protocols. I submit, however, that the omission of such an important passage from the text of Nilus without any reference to or explanation of the liberty taken with the text, places those responsible for the several translations in a very unfavorable light.

In closing this chapter it is perhaps well that some record should be made of the sinister use which was made of these alleged protocols during the World War. Not long after the United States had begun active [46]participation in the war against Germany, it came to my attention that typewritten manuscripts purporting to prove that the war was part of a great conspiracy of international Jews were being circulated. On at least three different occasions, early in 1918, I was asked about this charge. I was told then that the British and American governments were in a special sense the agents of this Jewish conspiracy. In July, 1918, in Paris, a fuller account of the documents was given to me by a loyal Socialist, to whom they had been shown. There was not then, as there is not now, the slightest doubt in my mind that the pro-German propagandists resorted to this trick in order to weaken the morale of the principal Allied nations.

IVToC

IS SOCIALISM A JEWISH CONSPIRACY?

Upon the strength of statements made in this collection of documents of mysterious and suspicious origin, a number of papers, including the Dearborn Independent and the London Morning Post, have attempted to account for and explain the international Socialist movement as part of this Jewish imperialistic conspiracy. Neither in the protocols themselves nor in the newspapers making this particular charge has any shred of authentic evidence been adduced in its support. True, a great deal has been made of the undeniable fact that Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Wilhelm Liebnecht, and other noted Socialists belonged to the Jewish race. Against this fact might very well be set the equally undeniable fact [48]that the foremost opponents of these men, and of Socialism, were also of the Jewish race. Apparently, therefore, we are to believe that the leaders of this Jewish conspiracy set up the Socialist movement and fostered it, while at the same time they enlisted their ablest minds to defeat it. Surely for the normal mind that is not obsessed this is a theory too absurd for belief.

Only those who are entirely ignorant of the history of Socialism and Socialist theories can possibly hold this view of its Jewish origin. Long before Karl Marx appeared upon the scene of action Socialism had already made an impress upon European thought. Marx was a boy of fifteen when the word Socialism first appeared in print as designating the doctrines preached by Robert Owen, the Welshman, for almost twenty years before that time. Was Owen the tool of Jewish conspirators? I have read most of the literature relating to Owen's life and teaching, including his own voluminous [49]writings, and the innumerable controversies in which he was engaged throughout his life. I have not discovered in all this mass of material a single trace of Jewish influence. He had no Jewish friends or associates during the formative years, the period in which the Socialist ideas and ideals shaped themselves. His Socialism was the direct outcome of his experience as a successful manufacturer. He was not in any sense a man of books. From time to time he required large sums of money for his enterprises. Surely, if those enterprises, and his life's work as a whole, formed part of a great Jewish conspiracy which had behind it the vast financial resources of Jewry, it would not have been difficult for him to secure the financial support he needed. It is a fact of cardinal importance, therefore, that Owen never did receive Jewish financial support. Those who would have us believe that Socialism originated as a part of the great world-wide conspiracy of Jewish imperialism must first of all explain Robert Owen.

[50]Nor does Owen stand alone in the history of Socialism among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It is a well-known fact, one to which he himself has called attention, that the most important of the economic and sociological theories of Marx were held and promulgated before his time by a number of British writers. As Professor Foxwell and others have shown, the roots of what is called Marxian Socialist theory lie deep in the soil of British political economy. Karl Marx devoted his typically Jewish genius to the exposition of Socialist theories, but the theories themselves were not of Hebraic origin. William Godwin, Charles Hall, William Thompson, John Gray, and John Francis Bray all preceded Marx, and not one of them was a Jew, nor can we find in their writings any trace of Jewish influence. It is the same with Bronterre O'Brien, the first to call himself a Social Democrat. If any or all of these men were the agents of such a conspiracy, it is remarkable that there should be an entire absence of evidence of that fact. [51]It is quite unbelievable that there was any sort of conspiracy which affected them. For the most part they were poor and their books were published in pitifully small editions at great sacrifice to themselves. Incidentally, it is worthy of note, Karl Marx, the Jew, suffered terrible poverty. Certainly, all this does not suggest an international conspiracy backed by the Jewish leaders of the financial world.

Because of the prominence of a few individual Jews in the American Socialist movement in recent years, the writer of the anti-Semitic articles in the Dearborn Independent regards as proven the theory that American Socialism originated in Jewish conspiracy. It is another evidence of his entire ignorance of the subject concerning which he writes. If there is anything which can be said about Socialism with certainty, it is that its fundamental theories are mainly of Anglo-Saxon origin. Karl Marx was a boy of nine years when Robert Owen reprinted in England an American Socialist pamphlet, [52]written by an American workingman and published in America a year or two earlier. At about the same time Thomas Cooper, of Columbia, South Carolina, published his book in which the fundamental economic theories of modern Socialism were clearly expounded. When Marx was no more than ten years old we find O.A. Brownson, editor of the Boston Quarterly Review, vigorously preaching here in America the theory of the class war, the abolition of the wage system, and the necessity for a triumph of the proletariat. We find such men as Thomas Skidmore, R.L. Jennings, and L. Byllesby preaching thoroughgoing Socialism. In 1829 these men and others were exercising a notable and considerable influence upon American thought. In vain shall we search their writings and the meager accounts of their lives for any trace or suggestion of Jewish influence or control.

I skip a decade and turn to the Fourierist period of American Socialism. The profound influence of Charles Fourier upon Karl [53]Marx is well known and has been the subject of much learned writing. But if the Frenchman inspired the German Jew, so likewise did he inspire many American non-Jews, the very flower of our race. It was Albert Brisbane who began the Fourierist agitation here, and soon he had associated with him Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, William Henry Channing, Margaret Fuller, John Orvis, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Edmund Clarence Stedman, and many others. Other distinguished Americans who were brought into more or less sympathetic association with the movement included Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, and Theodore Parker, among others. Certainly it would be difficult to name a body of men and women more truly representative of the highest and best of American life and genius. To suggest that these were all the agents of a Jewish conspiracy, either consciously or unconsciously, is to invite and deserve [54]ridicule. In truth, Socialism is as Anglo-Saxon as Magna Charta and as American as the Declaration of Independence, and we might as well attribute either or both of these to Jewish intrigue as Socialism. It is true that the organized Socialist movement in America has long spoken with a foreign accent and borne the imprint of an alien psychology, but that psychology, as I have elsewhere pointed out, is German and not Hebraic.

It would take us too far afield to discuss the origin of French Socialism, even in this sketchy fashion, but I can state with the assurance that is born of intimate knowledge that French Socialism shows as little sign of having been inspired by alien influences, Jewish or other, as British and American Socialism. I stress this point not because I would defend the Jews against the charge that they have manifested unusual sympathy for Socialism (which, indeed, if true, I should hold to be a virtuous distinction), nor to apologize for or to deny the splendid [55]contributions of individual Jews to the Socialist movement. My concern is to enter protest against the charge that the Socialist movement of the world originated in the ambitions of Jewish imperialists and is neither more nor less than part and parcel of a great international Jewish conspiracy. That is a stupid travesty of history, and a dangerous one.

I have spent the greater part of my life in the Socialist movement, in close and intimate comradeship with both Jews and Gentiles belonging to nearly every civilized nation. I am as proud of the comradeship of my Jewish comrades as I am of that of any others. My readers will perhaps understand that I deeply resent the implication that through all the years of struggle and sacrifice I have been either the unconscious dupe or the willing agent of any kind of selfish conspiracy, Jewish or other. It is, of course, difficult to disprove such an accusation brought against a great movement, and, therefore, by implication against [56]the individuals belonging to that movement. If I should charge that Mr. Henry Ford is engaged in this anti-Semitic propaganda for purely selfish and mercenary reasons, that he has become the spokesman and agent of great unscrupulous capitalist interests who seek to destroy their Jewish competitors and to profit thereby, he would find it difficult to establish the contrary by definite and concrete proof. As a matter of justice, nothing of the sort should be expected. The burden of proof rests upon the person making the accusation. In like fashion, when the Dearborn Independent charges that the international Socialist movement is one of the agents of a vicious Jewish conspiracy against Christian civilization, it is in honor bound to submit proofs. This it has not done, nor has any other paper making the charge. I know that the charge is a cruel and cowardly falsehood, a libel upon millions of honest and honorable men and women, to utter which is an infamy and degradation.

[57]The charge is one that has been leveled against practically every movement of protest that has been developed in modern times. It was leveled against the Protestant Reformation; against the French Revolution; against Mazzini and his followers in Italy; against the German Revolutionists of 1848; against British Trade-Unionists. I have no doubt that a little research would reveal the fact that the same charge was directed against the Abolitionists in this country. Vicious interests are never very scrupulous in their choice of weapons. In those Protestant countries in which the number of Catholics is much larger than the number of Jews it is a common practice to charge that movements of protest and revolt are instigated and led by the Catholic hierarchy. Where the number of Jews is very great the appeal is made to racial hatred. In Catholic countries, in the same way, accusation is directed against Protestantism or Judaism, according to circumstance.

