Jewish Influences
in
American Life
Volume III
of
The International Jew
The World’s Foremost Problem
_Being a Reprint of a Third Selection
from Articles Appearing in_
THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT
Preface
The present volume, third in the series, is compiled for the same
purpose as its predecessors—to enable new readers of THE DEARBORN
INDEPENDENT to commence their reading with the earlier articles in the
series of studies in The Jewish Question.
It was inevitable that the publication first to open the discussion of
this Question should be compelled to meet the degrading charge of
“anti-semitism” and kindred falsehoods; but it was also inevitable that
if the work of such a publication should prove to be valid, the way
would be cleared for discussion by other publications which had not and
need not bring upon themselves the charge of racial hatred.
This is precisely what has occurred. An undreamed of publicity for the
essentials of the Jewish Question has been achieved in this country. It
is noteworthy that whether the publicity be in agreement with or against
THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, the essential facts are the same, and these
facts were first set forth in this paper.
That, indeed, constitutes the strength of the articles. The facts are
provable; they are not disprovable. The reader can confirm the facts
from his own observation. With regard to the matters discussed in these
volumes, there are too many observers of the Jew to permit misstatements
to pass. This also constitutes the dilemma of the self-appointed
defenders of the Jews: they may abuse THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, but they
cannot disprove the facts. They do not make even an impressive denial of
them. The whole situation would be much clarified if Jewish spokesmen
would use frankness, instead of a fusillade of cheap and irrelevant
abuse.
The year has witnessed much notable discussion of The Jewish Question in
magazines of quality. A few have descended to white-washing, fewer still
to sheer pro-Jewish propaganda; but such articles as those in the
September _Century_; those in the _Atlantic_ for February, May and July;
_The Nineteenth Century and After_ for April; the true and admirable
accounts by Lieut. Commander Hugo W. Koehler, of the U. S. Navy, in the
_World’s Work_ for July, August, September and October—these testify to
the reality of the matter. The more serious religious press, as
represented by publications like the _Christian Standard_, the
_Christian Century_, _The Moody Monthly_ which is published by The Moody
Bible Institute, Chicago, have also added materially to the literature
of the question. In editorial vision and liberty of discussion, the
religious press has shown itself to be freer of control than has the
secular press.
This volume contains information dealing with the influence of the
Jewish idea on American life. The departments of life here studied do
not by any means exhaust the list. The studies are more and more
centering on the actual operations of the Jewish program upon the
American people, and the effect of Jewish conceptions on our common
life. These studies are appearing in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT now. They
will be gathered into future volumes as may be required.
November, 1921.
Contents
Page
XLIII. The Jews and the “Religious Persecution” Cry 7
XLIV. Are the Jews Victims or Persecutors? 21
XLV. Jewish Gamblers Corrupt American Baseball 37
XLVI. Jewish Degradation of American Baseball 51
XLVII. Jewish Jazz Becomes Our National Music 64
XLVIII. How the Jewish Song Trust Makes You Sing 75
XLIX. Jewish Hot-Beds of Bolshevism in the U. S. 88
L. Jew Trades Link With World Revolutionaries 102
LI. Will Jewish Zionism Bring Armageddon? 114
LII. How the Jews Use Power—By an Eyewitness 128
LIII. How Jews Ruled and Ruined Tammany Hall 141
LIV. Jew Wires Direct Tammany’s Gentile Puppets 155
LV. B’nai B’rith Leader Discusses the Jews 167
LVI. Dr. Levy, a Jew, Admits His People’s Error 179
LVII. Jewish Idea in American Monetary Affairs 191
LVIII. Jewish Idea Molded Federal Reserve Plan 205
LIX. Jewish Idea of Central Bank for America 218
LX. How Jewish International Finance Functions 230
LXI. Jewish Power and America’s Money Famine 243
_The Writer of the Following Letter Is a Jew:_
_“Gentlemen:_
_“‘Because you believe in a good cause,’ said Dr. Johnson, ‘is no
reason why you should feel called upon to defend it, for by your
manner of defense you may do your cause much harm.’_
_“The above applying to me I will only say that I have received the
books you sent me and read both with much interest._
_“You are rendering the Jews a very great service, that of saving
them from themselves._
_“It takes courage, and nerve, and intelligence to do and pursue
such a work, and I admire you for it.”_
XLIII.
The Jews and the “Religious Persecution” Cry
We cheerfully give the Jews of the United States credit for knowing when
they are getting their money’s worth. In the defense that has been set
up for them they know that they have not had their money’s worth,
neither from Jewish money collectors nor from the “Gentile fronts” to
whom the money has been paid. The Louis Marshall line of defense has
broken down. The boycott has dribbled into nothingness. Speeches in
Congress and editorials in newspapers have sounded too hollow to carry
conviction. The Question has proved itself far too big for those who
have entered the defense for gain, to satisfy personal grudges, or to
win what they feel to be the favor of the stronger side. The Jews long
ago quit the course which some of the “Gentile fronts” still continue;
the Jews recognized the futility of it.
No intelligent Jew in the United States ever was asinine enough to
declare that the Jewish Question is a religious question and that THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT’S investigation of that question constituted
“religious persecution.” No Jew known beyond the next street has ever
ventured such a silly charge. But it is apparently all that remains for
the “Gentile fronts” to shout about. From what can be learned of them
they are for the most part men of no religion themselves and they use
the term “religious persecution” as a red rag which they think will stir
people into action. It is rather curious how the cry of “religious
persecution” is used to evoke the spirit of persecution against alleged
persecutors.
THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT this week goes out of its course to squelch
once and for all this cry of religious persecutions.
Three statements are sufficient to outline the situation:
First, neither directly nor by implication has THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT
held that the Jewish Question is a religious question. On the contrary,
supported by the highest Jewish authority, this paper has held that the
Jewish Question is one of race and nationality. (See issues of October 9
and 16, 1920; reprinted in the new book, volume two of “The
International Jew.”)
Second, there is no religious persecution of the Jew in the United
States, unless the agitation of various humane societies for the
abolition of “kosher killing” may be considered such. The Massachusetts
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has published a
valuable study of the Jewish method of slaughtering animals for food, in
which is adduced much scientific evidence to support the conclusion that
the Jewish method is “needlessly cruel.” But even this can only with
difficulty be stretched into an interference with “the religion of the
Jews.” The Jewish method of slaughter as now practiced is not commanded
in the Old Testament but in the Talmud, and is, therefore, not religious
in the authoritative sense, but traditional. Moreover, there is positive
evidence that modern methods achieve the Jewish purpose (the disposal of
the blood of the carcass) much better than does the Jewish method. This
is the only instance where even remotely the religion of the Jews has
been touched.
Third, the fact is that while there is no “religious persecution” of the
Jews, there is very much real religious persecution _by_ the Jews. That
is one of the outstanding characteristics of organized Jewish life in
the United States, its active, unceasing, powerful and virulent attacks
upon any and all forms of Christianity which may chance to come to
public notice. Now and again we hear of outbreaks of sectarian bigotry
between Catholics and Protestants, but these are not to be compared with
the steady, relentless, alert, anti-Christian activity of the Jewish
organizations. There are doctrinal disputes within the Christian
churches, but none that challenge the basis of Christianity itself;
organized Judaism, however, is not content with doctrinal disputation,
but enlists its vast commercial and political power against everything
that it regards as, in its own words, “Christological manifestations.”
Now, these are facts, and being facts, they are important, and they
ought to be publicly known.
No President of the United States has yet dared to take his inaugural
oath on the open pages of the New Testament—the Jews would denounce him.
When General Pershing announced that he considered the morale of the
American soldier due to the interest of the Christian men and women at
home, the Jews had him cut out the word “Christian.” Various governors
of American states, having used the word “Christian” in their
Thanksgiving proclamations, have been obliged to excise it on demand of
the Jews. The word “Christian” was compelled to be cut out of the
officers’ training manual at the Plattsburg training camp. Everything
that would remind the child in school that he is living in the midst of
a Christian civilization, in a nation declared by its Supreme Court to
be founded on Christian principles, has been ordered out of the public
schools on Jewish demand.
People sometimes ask why 3,000,000 Jews can control the affairs of
100,000,000 Americans. In the same way that ten Jewish students can
abolish the mention of Christmas and Easter out of schools containing
3,000 Christian pupils.
In a nation and at a time when a minority of Jews can print every year a
record of the apologies they have extorted from public officials for
“having inadvertently used the term ‘Christian,’” it is desirable that
this charge of “religious persecution” should be placed where it
belongs. In the _Daily American Tribune_, a Catholic daily published at
Dubuque, Iowa, appeared a recent headline which said a great deal—_Not
Persecution of The Jews, But Protection of The Christians_.
It is now proposed to let the Jews speak for themselves on this
question. The Jewish press has been searched for an authoritative
expression charging that the study of the Jewish Question constitutes
“religious persecution,” and none has been found. That cry has been
reserved for “Gentile fronts” for use among Christians. All the attacks
from the Jewish camp are against the doctrines and institutions of the
Christians. They have carried on an insistent and successful
persecution, and the details of it have filled the Jewish press for
years past.
Upon reading the following selections, the remark of Dean Swift will
probably come to mind: “We are fully convinced that we shall always
tolerate them, but not that they will tolerate us.”
_The Red Cross is objectionable to the Jew._ H. Lissauer, in _The Jewish
Times_, proposed that the Magen David be substituted for “the red cross”
on the Red Cross Society badges worn by Jews.
“We should not let our sensitiveness to charges of intolerance overcome
our conscientious religious objections to the cross,” says Mr. Lissauer.
The editor of _The Jewish Independent_ thinks the suggestion “is worthy
of serious consideration.”
_The Gideons are objectionable to the Jew._ The Gideons is the name
given to the Christian Commercial Travelers’ Association of America,
whose efforts are responsible for the Bibles which are to be found in
most hotel rooms. This is from the Cleveland _Jewish Independent_:
“It is quite evident that the Gideons do not know a typically Jewish
name when they see or hear one. The Gideons’ object, according to their
letterheads, is ‘winning commercial traveling men for Christ’ and the
way this is done is by placing a Christian Bible in each guest room of
every hotel.
“The Gideons have been at it a long time, long enough to know better,
but the other day they sent a letter to Max Cohen of this city, who is a
traveling man but the kind the Gideons have no right to ask for funds,
and the person who selected him for an ‘easy mark’ certainly should have
had better sense.
“Mr. Cohen utterly failed to ‘fall’ for the invitation and instead of
sending his little donation he wrote a letter to the secretary, C. A.
Johnson, in which he bluntly said: ‘Don’t you think you ought to use
better judgment than to ask me to contribute to a strictly religious
work opposite to my own belief?’
“If the Gideons insist upon filling up hotels with Bibles that have no
business there they should go to the right persons for contributions.”
_The Jews do not like the Salvation Army nor the Y. M. C. A._ Many
thousands of printed lines expressed the fury with which they regarded
attempts to “Christianize the Army and Navy” during the war, and the
wild arguments with which they sought to make “Y” work and Salvation
Army work appear to be a violation of the principle of no union of
Church and State. The same objection was made to religious welfare work
during the building of the Panama Canal. If there is any challenge of
this on the part of uninformed “Gentile fronts” (the Jews themselves
will not challenge it) the evidence can be produced. It is only a matter
of space.
_The Jews did not like Theodore Roosevelt’s choice_ of a hymn for the
Progressive party:
“With Hon. Oscar S. Strauss as the nominee for the governorship of New
York on the Progressive ticket, this question rises: Will the voters on
the East Side of New York march to the Progressive battle hymn, ‘Onward,
Christian Soldiers,’ or will the song have to be changed to fit the
candidate?”—_American Israelite._
_The Jews hate with a malice beyond expression what they call “mission
holes,”_ that is, a place of instruction maintained by Christian
churches where inquiring Jews may learn what Christianity is and, in
many instances, where destitute and neglected Jews may receive
assistance and counsel. The boast of how “the Jew cares for his own” is
given a jolt by the dire need which has called Christian welfare work
into Jewish settlements.
This hatred overrode good judgment so completely that in 1911
Assemblyman Heyman introduced into the New York State legislature a bill
making it an offense punishable by fine or imprisonment to entice or
tempt a minor under sixteen years of age into a religious mission,
Sunday school or church without the written consent of the parents or
guardian of the minor! The language indicates a part of the contempt in
which the welfare work undertaken by Christian institutions for the
neediest class of children in America is held by the leaders among the
Jews; not by the masses of the Jews themselves, however, except when
they are terrified by their leaders.
