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, 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, 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 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.
II[ToC]
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. 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 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.