[58]Wherever and by whosoever made, appeals to racial and religious prejudices and hatreds in defense of vested interests merit the condemnation of all honest and righteous men. When made in a country which, like the United States, possesses millions of peoples of many diverse lands and races not yet welded into national homogeneity, who must live and work together, such accusations become the most dangerous form of treason. Whoever propagates in this country antagonism to any race or creed represented in our citizenship, whether it be against Jews, Poles, Germans, Irish, English, or negroes; or against Judaism, Catholicism, or Protestantism, assails the very foundation of our most cherished and characteristic American institutions.

VToC

THE JEWISH SOCIALISTS AND BOLSHEVISM

The anti-Semitic press of both hemispheres charges that Bolshevism in Russia and elsewhere is a movement instigated and led by Jews, as part of a great conspiracy to bring about the Jewish domination of the world. The reasons for making this charge are only too obvious. Bolshevism is repugnant to the great mass of civilized mankind, by whom it is rightly regarded as a sort of moral leprosy. Whatever may be thought of the possibility of Sovietism in industry and government, Bolshevism, the spiritual dynamic as distinguished from the mechanical agent, is the negation of every virtuous principle which mankind holds in reverence. It frankly bases government upon brute force wielded [60]by the few, and denies the ideal toward which all nations are striving, the ideal of government based upon the sanction of the governed. It unites in a terrible synthesis all the worst agencies and methods of tsarism and of militarism. To persuade the people of this or any other civilized country that Bolshevism is essentially a Jewish movement, part of a conspiracy to reduce civilization to chaos, and so prepare the way for a Jewish supergovernment of the world, would mean the rapid organization of the rest of the population against the Jews in every phase of life—politics, commerce, industry, education, social intercourse, and so on.

In support of this most serious charge not a single shred of credible evidence has ever been adduced by any anti-Semitic writer or organ. For the universally known fact that there are Jews among the leaders of Bolshevism, in Russia and elsewhere, is not evidence that Bolshevism is essentially or primarily a Jewish movement; neither is it evidence that Bolshevism is a part of a [61]Jewish conspiracy to obtain world domination. All that it proves is that which needs no proof—that there are Jews among the Bolsheviki. I repeat that in support of the charge not a shred of credible evidence has ever been adduced. In that shameful book, The Cause of World Unrest, consisting of articles reprinted from the London Morning Post, the anonymous author gives a list of fifty names of "persons who either are the actual governing powers in Soviet Russia now or were responsible for the establishment of the present regime there." There is both guile and cowardice in the latter part of this charge. It is easy to argue, with a certain plausibility, that every person who helped in the revolution of March, 1917, must be held "responsible for the establishment of the present regime." I have heard many Russians make the charge that Kerensky, the anti-Bolshevist, was "responsible" for the establishment of the Bolshevist regime. I have heard others charge the same thing against such men as Rodzianko, Prince [62]Lvov, and Professor Miliukov. What these Russians meant was that the failure of these men and others to deal properly with the situation existing at the time of the March revolution made the triumph of Bolshevism possible. In that sense, we might as well go back a stage farther and present the names of Tsar Nicholas II and all his responsible Ministers as "persons who ... were responsible for the establishment of the present regime." This, however, is not what the Morning Post desires to convey to the mind of the reader. It insinuates, in a most cowardly fashion, that the fifty persons named by it are Bolsheviki and falsely alleges that of the fifty no less than forty-two are Jews.

Concerning this list of names a few observations are necessary. The compiler of the list was not honest; he did not intend to place the reader in possession of the truth. This is evidenced by several facts. In the first place, many influential leaders of the Bolsheviki whose names are familiar to all [63]who have given even ordinary attention to the subject are conspicuously absent. The reason for the omission is that these men are non-Jews. Their inclusion in the list would have destroyed the author's charge. He has suppressed important facts in the interest of his wretched case. I searched the list in vain for the names of such prominent leaders of the Bolshevist movement as Bucharin, Rakovsky, Miliutin, Raskolnikov, Shliapnikov, Latzis, Rykov, Stalin, Krestinsky, Bonch-Brouyevich, Dybenko, Dzerzhinsky, Krylenko, Gorky, Andreyeva, Nogin, Platakov, Kalinin, Boky, and many others less well known. Anyone who is at all familiar with the subject will recognize in the names I have here given some of the most active and influential leaders of the Bolsheviki. Not one of them is a Jew, and I submit that to omit them from a list of names which pretends to be representative is as dishonest as it is cowardly.

The list is thoroughly dishonest, moreover, in that it sets down as Jews men who [64]are well known to be Gentiles. For example, Manouilsky, number forty-six on the list, is described as a Jew, whereas it is well known that he is a Gentile, a Ukrainian. Bogdanov, number ten on the list, is likewise wrongfully described. His real name is not Silberstein, as alleged, but Malinovsky. Neither is he a Jew, as alleged, but a Gentile, a Russian. These two illustrations will serve to show how little reliance can be placed upon the list. Whether there are other misrepresentations of the same kind I am unable to say, for the reason that the list contains many names of persons who do not hold and have not held any important position in Russia, either under the Bolsheviki or the earlier Provisional Government headed by Kerensky. These persons are absolutely unknown to me, even by name, and they are equally unknown to every Russian revolutionary leader to whom I have submitted them. It is quite probable, therefore, that these names of alleged Jews hide the identity of men who are not Jews at all.

[65]Not only does this precious list studiously omit many of the principal leaders of the Bolshevist regime simply because they are not Jews, and misrepresent well-known Gentiles as Jews; quite as bad is the fact that it includes many names of men who are not only not supporters of the Bolshevist regime, but actually leaders of the most determined opposition to it. Here is a list which is submitted in proof of the charge that "nearly all the Bolshevist leaders are Jews," and in that list I find the names of ten men who are known to me to be among the most active leaders of the struggle against the Bolsheviki, men who have made heroic sacrifices and risked their lives in that fight. I say that the list includes the names of ten men known to me to be bitter opponents of Bolshevism; there may be others concerning whom I am not informed.

Included in the list I find the name of Izgoev (forty-three), for instance. His real name is alleged to be Goldman, when in fact it is Landau. Not only is he not a [66]Bolshevik, but, as everybody familiar with the Russian movement knows, one of the active publicists of the Russian Constitutional Democratic party. Orthodoks, number thirty-five on the list, is not a Bolshevik, but one of the most active members of the group of so-called Socialist Patriots, the "Unity" group organized by the late George Plechanov to support the Allied war aims, an organization that did much to strengthen Russian morale in the early stages of the war and which has vigorously and bitterly opposed Bolshevism and all its ways. Bounakov, number forty-five on the list, is also a leader of the anti-Bolshevist forces. When I was in Paris recently he was there actively engaged with other Socialists in carrying on anti-Bolshevist propaganda. Kamkov, number fifteen on the list, was one of the leaders of the Socialists-Revolutionists party, a determined opponent of the Bolsheviki. According to the best information at my command, he was one of the men responsible for the assassination of the [67]German ambassador, Count von Mirbach, which was a protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and was put to death by the Bolsheviki. Gorev, number eleven on the list, has consistently opposed Bolshevism with the rest of his colleagues of the Mensheviki. The same thing is true of Abramovich (twenty-four), of Dan (seventeen), of Martinov (twenty-one), of Martov (four), and of Meshkovsky (eighteen).

The anonymous author of The Cause of World Unrest says of this list that it is "the result of much labor and the work of several hands." I do not need to characterize it, in the light of the foregoing analysis. The facts to which I have called attention can be very readily verified. I submit that most abject apology is due to the reader from everybody concerned in the preparation and circulation of this book—from the anonymous author, the compiler of the list, the London Morning Post, and the publishers. There is nothing more contemptible than such poisoning of the wells of public information.