In St. Louis, application for a charter of the Jewish Christian
Association was opposed. The converted Jews wanted an association of
their own. They represented that they had been ostracized by the Jews
and were desirous of organizing and owning their own meeting place. A
referee advised against the charter on the ground that “it would be
contrary to the broad spirit of religious freedom guaranteed under the
constitution of Missouri.” The referee was, of course, coached by Jews.
In the name of religious freedom these Jews opposed giving an
association freedom enough to preach the gospel.
In Toronto the Jewish leaders issued a proclamation throughout all
Toronto Jewry forbidding the use of reading rooms, baths, dispensaries,
motion picture shows or anything else which they described as “the petty
bribery of conversionist tricksters who seek for their wealthy donators
to open the gates of heaven and find salvation for their sins by
converting a weak-minded Jew.”
By the way, all converted Jews are weak-minded or criminal, if we are to
believe the hundreds of statements to that effect in the Jewish papers.
The Jews are, without exception, superior people until they become
Christians; _then_ learn what they are from the Jewish leaders!
Among the nice names for this welfare work are “Jesus holes,” “mission
traps,” “Jew-snatchers,” “child stealers.”
It happened that one of the helpers in the Chicago Gospel Mission was
principal of a Chicago public school. The Jews raised a great outcry
against him, denounced him as unfit to teach children, and guilty of
“the moral turpitude of eating food provided by taxes of which a large
share is received from Jews, whose children they seek to entice from
their parental religion and whose men and women they are seeking to
degrade into liars and hypocrites.” All because a competent man was
willing to meet Jewish inquirers, or perhaps bring a few of the benefits
of civilization into the neglected ghetto. If this school teacher were
Christian enough to have a conscience, he would resign, said the Jewish
thunderers, and with that never-failing tinge of dark-mindedness they
added: “What is done in secret in these haunts can, of course, only be
guessed at.”
Talk about bigotry! This from a people who encourage the cry that THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT is engaged in “religious persecution,” though THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT has not yet carried even one of the scores of
sensational and important stories which show the Federal Government
discovering synagogues and rabbis as agents of the illicit liquor
traffic. “These _haunts_” and hints of the things that may go on there,
is the only way the _American Israelite_ can find to refer to welfare
works in which some of the best people, from no motive but the goodness
of their hearts, engage.
A book of 500 pages could be filled with the unreasonable and in many
cases positively vicious statements of leading Jews on any of the
subjects touched here.
_The Jews do not like the Christian Sabbath._ The literature of attack
against this institution is voluminous and the arguments extreme. Sunday
is Christian, therefore to the Jew it is taboo. Court records in every
state bear testimony to the fight of the Jews against Sunday. Few
legislatures have escaped being pestered with bills on the subject. The
latest fight has been the strongest yet waged, to destroy Sunday by
throwing it wide open to Jewish exploitation. Yet the Jews are most
chary of their own Sabbath. When recent college examinations fell on
Jewish holy days, the Jews had the examinations changed. When primary
elections last year fell on Jewish days, every power was moved to change
them. There are Jewish records of a western governor being remonstrated
with because a condemned criminal was sentenced to be hanged on
Saturday—did the governor mean to “offend 3,000,000 Jews”? The St. Louis
Charity Fair in 1908 planned to remain open on Friday evening; a great
outcry; did the managers of that fair mean to insult the Jews; didn’t
they know that the Jewish Sabbath began on Friday night?
But when it is a question of maintaining the integrity of Sunday—pooh!
pooh! “Don’t the Christians know that Sunday perpetuates the silliest
superstition, that their god Jesus rose from the dead?” When certain
people aid the post office employes in an attempt to close the post
offices on Sunday, the Jews regard it as a step back toward the dark
ages.
Here is a Jewish editorial relating to Governor Cox. It appears that
Governor Cox in 1914 stood for a decent Sunday and liquor law
enforcement, and this is the threat held out to him:
“At the 59th Jackson Day banquet of the Wayne County (Ohio) Democracy,
which was held at Wooster, Governor Cox made the principal address in
which he defended laws passed at his instigation. The governor laid
particular stress on the fact that for the first time in her history,
Ohio now enjoys a ‘Christian Sabbath.’
“‘I stand or fall by the Christian Sabbath in the next campaign,’ the
governor is reported to have said....
“There are many who construe the declaration to mean that Governor Cox
has bid defiance to the liberal element of the state and will rely upon
the religious and class prejudices which he is arousing and keeping
alive in the rural districts, to re-elect him to his present office, or,
what is clearly plain from his entire attitude, boost him into the
nomination for United States Senatorship. The _Israelite_ will take
great pleasure about the time the leaves begin to turn in reminding
Governor Cox of his statement that he ‘will stand or fall by a Christian
Sabbath’ in the coming campaign.”—_American Israelite._
The literature of Jewish thought toward Sunday presents complete
evidence of the leaders’ antagonism to this distinctly Christian and
Anglo-Saxon institution. Sunday has never been regarded as set apart, in
those countries where the Jewish idea has most infiltrated. The decline
of Sunday in the United States is directly along the line of those
invasions of the Sunday spirit which are mostly aligned with Jewish
commercial interests. In Great Britain and her colonies where the Jew is
not permitted to usurp a superior place as chief censor of morals and
religion and education, Sunday is decently observed. The situation in
this country is that, instead of enjoying its liberty, the Jewish
leaders have taken liberties. The student who wishes to know how deep
and hard-set is the anti-Sunday program will find all the material he
wants in Jewish sources.
The theme of this article is “religious prejudice.” You will not find it
anywhere within the whole range of the Jewish Question, except on the
Jewish side. There is, in the United States, a religious prejudice, but
it is strictly Yiddish. If the Christian population bothered one
one-hundred-thousandth part as much about Jewish religion as the Jews
bother about Christian observances, the whole fabric of Talmudical
teaching would be consumed in the bright light to which general
attention would bring it, the bright light from which it has always been
concealed. Sheer analysis in the interest of mental health, if
undertaken by fifty men, would compel the Jewish people by their own
decision to abandon the darkness which holds them now. Jewish Talmudism
owes its existence today to the indifference with which it is regarded.
This is the far opposite extreme of “religious persecution.”
The list of headlines describing the various angles of Jewish
anti-Christian religious prejudice is not, however, exhausted.
_The Jew is prejudiced against the Bible._ When he uses that term, he
does not mean what the ordinary person means. Therefore, he does what he
can to destroy public honor of the Book, unless it be an occasion where
a President has been inaugurated, when it will run through the Jewish
press like a strong breeze that once more has a Christian statesman
ignored the Christian Bible and turned to the Jewish Bible. It is rather
a trifling matter to mention; its significance comes solely from the
light it throws on the Jewish attitude. It is not a trifling thing in
Jewry, as the country will probably be made aware if any future
President should be sworn in with, say, the Sermon on the Mount open
before him.
And yet, even here, we observe a strange paradox. A Jewish authority
says: “The Jew is a paradox. He is at once an idealist and a
materialist. He is parsimonious and extravagant. He is courageous and
cowardly. He is modest and vulgar. He is persistent and yielding. He is
peaceful and warlike”——and so on. And though the Jew opposes the Bible
in the schools, he never misses a chance to put it there, with the
Jewish trade-mark. He quotes the Psalms—“We wrote them.” He quotes
Isaiah—“We Jews did that.”
Most people sit open-mouthed at these glorious authors of Scripture and
do not know how to answer. It is time the Churches began to learn what
to say to the Jewish taunts—“We gave you your god;” “We gave you your
bible;” “We gave you your savior.” Perhaps it is also time that the Jews
themselves considered how long the boast will stand the usage they are
giving it.
In any case the literature which the Jews wrongfully claim as their own
production, is rather far distant in time to justify its being used as a
mantle of glory for the political rabbis, the discredited theatrical and
movie magnates, and the violent penmen of the Jewish press. Rather too
distant in time! We, the race that confronts the Jews, have done
somewhat more recent work; for example, the Declaration of Independence
and the Emancipation Proclamation, not to mention the psalms and
pronouncements of the great American prophets that have lifted up the
world.
So, the Jew is very willing that the Bible should be in the schools,
provided it is not what he calls “the Christian Bible.” Listen to this:
“Hebrew is to be taught in the Chicago high schools. Students who
include this language in their course are to receive the credit now
allowed for the study of other classical languages. Of infinite
value in the training of the mind are the wonderful narratives of
Genesis, and boys and girls will find the history of Israel under
the Judges much more appealing than Caesar’s bridge over the Rhine.”
The people of New Jersey thought so, too; they believed that a reading
from this ancient book every day would mean much to the general culture
of the pupils. But what did the paper just quoted say about it? It
called the cultivated Bible appreciators of New Jersey “soul-snatching
enthusiasts” and raised a mighty yell about “the forcible conversion of
Jewish children,” although it was provided that Jewish or any other
children should be excused from the reading if desired. Another mighty
yell about excusing the children all on account of the tyranny of
reading the Christian Bible in the schools—regardless of the fact, which
every public school teacher knows, that no class of children is oftener
out of school for religious reasons than are the Jews.
Truly, these people are a paradox. They are not fair. They are
constituted so that they cannot see the other side of anything. For a
time they actually do convince the secularists that everything public
should be secularized down to the last notch of atheistic demand.
Non-Jews are fair. They are willing to see the other people’s point of
view. When it was said to us that the “Merchant of Venice” was a cruelty
upon Jewish school pupils, we said, without investigation, “Out goes the
Merchant, then!” We discovered later that the Jewish children liked and
appreciated that play better than any other group. Brander Matthews
helped us discover that.
And so when they said, “Reading the Bible is sheer proselytizing; it
isn’t fair,” the non-Jew, who wanted to prove that he is fair and
unprejudiced above all things else (a weakness the Jews know how to
manipulate), said, “Well, then, out goes the Bible!” And it went out.
Very well! What next? “You must abolish Christmas, too.” “You must not
keep Easter—the Jews don’t like it.” “It is anti-Semitic to observe Good
Friday.” In other words, to please the sensitive Jewish natures we must
eradicate from Christian civilization all that is Christian in it.
In the meantime what transpires? Having induced “fair-minded” non-Jews
to do all these things—and every one above enumerated has been done over
and over again at Jewish demand—the Jews then proceeded to sow Judaism
on the fields thus denuded of Christianity. “No religion in the
institutions of the State”—yet in every state university last year there
were, and in every state university this year there probably will be,
courses of lectures delivered by Jewish rabbis—the lectures delivered in
the colleges themselves—propagandizing the youth of the non-Jews with
Judaistic religion, ethics, and economics. That is what the so-called
Jewish “Chautauqua” exists for. It is not a Jewish “Chautauqua”; it is
Jewish propaganda in public educational institutions.
That is the repayment the Jews have made for our “fair-mindedness.”
Their demand for complete secularization is merely their preparation of
the soil for their carefully organized sowing of the seed of Judaism.
And non-Jews permit it to continue, for there is nothing they fear so
much as that their opposition will be regarded as “religious prejudice.”
The Jew glories in religious prejudice, as the American glories in
patriotism. Religious prejudice _is_ the Jews’ chief expression of their
own true patriotism. It is the only well-organized, active and
successful form of religious prejudice in the country because they have
succeeded in pulling off the gigantic trick of making not their own
attitude, but any opposition to it, bear the stigma of “prejudice” and
“persecution.” That is why the Jew uses these terms so frequently. He
wants to label the other fellow first. That is why any investigation of
the Jewish Question is so quickly advertised as anti-Semitism—the Jew
knows the advantage of labeling the other man; wrong labels are most
useful.
This does not by any means exhaust the list of headlines describing the
various avenues in which the expression of virulent Jewish religious
prejudice and persecution is found. But it exhausts the space allotted
to these articles each week. Therefore, the subject will be concluded
next week.
It is not a pleasant subject. Religious prejudice is just as unpleasant
to write about as it is to experience in any other way. It is totally
contrary to the genius of the American and the Anglo-Saxon. We have
always regarded religion as a matter of conscience. To believe as he
will is part of every man’s fundamental liberty. To interfere with force
to change anyone’s belief is exceedingly stupid.
Holding these hereditary principles, one chooses to study that active
stream of influence in American life which is known as the Jewish
stream, and immediately upon doing so, one finds himself classed with
the bigots and torturers of other times.
It is now time to show that the cry of “bigot!” is raised mostly by
bigots. There _is_ a religious prejudice in this country, there _is_,
indeed, a religious persecution, there _is_ a forcible shoving aside of
the religious liberties of a majority of the people, and this prejudice
and persecution and use of force is Jewish and nothing but Jewish.
