War and peace they often hold in their financial power, and therefore become the arbitrators and umpires of national fate.
When my friend William was working on the rough sketch of the "Merchant of Venice," in the years 1598 and 1599, there was a great hate manifested against the London Jews, Dr. Lopez, the physician of Queen Elizabeth, having been recently tried and hung for the design of poisoning Her Majesty.
The Jews were accused of clipping the coins of the realm, demanding one hundred per cent. usury, bewitching the people, sacrificing Christian boys on the altar of religious fanaticism and setting fire to the warehouses and shipping along the Thames.
These outrageous stories were believed by many people, and Shakspere, being infected by the hate of the multitude (for the first time in his intellectual career), fashioned the repulsive character of Shylock, who walks the world as a synonym of greed, hate and vengeance.
Several Jew plays had been put on the London boards, like the "Venetian Comedy" and the "Jew of Malta," but none had the lofty pitch of Shakspere's, who derived his main idea of the play from the Italian story of "Pecorone," by Florentina, and Silvayn's "Orator."
Yet, with William's imagination, a hint was sufficient, the rose and acorn giving him scope enough to create flower gardens and forest ranges.
The Jew has always been a great subject for the world's contention and condemnation, particularly since the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. If Christ, the Jew, suffered for others, his own race for nearly two thousand years have been "scapegoats" for private and public villains.
From the days of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Louis the Fourteenth of France, Henry the Eighth and Elizabeth of England, Emperor William of Germany and the Czars Nicholas and Alexander of Russia, the Jews have been robbed, exiled and murdered by Christian rulers, presumptively for their rebellion against the State, but really as an excuse to rob them of their jewels and gold. The Caucasian Christian has never hesitated to rob and murder anybody anywhere for cash and country!
Look over the world to-day, and you behold nothing but diplomatic cheating, domestic and foreign robbery and international murder for individual ambition and national territorial expansion! The official hypocrite is the greatest liar of the century!
England, Germany, France, Russia and the United States are this very day competing with each other in the race for universal empire! Considering that "Uncle Sam" has had only one hundred and twenty-six years of national life, he has forged to the front amazingly, and has become the grandest "General" on the globe! He does things!