[68]For the present I have finished with the Morning Post. Let us turn now to Mr. Ford's Dearborn Independent. In its issue of May 29, 1920, this organ of American anti-Semitism desperately tries to bolster up the charge that nearly all the leaders of the Bolsheviki are Jews by a clumsy invention of its own. It says:

For these statements there is no justification in fact. They are absolutely and unqualifiedly untrue, as every person familiar with the facts must know. It is not true that "every commissar in Russia to-day is a Jew." Not even a majority of the members of the Council of People's Commissars are Jews. Lenin, who is at the head of the government, is not a Jew. Tchitcherin, who [69]is in charge of foreign affairs, is not a Jew. Krassin, who is in charge of the trade negotiations with the British government, is not a Jew. These three men wield greater power and influence in Soviet Russia than all the Jewish officials combined. Dzerzhinsky, head of the infamous Extraordinary Commissions, is not a Jew. Lunarcharsky, who has charge of public education, is not a Jew. Rykov, chairman of the Economic Council, is not a Jew. Bonch-Brouyevich, secretary of the Council of People's Commissars, is not a Jew. Kolontai is not a Jewess. There are many other Gentile Commissars. How completely the London Morning Post and the Dearborn Independent misrepresent the essential facts I have already shown by my analysis of the pretentious list of fifty names published by the former. I have before me the official list of the members of the Sovnarkom—that is, the Council of the People's Commissars of the Soviet government. As is well known, the elaborate and intricate governmental system of Soviet Russia [70]centers ultimate authority in this Council of People's Commissars, which consists of seventeen members. A most striking refutation of the statement made by the Dearborn Independent is found in the fact that of the seventeen members of this supreme Bolshevist authority only one, Trotzky, is a Jew. The official list speaks for itself.

Of course there are many Jews holding minor positions in the Bolshevist regime. [71]It would be quite impossible to name any part of the Russian population to which that statement would not equally apply. For millions of people, Christians and Jews alike, the only possible alternative to starvation and death is to accept service under the Bolsheviki. Even loyal generals of the Tsar's army have accepted such service in order to avoid the starvation of themselves and their loved ones, despite their hatred of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki. It is a fact, however, that there are very few Jews holding responsible posts in the Bolshevist government of Russia, while there are many Jews prominently identified with the anti-Bolshevist movement. I have followed very closely the accounts of the proceedings of the Bolshevist movement and of the Communist party, as reported in the official press, and have paid special attention to the activity of the Jews. Up to the present my list of Jews holding prominent positions in either the Soviet government or the Communist party contains less than twenty [72]names, yet I believe it is fairly complete. It includes the names of Trotzky, Steklov, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Uritsky, Volodarsky, Sverdlov, Ganetsky, Helfandt (Parvus), Riazanov, Radek, Litvinov, Joffe, and Larin. It will be rather difficult, I think, to name any important omissions. As against this meager list of Jews, a very hastily compiled list of non-Jews who are prominent in the government or in the Communist party contains seventy-five names. In this list I do not include any of the many former generals of the Tsar's army now holding important positions in the Red Army and various departments of the Soviet government. With entire confidence I submit these incontestable facts to my readers in reply to the Dearborn Independent.

It is absurdly untrue to say, as the Dearborn Independent does, that "the Jews of Russia came up in a perfect phalanx" after the overthrow of tsarism. Throughout the revolutionary period the Jews in [73]Russia have presented about the same political divisions as the Russian population in general. Like the overwhelming mass of the Russian people, they are anti-Bolshevist. Even if we confine our attention to the Jewish Socialists, overlooking for the moment the large number of Jews belonging to the Constitutional Democrats and other non-Socialist parties, we shall find absolutely no evidence of anything approaching a united Jewish Socialist support of the Bolsheviki. On the contrary, the most implacable and determined opponents of the Bolsheviki have been, and still are, Jewish Socialists. Such Jews as Martov, Dan, Lieber, Abramovich, and others have distinguished themselves by their relentless and unremitting opposition to the Bolsheviki.

In reply to Mr. William Hard, who called attention to the fact that Jews like Vinaver, Martov, and others have been as active on the anti-Bolshevist side as Trotzky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others have been on [74]the Bolshevist side, the anonymous writer employed by the Dearborn Independent resorts to a more cowardly and despicable controversial trick than I have hitherto encountered, even in anti-Semitic literature. Having charged that the Jews were united "in a perfect phalanx" in support of Bolshevism, when confronted by Mr. Hard with the evidence that there are Jews at the head of the anti-Bolshevist forces, he coolly abandons his charge and insinuates another. He says: "Look how the Jews control every phase of political opinion in Russia! Doesn't there seem to be some ground for the feeling that they are desirous of ruling everywhere?"

Not often, I venture to say, has any American journalist descended to this low level. I am justified in asking Mr. Ford, who is primarily responsible for the Dearborn Independent and for its policy, whether he considers it to be compatible with sound American citizenship and with the traditions of our race to spread broadcast through [75]the land such cruelly unjust appeals to prejudice. Surely it is not difficult to see this matter from the viewpoint of the Jew, which in this instance is also the viewpoint of every fair-minded non-Jew. For the Jew it is a case of being damned either way. When it is noted that there are a few Jews holding prominent positions in the Bolshevist regime, the whole race is stigmatized and charged with being engaged in a conspiracy to destroy civilization; but when attention is called to the fact that other Jews, far more numerous, are engaged in fighting Bolshevism and attempting to save civilization, no credit for that fact is given to the race; it is not admitted as a fact modifying the previously formed sweeping judgment, but, on the contrary, is held to be additional evidence of guilt. Nothing that Bolshevist propagandists have attempted to do in this country involves anything like the peril to our institutions that is involved in this deliberate attempt to silence the anti-Bolshevist Jews by making even [76]their propaganda against Bolshevism appear as part of a conspiracy against those institutions.

I am not here and now concerned to defend the Jews. Even were my gifts much greater, I should not presume to arrogate to myself that honor. The defense of the Jewish people against the aspersions cast upon them by this cruel propaganda belongs in the first place to Jewish scholars and publicists and can be left to them. My concern is the defense of Christian civilization, of American ideals and institutions, of the noblest Anglo-Saxon traditions. These things are our greatest wealth; they are the heritage of our children. When, therefore, this hateful propaganda imperils these things, it is both my duty and my privilege to defend them. Anti-Semitism has no place in Christian civilization; its spirit and its language are both alien and hostile to our Republic and to the genius of the race of Milton and Lincoln.

It can be demonstrated to the full [77]satisfaction of any open-minded person of normal intelligence that Bolshevism is the negation of the faith and morals which constitute the strongest bond of the Jewish people. Trotzky has many times declared that he is no Jew, but a "general proletarian," and Bela Kun, in a formal statement, declared himself to be opposed to all religions and national cultures, the Jewish included, and that he stood only for the economic interests of the proletariat. I could quote many similar statements by prominent Jewish Bolsheviki, were it necessary. The position taken by these men is, of course, entirely logical. Not only is Bolshevism fundamentally opposed to the Jewish religion; it is equally antagonistic to the principle of nationality itself. How, then, can it be possible to regard Bolshevism as typically and essentially Jewish, or as part of an all-Jewish conspiracy? Is it possible to believe that a great conspiratory scheme to direct the whole weight and influence of the Jewish people to a single political end, conceived [78]and led by the ablest leaders of that great people so remarkable for their intellectual power, would or could rest upon principles diametrically and irreconcilably opposed to the greatest psychological force motivating the conduct of the masses of that people?

These questions by themselves shatter the charge we are discussing. There is, however, an immense mass of direct and positive evidence available to all who desire to know the truth, but which is carefully and studiously ignored by the preachers of anti-Semitism. If such men as Mr. Ford are ignorant of the existence of this evidence, as we must suppose them to be, their offense against America and American ideals is not thereby appreciably lessened; their reckless and irresponsible use of the wealth and other influential agents at their command adds to the sum of their shame and wrongdoing. The greatest and strongest Jewish Socialist organization in Russia and Poland, the "Bund," has stood in solid opposition to Bolshevism and the Bolshevist regime [79]from the very beginning until now. Not only have leaders of the right wing, or moderate section of the "Bund," such as Lieber, fought Bolshevism with their full might, but leaders of the radical left wing, such as Kossovsky and Medem, have been equally courageous and uncompromising on the same side[1]. A tiny and negligible minority split off from the "Bund" because of its anti-Bolshevist character and formed a new organization, the "Communist Bund." Similarly, the overwhelming mass of the Zionist party has consistently opposed Bolshevism and all its works, and such men as Doctor Pasmanick, the well-known Zionist leader of Odessa, have given their full support to every anti-Bolshevist movement, political and military.

I have already referred to the activity of the well-known Jewish leader, Vinaver, in the fight against Bolshevism. Mr. Vinaver is not a Socialist; on the contrary, during [80]many years he has been a consistent opponent of Socialism and one of the foremost leaders of the Constitutional Democratic party, of whose Central Committee he was, and I believe still is, the chairman. Immediately after the March revolution of 1917, Mr. Vinaver was appointed Senator by the First Provisional Government. He was elected to the Constituent Assembly from Petrograd, and later on, after his escape from Petrograd, served as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of the Crimea. This prominent Jewish anti-Socialist testifies that "not a single Jewish Socialist faction has joined the Bolsheviki." From a report on this subject cabled to this country by Vinaver in July, 1919, I quote the following paragraphs, which speak for themselves.