This is the answer to the cry of “religious persecution,” and we shall
make it so complete and definite that a repetition of the cry against
students of the Jewish Question will automatically mark the criers as
either too ignorant or too vicious for consideration.
XLIV.
Are the Jews Victims or Persecutors?
“Half of Christendom worships a Jew; the other half worships a
Jewess.”—Jewish editorial.
“If the gospel story is correct, Judas was a pretty decent sort of a
fellow. It was only _after he had become a convert to Christianity
that he became that which has made his memory an accursed thing for
nineteen hundred years_.”—Jewish editorial.
“Our land is frequently called a Christian nation. No doubt the
majority of our citizens believe this. No less an authority than
Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court so expressed himself in 1892.
But the statement is clearly false.... _This is not a Christian
nation. In inspiration, at least, it is a Hebrew nation_, for the
Constitution which we now enjoy traces back to the Hebrew
Commonwealth.”—Jewish editorial.
(From the minutes of a meeting of the Committee on Families of the
New York Board of Child Welfare.)
Mr. Hebbard: “That is one of the things I have in mind, that a widow
brings deliberately into her home a nameless child and the
inevitable consequence of that is that her legitimate children are
always thereafter pointed out.”
Miss Sophie Irene Loeb: “As far as nameless children are concerned,
_Christ himself was a nameless child_. Let us get away from nameless
children.”
Dr. Dirvoch: “I think where there are three or four children in a
home and a little stranger enters that home without a father, you
are corrupting the morals of those legitimate children by permitting
them to remain in such surroundings.”
Miss Loeb: “I say to you that this committee, if it takes such an
attitude as that, is one hundred years behind the times.”
Mr. Cunnion: “Anything against purity is immoral.”
Miss Loeb: “_What has that to do with the question of purity? Was
the mother of Christ pure?_”
Mr. Cunnion: “_Certainly._”
Miss Loeb: “_He had no name!_”
Mr. Cunnion: “_You can’t bring that in here. We believe he was
conceived without sin._”
Mr. Menehan (to Miss Loeb): “_That is very wrong to make that
statement._”—Cited in letter of complaint to Mayor Hylan.
“The intimate relation of church and state in the great
non-sectarian United States of America received direct demonstration
on August 12 (1913), when a deputy sergeant-at-arms of the Senate
was hurriedly sent out to get a preacher of any old denomination to
open the Senate with prayer. The session opening an hour earlier
than usual, the regular chaplain was not at hand, but with still two
minutes to spare the deputy returned in an automobile, hurried to
the Vice President’s office and introduced the Rev. Dr. C. Albert
Homas, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to Mr. Marshall just in time for
the Vice President to lead the way into the Senate chamber to open
the session at 11 o’clock, and once again the Union was saved. We
shudder to think what might have happened if no preacher had been
captured in time to open the session with prayer!”—Jewish editorial.
“President Wilson in his inaugural address said: ‘The firm basis of
the Government is justice, not pity.’ This is sound Jewish doctrine
as laid down by Moses and the Prophets in contradistinction to the
doctrine of love, as attributed to Jesus. This coming from so good a
churchman as President Wilson might be a little surprising were it
not that it is a well-known fact that whenever our Christian
brethren want to talk to reasoning men they go to the Old Testament
for their inspiration.”—Jewish editorial.
“President Wilson at his inaugural gave another instance of the
well-known fact that in solemn moments when they need comfort and
inspiration, Christians turn to the Old Testament and not to the
New. So President Wilson, when he kissed the bible after taking the
inaugural oath, selected the passage, Psalm 46.”—Jewish editorial.
“Reference has frequently been made in these columns to a number
of addresses made by the late Isaac M. Wise at the celebration in
honor of his 80th birthday anniversary in the course of which he
predicted _that in a quarter of a century from that date (1899)
there would be practically nothing left in Protestant Christianity
of a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ_ or the distinctive
dogmas of Christianity, and that all Protestant Christians by
whatever name they called themselves, _would be substantially Jews
in belief_. To any one who notes the signs of the times it is
apparent that this prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled.... _The
Jesus superstition_ and the _fantastic dogmas built upon his
supposed divine origin_, die but slowly, but that they are dying
is nevertheless apparent.”—Jewish editorial.
The subject of this article is “Religious Prejudice and Persecution—Are
the Jews Victims or Persecutors?” A study of history and of contemporary
Jewish journalism shows that Jewish prejudice and persecution is a
continuous phenomenon wherever the Jews have attained power, and that in
neither action nor word has any disability placed upon the Jew equaled
the disabilities he has placed and still contemplates placing upon
non-Jews. It is a rather startling reversal of all that we have learned
from our Judaized histories, but nevertheless it seems to be the truth.
Attention is once more called to the fact that the Jews themselves are
not raising the cry of “religious persecution” here or elsewhere, but
they are allowing their “Gentile fronts” to do it for them—just as they
have not denied the statements made in this series (among themselves
they freely admit most of them) but let “Gentile fronts” do it for them.
The Jews would not be averse to raising the cry of “religious
persecution” perhaps, (provided they could make it stand) were they not
afraid that it would call attention to their own persecuting activities.
But their “Gentile fronts” have brought that upon them.
There is no Christian church that the Jews have not repeatedly attacked.
_They have attacked the Catholic Church._ This is of special interest
just now when Jewish agents are doing their utmost to arouse Catholic
sentiment in their favor by circulating charges which these agents
personally know to be false. THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT has perfect
confidence in the information which Catholic leaders may have on the
Jewish Question. On this subject the Catholic priesthood is not misled.
Examples of this attack are numerous. “Half of Christendom worships a
Jewess,” is not a statement but a slur, flung by Jewish men who say in
the ritual of morning prayer: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of
the Universe, _who hast not made me a woman_.” The Talmudists’
discussions of the Virgin Mother are often vile. The Christian
festivals, whose preservation is due to the Catholic custom and
conscience, are all attacked by Jews.
_The American Israelite_, whose great prestige in American Jewry is due
to its having been founded by Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, _opposed the
establishment of Columbus Day_ and berated Governor Hughes for signing
the law making it a holiday in New York. The act that established it
deserved “the contempt of thinking men.” Why? Is not the discovery of
America a memorable event? Yes, but Columbus was a Catholic! However, in
recent months the Jews are proving him to have been a Jew, so we may
expect some day to see Columbus Day insisted upon with Jewish rites.
The _Catholic Columbian_ made editorial reference to the increasing
Jewish influence on the American press, in these words: “Jewry is
getting its grip on the news of this country as it is on Reuter’s and
the Havas agency in Europe.”—A perfectly polite and true observation.
But the Jewish editorial thunderer came back—“The _Columbian_, in its
sneaking Jesuitical way, does not mention the fact that these (the
Jewish) papers are the very cleanest in the country. The _Columbian_
cannot point to a single daily owned by one of its co-religionists that
begins to compare with the above papers.”
The sweet spirit here evidenced is very significant today when an appeal
is being made to create a strong pro-Jewish Catholic sentiment.
If there is in the world any extra-ecclesiastical undertaking by
Catholics which has won the undivided approval of the Christian world as
_the Passion Play of Oberammergau_ has done, the present writer does not
know what it is. Yet in a volume entitled “_A Rabbi’s Impressions of the
Oberammergau Passion Play_,” Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D.D., of
Philadelphia, has stigmatized that notable production as reeking with
falsehoods and vicious anti-Semitism. In the rabbi’s eyes, of course, it
is, for to him the entire Christian tradition is a poisonous lie. The
whole fabric of Christian truth, especially as it concerns the person of
Christ, are “the hallucinations of emotional men and hysterical women.”
“Thus,” says the rabbi (p. 127) “was invented that cruel story, that has
caused more misery, more innocent suffering, than any other work of
fiction in the range of the whole world’s literature.” And thus the
simple peasants of Oberammergau, presenting the Catholic faith in
reverent pageant, are labeled anti-Semites.
These are not isolated instances. Antagonism to the Catholic Church rung
throughout Jewish literature. The Jewish attitude was summed up in an
editorial in the _Jewish Sentinel_ of November 26, 1920, as follows:
“_Our only great historical enemy, our most dangerous enemy, is Rome in
all its shapes and forms, and in all its ramifications. Whenever the sun
of Rome begins to set, that of Jerusalem rises._” These, however, are
matters well known to Catholic leaders.
In their turn the other Christian denominations have been attacked. When
the _Methodist Church_ put on the great pageant entitled “_The
Wayfarer_,” Rabbi Stephen S. Wise played critic and made the solemn and
silly statement that had he been a South Sea Islander (instead of the
itinerant platform performer which he is) his first impulse, after
seeing “The Wayfarer,” would have been to rush out into the street and
kill at least three Jews. It says a great deal, perhaps, for the channel
in which Rabbi Wise’s impulses run, but the tens of thousands of
Methodists who saw “The Wayfarer” will not be inclined to attribute such
a criticism to the spirit of tolerance which Rabbi Wise so zealously
counsels the Christians to observe.
_The Episcopal Church also_ has felt the attack of the Jews. Recently
the Jewish press raised a clamor that the Episcopal Church was not
competent to teach Americanism in our cities because it held that
Christianity and good citizenship were synonymous. And when the
Episcopal Church made provision for mission work among the Jews, the
torrent of abuse that was poured out gave a very vivid picture of what
the Jewish mind naturally turns to when aroused. This abuse is not
reproduced here because of its excessive violence and disrespect. It is
similar to that which is heaped upon all attempts to explain
Christianity to the Jews. “What would the Gentiles do if we sent Jewish
missionaries to them?” ask the violent editors. Any Gentile can answer
that—nay, even the Jews themselves can answer that. In the first place,
the Jews do not want to teach their religion to Gentiles because there
is a Talmudical restriction against it; Talmudically the Gentiles are
not good enough to mingle with the religious matters of the Jews. In the
second place, the Jews do send missionaries everywhere, not to spread
Jewish religious principles, but propaganda favoring the Jews as a race
and people, as is done in our colleges through the so-called “Jewish
Chautauqua.” In the third place, let there be produced one Jewish
missionary, who has ever received anything but a considerate reception
wherever he has appeared.
The Jews are bitter against all Christian denominations because of the
conversion of numerous Jews to them. A large number of Jews have become
Catholics; one of the _Knights of Columbus’_ most useful lecturers
against the menace of radical socialism is a converted Jew. It is so
also with the _Presbyterian Church_ which has been the most recent
victim of Jewish vituperation. But only upon the Catholic Church has the
Jew poured more wrath and malediction than he has poured upon _Christian
Science_. The Christian Science church has attracted large numbers of
Jewish converts. Some of them have become very active, devoted members
of that form of faith. Scores of columns and pages have been devoted to
their denunciation in Jewish newspapers, magazines and books. Christian
Science is a peculiar anathema to the Jew.
Where then is the religious prejudice? Search through the publications
of all the churches named, and you cannot find in all their history so
much of the spirit of prejudice and persecution as you can find
expressed in the Jewish press in one single day. Jewry reeks with such
prejudice. In politics, education, social functions, public holidays,
literature and newspapers, they see everywhere traces of “Christological
manifestations” and cry them down.
_No public man has ever given public evidence of his Christian faith
without rebuke from the Jews._ Mr. Bryan, Mr. Marshall, Mr. Taft, Mr.
Wilson, two of them Presidents, one of them Vice President, and the
other Secretary of State, have all been called to task from time to time
for their sins in this respect. Mr. Marshall is a devout man, whose
faith is real to him, and he speaks very naturally about it at times. He
has, therefore, been attacked oftener in the Jewish press than has any
other public man of recent times. Nothing is more ludicrous to the
Jewish press than a Vice President of the United States openly
confessing that he is an “idolater,” that is, a worshipper of the dead
Jewish imposter whom the Christians ignorantly call “Christ.” To Mr.
Marshall’s honor, be it said, he never apologized, he never begged to
withdraw his public statements. Neither did William J. Bryan, whose
lecture “The Prince of Peace” contained statements in honor of Christ
which brought him into conflict with Jewish spokesmen everywhere, and
whose remarks about missions after a trip around the world were savagely
attacked by Jews. Mr. Bryan did not apologize either. Mr. Taft was
promptly called down on several occasions for using forms of the word
“Christian,” which were particularly offensive to the Jewish press
because they had advertised far and wide during the Taft campaign that
Mr. Taft was practically a Jew in his belief in that he had abandoned
all the distinctive Christian doctrines pertaining to Christ. After his
lapses in which he used the term “Christian” approvingly, it was
explained on his behalf (1) that he was accommodating himself to the
audience, and (2) that he used the term as a synonym for civilization!
