The myth of the Jewish menace in world affairs / or, The truth about the forged protocols of the elders of Zion

Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO
It would not be easy to say how large a part of our troubles in the present troublous times is due to the general discredit that has overtaken the old British virtue of honesty.
The Morning Post (in a lucid interval of subjectivity), August 28, 1920.
The substance of the following three essays was originally contributed, in the form of independent articles to the Manchester Guardian , the Spectator , and the Daily Telegraph respectively. They have been carefully revised, much amplified, and largely rewritten in order to make a connected argument and avoid repetition. Footnotes of authorities have been added. My grateful acknowledgments are due to the Editors of the Manchester Guardian , the Spectator , and the Daily Telegraph for their kindness in permitting this republication.
I confess to a feeling of shame at having to write this pamphlet at all. That reputable newspapers in this country should be seeking to transplant here the seeds of Prussian anti-Semitism, and that they should employ for this purpose devices so questionable and a literature so melodramatically silly, cannot but cause a sense of humiliation to any self-respecting Englishman. It is for this reason that I have strictly limited myself to an examination of the specific charges formulated by these publications. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is necessary to deal with them on a larger scale.
L.W.
Gray's Inn, London, W.C. November, 1920.

The theory of the Morning Post may be briefly stated. Its fundamental contention is that all political unrest is artificial. It is a product of the Hidden Hand which is now revealed to us as a Formidable Sect encompassing the world. This sect has been at its present work for at least a hundred and fifty years. The French Revolution was contrived by it, as well as all the subordinate revolutions down to our own time. Trade Unionism, Socialism, Syndicalism, Bolshevism, Sinn Fein, Indian Nationalism, and their analogues in every part of the globe are outward and visible signs of its sinister activity. That there are social grievances and even evils at the root of this unrest is not denied, but they are as artificial as the unrest itself. They have all been deliberately brought about by the Hidden Hand in order to stir up revolt against the Throne and Altar. The way in which it has been done is a little complicated. Behind the restless and seditious movements which we all know there is a secret revolutionary organisation in the shape of Freemasonry. But this is only intermediate, for Freemasonry itself, through some obscure transaction between the Templars and the Old Man of the Mountain, was created by the Formidable Sect, and is wholly, though perhaps unconsciously, under its control. Freemasonry had a specially activist wing in the Illuminati—also an invention of the Formidablists—which was chiefly responsible for the French Revolution.