It is a significant fact that the only Socialist elected to the United States Congress in the recent election, Meyer London, a Russian-born Jew, is a vigorous opponent of Bolshevism. In view of such evidence as the foregoing, it is surely not less than [82]ridiculous to attempt to make Bolshevism appear as a phase of Jewish Socialism, and a part of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy, instead of what it is—namely, the wild anarchical outburst of despairing and desperate masses of men. I venture to say that when the history of this tragic episode in the life of Russia is authoritatively written, it will be found that Jews have not been responsible for the most objectionable features of Bolshevism. Not even Trotzky need be excluded from this generalization, for, while it is true that his genius made Bolshevism the formidable military power it became, the brutal excesses of the Red Terror must be charged against such men as Peters, the Lett, and Dzerzhinsky, the Pole.

FOOTNOTES:

VIToC

BOLSHEVISM AND THE JEWS

No one who knows how the Jews of Russia, in common with the rest of the population, have suffered from Bolshevist misrule will be likely to give credence to the theory that Bolshevism is part of a Jewish conspiracy. As everybody knows, Jews made up a very considerable part of the commercial class in Russia. The indemnities levied upon this class by the Bolshevist commissions in the cities have applied equally to Jew and Gentile. It is a fact that ordinary Jewish shopkeepers have been compelled to pay their full share of the indemnities so levied. Scores of thousands of Jews have had their property confiscated and been reduced to abject poverty. Many thousands more have had to flee, leaving [84]everything behind them, thankful only that they could save their lives. The Chresvy-chaikas have drawn no distinction between Jew and Gentile, and the available records, meager as they are, prove that the Jews have contributed their full quota to the long list of the victims of these infamous terrorist organizations. Pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been too common in Bolshevist Russia to permit any suspicion that Bolshevism is a pro-Jewish movement. The evidence upon this point is overwhelming.

I am quite well aware that the statement that pogroms have been common in Bolshevist Russia will be challenged and indignantly denied by many of our American defenders of the Bolsheviki, Jews and Gentiles alike. It is none the less a well-attested fact. I have in my possession a mass of evidence which amply proves the truth of the statement. At the same time, I do not mean to charge that the Soviet government has deliberately instigated or authorized [85]pogroms. Indeed, I am quite ready to believe that the Soviet government has honestly desired and attempted to prevent such pogroms. Lenin accepted the presidency of an organization formed to combat anti-Semitism. The truth seems to be that just as pogroms have admittedly taken place in the new republic of Poland, despite the efforts of the Polish government to prevent them, and just as pogroms were carried out by Denikin's Volunteer Army despite General Denikin's attempts to prevent them, and the severe punishments inflicted by him upon the culprits, so regular Bolshevist troops in southern Russia have plundered and murdered Jews and raped and mutilated Jewish women and girls. Just as these lines are being written word comes, from sources of unquestionable authority, of pogroms against the Jews in the Ukraine, in which Bolshevist troops participated.

The Pogrom Victims' Relief Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society published a report of its investigations of the Jewish [86]pogroms in southern Russia during the period when General Denikin's forces were fighting the Bolsheviki. The report, based upon evidence of unquestionable reliability, showed that Jews had been plundered and murdered not only by disorderly troops of Denikin's Volunteer Army, and by the troops of Petlura and by the robber bands led by "atamans," like Makhno, but also by regular Bolshevist troops. The report attributes to the latter the destruction of at least thirteen Jewish communities in southern Russia and the murder of five hundred Jews. And this is only one report of many. Before me as I write is the account given by an eyewitness of the pogrom which opened at Novo-Poltavka on September 1, 1919, and lasted through the whole of the week following. More than one hundred Jews were murdered, numerous women and girls were raped, and the entire colony was plundered. This pogrom was carried on by the guerrilla bands led by "atamans" Makhno and Grigoriev, together with regular [87]Bolshevist troops.[2] Do you ask me to believe that these pogroms were deliberately brought about as part of a "Jewish" conspiracy?

Under the rule of the Bolsheviki the local organs of Jewish autonomy in the Ukraine were entirely destroyed.[3] The chairman of the Jewish Community in Kiev, Mr. D. Levenstein, has testified to the brutal treatment of the Jews in that city during the Bolshevist occupation. Vladimir Kossovsky, one of the foremost leaders of the "Bund," well known in Socialist international circles, in an article published in the Jewish Socialist monthly, Die Zukunft, of New York, says:

Concerning the pogroms in Poliesiye, Kossovsky quotes from the official organ of the Menshevist party, the Novaia Zaria, of Moscow, June 10, 1918, the following:

Pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism have been so common in Bolshevist Russia as to make the "Jewish question" one of extreme difficulty and importance. In numerous Soviets, notably Yaroslavl, Vitebsk, and Smolensk, Jewish members were openly insulted by the Bolsheviki; such epithets as "szhid!" ("sheeny!") were hurled at the Jewish members. Once more I quote from the article by Kossovsky:

Mr. Louis Marshall, who is universally recognized as one of the foremost leaders of the American Jewry and who headed the American-Jewish delegation to the Peace Conference, in an interview published in the New York Jewish daily newspaper, The Day, July 27, 1919, categorically denied the assertion that there have been no Jewish pogroms under the rule of the Bolsheviki. He declared that such pogroms took place in the districts of the Ukraine controlled by the Bolsheviki as well as in those controlled by the robber bands. "We know of such pogroms having occurred," he said, "and very often the Bolsheviki care just as little about the Jews as others who make pogroms. It is possible that some of their pogroms are at [92]times different, but in substance there were Jewish pogroms in Bolshevist territory as well." Mr. Marshall added the following observation: "All Jewish representatives that I have met in Paris who came from Russia are strong opponents of Bolshevism. Even to this day the Jewish Socialist parties are no less sharp in their condemnation of the Bolsheviki than are the bourgeois parties."

So far as I have been able to discover, there is not a large Jewish Community in Russia which has not repudiated Bolshevism. Not in a single instance has the support of the leaders of such a Community been given to the Lenin-Trotzky regime. For example, I have before me the report of the annual general meeting of the Jewish Community of Archangel, which took place on May 11, 1919. Therein is contained a Memorandum by the Council of the Community on the relation of the Jews to Bolshevism. The Memorandum points out that, while it is true that there are Jews [93]among the leaders of the Bolsheviki, it is also true that there are many Jews among the leaders of the anti-Bolshevist forces. It names such men as MM. Vinaver, Gotz, Minor, Bliumkin (who assassinated Count Mirbach), Kannengisser (who shot Uritzki), and Dora Kaplan (who attempted to assassinate Lenin and forfeited her own life).

The Memorandum asks the non-Jewish world to remember that all of the Jews connected with the Bolshevist movement in any prominent capacity are apostates, that not one of them ever took the slightest part in the affairs of Russian Jewry, and that the Jewish people only learned of their existence at about the same time and in the same way as the Russian people in general became aware of the existence of such non-Jewish Bolshevist leaders as Lenin, Lunarcharsky, Tchitcherin, Krylenko, Dybenko, and many others. Attention is called to the fact that prominent Jewish national workers in Russia have been subjected to the same persecution and [94]maltreatment by the Bolsheviki as the public-spirited men and women of other nationalities. The Memorandum cites the imprisonment of Doctor Maze, Rabbi of the Moscow Community, and the confiscation of the buildings belonging to the Petrograd Jewish Community, where the cultural and religious institutions of the Jews of that city were centered. I commend to the attention of all fair-minded men and women the following paragraph from this document:

Quite similar to the foregoing is a Memorandum addressed by the Council of the Vladivostok Jewish Community to the Russian people. The concluding paragraphs of this address seem to me to be a complete and crushing refutation of the monstrous calumny that is being so assiduously spread among our people:

In view of such facts as these, is it reasonable to suppose that Bolshevism is a pro-Jewish conspiracy? Is it less than ridiculous to suggest that the system which has reduced hundreds of thousands of Jews to abject poverty, broken up thousands of Jewish homes and families, confiscated billions of Jewish wealth, imprisoned thousands of prominent Jews, and murdered numerous others, is part of a Jewish conspiracy? Surely, every intelligent person must see that any such conspiracy must necessarily require, as the first condition of its success, a degree of racial solidarity never yet attained by any people at any time in the history of the world. That solidarity could only be obtained by assuring to the Jews [98]their complete exemption from the suffering and oppression imposed upon the non-Jewish population. Had there been any thought of securing the solidarity of the Jewish people of Russia against the non-Jewish population, it would have been effectively thwarted by the imposition of such burdens of poverty and suffering upon the Jews, and their resulting resentment. Not the smallest particle of evidence has ever yet been adduced to show that the Jews in Russia have been exempted from any of the oppressive features of Bolshevism. As Mr. Wells reminds us, the Bolsheviki have suppressed the Hebrew language, the historic language of Judaism, to preserve which Jews in all lands and during many centuries have made such vast sacrifices. Do we need any further evidence?