But isn’t it significant that the name of Christ should be an integral
part of the very name of the highest civilization? Mr. Taft was a true
liberal, liberal enough to tolerate Christian orthodoxy. And that was a
rather weak spot, as far as the Jews’ estimate of him went.
Mr. Wilson, while President, was very close to the Jews. His
administration, as everyone knows, was predominantly Jewish. As a
Presbyterian elder, Mr. Wilson had occasional lapses into the Christian
mode of thought during his public utterances, and was always checked up
tight by his Jewish censors. In 1914, speaking before the American
University at Washington, he said:
“That is the reason why scholarship has usually been most fruitful
when associated with religion, and _scholarship has never been, so
far as I can at this moment recall, associated with any religion
except the religion of Jesus Christ_.”
That was terrible. So terrible that Herman Bernstein was chosen to
administer the castigation.
And Mr. Wilson made proper reparation:
“My dear Mr. Bernstein: I am sorry that there should have been any
unfair implication in what I said at the opening of the American
University. You may be sure that there was nothing of the kind in my
mind, or very certainly nothing in my thoughts that would
discriminate in the important matter you speak of against Judaism. I
find that one of the risks and penalties of extemporaneous speaking
is that you do not stop to consider the whole field, but address
yourself merely to the matter in hand. With sincere respects and
appreciation,
Cordially yours,
Woodrow Wilson.”
The heading given this notice in the Jewish press was, “He Did Not Mean
It.”
All of the President’s offending took place in 1914. The second offense
he gave was by taking the position of honorary chairman of the
International Lord’s Day Congress, which was to be held the next year in
connection with the Panama Exposition. It was, however, the Christian
Sunday which received the bulk of the abuse on that occasion.
The subject is “religious prejudice.” Where does it exist in this
country in more continuous and virulent character than among the Jews?
Read these items selected at random from Jewish papers:
“District Grand Lodge No. 4, Independent Order B’nai B’rith, voted at
the annual election held in San Francisco, March 2 (1911) to exclude
from the order Jews who join _the Christian Science Church_. The body
after earnest discussion decided that the portals of the order shall be
closed against the Christian Scientist Jews on the ground that such Jews
have abjured Judaism. The vote upon the question was almost unanimous.”
“The Jewish Community at Philadelphia has found it necessary to publish
a warning to the Jewish people against _the Daily Vacation Bible
Schools_ which are being established in various parts of the city, also
against certain missions and settlement houses, all of which are _traps
into which Jewish children are decoyed for the purpose of seducing them
from the religion of their parents_. These institutions belong to that
class of conversionist agencies which wage a campaign for the seeking of
converts through _workers ... (who) are a class of criminals that keep
just within the law and deserve no better treatment than is usually
accorded to people of that kind_.”
When a bishop of the Episcopal Church said, “We must make the United
States indisputably a Christian nation,” the Jewish press retorted that
such a thing could not be done until the Constitution of the United
States had been “abolished.” “Christian America” is a persecuting term
according to the professional Jewish spokesmen, and the most laborious
efforts have been put forth by them to prove on paper that the United
States is not and cannot be Christian.
Not only do the Jews _disagree_ with Christian teaching—which is their
perfect right, and no one dare question it—but they seek to _interfere_
with it. It is not religious tolerance in the midst of religious
difference, but religious attack that they preach and practice. The
whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas, Easter and certain
patriotic songs shows that.
When Cleveland and Lakewood arranged for a community Christmas, the
Cleveland Jewish press said: “The writer of this has no idea how many
Jews there are in Lakewood, but if there is only one, there should be no
community Christmas, no community religion of any kind.” That is not a
counsel of tolerance, it is a counsel of attack. The Christmas
literature of American Judaism is fiercer than the flames of the
Inquisition. In the month of January, the Jewish press has urged its
readers to begin an early campaign against Christmas celebrations the
next Christmas—“Only three hundred and sixty days before Christmas. So
let us do our Christmas arguing early and take plenty of time to do it.”
If anything, Easter is attacked yet more bitterly. But we refrain, for
good reasons, from repeating what Jews commonly say on such occasions.
The strange inconsistency of it all is to see the great department
stores of the Levys and the Isaacs and the Goldsteins and the Silvermans
filled with brilliant Christmas cheer and at Easter with the goods
appropriate to the time. The festivals of the “heathen” are very
profitable. Jewish merchants have been chided for this—not
over-severely—by certain rabbis. But on the whole the rabbis had better
remain content, for there are no forces more rapidly secularizing the
two festival days than are the merchandising and profiteering forces.
Even religious intolerance has its gleesome moments, and the Jews’ come
whenever the signs appear of the greater secularization of the church.
One parallel between the Protocols and the real hopes of the Jews is
written in _the common Jewish prophecy that Christianity is doomed to
perish_. It will perish by becoming, to all intents and purposes,
Judaism. And it will become Judaism, first, by ousting all the doctrines
pertaining to the person of Christ, excising from the Gospels the great
“I Ams” which are His distinctive teachings concerning Himself; and,
second, by devitalizing Christianity of all the spiritual content which
flows from a union by faith with a Person believed to be divine. That is
the only way it can be done. There may be a union of all the churches of
the Christian faith because the fundamentals are the same; no union of
Christianity and Judaism can occur unless Judaism takes in Jesus as the
Messiah, or unless Christianity ejects Him as the Messiah. Judaism sees
the union coming by the ejection of the Lord as the Messiah, and
rejoices at every sign of it.
Dr. Charles F. Aked, who has since blossomed out as a Jewish spokesman,
delivered a sermon in which he cast aside all the “supernatural”
elements in the life of Christ, from His birth, to the significance of
His death, and was hailed by the Jewish press as “_the fulfillment of
the prophecy that within fifty years the religion of all the American
people, outside the Catholic Church, would be Judaism in principle even
though not in name_.”
“No Jew,” says the _American Israelite_, “will conceal his gratification
when he finds Christians virtually admitting that liberal Christianity
is practically an acceptance of the doctrine of liberal Judaism.”
Unfortunately, this is true. Liberal Christianity and Liberal Judaism
meet, but only by the surrender of all that is distinctively Christian
in doctrine. A liberal Christian is more Jewish than Christian. The
statement may sound harsh and arouse resentment, but it is a very simple
matter for any liberal Christian to convince himself of this by reading
the volume of liberal Jewish doctrine put out by Kaufman Kohler,
president of the Hebrew Union College. Liberalism is the funnel by which
Christianity is expected to run into Judaism, just as liberalism
so-called in other departments of life is expected to bring about
certain other Jewish aims.
“Liberalism” in Jewish thought means a wideopen country in every way.
Judaism has opposed every significant reform that has come to the
country; prohibition, Sunday decency, movie and stage regeneration, and
community reverence for sacred things. Judaism has been the prop of the
liquor traffic, Sunday desecration, movie and stage excesses, and public
contempt for the sacred things of the prevailing religion; and it is all
too evident that the Jewish propaganda has made serious inroads
everywhere.
A Congregational Church in New Jersey decided to abandon the Bible in
some of its classes and substitute sociology, politics, municipal
government and kindred subjects for study, and the Jewish press hailed
it as another sign that the church was “in a fair way to adopt what is
in substance American Judaism.” In St. Louis a clergyman, instead of
preaching sermons, began to act out moralistic dramas which he himself
had written, and the Jewish press again hailed it as a sign of the
dissatisfaction of the Christian with his church. Everything done in
every branch of the Christian church has been closely watched, and
wherever a departure occurred from the distinctly Christian position it
was extravagantly applauded; and wherever loyalty to the landmarks
appeared, it was just as extravagantly condemned. Judaism does not wish
the Christian church to remain Christian. This accounts for destructive
Higher Criticism being almost exclusively the work of Jews, although the
world has long known them under the guise of “German critics.”
Jewish intolerance today, yesterday and in every age of history where
Jews were able to exert influence or power, is indisputable except among
people who do not know the record. Jewish intolerance in the past is a
matter of history; for the future it is a matter of Jewish prophecy. One
of the strongest causes militating against the full Americanization of
several millions of Jews in this country is their belief—instilled in
them by their religious authorities—that they are “chosen,” that this
land is theirs, that the inhabitants are idolators, that the day is
coming when the Jews will be supreme. How can they otherwise act than in
agreement with such declarations? You can see what is meant if you read
Jewish articles describing the shoving aside of the New England people
by the Jews; the supercilious attitude adopted toward the stock that
made America is merely a foreshadowing of what would be the complete
attitude if power and influence made it possible. Bolshevism, which
began with the destruction of the class that contained all the promise
of a better Russia, is an exact parallel for the attitude that is
adopted in this country regarding the original stock.
We are not permitted by the Jews to sing the “Battle Hymn of the
Republic” in our schools because one of the stanzas has a Christian
flavor. The Jews claim that the presence of one Jewish child in an
assembly of children ought in “fairness” to prevent the singing of that
historic song.
Norman Hapgood, writing in a Jewish publication, said: “I need hardly
explain that I do not think Jews ought to insist overmuch on their
rights or nationality in a negative sense. They ought to be as much Jews
as they can, but ought to be as little as possible of what is merely
anti-Christian. For the Jews to try to get a song out of the public
schools because it praises Jesus is perhaps natural but hardly wise.”
Mr. Hapgood received a lot of abuse for his well-conceived counsel.
Again we come to the end of our space with the record hardly scratched.
Sufficient has been presented to show the strong, unceasing
anti-Christian activity of the Jews in the United States. Had the Jewish
press been read extensively by non-Jews during the past 15 years, this
present series of articles would have been unnecessary—the people would
have known the facts. It is to present some of the facts that are
illustrated in the Jewish press along the line of religious intolerance
that these two articles have been written.
Jewish spokesmen plead for suppression of facts in the name of
“religious tolerance,” and they denounce exposure of the facts as being
“religious persecution.” Read the whole non-Jewish religious and secular
publications and you will not find one one-hundred-thousandth part of
the animosity against the Jewish religion which is found in the Jewish
press—continuously found week after week for long years—against the
Christian religion. The present writer has never seen nor heard of an
article attacking the Jews’ religion.
So, once for all, in spiking the cry of “religious persecution,” we show
that it exists in quantity and strength among the Jews—nowhere else. No
one imbued with the American spirit would or could condemn, hinder, or
even remonstrate with any person on account of the faith he holds.
As to “religious prejudice” or “persecution” entering into the present
series of articles—there they are, reprinted in booklet form for
permanent examination: where is the prejudice or persecution? _Cite the
page!_
Jewish spokesmen would use their energy to better advantage, and more to
the honor of the Jewish people, if they would address themselves to
_what is in the articles_, rather than to what is not in them. The
statements made by THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT have been voluminously
_discussed_; but they are still awaiting an _answer_.
——
Issue of June 11, 1921. _“This clannishness would eventually break down
were it not for the deliberate efforts of Jewish leaders who are
determined that Israel shall remain an imperium in imperio. If the Jews
persist in maintaining a distinct ethnic consciousness and an exclusive
community life, anti-Semitism will thrive in America as it has thrived
in Europe. The American nation, itself the result of fusion, will not
tolerate without protest a foreign element in it.”_
_—Herbert Adams Gibbons in the Century, September. Page 789_.
XLV.
Jewish Gamblers Corrupt American Baseball
There are men in the United States who say that baseball has received
its death wound and is slowly dying out of the list of respectable
sports. There are other men who say that American baseball can be saved
if a clean sweep is made of the Jewish influence which has just dragged
it through a period of bitter shame and demoralization.
Whether baseball as a first class sport is killed and will survive only
as a cheap-jack entertainment; or whether baseball possesses sufficient
intrinsic character to rise in righteous wrath and cast out the danger
that menaces it, will remain a matter of various opinion. But there is
one certainty, namely, that the last and most dangerous blow dealt
baseball was curiously notable for its Jewish character.
Yet only lesser Jews were indicted. Inevitably the names of other Jews
appeared in the press accounts, and people wondered who they were. A
Jewish judge presided. Jewish lawyers were prominent on both sides of
the cases. Numerous strange things occurred.
But strangest of all is the fact that although American fans felt that
something epochal had happened in baseball, few really know what it is.
There has been time enough for others to tell the truth if they were so
disposed. Many sport editors have come as near telling it as their
newspapers would permit them. But it becomes daily more evident that if
the whole matter is to be laid bare, so that Americans may know where to
look for danger, THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT will have to do it.
