We will create a universal economic crisis, by all possible underhand means and with the help of gold, which is all in our hands. Simultaneously we will throw on to the streets huge crowds of workmen throughout Europe. We will increase the wages, which will not help the workmen as, at the same time, we will raise the price of prime necessities ... it is essential for us at all costs to deprive the aristocracy of their lands. To attain this purpose, the best method is to force up rates and taxes. These methods will keep the landed interests at their lowest possible ebb.
Nor can one fail to recognize Soviet Russia in the following:—
“... in governing the world the best results are obtained by means of violence and intimidation.... In politics, we must know how to confiscate property without any hesitation, if by so doing we can obtain subjection and power. Our State, following the way of peaceful conquest, has the right of substituting for the terrors of war, executions less apparent and more expedient, which are necessary to uphold terror, producing blind submission.... By new laws we will regulate the political life of our subjects as though they were so many parts of a machine. Such laws will gradually restrict all freedom and liberties allowed by the Gentiles.... It is essential for us to arrange that, besides ourselves, there should be in all countries nothing but a huge proletariat, so many soldiers and police loyal to our cause; ... in order to demonstrate our enslavement of the Gentile Governments of Europe, we will show our power to one of them by means of crime and violence, that is to say, a reign of terror; ... our programme will induce a third part of the populace to watch the remainder from a pure sense of duty or from the principle of voluntary service.”
Bearing in mind when this was published, we see, fifteen years later, a government established in Russia of which a high percentage of the leaders are Jews, whose modus operandi follows the principles quoted, and whose mainstay is a Communist Party, which answers to the last quotation. We see this, and it seems uncanny. The trouble is that all this fosters indiscriminate anti-Semitism. That the latter is rampant in Eastern Europe is a fact. That its propaganda in France, England, and America is growing is a fact also. Do we want, and can we afford to add exacerbated race-hatred to all our political, social, and economic troubles? If not, the question of the “Jewish Peril” should be taken up and dealt with. It is far too interesting, the hypothesis it presents is far too ingenious, attractive, and sensational not to attract the attention of our none too happy and none too contented public. The average man thinks that there is something very fundamentally wrong with the world he lives in. He will eagerly grasp at a plausible “working hypothesis.”
What are these “Protocols”? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans, and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in parts fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfilment? Have we been struggling these tragic years to blow up and extirpate the secret organization of German world dominion only to find beneath it another more dangerous because more secret? Have we, by straining every fibre of our national body, escaped a “Pax Germanica” only to fall into a “Pax Judaeica”? The “Elders of Zion,” as represented in their “Protocols,” are by no means kinder taskmasters than William II and his henchmen would have been.
All these questions, which are likely to obtrude themselves on the reader of the “Jewish Peril,” cannot be dismissed by a shrug of the shoulders unless one wants to strengthen the hand of the typical anti-Semite and call forth his favourite accusation of the “conspiracy of silence.” An impartial investigation of these would-be documents and of their history is most desirable. That history is by no means clear from the English translation. They would appear, from internal evidence, to have been written by Jews for Jews, or to be cast in the form of lectures, and notes for lectures, by Jews to Jews. If so, in what circumstances were they produced and to cope with what inter-Jewish emergency? Or are we to dismiss the whole matter without inquiry and to let the influence of such a book as this work unchecked?
The publishers believe that the vast majority of the Jews in this country have never heard of the Protocols, and would denounce the plan which they set forth. The Jews here, constituting about three per cent of the population, enjoy the same rights and privileges as other citizens. All are equal before the law and all are free from persecution on religious grounds. American Jews are regarded by their fellow citizens, and for the most part doubtless regard themselves, as Americans of Jewish faith. They have indeed a special ground for gratitude to the country of their adoption, for they have found here opportunities which they did not enjoy in many other countries. They have shared in all the activities leading to prosperity and they have prospered. That they do, in fact, recognize their favorable situation is shown by the statements two of them are reported by the New York Times, in its issue of May 4, 1920, to have made at a mass meeting held on the preceding evening at Cooper Union under the auspices of the Independent Order of Brith Abraham, to express the gratitude of the Jewish people to Great Britain for taking the mandate for Palestine. Judge Gustave Hartman, Grand Master of the order, is reported to have said in part:
“We didn’t know what a home was until we reached this greatest of all republics, the United States of America. Here we are given free and equal opportunity under the free institutions of this country. In this country the Jews have lived and prospered, and in all this country there are no better citizens than the Jewish people.”
Judge Otto A. Rosalsky said “that it became the duty of the Jewish citizens of America to cherish the ideals of this country and keep them intact, so that they might be handed down to their children’s children.”
Doubtless American Jews will recognize the menace to American institutions and American prosperity of any such political conspiracy as is outlined in the Protocols. But the situation demands more than tacit disapproval on their part. Bearing in mind the close parallelism shown to exist between the “Protocols” and the actual policies of Bolshevism as practiced in Russia, the dominant position occupied by the Jews in the Soviet Government, and the open sympathy and approval given to international Bolshevism by prominent Jews outside of Russia, it is vitally necessary that the American Jews should by word and deed express their condemnation not only of Bolshevism, but of any plan or program for world domination similar to that contained in the Protocols. Aside from their position on these matters, there is no likelihood of any change in the favorable situation of the Jews in this country unless by their own conduct they convince the American people that they are hostile to our institutions or to our system of government, or that they desire to constitute within the borders of the United States a race apart,—to be treated as members of a foreign nation, enjoying special rights, privileges, or immunities.