FOOTNOTES:

VIIToC

THE VICIOUS ROLE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Precisely such propaganda as that which the Dearborn Independent has been carrying on is responsible for many of the blackest and most shameful pages in history. Wherever and whenever there has been an organized propaganda of anti-Semitism it has invariably been closely intertwined with every other contemporary reactionary oppressive and contemptible force. To those who know the history of anti-Semitism in Russia, in Poland, and in Rumania, even in quite recent years, this statement will seem so trite as not to require any demonstration. This close association with other forms of reaction and brutal oppression is not peculiar to anti-Semitism, but is a common characteristic of every form of race prejudice and hatred. Among the [100]Turks organized prejudice and hatred of Armenians has invariably been found to be closely associated with all the other evil forces in the Turkish Empire. In our own country, discrimination against and injustice to the negro goes hand in hand with almost every other form of reaction and oppression.

It is quite useless to pretend that such articles as those published in the Dearborn Independent and the London Morning Post are not really anti-Semitic propaganda, but merely a legitimate discussion of a great and serious problem. Such specious pleading will not deceive any intelligent, honest person. The only possible object of the articles is to convince the people who read them that civilized society is threatened by a great world-wide secret conspiracy of the Jews; that this virile and highly intelligent people, scattered throughout the civilized world, and numbering, it is estimated, about sixteen millions, is secretly organized and led by an "invisible government" composed of some of the ablest and keenest minds in the [101]world, to the end of bringing all the governments of the earth, together with all industry and commerce, under the absolute rule and dominion of a dynasty to be set up by an aristocratic Jewish Sanhedrin.

Even if we ignore, for the purpose of this discussion, the fact that to sustain this charge a structure of cruel falsehood has been erected with great cunning, it is surely plain enough that the effect of such a charge upon the minds of such non-Jews as believe it can only be the development of a spirit of antagonism toward Jews, as Jews. In so far as the Dearborn Independent succeeds in its efforts, it must inevitably make our Gentile population regard their Jewish neighbors with fear and suspicion. And from such fear and suspicion emanate intolerance and hatred and their brutal progeny. There is no essential difference between the articles which have been appearing in Mr. Ford's paper, either in spirit or in text, and those which, in a past so recent that its horror haunts the memory of [102]men and women of our generation, let loose upon tens of thousands of helpless and inoffensive people the most bestial and fiendish cruelty and hatred ever attained by beings called human.

I can quite well remember the intense horror with which the Christian world read of the wave of pogroms against the Jews which swept over Russia in 1891, following the inhuman enforcement of the "May Laws." Jewish women in travail, forced to flee for their lives, hid in cemeteries, and in those "cities of the dead" brought forth their babes. Jewish fathers took their daughters to brothels for safe hiding. Jewish women and girls were raped. Jewish homes were looted, and whole villages inhabited by Jews were burned down. Even women and children were brutally murdered, simply because they were Jews and because a newspaper propaganda in all respects like that now being carried on in this country and in England had made the Jewish people the object of suspicion and [103]fear and, therefore, of hatred. It was then that a Russian statesman declared that the "Jewish question" would be solved only when one third of the Jews had perished, another third emigrated, and the remaining third been converted to the orthodox Church!

The frightful massacre of Jews at Kishinev in 1903 likewise resulted from a newspaper propaganda very similar to that which is now being carried on by the Dearborn Independent and the London Morning Post. On that occasion an unexampled and unprecedented outburst of horror thrilled the whole civilized world. John Hay, our then Secretary of State, said: "No person of ordinary humanity can have heard without deep emotion the story of the cruel outrages inflicted upon the Jews of Kishinev. These lamentable events have caused the profoundest impression throughout the world." President Roosevelt said, "I have never in my experience in this country known of a more immediate or a deeper [104]expression of the sympathy for the victims and of horror over the appalling calamity that has occurred."

The Kishinev outrages were the direct and logical outcome of the campaign of calumny and hatred against the Jews waged by the local newspaper, the Bessarabetz, owned and edited by a Moldavian named Kroushevan. Except for the specific charge of "ritual murder," with which I shall presently deal, the campaign of Jew-baiting pursued by this journal, which produced such disastrous and monstrous results, was the counterpart of that now being carried on by the Dearborn Independent. Kroushevan charged that the Jews were conspiring to secure world dominion; he charged that the economic power of the Jewish race in Russia was a peril to the nation; he charged that Jews were responsible for Socialism and social unrest. The anti-Semitic articles appearing in this country and in England during the past few weeks are quite like those which used to appear in the Bessarabetz.

[105]Of course, the crowning infamy of the campaign of hate waged by the Kishinev paper was the charge of "ritual murder." A Christian boy, named Ribalenko, belonging to the village of Doubossar, midway between Kishinev and Odessa, was murdered, his body being found in an orchard. The Bessarabetz at once declared that the boy had been killed by the Jews for sacrificial purposes, thus reviving one of the most terrible and most infamous libels ever directed against any race or sect—a calumny that has been exposed and refuted again and again. Subsequently, after the mischief had been done, it was proved that the boy was murdered by his uncle and the care-taker of the orchard in which the body was found—both of them Russians and Gentiles. The murderers confessed their guilt, the motive for the crime being gain.

The horrors of 1891 were repeated and even excelled at Kishinev in 1903 as a result of this propaganda. It is not necessary to go into the gruesome details of the numerous [106]nameless sex mutilations, the awful outrages committed upon young girls and their gray-haired grandmothers, the shockingly brutal and bestial murders, the well-authenticated cases of nails driven through the eyes of a woman and the cutting out of the tongue of a two-year-old child; let these brief references suffice. It is all too evident from the most reliable accounts of the massacre that hatred born of resentment and fear had made the Gentile mobs as savage as wild beasts. They were no longer human.

Thus far neither the Dearborn Independent nor the London Morning Post has reproduced the "ritual murder" lie. Perhaps neither will do it. Probably not. At the same time both papers have done their utmost to create in the minds of their readers a readiness to believe that or any other infamy when attributed to the Jews. There is not, and there cannot be, any assurance that in the soil thus prepared by these papers, others more ignorant or less scrupulous will not successfully plant belief in the ancient legend of [107]sacrificial murders committed by Jews. And even if this never happens at all, the fact remains that in charging that the horrors of Bolshevism were deliberately instigated by Jews, British and American anti-Semites have appealed to the same unreasoning, instinctive, primal passion. For Bolshevism, primarily a political and economic program though it be, impinges upon religious faith and religious authority. Thus do the anti-Semites play with fire in close proximity to the high explosives of human nature.

It was not the ancient, insensate hatred inspired by belief that the Jews kill Christian children in their Paschal rites which made the Kishinev pogrom possible. That added the element of savage fanaticism to the antagonism and resentment already developed by the economic position of the Jews. The extortions practiced by Jewish money-lenders the superior business capacity, perseverance, and resourcefulness of the Jewish traders and shopkeepers as compared with their Gentile rivals; the intense competition [108]of Jewish artisans, superior to the average Russian workman in intelligence, industry, thrift, sobriety, and ambition—all these things resulted in bitter antagonism. Upon that economic fear and resentment religious fanaticism fastened and flourished.

Herein lies the danger of the anti-Semitic propaganda in this country and in England. It is invoking economic fear and resentment. The non-Jew is adjured to contemplate the spectacle of the Jews ousting the Gentiles from one industry after another, gradually assuming leadership and control of our industry and commerce, thanks in part to superior intelligence, skill, and diligence, but in part also to a lack of moral scrupulousness. So the Jew is presented as a dangerous economic rival to be feared and guarded against. The Gentile is thus taught to look upon Jewish prosperity as a sort of parasitism, and as a menace to the well-being of all non-Jews, even where the withdrawal of Jewish enterprise and activity would mean ruin for Jew and Gentile [109]alike—a condition long recognized in the principal Russian cities. Now, I do not deny that some of the worst aspects of capitalism have been developed to a special and notable extent by some Jews. Neither do I forget that others have developed the very noblest social idealism. The point I am now making is that hatred of the Jew, even when it is motivated by economic fear and resentment, will inevitably nurture every other form of anti-Jewish prejudice. If the campaign of the anti-Semites succeeds in cultivating that fear and hatred in the minds and hearts of our people, there can be no assurance against the occurrence of pogroms here.

VIIIToC

WHAT ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA MEANS

In an article published in the Dearborn Independent, June 19, 1920, it is argued that, transplanted in American soil, anti-Semitism will change its character and that it will not, in this country, take the form of mass violence. Not a single fact or historical example is cited in support of this optimistic theory. There are fine phrases about "the genius of Americanism" and the "innate justice of the American mind," but that is all. And these fine phrases can be easily and adequately disposed of by the simple observation that anti-Semitism, like all other forms of race hatred, is incompatible with "the genius of Americanism" and with "innate justice."

