The Jew and American Ideals

by John Spargo

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 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 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.

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 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 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. 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 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 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 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:

In 1901 I came into possession of a manuscript, and this comparatively small book was destined to cause such a deep change in my entire viewpoint as can only be caused in the heart of man by Divine Power. It was comparable with the miracle of making the blind see. "May Divine acts show on him."

This manuscript was called, "The Protocols of the Zionist Men of Wisdom," and it was given to me by the now deceased leader of the Tshernigov nobility, who later became Vice-Governor of Stavropol, Alexis Nicholaievich Sukhotin. I had already begun to work with my pen for the glory of the Lord, and I was friendly with Sukhotin because he was a man of my opinion—i.e., extremely conservative, as they are now termed.

Sukhotin told me that he in turn had obtained the manuscript from a lady who always lived abroad. This lady was a noblewoman from Tshernigov. He mentioned her by name, but I have forgotten it. He said that she obtained it in some mysterious way, by theft, I believe. Sukhotin also said that one copy of the manuscript was given by this lady to Sipiagin, then Minister of the Interior, upon her return from abroad, and that Sipiagin was subsequently killed. He said other things of the same mysterious character. But when I first became acquainted with the contents of the manuscript I was convinced that its terrible, cruel, and straight-forward truth is witness of its true origin from the "Zionist Men of Wisdom," and that no other evidence of its origin would be needed.