And this is not of our own choosing. Baseball is a trivial matter
compared with some of the facts that are awaiting publication. Yet it is
possible to see the operation of the Jewish Idea in baseball as clearly
as in any other field. The process is the same, whether in war or
politics, in finance or in sports.
To begin with, Jews are not sportsmen. This is not set down in complaint
against them, but merely as analysis. It may be a defect in their
character, or it may not; it is nevertheless a fact which discriminating
Jews unhesitatingly acknowledge. Whether this is due to their physical
lethargy, their dislike of unnecessary physical action, or their serious
cast of mind, others may decide; the Jew is not naturally an out-of-door
sportsman; if he takes up golf it is because his station in society
calls for it, not that he really likes it; and if he goes in for
collegiate athletics, as some of the younger Jews are doing, it is
because so much attention has been called to their neglect of the sports
that the younger generation thinks it necessary to remove that occasion
of remark.
And yet, the bane of American sports today is the presence of a certain
type of Jew, not as a participant but as an exploiter and corrupter. If
he had been a sportsman for the love of sport he might have been saved
from becoming an exploiter and corrupter, for there is no mind to which
the corrupting of a sport is more illogical and even unexplainable than
the mind of the man who participates in it.
There will be a very full case made out in justification of the use of
the above terms “exploiter” and “corrupter” with regard to baseball. But
it would be just as easy to make out the same sort of case with regard
to wrestling and horse-racing. Wrestling is so completely ruled by Jews
as to have become an outlawed sport. The story of wrestling is not only
the story of the demoralization of a sport, but also the story of the
wholesale bunkoing of the public.
The same is true of horse-racing. The whole atmosphere of this sport has
been tinged with dishonesty. The horses remain almost the only wellbred
creatures connected with it. Yet why should the art of breeding and
training and testing fine horses be debasing? Only because a certain
class saw in it a chance to play upon the weaknesses of men for the sake
of gain.
That, indeed, explains the presence of the Jew in modern sports and it
also explains why the Jewish Idea in sport, instead of being
preservative, is corruptive. The Jew saw money where the sportsman saw
fun and skill. The Jew set out to capitalize rivalry and to
commercialize contestant zeal.
This is not necessarily the only course the Jew could have taken with
regard to sports, but it is the course that he most notably has taken,
and as scandal follows scandal it would seem to be high time that
organized Jewry should undertake to control or repudiate those Jews who
have been most instrumental in corrupting and nearly destroying our
cleanest, most manly public sports.
It is worth noting that in Chicago, where the Jewish Anti-Defamation
League has its headquarters, there was not a word of reproof sent out
from Jews to the Jewish culprits, chiding them for their activities. Not
a word. But at the same time the pressure of the Anti-Defamation League
was heavy on the whole American newspaper press to prevent the public
statement that the whole baseball scandal was a Jewish performance from
end to end.
Baseball had a close call for its life back in 1875. Rowdyism, gambling,
drinking and general disorderliness on the baseball fields brought the
sport very low in public estimation, so low that attendance at the games
fell heavily.
In this year 1921 there is another public rebuke being administered
baseball by the same means—a very heavy reduction of public support in
attendance at the games.
The storm began to be heard as far back as 1919. The Cincinnati
Nationals had defeated the Chicago Americans in the World Series of that
year, and immediately thereafter the country became a whispering gallery
wherein were heard mysterious rumors of crooked dealing. The names of
Jews were heard then, but it meant nothing to the average man. The
rumors dealt with shady financial gains for a number of Jew gamblers of
decidedly shady reputation.
But “they got away with it,” in the parlance of the field. There was not
enough public indignation to force a show-down, and too many interests
were involved to prevent baseball being given a black eye in full view
of an adoring public.
However, not everyone forgot the incident. Some who had the interest of
honest sport at heart, and a regard for facts as well, kept on the
trail—long after the trail grew cold, long after the principal
wrongdoers forgot their early caution. Where money had once been taken
successfully, the gang would be sure to return.
Time went on until the 1920 season began to wane. One day when the
Chicago and Philadelphia National League teams were engaged in a series
at Chicago, strange messages began to reach the office of the Chicago
club. The messages were dated from Detroit and informed the Chicago club
and management that several “well-known” Jews were betting heavily on
Philadelphia. The bets involved large sums of money, and as the contest
was only the ordinary run of daily game, not an important contest at
all, the unusual interest of Jewish plungers attracted attention. At the
same time it was observed that money began rolling into the pool rooms
of Philadelphia.
Chicago club officials called a hasty conference on receipt of the
messages. They called in Grover Cleveland Alexander, explained the
situation to him, and told him it was up to him to save the game. It was
not Alexander’s turn to pitch, Claude R. Hendryx having been chosen for
that day; neither was Alexander in training to pitch that day. However,
he did go to the box, and although he hurled his heart out to beat
Philadelphia and thwart the Jew gamblers, he failed.
Then came the big scandal. A Cook County grand jury was called into
session at Chicago and asked to investigate. When this grand jury had
completed its labors, eight members of the Chicago American League team
were under indictment for throwing the World Series of 1919, the
previous year, to the Cincinnati Reds. And all along the line of the
investigation the names of Jews were plentifully sprinkled.
It was discovered that the indictments brought by the first grand jury
were faulty; a second one was called and it was under the second group
of indictments that the famous trial at Chicago was held.
One difference in the work of the two grand juries was that the second
indicted five Jews who had escaped the first one. Two of these men were
Carl Zork and Benny Franklin, who were just as much implicated at the
time of the first grand jury as the second, but the prosecutor’s office
did not try to secure their indictment. Why? Because Replogle, the
attorney representing the prosecution, said there were enough men
indicted without Zork and Franklin. These two St. Louis Jews were
represented by Alfred S. Austrian, a Jewish lawyer, of Chicago.
This second grand jury also indicted Ben and Louis Levi and their
brother-in-law, D. A. Zelser, gamblers from Des Moines. Their indictment
was not secured at the first grand jury investigation directed by
Replogle, assistant to Hoyne, who was then acting for the state of
Illinois. Between the first and second grand juries a political change
had occurred, and the public interests in the second grand jury were in
the care of a new prosecuting attorney, Robert Crowe, a former judge.
It becomes necessary at this point in the narrative to give a brief
“Who’s Who” of the baseball scandal, omitting from the list the names of
the baseball players, who are sufficiently known to the public. This
list will comprise only those who have been in the background of
baseball and whom it is necessary to know in order to understand what
has been happening behind the scenes in recent years.
For the first name let us take Albert D. Lasker. He is a member of the
American Jewish Committee, was recently appointed by President Harding
to be chairman of the United States Shipping Board, and is known as the
author of the “Lasker Plan,” a widely heralded plan for the
reorganization of baseball, which practically took the sport out of
non-Jewish control. He is reputed to be the second richest Jew in
Chicago and was head of the advertising agency which became famous under
the Gentile names of Lord & Thomas. Moreover he is a heavy stockholder
in the Chicago Cubs—the Chicago Nationals.
The so-called “Lasker Plan” has been attributed to Mr. Lasker, although
it is not here intimated that he has specifically claimed to be its
originator. The intimation is not made for the reason that to do so
might be putting Mr. Lasker in the position of claiming what is not
true. Until he makes the claim, the term “Lasker Plan” must remain
merely a designation, and not a description of its origin.
This matter brings us to the name of Alfred S. Austrian, a Jewish lawyer
of Chicago, who is a warm friend both of Mr. Lasker and of the Replogle
aforementioned. It is said that Mr. Austrian was really the originator
of the “Lasker Plan” which for certain reasons was handed to Mr. Lasker,
who was not averse to publicity and who knew the art of
self-advertising. Now, it appears that Austrian was also the legal
representative of Charles A. Comiskey, owner of the Chicago Americans,
and that he was also, if he is not now, the legal adviser of William
Veeck, president of the Chicago National League Club, in which it has
just been said that Lasker is a heavy stockholder. It was this club
which was touched by the questionable game of August, 1920, and which
afterward released Hendryx, the pitcher chosen for and withdrawn from
that game. The Chicago National League Club has never explained why it
released Hendryx and he has never demanded redress.
Mr. Austrian’s further activities will appear when the narrative of the
investigation and trial is resumed.
Then there is Arnold Rothstein, a Jew, who describes himself as being in
the real estate business but who is known to be a wealthy gambler, owner
of a notorious gambling house at Saratoga, a race track owner, and is
reputed to be financially interested in the New York National League
Club.
Rothstein was usually referred to during the baseball scandal as “the
man higher up.” It is stated that in some manner unknown he received the
secret testimony given before the grand jury and offered it to a New
York newspaper. However, the fact is this: the grand jury testimony
disappeared from the prosecuting attorney’s safe-keeping. It is stated
that, when Rothstein found out it did not incriminate him, he then
offered it for publicity purposes. The price which it is said to have
cost is also stated. It is further stated that the New York paper to
whom the secret stolen testimony was offered, in turn offered its use
for a larger sum to a Chicago newspaper, and that the Chicago newspaper,
to protect itself, called up Robert Crowe, the new prosecutor, who
advised that, in printing it, the newspaper would incur an unpleasant
risk. Other Chicago editors were warned, and the testimony was not
printed. Even the New York newspaper thought better of it, and did not
print it.
In this connection, Rothstein threatened suit against Ban Johnson, of
the National Commission, the big-bodied, big-minded, honest director and
protector of straight baseball—but the suit, like others of the kind,
has not been brought.
Rothstein is known on Broadway as “a slick Jew.” That he is powerful
with the authorities has been often demonstrated. His operations on the
turf have led to suggestions that he be ruled off.
Alfred S. Austrian, hereinbefore mentioned, was the legal adviser of
Rothstein during the baseball scandal.
Hugh S. Fullerton, the able sport writer of the New York _Evening Mail_,
writing on July 28, 1921, made a plea that “a person guilty of crooked
work on a race track should be expelled not only from the race track but
from ball parks, tennis courts, football fields and every place else
where sport is promoted. These sport spoilers must be barred from every
sport.”
And in the same paper, referring specifically to Rothstein, Mr.
Fullerton writes:
“There is in New York a gambler named Rothstein who is much feared and
much accused. His name has been used in connection with almost every big
thieving, crooked deal on the race track, and he is openly named in this
baseball scandal. There has been no legal proof advanced against him
beyond the fact that he is the only man in the entire crowd who had
money enough to handle such a deal. At least $200,000 was used in actual
cash, and no one concerned could command that much money excepting
Rothstein, who is either the vilest crook or the most abused man in
America.
“Rothstein sits in the box with the owner of the New York Giants. He has
the entrée to the exclusive clubhouses on race tracks; he is prominent
at fights.”
Then, after naming Abe Attell and Bennie Kauff, who also enjoy
exceptional privileges around the New York club, Mr. Fullerton makes his
plea for the exclusion of “sport spoilers” from every ground where sport
is promoted.
Then there is Charles A. Comiskey, who is one of the most impressive
examples in the country today of a good Irishman being entirely eclipsed
by a Jew. Comiskey was one of the staunchest supporters of honest
baseball in this country and he gave great assistance in erecting the
major league game to the position it occupied just before the scandal.
He used his best endeavors, also, to get the truth about the “throwing”
of the World Series by his men. But his efforts were thwarted and even
he, perhaps, has not the ghost of a suspicion how it was done.
So that, instead of Mr. Comiskey, we look at the Jew behind him who is
Harry Grabiner. With Comiskey in failing health, Grabiner is in charge
at Comiskey Park. More than that, he appears to be in charge of Comiskey
himself, preventing him from making public statements and otherwise
dictating to him—pushing himself forward in a manner that has indelibly
and unpleasantly impressed nearly every sport writer in America.
Chicago’s support of the White Sox began to slump even before the
scandal and it was helped on by the unpopularity of Grabiner’s methods
which were wholly characteristic of what the Americanized Jew calls the
“kikes.” As secretary of the club, Grabiner has grabbed the headship,
and if Comiskey had power enough to unseat him he would do more than the
courts have done to purge the White Sox from its most serious remaining
blemish.
There are shady spots at Chicago that neither the grand jury nor the
court trial brought out, one of which is now related:
At all ball parks in the American League, and in the National, for that
matter, officials of the “home club”—that is, of the club in whose home
city the game is being played—“take the gate.” To “take the gate” is to
collect the tickets and render a report of the attendance. Tickets are
designed and numbered for the different gates—box gate, pass gate, grand
stand gate, bleacher gate, and the rest. The accounts are made up
showing the number of people who passed through each gate. When all the
reports are in, it can be seen at a glance what the paid attendance is,
and the shares of the contesting clubs.