These seem to me to be self-evident [111]truths. Nevertheless, we have had many bitter manifestations of race hatred in this country, not a few of which have been attended by mass violence. When I reflect upon the savage race riots which have occurred in this country, and the numerous lynchings of negroes by infuriated mobs, I cannot bring myself to accept the easy optimism of the anonymous Jew-baiter. Even as I am writing these lines the morning newspaper comes to hand with the account of the lynching of three negroes, one of them a woman, in Georgia. The story is quite familiar in its shocking details. The three negroes, who were charged with murder, were in the custody of the sheriff of the county, when they were seized by a mob and brutally murdered. That this was due to the fact that they were negroes, a manifestation of race hatred, is beyond question.

My faith that we shall be spared the shame and ignominy of pogroms rests upon other and, I believe, more solid foundations. [112]I have confidence that the anti-Semitic propaganda will be met by the stout resistance of the great mass of our citizens of Gentile birth and heritage who will fight and crush anti-Semitism in defense of Christian civilization and of American ideals, traditions, and institutions. That seems to me to be a rational faith; it affords firm anchorage. On the other hand, it is a stupendous and dangerous folly to believe that you can cultivate, as part of our national psychology, anti-Jewish fear and prejudice without reaping in due course a harvest of hatred and violence toward the Jewish people. Racial hatred is everywhere the same.

There is no reason for believing that here in the United States we possess a special immunity from the worst forms of anti-Semitism. It would probably be safer to say that our conditions afford exceptional opportunities for their development. We have drawn heavily upon the Old World for our population, which reflects the divisions [113]and the antipathies, the hereditary jealousies and suspicions, which for hundreds and, in some instances, thousands of years have troubled mankind. We have not yet welded these diverse elements into anything approaching homogeneity; our national consciousness is still undeveloped and, as a consequence of that fact, we have as yet not developed fully those self-imposed disciplines and restraints which are attendant upon highly developed national solidarity. Our national life, with its alien masses only partially assimilated, is as susceptible to inflaming passion as the wind-blown dry autumn leaves are susceptible to the flame of the torch.

Michael Davitt called attention to the fact that in the Kishinev pogrom it was not the rich Jews who were the victims, but Jewish workingmen and their families. That, I believe, is the universal experience. The rich Jews can buy immunity or protection. If as a result of vicious propaganda serious anti-Jewish riots take place in this [114]country the victims will not be the rich Jewish financiers and brokers, against whom the Dearborn Independent fulminates, but innocent and inoffensive, hard-working men and women and their children. And if ever that time comes such men as Henry Ford must bear the major responsibility and guilt.

Let us suppose, for the argument's sake, that anti-Semitism in this country develops, as predicted in Mr. Ford's paper, along less brutal lines; that there will be no such orgies of murder and lust and spoliation as some other nations have had to their shame and dishonor. In that case, how will the organized hostility to the Jews be manifested? Specifically, what is the program of the group of anti-Semites in this country with which the Dearborn Independent is identified? Are they prepared to announce that program, and to have it measured by the standard of the American ideal? Or is it possible that the only "secret conspiracy" is on their side; that the real object of this [115]anti-Semitic agitation is to prepare the way for a political and economic program which its authors dare not publicly avow?

When I was in England recently,[4] I gained a fairly clear and reliable idea of the political and economic program of those bitter Jew-haters who are responsible for the organized campaign of anti-Semitism in that country. In view of the fact that our anti-Semites, including the Dearborn Independent, have so slavishly copied the propaganda of the British anti-Semites, it is justifiable to assume that they are in general agreement with that program, and that they would adopt it in this country, subject to whatever modifications may be made necessary by the differences between the institutions of the two countries. At all events, unless and until the actual program of the anti-Semites of this country is set forth with candor and precision, they have no cause for complaint if it is assumed that their aims are practically identical with those of the British [116]anti-Jewish propagandists whose arguments they repeat in detail, including every grotesque stupidity and every clumsy distortion of the truth.

The program of the British anti-Semites, adapted to American conditions, would involved, as a minimum, the following measures:

1. Disfranchisement of all Jews whose parents and grandparents were not all native-born American citizens.

2. Denial of the right to hold legislative or administrative office, either elective or appointive, to all Jews other than those whose parents and grandparents were all born in the United States.

3. Denial of the right of naturalization to Jews on the ground that they are not assimilable.

4. Prohibition or very strict limitation of further Jewish immigration.

5. Exclusion from the legal, medical, and teaching professions of all Jews except those entitled to full citizenship. (See 1 and 2.)

[117]6. Exclusion of all Jews, except those entitled to full citizenship, from certain economic rights and privileges, including the right to acquire and own land, the right to engage in the sale of stocks, bonds, securities, or real estate, or in banking, money-lending, or insurance.

7. The right of admission to colleges and universities to be so limited as to admit only a small percentage of Jewish students.

That this outline of a program will seem to many to be simply a fantastic jest I am quite well aware. The fact remains, however, that it is simply a bald presentation of the program believed in by a great many anti-Semites. I have only taken the measures that are seriously urged for adoption in England and changed their wording to correspond to American conditions. There is not one item in the program which I did not hear advocated with evident seriousness when I was in England. I learned of one society organized upon a national scale, all of whose members must "prove that their [118]parents and grandparents were of British blood." This society is very actively engaged in the spread of anti-Semitic propaganda. Its prospectus states that it was "Founded to secure the re-enactment of the Act of Settlement, 1700, 1701, which secured the government of Britain to Britons and the land of Britain to the ownership of Britons."

The point of the demand for the re-enactment of the Act of Settlement lies in the fact that one of the clauses in that historic instrument provides that, "no person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging (although he be naturalized or made a denizen), except such as were born of English parents, shall be capable to be of the Privy Council, or a member of either House of Parliament, or enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military." It is also stipulated that no such person shall be capable "to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the Crown to [119]himself, or to any other or others in trust for him." In the light of the constitution of this British society with its large dues-paying membership, and its demand for the re-enactment of the above-quoted provisions of the Act of Settlement, the most drastic parts of the suggested program do not seem so fantastic, after all.

Here, then, is a program of anti-Semitism which fairly expresses the political and economic aspirations of large groups with whom our American anti-Semites, led by the Dearborn Independent, appear to be working in close co-operation and harmony. Whether the program fully meets with their approval or not, it can hardly be questioned that, if their anti-Jewish agitation is to have the result of bringing about political and economic remedies for the conditions they assail, and not pogroms, it will be necessary to discriminate between Jews and Gentiles in citizenship, in education, in property rights, and in economic opportunity. Precisely how these discriminations are to be [120]made may be open to doubt, but that they must be made is—once the anti-Semitic position is taken—beyond all doubt.

Against that reactionary aim I set the American ideal, or what President Roosevelt called "the historic American position of treating each man on his merits as a man, without the least reference to his creed, his race, or his birthplace." Anti-Semitism would divide our citizenship by racial and religious barriers; the Americanism of Washington and Lincoln and Lee and Roosevelt would weld all into a united whole, regardless of race or religion. The way of the anti-Semite is the way of Russia under the tsars, the way of the unspeakable despots who for centuries made the word "Turk" a synonym for oppression and brutal reaction. I prefer the American way. I am opposed to anti-Semitism, not alone for humanitarian reasons, but as a matter of loyalty to America. Anti-Semitism is treason to the American ideal.

FOOTNOTES:

IXToC

WE NEED THE CO-OPERATION OF CHRISTIAN AND JEW

The greatest nations of the world are just emerging from the strain and agony of the most terrible and disastrous war in the history of mankind. From a tiny spark of hatred a great conflagration of passion spread over the world, well-nigh destroying the entire fabric of civilization. How near we have come to that catastrophe, as a result of the war and its evil progeny, they best know who have recently visited the countries principally involved and most vitally affected. Even now civilization is not out of danger, but is weak and unsteady like a man beginning to recover from a terrible fever. Infinite care and patience and wisdom must be exercised by statesmen [122]and peoples and by the molders of public opinion in every nation in order to make recovery possible.

Never was there a moment when racial or religious antagonism was as dangerous and so much to be feared as in this crisis. Never were the citizens of all lands so solemnly warned to avoid the poison of hatred. The passionate hatreds engendered by the war must be crushed down and they who were foes, seeking to destroy one another, must now work together for the preservation of the civilization that is their common heritage. With the carnage and wrack and ruin of the war still oppressing us, and our hearts still lacerated and bruised, a common peril is compelling us to unite and to seek safety in fellowship and co-operation. Yesterday we relied upon the destructive arts of the warrior; to-day we must rely upon the conserving arts of the healer. Yesterday we hailed Mars; to-day we hail the Christ in whose touch is life and healing.

