The Jew and American Ideals.

by John Spargo.

FOREWORD

This little book was written without the knowledge of any Jew. It is not a defense of the Jew. It is not a pro-Jewish argument. It is a defense of American ideals and inst.i.tutions against anti-Semitism; a plea for Christian civilization.

JOHN SPARGO.

"NESTLEDOWN,"

OLD BENNINGTON, VERMONT.

_January, 1921._

THE JEW AND AMERICAN IDEALS

I

A PACIFIST TURNED ANTI-SEMITE

About five years ago I was honored by an invitation to join with a well-known American capitalist and certain other men and women in an attempt to bring about the termination of the great World War. The manufacturer in question believed that it was possible to "get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas," and to that end organized an expedition which is now remembered chiefly for the bellicosity and belligerency of many of the "pacifists" who journeyed to Europe upon the "Peace Ship."

In declining the invitation to a.s.sociate myself with this expedition, I felt that it was inc.u.mbent upon me to explain that, while I doubted the wisdom of the undertaking and felt that it might do harm instead of good, I honored the n.o.ble and unselfish motives by which Mr. Ford was inspired. His hatred of war and blood-shed, and his desire to promote peace and good will among all peoples and races, seemed to me to be both profound and sincere and evoked my heartfelt admiration and sympathy. The more I doubted his political judgment--believing that he was being used as a dupe and tool in a very dangerous intrigue--the more willing I was to acknowledge those qualities of mind and heart which distinguished the famous manufacturer, and which the authors of the intrigue sought to exploit and use for sinister ends. On many occasions I have given public expression to my belief in Mr. Ford's sincere and unselfish idealism.

If any justification is required for my now a.s.sociating the name of Henry Ford with a matter of grave international political importance, I venture to suggest that it can be found in the pre-eminent position which he occupies in one of the great branches of modern industry and in the fact that as recently as two years ago he aspired to a seat in the United States Senate, being nominated for that position by the Democratic party in the great state of Michigan. Upon both counts views expressed by Mr. Ford upon international questions which may involve great and serious national or racial conflicts become the subject of legitimate public interest, and when in furtherance of such views he a.s.sociates himself with an active policy which deals with one of the most difficult and dangerous problems confronting civilized mankind, his views and his acts a.s.sume public importance and invite and compel attention and discussion. Therefore, believing as I do that Mr. Ford is primarily responsible for a propaganda which is subversive of the best traditions and inst.i.tutions of this Republic, and which has everywhere and at all times resulted in shameful crimes against humanity, and in resistance to every progressive and humane movement, I feel that it is my right and duty to utter my solemn remonstrance and protest.

I have just returned from a tour through several of the European countries most seriously involved in the late war. On the one hand, I was deeply and gratefully impressed while in Europe with the manner in which some of the intensest hatreds engendered by the war appear to be dying out. On the other hand, I was deeply and painfully impressed by the fact that, in country after country, racial hatreds older than any nation in the world were being deliberately and systematically revived and intensified, threatening brutal and ugly crimes against humanity exceeding in horror the worst and most inhuman violence of the Great War which so nearly achieved the ruin of civilization. In Germany, for example, I found no hatred of America, notwithstanding the fact that alone among the nations lately fighting against her we were still technically at war with her. On the contrary, there was manifest an almost universal desire for the restoration of friendship between the two countries. In Belgium I saw hundreds of little German children being fed by Belgian agencies, proving that hate was being dissolved by compa.s.sion. Even in France the fierce hatred of Germany was obviously dying.

So much for the bright side of the European situation as I saw it.

Unfortunately, to complete the picture, it is necessary to acknowledge the numerous evidences of a widespread revival of one of the most despicable, brutal, and dangerous forms of racial hatred and antagonism known to mankind--anti-Semitism. Even in England, long hitherto so free from Jew-baiting, the land in which the Jew Disraeli became Prime Minister, I found an extensive, active, and skillfully organized campaign directed against Jews, as Jews. It was and is a campaign differing hardly at all from similar campaigns against the Jews in Russia under tsarism, in Rumania, in Poland, and, to a less extent, in Germany under the Hohenzollern. Unless this propaganda is checked, unless the intelligence and the conscience of England can be marshaled against it, England will take the place of the Russia of the Romanovs as the land of pogroms, and infamies like the horrible pogroms of Kishinev may occur in British cities.

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 ma.s.ses and inspire them to savage attacks upon the Jewish population, could have been worse than much of this propaganda. It appealed to every pa.s.sion, 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 s.p.a.ce to the creation of anti-Jewish feeling and sentiment. One of the first pieces of acc.u.mulated 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 coa.r.s.e 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

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 doc.u.ments. 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 doc.u.ments 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 subst.i.tute 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 inst.i.tutions in civilization is encouraged by the invisible Jewish government, the leaders of this vast conspiracy.

If we are to place credence in these doc.u.ments, the princ.i.p.al agency through which the Jewish conspirators have worked is Freemasonry. The Masonic orders throughout the world have been the blind dupes and tools of this superimperialism of the Jews, if the statements made in these protocols are true. Indeed, there can hardly be any question at all that if the truth of these doc.u.ments can be established, there is, to say the least, quite as much reason for suppressing Masonic lodges, and making them illegal, as there is for suppressing Bolshevist or other conspiratory organizations. I should just as little expect to find sympathy for Bolshevism in a Masonic lodge as in the College of Cardinals, or in the Union League Club, let us say. When we enter into the mysteries of this "Jewish conspiracy" we encounter many surprises.