In former times it was the custom for the visiting club to assign a
secretary to watch the gates and thus insure an honest count, but years
ago the “honor system” was adopted, leaving the entire accounting to the
“home club,” and this “honor system” was strictly observed. No one
suspected cheating. The count was made during the sixth and seventh
innings of each day’s game, the officials of the home club visiting all
the gates, taking the turnstile count, and making the record. Three
slips were then prepared showing the home club’s share, the visiting
club’s share and the grand total.
Under Grabiner’s régime the “honor system” as practiced at the Chicago
park began to be suspected. It began to be mysteriously suggested that
visiting teams were not getting their full share. Through a system of
false accounting, it was said, money was being held out. Naturally, with
all the other secret investigations that were proceeding in baseball,
this clue was not left untouched. Detectives were hired. Watchers were
stationed. Secret counts were made. Not only one club nor only two clubs
adopted secret methods of finding out what was occurring under
Grabiner’s secretaryship. They discovered that the “honor system” was
not in vogue at that park. Their suspicions were confirmed, the
mysterious rumors were verified. It would probably be highly
objectionable to pro-Jewish persons to mention the Jewish management
with these methods—but there are the facts.
The White Sox of Comiskey’s palmy days have certainly ridden to a sorry
finish under the Jewish control that has been foisted upon it. And it is
typical; for there is no surer clue by which to trace a certain type of
Jew than by the near certainty that even with honest money rolling in
upon him, he will try to increase the flow by petty dishonesty which,
once discovered, declasses him forever. It is typical. There is a lure
in trickery that appeals to some men more than sound and satisfying
achievement does. Think of a world-famous baseball club allowing a
system that cheated the guest club of a few hundred admission fees!
Then next in this gallery of notables in the background of baseball is
the Jew gambler, Abe Attell, whose connection with sports has been of a
questionable character ever since his dethronement from his pugilistic
pedestal. Attell is known as the “king bee” of the scheme to “throw the
games” in the World Series. He knows all about underhanded “throwing” of
contests, because he has “thrown” his own fights, now feigning to be
beaten when it involved gambling bets and easily winning when the same
reasons prompted. Attell is of such a character that he ought to be
barred from the grounds of any sport, as Mr. Fullerton suggests. He is
the Morris Gest of sport, without Gest’s success. All the players named
Attell as the “fixer.” Even Rothstein named Attell as the “fixer.” It
seemed unanimous—with perhaps Attell’s own consent—that he should be
regarded as the “fixer”: it made it so much more comfortable for others.
Attell went so far as to say that he approached Rothstein with the
proposition to raise a pool to bribe the players to “throw the games,”
but Rothstein declined. And yet Maharg, another Jew, whose name spelled
backward is “Graham,” says that a telegram came through signed “A. R.”
which promised $20,000. The “A. R.” was supposed by some to mean Arnold
Rothstein, but others say he is too shrewd even to sign his initials.
However, it was asserted that 10 gamblers, all Jews, cleaned up $250,000
on the games and that nearly as much money was used to manage it.
Attell was the “goat,” the unanimity being rather startling. It has been
known, of course, that men have been so deep in sin that they have been
chosen to bear the sins also of their friends on promise that
“influence” would be exerted, or on threat that if they didn’t stand as
“goat” certain past indiscretions would be advertised. Whatever Attell’s
case might have been, he stood the gaff.
Attell told the ball players that Rothstein was putting up the money.
And Attell was never brought to book. It was even testified that Abe
Attell was not Abe Attell at all. Certain moneys lost in a bet had been
repaid and the expected testimony in a certain matter turned out to be
other than was expected. Attell was held in New York for an extradition
hearing. Sammy Pass, a Jew, was one of the witnesses. So was Johnny
Seys. The hearing resulted in New York refusing the extradition of Abe
Attell.
Then came the Dempsey-Carpentier fight, in Jersey, which Abe Attell
attended. Chicago officers were in attendance, too, with extradition
papers signed by the governor of New Jersey. They intended to take
Attell back with them, though without passing through New York. Attell
attended the fight, but the underground wires, so active in this entire
case, were working, and Attell eluded the western officers.
The next name in the roster will be that of Barney Dreyfuss, a Jew,
owner of the Pittsburgh National League Club. Mr. Dreyfuss appeared in
the public eye during the conduct of the grand jury inquiry into the
shady games, with an insistent demand that the National Commission, the
ruling body in baseball, of which Ban B. Johnson is the acknowledged
leader, should be abolished, and another plan, the “Lasker Plan,”
substituted. It was intended to discredit the National Commission under
cover of the rottenness that had been discovered between the Jew
gamblers and the venial Chicago players. It was primarily an
anti-Johnson move and nothing else, and it was led by a Jew whose
principal followers were the rapidly increasing group of Jewish
controllers of American baseball. What they have against Ban B. Johnson,
impartial investigators have been unable to discover. Mr. Johnson’s
chief characteristic, with reference to the Jewish side, has been his
implacable enmity to crookedness of any kind. That ought not to be a
disqualification if baseball is to be saved. Yet the Jew-conceived,
Jew-named and Jew-advocated “Lasker Plan” won out.
Carl Zork, the St. Louis Jew who was indicted, is variously described as
a shirt-maker and a silk-broker. There are no variations, however, in
his description as a gambler. He is part of the Jewish national net of
gamblers which acts nationally and makes “killings” on a national scale.
It should be observed that the principal Jewish abuses are nation-wide.
This was shown in the United States Government’s investigation of the
white slave traffic; the bootlegging business is nation-wide; so is race
track gambling; baseball pools also are a national network for the
catching of “suckers.” There is, therefore, nothing unusual that a
shirt-maker from St. Louis and a horse-trader from East St. Louis, and a
bootlegger from Albany—together with clever high-ups and hopelessly
declassed low-downs—should all be involved in a baseball scandal that
breaks in Chicago. They are all really part of a national group.
Carl Zork, for example, staged the fight between Attell and a
third-class boxer in which Attell welched in the sixth round in order to
“throw” the fight, because his friends had all bet on the third-rate
man, getting tremendous odds. His friends would never have made the bet,
or having made it could never have won it, without Attell’s deliberate
quitting and feigned whimpering. It was one of the rawest of many raw
deals witnessed in Jew-controlled sports, but Attell is that kind of
man. He is a servant for that kind of scheme. It was not by accident
that Zork, the silk-broker, and Attell, an ex-prize fighter, should be
linked together in the baseball scandal. They had been linked in crooked
work before. They are part of the national machinery organized and
operated for the purpose of separating “Gentile boobs” from their money.
If there were no “Gentile boobs,” or if the “Gentile boob” would only
take a square look at the man behind the nation-wide spider web, the
gamblers and the Jewish sport purveyors would be in another kind of
business, with perhaps less money to flaunt in the faces of honest
people.
If fans wish to know the trouble with American baseball, they have it in
three words—too much Jew. Gentiles may rant out their parrot-like
pro-Jewish propaganda, the fact is that a sport is clean and helpful
until it begins to attract Jewish investors and exploiters and then it
goes bad. The two facts have occurred in pairs too frequently and under
too many dissimilar circumstances to have their relationship doubted.
When you contrast the grand stands full of Americans supposing they are
witnessing “the only clean sport,” with the sinister groups playing with
the players and the managers to introduce a serpent’s trail of
unnecessary crookedness, you get a contrast that is rather startling.
And the sinister influence is Jewish. So patent was this that even
newspapers could not cover the facts this time.
Years before this public scandal broke, involving a whole team, it was
noticed that certain Jewish gamblers formed the habit of rooming with
certain baseball players. It worried the managers. The fact that the
gamblers coddled in among the players was fraught with a suggestion of
disturbing unusualness. Managers tried the experiment of trading such
players—getting them out of their teams as quickly as possible. However,
the snuggling game was continued until it honey-combed the whole of
baseball, with the result that it was with no trepidation at all that
the Jewish gamblers could walk up and suggest to players that a game be
thrown for a price. The occurrence which formed the basis of the
investigation was not the first of the kind—far from it; the approach of
the gamblers was too easy, the reception given them by the players was
too casual, to warrant that view. Nor were the men whose names were
given to the public the only men involved.
The only fact of value brought out of all the trouble is that American
baseball has passed into the hands of the Jews. If it is to be saved, it
must be taken out of their hands until they have shown themselves
capable of promoting sports for sports’ sake. If it is not taken out of
their hands, let it be widely announced that baseball is another Jewish
monopoly, and that its patrons may know what to expect.
——
Issue of September 3, 1921.
XLVI.
Jewish Degradation of American Baseball
Every non-Jewish baseball manager in the United States lives between two
fears, and they are both describable in the Biblical term “the fear of
the Jews.” The first fear concerns what the Jews are doing to baseball;
the second fear concerns what the Jew would do to the manager if he
complained about it. Hence, in spite of the fact that the rowdyism that
has afflicted baseball, especially in the East, is all of Jewish
origin—the razzing of umpires, hurling of bottles, ceaseless shouting of
profane insults; in spite of the fact that the loyalty of players had to
be constantly guarded because of the tendency of individual Jewish
gamblers to snuggle up to individual players; in spite of the evidence
that even the gate receipts have been tampered with—the managers and
secretaries of baseball clubs have been obliged to keep their mouths
closed. Through fear they have not dared say what they know. As one
manager said, “Good God, man, they’d boycott my park if I told you!”
This in free America, and in the “cleanest game”! It is time for
baseball fans to begin to look round.
Incidentally, the fans have been looking round. The fans _know_. If
managers only knew how much the fans have observed, they might feel more
certain of support in the event of a move toward a clean up.
All that a Jew needs to make him eligible to baseball or any other sport
on the same terms with other people, is to develop a sportsman’s spirit.
The Jew has crowded into all the lucrative sports, but only on the
commercial side of them, seldom if ever in sympathy with the sport as a
real sportsman. The Jews referred to as gamblers in these articles are
not really gamblers: they take no chances; they are not sportsmen enough
to gamble; they are “sure thing” men. The “Gentile boobs” who walk into
their traps are the people who provide the money. Even in the field of
money, the Jew is not a sport—he is a gangster, ringing a gang of his
ilk around his victims with as much system as a storekeeper supplies
clerks and delivery boys.
Lately the Jews have been endeavoring to prove that they are sports.
Venial sport editors are sometimes induced to write certain laudatory
articles along that line, and frequently the name of Benny Leonard is
used—Benny Leonard, the light-weight fighter. Benny forms an instructive
illustration just along this line. Benny declares that he went into the
ring without a scar and that he will leave the ring without a scar. Why?
Because he will let no one hit him. He will go a long way to avoid pain.
The true wrestler risks and often suffers physical pain. So does the
true ring fighter. But it is a Jewish characteristic to avoid, if
possible, the pain of contest, just as it is a characteristic to avoid
unnecessary effort.
Look at the other light-weight champions and fighters. Kid Lavinge
carries scars; his hearing is affected by the blows he took. Battling
Nelson was so badly shattered by his fights that operations were
necessary. Ad Wolgast, as a result of the honest straight fighting he
endured, went into a sanatorium. Imagine Willie Ritchie and Freddie
Welsh boasting that they never took a blow! But Benny Leonard is still
unscarred. It may be boxing, but it is not fighting.
Wrestling is so tightly controlled by Jewish managers, that a real
wrestler is absolutely barred out, for fear he will be able to show that
the handful of wrestlers hired by the Jewish trust are not wrestlers at
all, but only impositions on the good nature of the public. In order
that the statement just made may not be misunderstood, it is repeated:
the wrestling game at present is like the chariot race in a circus—the
performers are hired men and the race is only a sham. The Jewish
controllers of wrestling will not permit a real wrestler to
appear—indeed, they go to infinite pains to bar him out—because a real
wrestler would immediately show up the game. Wrestling is as much a
Jewish _business_, controlled in its every part, as the manufacture of
clothing, and its hirelings are mostly Gentiles.
That is what baseball was coming to. The whole sport was getting down to
an “exhibition game” status. The overtone of “money, money, money” grew
louder and louder. The sport aspect of the game was beginning to give
way to the “show” aspect. There were numerous signs that an attempt was
being made to “star” certain persons, to run “headliners,” and to pull
off a game with a sensational ending—just like a ballet is staged, or a
pageant. Thrills were being offered—not as the give and take of the
game, the accident of tensest action, but as practiced acting.