What perverse and malevolent genius it [123]must be that chooses this moment to open the flood gates and set free the pent passions of anti-Semitism! How monstrous a thing it is that from a great historic pulpit of the Christian Church which Beecher glorified by his courageous idealism, the brutal and un-Christian appeals of anti-Semitism should be made now when the world needs, above all things, to be purged of the poison of hatred and strengthened by fellowship! How great a tragedy it is that men like Mr. Ford and his associates can find nothing to inspire them in the vast work of restoration and reconstruction; that their energies and resources are directed to the ignoble and dangerous end of inciting in the minds of millions of our people fear and hatred of the Jew, as Jew!

I am not insensible of, or indifferent to, the problems incidental to the presence in this country of more than three million Jews. Neither am I insensible of, or indifferent to, the problems incidental to our vast negro population, or to the presence of [124]Europeans and their slow and imperfect assimilation. Recognizing these problems clearly and fully, I am quite certain that racial hatred and antagonism is no solvent for any one of them. The complete success of the appeals that are being made against the Jews would not benefit the Gentiles in this country in any particular. There never has been an organized propaganda of race antagonism and hatred, anywhere in the world, which benefited either race. In Russia and in Rumania—to cite only two examples—anti-Semitism has injured the Christians fully as much as it has injured the Jews. Turkish hatred and persecution of Armenians has invariably injured the Turks quite as much as it has injured their victims. In opposing the propaganda of anti-Semitism I am defending equally the interest of Jew and non-Jew. I hold no brief for the Jewish "race," so-called, or for Judaism. The only brief I hold is for the democratic and humanitarian ideals of America. That brief I hold by reason of my citizenship, [125]voluntarily assumed, and the freeman's oath with which that citizenship was consecrated.

The solution of the problems arising out of the massing of so many Jewish people in our large cities requires the unity and co-operation of all men and women of good will, both Jews and Gentiles, in precisely the same way, and for precisely the same reasons, as the solution of all our other problems does. There is nothing in our history which justifies the fear that our citizens of Jewish birth will be less ready than their Christian neighbors to give their whole-hearted service to that end. There never has been a call for service to this nation which found the Jewish citizens less patriotic, less willing to serve the nation, and even to sacrifice for it, than other sections of our citizenry. From Valley Forge to Château-Thierry that record is written. I remember well that memorable day in July, 1918, when I heard from the lips of M. Clemenceau the news, just received by [126]him, that our American soldiers were victorious at Château-Thierry. Later, on the way to Château-Thierry, I passed the long lines of ambulances bearing away the wounded men, many of whom were beyond all hope of recovery. Then, still later, in the great, wonderful hospital at Neuilly, I talked with many of those who fell wounded in that terrible fight. There were Jews as well as Gentiles among those men, but there was no difference in the quality of their Americanism, in their patriotism, their fortitude, or their courage.

President Roosevelt, who was too decent as a man and too loyal as an American citizen to have any tolerance for anti-Semitism, more than once called attention to the fact that citizens of Jewish ancestry and faith have, in every crisis in the history of the nation which has shown justice to them, repaid the nation with loyal service. In an address to the B'nai B'raith, June 15, 1905, delivered at the White House, President Roosevelt said:

There is no movement for the advancement of humanitarian ideals in this country to which American citizens of Jewish ancestry and faith have not contributed their [128]full share. It is impossible for any fair-minded man who knows the facts to read without indignation the article published in the Dearborn Independent, June 5, 1920. In addition to charging that "Jewish business methods" are responsible for the high prices which have obtained for so long, the article accuses Jewish employers of being responsible for conditions of employment not known to the Gentile world. Lest I be accused of misrepresenting the writer of this libel, I will quote his exact words:

I respectfully suggest that these statements are intended to convey to the mind of the reader two impressions, neither of which corresponds to reality. The first impression is that Jewish employers have been and are more brutal and merciless than Gentile employers. Now, it is a fact that the "sweatshop," using that term in its strictest, technical sense, developed, in this country, after 1885—that is to say, following the great influx of Polish and Russian Jews and the equally great increase in the manufacture of ready-made clothing. But, while this is technically true of sweating, we had in this country long before the Jews came children's and women's labor under terrible conditions. In 1884 young girls and women [130]worked in the factories of New Hampshire from five in the morning until seven at night, with only forty-five minutes' intermission, and their wages ranged from a dollar and a quarter to two dollars per week. Until quite recently, in our Southern cotton mills, owned and operated by Gentiles, we maintained conditions as bad as ever existed in the sweatshops of our large cities. It does not require any great amount of research to prove that Gentile employers have in the past been just as indifferent to the well-being of their employees, just as reactionary, and just as opposed to reform, as Jewish employers. I would remind the reader, in this connection, that we have never had in this country, not even in the sweatshops owned and controlled by Jews, anything approaching the terrible conditions which obtained in English factories in the early days of the factory system, when, in factories owned by Christians, little children, mere babies in fact, were made to work under conditions of revolting cruelty, [131]whipped by brutal overseers, and not infrequently driven literally to death from exhaustion. Thus did Christian employers treat Christian children.

But, while it is true that in our great cities sweatshops principally developed under Jewish auspices, it is equally true that in the fight to abolish sweating Jews have taken an active and honorable part. This I know of a certainty, and the insinuations to the contrary contained in the article under discussion are as cruelly unfair and unjust as they are untrue. So, too, in the fight against child labor in the cities and factories of the North. It was my privilege to take part in that fight, and I know that in the very forefront of the long struggle for remedial legislation, helping with money and with personal service, side by side with Christians, were many men and women of Jewish ancestry and faith. I know, too, that fighting on the other side were both Christians and Jews. It is preposterous that any attempt should be made to so [132]misrepresent the struggle for "the practical humanizing of industry" as to make it appear that the Jewish people in particular were either hostile or indifferent to it.

The second impression which the article is intended to convey is that in those industries which are controlled by Jews no such attempts have been made to better the lot of the workers employed in them as have been made in those industries which are controlled by non-Jews. This charge, likewise, is wholly baseless, as anybody who desires to know the truth can readily ascertain. It was my good fortune and privilege, as one of the representatives of the public appointed by President Wilson, to serve as a member of the First Industrial Conference convoked by the President in October, 1919. Among the members of that Conference chosen to represent the public were both Christians and Jews, and I venture to say that there was not one of the former who for a single moment doubted the sincerity, the patriotism, or the [133]humanitarianism of the Jewish members. Moreover, in the course of our work there was brought to our attention an astonishing amount of information concerning efforts being made by progressive and high-minded employers in all parts of the country to introduce into their industries reforms looking to the betterment of the lot of their employees, including profit-sharing and participation in shop management and control by the workers. It is neither more nor less than the literal truth that these reports were quite as favorable to the Jewish employers as to their Christian competitors. As a matter of fact, in the ready-made-clothing industry, which is very largely in the hands of Jews, many of the most interesting experiments in industrial democracy and many of the sincerest efforts to humanize industry are being made. These things are known to every student of the problem—and they suffice to brand the statements made against the Jews in the article under discussion as both untrue and studiously unjust.

[134]Not only is it true that in the ever-increasing effort to bring about "the practical humanizing of industry" no distinction can honestly and justly be drawn between Gentile and Jewish employers, just as no such distinction can honestly and justly be drawn with respect to the selfishness and ignorance which result in conditions that are inhuman and oppressive; it is equally true, as a study of the records of Congress and the legislative bodies of the individual states will show beyond question, that no such distinction between Jew and Gentile can be honestly and justly drawn with respect to the mass of social legislation enacted in recent years. Socially minded men and women have supported such legislation, regardless of differences of race and creed, while men and women who lacked social consciousness, who were selfish and indifferent to the claims of their fellow human beings, have opposed such legislation, making common cause regardless of differences of race and creed.

[135]All this is exactly as it should be, of course, and precisely what might be expected to result from our ideals, our institutions, and our laws. It would be tragic and disastrous, indeed, if our experience were otherwise. The charges made against our Jewish citizens by the Dearborn Independent amount in reality to a terrible verdict of failure against America and the democratic ideal which America represents. The only hope we can have of solving the great problems which confront this nation rests, and can only rest, upon the assurance that an enlightened citizenry, united by love of country and of mankind, and undivided by race or creed, will strive with ever-increasing strength, vision, and courage toward the goal of equality of opportunity for all. Thus only shall this nation which we love fulfill the high hopes of its greatest spiritual leaders and statesmen. To destroy the faith of our sons and daughters in American democratic ideals—which is precisely what anti-Semitism is aiming to do—is a monstrous thing.