According to the statements made in these protocols, practically all the revolutionary movements of modern times have been instigated and directed by Jews. They have caused the a.s.sa.s.sination of rulers and heads of states, so that behind the murderous fanaticism of individuals there has generally been the cold calculation of the most cunning and unscrupulous intellects of the human race. According to the same evidence, the wars which have drenched the world with blood and rent it with pa.s.sion, including racial wars in Asia and Africa, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Russo-j.a.panese War, and the recent World War, were all brought about deliberately by Jewish cunning, for the purpose of weakening the fabric of non-Jewish states and providing the Jews with new sources of strength and power to be used to establish their universal dominion.

All this is terrible enough. But there is even worse to follow. We must remember that these doc.u.ments were first published in Russia in 1905, and they purport to be the _proces-verbaux_ of a conference held eight or nine years prior to that time. It is rather startling, therefore, to find outlined therein a program of revolutionary action, to be initiated in Russia and developed throughout the civilized world, remarkably like the Bolshevist program, not merely in the precise measures contained in the program, but also, and especially, in the general conception of policy underlying it. We find in this alleged Jewish program the same negation of all the accepted principles of law and honor and morality that the Bolshevist policy has so conspicuously manifested. It is brazenly stated that bribery, deceit, and treachery are to be used (Protocol I). A vast army of spies and secret agents abundantly supplied with funds is to be relied on to promote revolt and dissension in all the princ.i.p.al countries (Protocol 2). "Ferments, discords, and hostility" are to be deliberately created and fostered throughout Europe and, through the international relations of the European countries, to the other continents also (Protocol 7). Efforts are to be made to compromise the honor and besmirch the reputations of the most influential statesmen and to use blackmail in order to make these statesmen serve the purposes of the conspirators (Protocol 10). Revolutionary movements, anarchistic, communistic, and socialistic, are to be fostered for the purpose of destroying non-Jewish civilization (Protocol 3). In the event of unfavorable action by any power or group of powers, it is to be met by resistance in the form of universal war (Protocol 7).

Disorganization of the economic life of the world through the debas.e.m.e.nt and ruin of the credit and currency systems, of the princ.i.p.al nations, and the creation of "a universal economic crisis"

are also to be used to the same end (Protocol 3).

I have briefly summarized only a few of the more important items in this monstrous program. There is more of the same general type of fiendishness. Concerning the character of the program itself, there can be no difference of opinion between honest Americans. It is as diabolical as it is fantastic. What importance we ought to attach to it, however, must necessarily depend upon our judgment concerning its origin. If these protocols, and the program contained in them, are to be seriously accepted for what they pretend to be--namely, a deliberate statement of the purposes and aims of the leaders of the Jewish people throughout the world, with practically the entire Jewish race behind them--then the matter a.s.sumes enormous importance. If, on the other hand, there is no substantial evidence of this--and such evidence as is available indicates that the protocols are the product of a single diseased and depraved mind--the doc.u.ments cease to possess any great significance and the terrible injustice and frightfully dangerous consequences of charging them against the Jewish people are obvious. We must, therefore, pay critical attention to the origin of the protocols and the circ.u.mstances surrounding their publication, as well as to any internal evidences of their genuineness or otherwise.

III

THE MYSTERY OF THE PROTOCOLS

First of all, then, what do we actually know about the origin of these protocols? In the year 1903 a book was published at Solotarevo in Russia, ent.i.tled _The Great in Little_. The reputed author of the book was one Prof. Sergei Nilus, concerning whom we have no absolutely reliable information. Author of a book which has made an enormous sensation in many lands and become the subject of furious controversy, he is quite unknown. No responsible person in or out of Russia has ever positively identified Nilus, so far as I have been able to discover. From what he says of himself it is practically certain that he was in the service of the infamous Secret Police Agency of the late Tsar Nicholas II. For reasons which will presently appear, I am disposed to believe that the very un-Russian name Nilus is really a pseudonym.

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 pa.s.s. 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 n.o.ble. 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 ident.i.ty of the editor who makes this statement.

And here let me remark in pa.s.sing 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 ident.i.ty 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 doc.u.ments 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 t.i.tle, "Antichrist a Near Political Possibility." This additional matter consisted of (1) an introduction written by Nilus himself, (2) twenty-four doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments--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 doc.u.ments which turned out to be disconnected portions of the _proces-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 circ.u.mstance, 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 doc.u.ments, the original protocols. On the contrary, he tells us that what he received in 1901 was a doc.u.ment which he was a.s.sured was an accurate translation of the stolen doc.u.ments. His own words are: "This doc.u.ment came into my possession some four years ago (1901) with the positive a.s.surance that it is a true copy in translation of original doc.u.ments stolen by a woman from one of the most influential and the most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry." Nilus has not seen the original ma.n.u.script, nor has any other known person. We have only the word of Professor Nilus that somebody gave him a.s.surance that certain ma.n.u.scripts were true and accurate translations of stolen doc.u.ments of great international importance. So far as Nilus himself knew, or cared, apparently, the ma.n.u.script 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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.s 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, doc.u.ments 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 circ.u.mstantial--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 t.i.tle 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 ma.n.u.script, 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."