That is, baseball was slowly being brought under the level of the
box-office idea.
There were forces against this metamorphosis of the game. Certain men
saw what was coming. There were also forces favoring the change, and
wanting it to come. Curiously enough, the forces that favored turning
baseball into afternoon vaudeville were Jews, and those who favored
keeping the game as part of American outdoor sports were non-Jews.
There was more involved in that Chicago trial—that curious medley of
Jewish defendants, witnesses, lawyers and judge—than the mere trial of
baseball players accused of unlawfully taking money.
The players were the “Gentile boobs.” The players were not a whit
different than a candidate for the United States Senate who plays the
game according to the Jewish method. Every player on trial was there
because he had listened to the suggestions of a Jew. The Jews who made
the suggestions were not on trial. Some of them were not even indicted.
Some who were called before the grand jury were not required to testify.
Others who were indicted were acquitted. The spotlight of the whole
scandal was centered on the non-Jewish players who were pushed out in
front to do the job and who were known to any number of Jewish witnesses
as having been mixed up in whatever shady work there may have been. The
“Gentile boobs” had no witnesses; the Jews had all of them.
This is not a whitewash for the players. They deserved all they got for
mixing op with the low hangers-on; but they did not deserve it alone.
Had they been half men there would have been a few Jewish gamblers cured
for life of the little habit of approaching ball players with a shady
proposition. The players are Jewish dupes. To be such a dupe is
punishment enough.
It would be erroneous, however, to hold the opinion that corruption in
baseball began with the matter which was aired in court. Reference was
made at the beginning of this article to the fear which the managers
feel. This fear is of long standing. The managers had observed certain
manifestations of evil years before. They had heard rumors which they
did not repeat to their closest friends. They had started quiet
investigations, the results of which they did not reveal even to their
partners in the clubs. Everybody acquainted with the true situation,
lived in deathly fear of emitting a whisper that might give a clue to
the truth. But the truth is stronger than walls and doors and steel
vaults—the truth was known at every stage of the game, by somebody.
Fans may recall that several years ago one of the eastern teams began to
get rid of most of its men. It was a strange proceeding and occasioned
much discussion. The sport pages speculated about it and the “wise” ones
doped out plausible or fantastic explanations. The true explanation has
never yet been given, and it is this: the manager of that club had seen
certain things in the World Series of that year which turned him cold.
He knew that he saw them; morally he was convinced that something was
wrong; he exhausted every available method to get at the truth, and
failed; so, unable to bring the men to public punishment, he simply got
rid of them one by one, and the next season he had practically “rebuilt”
his team. That was not more than ten and not less than five years before
the 1919 World Series which formed the basis of the Chicago scandal.
It may be stated also that this which follows is the consensus of Jewish
opinion as regards baseball: “You can’t kill baseball as a _business_.
It will always draw a gang on an afternoon, particularly a Sunday
afternoon. It can be ‘pepped’ up and ‘jazzed’ up in a way that will make
it quite a show.”
The Jews are probably right, that baseball cannot be killed as a
business. But it can be killed as a sport. And the American baseball
fans who value the game as a sport should wish its utter destruction
rather than consent that it become a rendezvous for the gangs that now
fill the Jew-controlled burlesque houses. Baseball as a business will
become a danger in American life, a mob-center, a hang-out of the
disorderly and criminal classes.
There is another peculiar Jewish story regarding baseball which has not
been told and it necessarily brings in the name of Judge Landis, of
Chicago, an upright man with a wise head, whom the Jews would better not
try to fool.
When the story is told, however, even the Jews will agree that Judge
Landis is too shrewd for them.
Before the baseball scandal the situation was this: Ban Johnson was the
head of organized baseball, through the National Commission. He had
brought the sport from a minor place to its position as the national
game. Ban Johnson was something of an autocrat, as all leaders must be,
because as old General Booth of the Salvation Army said: “If the
Children of Israel had been managed by a committee, they never could
have crossed the Red Sea.” Autocracy has its uses, especially in
striking out new lines. Ban Johnson used his power for baseball, not for
personal aggrandizement. He saw the game grow great, he wanted it kept
clean. In his efforts to keep it clean, he made certain enemies. One of
those enemies, the Jewish owner of a baseball club, threatened to “get
Johnson.” As far as the National Commission as the head of organized
baseball is concerned, they did “get” him. But so far as his prestige is
concerned, so far as his character and reputation are concerned, they
did not “get” him.
Judge Landis was a fan. That is, he was a fan, besides being a learned
and rather strict judge. Judge Landis was one of the few judges who did
not quail before Chicago meat packers and Jewish bootleggers. Judge
Landis always went the limit on the numerous cases of Jewish business
crookedness that came before him—“blue sky” investment companies, and
the like. He was at least one judge who tried Jew and Gentile alike and
whose impartiality and fearless righteousness no one doubted.
Judge Landis was a rather uncomfortable man to have on the bench in
Chicago.
Moreover he was a comparatively poor man. The United States pays its
judges only $7,500 a year. That is less than $150 a week, comparatively
little on which to live as a Federal judge must live. Yet Judge Landis
lived in a modest house and within his income. And no one ever dared
tamper with him. An honest judge on the bench, a frugal man outside.
And he was a fan!
Now, while Ban Johnson was doing his best for baseball, and while Judge
Landis was seeing a game as often as his duties permitted, certain
others were viewing the situation. One of them was Alfred S. Austrian,
the Jewish lawyer referred to in the last article, attorney for several
ball clubs, friend of Replogle and Lasker, attorney for Rothstein the
gambler and several others. Barney Dreyfuss, the Jewish owner of the
Pittsburgh Club, was on the trail of Johnson, on persistent enmity. The
Jewish coterie in Chicago and the Jewish influence throughout American
baseball looked at Johnson and they looked at Judge Landis.
Then the great idea broke! If at one stroke they could rid baseball of
Johnson and rid the bench of Landis, what a good job that would be.
Both these men were dangerous to Jews—not that they intended to be, not
that they were consciously so—and it would be desirable to remove both
from the spheres of their activity.
Then it was that the Jew lawyer, Austrian, came forth with the “Lasker
Plan,” named for his Jewish friend Lasker, member of the American Jewish
Committee, head of Lord & Thomas (Gentile names) and Chairman of the
United States Shipping Board.
The “Lasker Plan” proposed that the National Commission with Ban Johnson
be superseded by a one man government, that one man to be selected from
outside both leagues.
The proposal was not an immediate success. Even the National League was
in no hurry to obey this suggestion against Johnson. Indeed, there was
so much hesitancy on the part of the Nationals in which the Jewish
colleagues expected to find their best support, that the trump card was
played.
What was that trump card? It is said to be the secret testimony of the
grand jury before which Ban Johnson was glad to appear as a witness to
tell the jury everything it would need for a proper prosecution of its
inquiry, and before which Alfred S. Austrian also appeared to save some
of his clients from the consequences of such testimony. The report is
that Austrian was able to reproduce at the National League meeting the
secret testimony which Ban Johnson had given before the grand jury, and
by that means swing the Nationals against Johnson and in favor of the
“Lasker Plan,” because in the grand jury room Johnson told the truth
about certain elements in baseball, which was held to reflect on
National League members. What those elements are may be gathered from a
survey of the people who were interested in “getting” Johnson. Johnson
is anything but anti-Semitic. He probably has never stopped to think
about such a thing. He has never been known to attack Jews as Jews. But
he has stood for straight baseball, and for so standing he has won the
enmity of the Jews in baseball. These facts are sufficient to justify a
conclusion.
So, with Johnson left to head only the American League and not both
leagues, the next task was to select the new autocrat of baseball. Not a
commission this time, but one man! With all his power, Johnson was never
more than one of a commission; but the “Lasker Plan” disposes of such
safeguards and leaves the whole authority in one man’s hands. It will be
interesting to see who becomes the second incumbent of that office, if
indeed the “Lasker Plan” lasts long enough to warrant a second autocrat.
Gentle reader, do you suppose for a moment that the Jews who opposed
Johnson did not know who the new leader would be? Ah, well they knew! He
was to be a man outside both leagues. And he was to be a man whom the
Jews would just as soon have off the bench as on it. He was, indeed,
none other than Judge Landis, who can be trusted to see through a trick
as far as any other living man.
Of course, he would accept a $42,500 job, he who was receiving only
$7,500 a year! And, of course, he would resign from the bench!—thus the
coterie reasoned.
They trooped over to the court to interview the judge. They made so much
commotion on their entry that the gavel was banged for order. The
interview was held. Judge Landis agreed to accept. This news was widely
heralded. The judge tied them down to a seven-year contract. It was
assumed in all the interviews in all the newspapers that the judge would
resign. It was assumed he would devote the rest of his life to baseball.
The baseball magnates signed up under the “Lasker Plan” put across by
Austrian.
Judge Landis also signed.
And then he remained on the bench!
The reader no doubt remembers how quickly enthusiasm for Judge Landis
died down in certain quarters; remembers, too, no doubt, that _a fight
was started immediately afterward in the United States Congress to force
Judge Landis off the bench_—not to make him give up the dictatorship of
baseball, but to make him quit the bench.
And be this said: in spite of all the collusion and conspiracy and
trickery, of which Judge Landis was the unconscious object, baseball
fell into the hands of a man who will be just as jealous for its good
name as Ban Johnson was. The Austrian-Lasker-Dreyfuss plan has so far
failed. And Judge Landis has rendered several decisions which show that
on the bench or off the bench he has the same shrewd eye for the
detection of a fallacy.
Judge Landis is safeguarded by a seven-year contract. He is free to be
absolutely fearless and fair. What his accession means to baseball will
be anxiously awaited.
Judge Landis is probably not empowered to stop the steady falling of
baseball clubs into Jewish hands, and if this cannot be stopped, his
position as supreme dictator becomes little better than that of a police
court judge settling disputes relating to the rules and offenses against
them. The peril of baseball goes deeper than that.
A few years ago the owners of the American League entered into a
gentleman’s agreement not to sell their holdings at any time without
first consulting all the other owners. The name of a prospective
purchaser was to be submitted and considered, and the deal was to wait
upon the approval of all the owners in the league.
In the face of that fact many people wonder how Harry Frazee became
owner of the Boston American club. It is very simply explained: the
agreement was not observed in Boston’s case, and thus another club was
placed under the smothering influences of the “chosen race.” The story
is worth telling:
Frazee, like so many of his kind, was in the “show business,” a manager
of burlesque companies. Then he saw a chance in sport. In partnership
with Jack Curley, another Jew, he put on the notoriously crooked fight
between Jack Johnson and Jess Willard at Havana. Curley has been the
principal influence in killing wrestling, by precisely the kind of
Jewish policy here described.
Jack Johnson, the Negro, was a fugitive from justice, yet he was
champion prize fighter of the world. He was spending money like a wild
sailor, and his funds were running low. He was getting into precisely
the condition where Jews like to find a man, to use him. Unable to fight
in the United States, but still possessing the championship, he was in
need of a way out. At this time Frazee and Curley made a proposition to
Johnson, said to involve the sum of $35,000, if he would “lay down”
before Jess Willard. And thus Jess Willard, “probably the worst fighter
that ever held a title,” was made world champion. Frazee and Curley then
exhibited Willard on the stage and in circuses, and drew rich dividends.
The crooked fight at Havana did not involve Willard, he was too poor a
fighter to need “fixing.” Only Johnson had to be “fixed” not to knock
Willard out, which he could easily have done. But between the time when
Curley and Frazee gave Willard the title, and the time when Dempsey took
it away from him, the Jewish syndicate made a very rich killing out of
the gullible American public.
But Curley is not the subject here, he deserves a separate story. Frazee
concerns this article because he became owner of the Boston baseball
team. He bought a new show—the Boston club, in the best baseball city of
the American League. John J. Lannin, former owner, was a real baseball
man, so much so indeed that the excitement of the games told on his
health and it became necessary for him to relieve himself of the strain.
Frazee was waiting to cut in, and whether Lannin feared that the
proposal of Frazee’s name to the American League would result in
disapproval, or whether Frazee himself, knowing it, contrived to make it
worth while that the agreement between the American League owners should
be ignored, remains an open question.
However that may be, the American League woke up one morning to find the
little burlesque manager and promoter of a crooked prize fight in their
midst. It was a sad shock to the dignity of “the cleanest sport.”
What could they do about it? Nothing. Frazee had bought and paid for
what he held.