XToC

A FINAL WORD

I have finished with the Dearborn Independent and the flimsy fabric of its ridiculous charges. My self-imposed task is finished, and I am content to leave the grotesque legend of the protocols, together with the monstrous and cruel charge based upon them, to the judgment of my fellow citizens of Gentile birth. Into the motives of Mr. Henry Ford I do not care to enter. I suspect that they are pathological in their origin. Be that how it may, my pity for the man is as profound as my contempt for the propaganda with which he has chosen to associate himself. To be capable of deliberately inciting and fostering race hatred at any time is to cease to be capable of enjoying the fellowship of decent and just [137]men and women; to incite such hatred now, in the midst of such unprecedented suffering and the universal need of fellowship and healing, is a pitiful self-degradation.

This organized propaganda of anti-Semitism has had one wholesome result which its organizers neither foresaw nor intended. It has called forth a notable protest by men and women of Gentile birth and Christian faith which may well stand as the answer of American civilization and democracy to this ancient and hateful evil. All honor to President Wilson for departing from official traditions and placing his name to that protest. Throughout the civilized world that declaration has gone—America's answer to anti-Semitism.

I suppose that so long as the imperfections of human nature endure, so long as there are men and women who are weak, selfish, cruel, vengeful, or ignorant, there will be racial and religious hatreds to be guarded against and opposed. I suppose, too, that until wars have ceased to be possible, in [138]war's aftermath such hatreds will flourish. Against every form of racial and religious hatred, against sectarian bigotry and intolerance, every loyal American citizen should be prepared to take an uncompromising stand. That obligation, I take it, is implicit in our citizenship. It is for the integrity of that citizenship that I am concerned to plead. Anti-Semitism commands our special attention to-day because it is being spread by an elaborately organized propaganda. But the duty of the Christian to defend the Jew against persecution is neither greater nor less than the duty of the Protestant to defend the right of the Catholic or of all white citizens—Christians and Jews, Catholics and Protestants—to stand solidly against injustice to the negro and in defense of his rights when these are assailed. My plea, is not for pro-Semitism in opposition to anti-Semitism, but for loyalty to American ideals in opposition to any and all attempts to divide our citizenship on racial or religious lines.

[139]Because of a reasoned faith in those principles and ideals of democracy which brought this nation into being, and toward the realization of which we have steadily progressed through sunshine and storm, through peace and war, I am opposed to anti-Semitism and every manifestation of it. Anti-Semitism and the American ideal can never be reconciled. Far sooner shall men reconcile fire and water, or mix oil and water inseparably, than blend the cruel and hateful passions of anti-Semitism with the generous spirit of America. For America's safety and honor, therefore, I plead for unity against this sinister foe lurking within the gates, as against all other foes, no matter under what flag they may be marshaled.

POSTSCRIPTToC

After the foregoing was written I received from the head of a great American corporation a letter calling my attention to an anti-Semitic pamphlet published in New York City, entitled "Who Rules Russia?" and asking me for information concerning certain statements made therein. The pamphlet is printed in two languages, English and Russian, and bears the imprint of an organization called "Association Unity of Russia." Letters to the address given in the pamphlet, ordering copies of it, brought no response of any kind and it was necessary for me to resort to other methods of obtaining a copy. Incidentally, I caused certain inquiries to be made concerning the Association Unity of Russia. Now that I have made a careful [141]examination of the pamphlet, I do not wonder that my request that copies be sent me was ignored. Certainly the publishers did not intend that it should be circulated among persons familiar with the subject and competent to expose its misrepresentations.

So far as I can learn, the Association Unity of Russia is the name of a group of Russian emigrés residing in New York. They are monarchists and reactionaries, their hope being the restoration of tsarism. Like most of their kind, they are bitter Jew-baiters. Their pamphlet is entirely typical of Russian anti-Semitism, particularly in its reckless disregard of truth. I find here reproduced the charge that "the Soviet bureaucracy is almost entirely controlled by Jews and Jewesses." Not only so, but it is charged that the non-Bolshevist Socialist parties are mainly composed of Jews. The pamphlet ends with the statement, "the Russian state is actually dominated by the Jewish nation." There is no argument in the pamphlet, which consists of alleged lists [142]of officials classified according to nationality and race.

That some of these lists are deliberate inventions of the anonymous compiler or compilers is quite certain, for the most complete files of Bolshevist publications in this country do not contain either the lists or the data from which it might be possible to compile them. Other lists represent the most reckless lying. For example, on page 5 I find what purports to be a list of the members of the Council of the People's Commissars. The actual list, copied from Bolshevist official sources, I have reproduced on an earlier page. This fraudulent list contains twenty-two names, of which number seventeen are alleged to be Jews, three Russians, and two Armenians. Looking over the list, I find that it omits well-known and important commissars such as the following: Raskolnikov (Navy), Petrovsky (Interior), Krestinsky (Finance), Krassin (Industry and Commerce and Transportation), Sereda (Agriculture), [143]Kolontai (Public Welfare), Rykov (Supreme Economic Council), Bruchanov (Supply), Smidt (Labor), Semashko (Public Health), and Bonch-Brouyevich (Secretary). All these are Russians; there is not a Jew among them. The list contains, on the other hand, the names of a number of Bolsheviki who are not, and who never have been, members of the Council of the People's Commissars. Some of them may hold positions of minor importance in the Soviet regime or in the Communist party. The inclusion of their names in this list as members of the central government is an impudent imposture.

The fact that the pamphlet is printed in Russian and English is calculated to impress and deceive the reader. No one who knows the situation will believe that the use of Russian had any other purpose or that it was intended for propaganda among Russians. Such a document, partly printed in Russian and purporting to be issued by Russians, is relied upon to convince [144]Americans that the compiler or compilers—who prefer to remain anonymous—know what they are talking about. Not many will take the pains to scrutinize the various lists closely. Consequently, even where one page contradicts another, the fact goes undetected. A few examples will show how stupid these Jew-baiters are. On page 9 Latsis, of the Extraordinary Commission, is accurately described as a Lett, but on page 23 he becomes a Jew. Fritchie is a Lett on page 10 and a Jew on page 22—and neither description is correct.

On page 25 Kerensky is described as a Jew, and it is said that his real name is Kirbis. This legend has been published before and thoroughly exposed. The fact is that Kerensky is not a Jew and never was known by the name of Kirbis or any other name than Kerensky. He never participated in the "underground" work of the revolutionary movement and therefore had no need of an alias. Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky comes from an old Russian family [145]thoroughly orthodox and respectable. His history has been completely explored. No. The anonymous Jew-baiters have simply reproduced a silly legend that appeared in the reactionary anti-Semitic sheet, Novoye Vremia, of Petrograd, shortly before the revolution of March, 1917, and was immediately exposed and ridiculed.

In an examination of the various lists of names given I find at least twenty-five instances of non-Jews, principally Russians, being described as Jews. I find, also, many Jewish names purporting to be the names of Bolshevist officials of some importance, though it is safe to say that they were never heard of by any student of contemporary Russian affairs. I do not say that no such persons exist, but I do assert that if they exist they do not hold the positions attributed to them, and that even their names are not to be found in the Bolshevist journals from which this pamphlet is said to have been compiled. Perhaps some of the members of the pathetic little group of [146]Russian monarchist emigrés who meet weekly in the basement of a certain church to pray for the restoration of tsarism will condescend to tell us how the names were chosen.

How stupid these pious humbugs are in their forgeries! Here is a list of names alleged to be a complete list of members of the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party Mensheviki. Of course all are Jews. I look over the list and see at once that three of those named are not even members of that party, let alone of its supreme authority. Ratner, Rappoport, and Gotz do not belong to that party, but are prominent as leaders in the Socialists-Revolutionists party. Perhaps there are other mistakes in this list—but what is the use of wasting time in checking it further? Here is another list, even more defective, which is offered as a list of the members of the Central Committee of the party of Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right. It contains fifteen names, of which fourteen [147]are Jews and only one, that of Tchaykovsky, is a Russian. But Tchaykovsky is not a member of this party at all and, therefore, not of its Central Committee. He belongs to the party of People's Socialists. In the list I find the names of Lvovitch and Berlinrout, who likewise do not belong to this party and are not members of the committee in question. They are well-known leaders of the Zionists-Socialists. Abramovitch and Khintchouk are included in this utterly worthless list, though they do not belong to the party of Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right, but to the Social Democratic party.

I do not suppose that many of my readers will care very much about the party affiliations of these men or about the factional divisions of Russian Socialism. The fact that this latest addition to the pamphlet literature of anti-Semitism emanates from Russian sources and is printed partly in Russian gives it an appearance of authority that is wholly unjustified by its content. [148]It has seemed to me worth while, therefore, to call attention to its clumsy misrepresentations, its self-contradictions, its stupid blunders, and its stupendous effrontery. This precious example of Russian monarchistic anti-Semitic literature is just about fit to be placed alongside the Dearborn Independent.

THE END

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