Baseball was about as much of a sport to Frazee as selling tickets to a
merry-go-round would be. He wanted to put his team across as if they
were May Watson’s girly girly burlesquers. Baseball was to be “promoted”
as Jewish managers promote Coney Island.
The American League owners rebelled, but let them rebel! What could they
do about it?
Frazee began his next inside work almost immediately. Ban Johnson was
unalterably opposed to the Frazee idea of sport, and Frazee set out to
“get” Johnson. A split occurred in the American League, with Frazee, Til
Huston and Jake Ruppert of the New York Club, and Charles A. Comiskey
and Grabiner, of the Chicago Club, on one side against Johnson, and the
other American owners comprising the other party supporting Johnson.
Frazee got money out of Chicago—the home of Lasker, Austrian, Replogle
and Grabiner—to put through his Boston deal. A bank loaned him a quarter
of a million dollars—one of Frazee’s friends was a director of the bank.
Frazee’s friend died and Frazee had difficulty with the bank about
remaking the notes. He finally was enabled to pay $125,000. Frazee
secured this money from the New York American Club by selling “Babe”
Ruth. Thus the New York and the Boston clubs have become financially
interwoven. Boston is referred to as “New York’s farm” in baseball
circles.
In the meantime, the fans of Boston feel toward Frazee as the fans of
Chicago feel toward Grabiner. The “class” of Boston no longer flows
through the gates. The attendance at Boston park is smaller than at any
other time in the last 15 years.
Now, it is unlikely that Judge Landis could tackle that question. Has he
power, or lacking power, has he daring enough to assume power to drive
the peril away from the ownership and fringes of baseball? It is
probably not his field, but it pertains to the future character of
baseball.
The Chicago American League Club is the most recent to attract the
desire of Jewish capital. The Ascher brothers of that city have offered
$1,500,000 for the club franchise. The Ascher brothers comprise a Jewish
family, Max, Nathan and Harry, who conduct a string of motion picture
theaters in Chicago. They have erected their own theatrical circuit.
Like Frazee, they wish to add baseball to their string of “show
businesses,” and are willing to pay the price. At the time of this
writing, their offer has not been turned down.
But a significant development—and in Chicago also—is the announcements
made by the Chicago _Tribune_ that it will curtail the space heretofore
devoted to baseball on its sport pages. This, more than anything which
has occurred, indicates the new scrutiny with which the game is being
viewed. For a long time many observers have wondered where the “sport”
was found in sitting on a bleacher watching a few men earn their
salaries. Hours thus spent in a ball park “do not take anything off the
waistline of the spectators nor add anything to chest measurement,” says
the _Tribune_; “the majority of spectators get only eye and mouth
exercise.” “Journalism has overfed it with space,” the _Tribune_ rightly
says, referring to professional baseball. In ruining baseball and
securing control, the Jews may be just in time to take a loss. Better no
baseball than every park an afternoon midway filled with the alien and
Red elements of the country.
There is, however, a baseball duty devolving upon the police of every
city, and that is the abolition of the Jew-controlled baseball pool.
Gambling has grown up round the “cleanest game” to the extent of
$20,000,000 a year. It flourishes in 150 cities in the country, and in
many small towns. The “boobs,” of course, are mostly non-Jews, the
owners and profit-takers are Jews. It is as much a part of the national
network of the Jewish gambling fraternity as are booze-running and
horse-racing. The baseball pool runs more openly than the “books”
because the very name “baseball” has seemed to give it the protection of
“the cleanest sport.” However, it has turned cigar-stores, barber shops,
pool rooms, near-beer saloons, and newspaper stands into agencies for
the national and international Jewish gambling forces. The bettor is
entirely at the mercy of the managers of these pools.
These dishonest money-collecting devices are in violation of the law
everywhere. The police could put them out of business easily if they
should decide to give their attention to it. And thereby they would be
taking the hands of a most undesirable alien class out of the pockets of
the American people.
If baseball is to be saved, and there are those who seriously doubt it
ever can be restored, the remedy is plain. The disease is caused by the
Jewish characteristic which spoils everything by ruthless commercial
exploitation. The disease may be too far gone for any cure. There are
those who, like the Chicago _Tribune_, deny that professional baseball
ever was a sport, and who are glad that Jewish exploiters, like
scavengers, have come along to reduce it to garbage. But there is no
doubt anywhere, among either friends or critics of baseball, that the
root cause of the present condition is due to Jewish influence.
——
Issue of September 10, 1921.
XLVII.
Jewish Jazz Becomes Our National Music
About a year ago the following article appeared in the New York _Times_,
a newspaper that has never been accused of anti-Semitism, and whose
proprietor is one of the best-known Jews in the United States:
“Irving Berlin, Leo Feist and other officers of seven music
publishing corporations in this city were charged with violating the
Sherman anti-trust law in an equity suit begun yesterday in the
Federal District Court by the United States Government. The
defendants, it was alleged, controlled 80 per cent of the available
copyrighted songs used by manufacturers of phonographs, player piano
rolls and other musical reproducing instruments, and fixed prices at
which the records or rolls were to be sold to the public....
“The corporations involved in the action were the Consolidated Music
Corporation, 144 West Thirty-seventh street; Irving Berlin, Inc.,
1567 Broadway; Leo Feist, Inc., 231 West Fortieth street; T. B.
Harms, Francis, Day and Hunter, Inc., 62 West Forty-fifth street;
Shapiro, Bernstein & Company, 218 West Forty-seventh street;
Watterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc., 1571 Broadway, and M. Witmark &
Sons, Inc., 144 West Thirty-seventh street.
“The agreement which the government seeks to dissolve is alleged to
provide that the defendants would make contracts only through the
Consolidated Music Corporation which they had organized....”
Many people have wondered whence come the waves upon waves of musical
slush that invade decent parlors and set the young people of this
generation imitating the drivel of morons. A clue to the answer is in
the above clipping. _Popular Music is a Jewish monopoly._ Jazz is a
Jewish creation. The mush, the slush, the sly suggestion, the abandoned
sensuousness of sliding notes, are of Jewish origin.
Monkey talk, jungle squeals, grunts and squeaks and gasps suggestive of
cave love are camouflaged by a few feverish notes and admitted to homes
where the thing itself, unaided by the piano, would be stamped out in
horror. Girls and boys a little while ago were inquiring who paid Mrs.
Rip Van Winkle’s rent while Mr. Rip Van Winkle was away. In decent
parlors the fluttering music sheets disclosed expressions taken directly
from the cesspools of modern capitals, to be made the daily slang, the
thoughtlessly hummed remarks of high school boys and girls.
The United States Government alleged, in the above complaint, that 80
per cent of these popular songs was under the control of the seven
Jewish houses named above; and the other 20 per cent controlled by other
Jewish music houses not included in that special group.
It is rather surprising, is it not, that whichever way you turn to trace
the harmful streams of influence that flow through society, you come
upon a group of Jews? In baseball corruption—a group of Jews. In
exploitative finance—a group of Jews. In theatrical degeneracy—a group
of Jews. In liquor propaganda—a group of Jews. In control of national
war policies—a group of Jews. Absolutely dominating the wireless
communications of the world—a group of Jews. In the menace of the
Movies—a group of Jews. In control of the Press through business and
financial pressure—a group of Jews. War profiteers, 80 per cent of
them—Jews. Organizers of active opposition to Christian laws and
customs—Jews. And now, in this miasma of so-called popular music, which
combines weak-mindedness with every suggestion of lewdness—again Jews.
The Jewish influence on American music is, without doubt, regarded as
serious by those who know anything about it. Not only is there a growing
protest against the Judaization of our few great orchestras, but there
is a strong reaction from the racial collusion which fills the concert
stage and popular platform with Jewish artists to the exclusion of all
others.
The American people have been urged and chided and shamed into the
beginning of a rather generous popular support of music in this country,
and the first thing they see for their money is that Jewish artists
supplant the non-Jewish artists, and use the prestige of their
membership in symphony orchestras to work various small business schemes
of their own. If they were superior artists, nothing against it could be
said, but they are not superior artists; they are only better known and
racially favored in Jewish musical circles.
That, however, is a big subject. It will receive attention in its turn.
Just now it is the “popular song” that is being considered. However, as
something which true lovers and knowers of music may meditate upon in
view of future studies of Jewish influence in music, this observation is
offered (the italics are ours):
“_Meanwhile the Oriental, especially the Jewish, injection in our
music_, seemingly less widespread than the German was or the French
is, _may prove even more virulent_. Those not temperamentally immune
to it catch it less severely, like Mr. Leo Ornstein; and if they
ever throw it off, as he has given some signs of doing, seem to be
left devoid of energy and, as it were, permanently anemic.
“_The insidiousness of the Jewish menace to our artistic integrity_
is due partly to the speciousness, the superficial charm and
persuasiveness of Hebrew art, its brilliance, its violently
juxtaposed extremes of passion, its poignant eroticism and
pessimism, and partly to the fact that the strain in us which might
make head against it, the deepest, most fundamental strain perhaps
in our mixed nature, is diluted and confused by a hundred other
tendencies.
“The _Anglo-Saxon group of qualities_, the Anglo-Saxon point of
view, even though they are so thoroughly disguised, in a people
descended from every race, that we easily forget them, and it is not
safe to predicate them of any individual American, _are nevertheless
the vital nucleus of the American temper_. _And the Jewish
domination of our music_, even more than the Teutonic and the
Gallic, _threatens to submerge and stultify them at every point_.”
“Let me make a nation’s songs and I care not who makes the laws,” said
one; in this country the Jews have had a very large hand in making both.
It is the purpose of this and the succeeding article to put Americans in
full possession of the truth concerning the moron music which they
habitually hum and sing and shout day by day, and if possible to help
them to see the invisible Jewish baton which is waved above them for
financial and propaganda purposes.
Just as the American stage and the American motion picture have fallen
under the influence and control of the Jews and their art-destroying
commercialism, so the business of handling “popular songs” has become a
Yiddish industry.
Its leaders are for the most part Russian-born Jews, some of whom have
personal pasts which are just as unsavory as THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT
has shown the pasts of certain Jewish theatrical and movie leaders to
be.
The country does not sing what it likes, but what the vaudeville “song
pluggers” popularize by repeated renditions on the stage, until the
flabby mind of the “ten-twent’-thirt’” audiences begin to repeat it on
the streets. These “song pluggers” are the paid agents of the Yiddish
song agencies. Money, and not merit, dominates the spread of the moron
music which is styled “Jewish Jazz.” Of the business details, however,
more later.
Tin Pan Alley, so-called because it constitutes a group of “song shops,”
is populated by the “Abies” and “Izzies” and “Moes” who make up the
composing staffs of the various institutions.
In this business of making the people’s songs, the Jews have shown, as
usual, no originality but very much adaptability—which is a charitable
term used to cover plagiarism, which in its turn politely covers the
crime of mental pocket-picking. The Jews do not create; they take what
others have done, give it a clever twist, and exploit it. They have
bought up all the old hymn books, opera scores and collections of folk
songs, and if you stop to analyze some of the biggest “hits” of the
Yiddish song manufacturers, you will find they are woven on the motif
and the melody of the clean songs of the last generation; the music
jazzed a little, the sentiment sensualized very much, and set upon their
smutty road, across the country.
Because of absolute Jewish control of the song market, both in
publishing and in theatrical performance, it is next to impossible for
anything but a Jewish song to be published in the United States or, if
published, to get a hearing. The proof of this is in the fact that the
Yiddish trust owns the business and the so-called “song hits” all bear
Jewish names.
A typical incident occurred in New York recently. A non-Jewish song
composer had produced work of such commanding merit that musical
sentiment demanded its public rendition. Jewish manager after Jewish
manager was approached, but the combination was unbreakable. Finally,
one New Yorker talked out and said something about “Jewish combine,”
which had its effect. A Jewish manager protested that he would be glad
to give the work to the public. Rehearsals were held and the night of
presentation arrived. The first number was a solo and a Jew appeared to
sing it. He could not pronounce English words. He sang through his nose.
He was most Yiddish in appearance, the long nose, with narrow, sloping
forehead, curly hair. The second number was a duet, and behold two Jews
appeared, whose pronunciations differed between themselves. The
performance was a most hilarious tragedy. The purpose was to kill a
non-Jewish product by a poor Jewish rendition. But—the Jewish manager
overdid it. It needed just that to bring non-Jewish musical
consciousness to the surface and to explode the advertised and
money-bought notion that the Jew has predominant artistic genius. Say
that he predominates in music—yes; he has paid for and organized that
predominance; do not, however, say anything about his predominance in
musical genius or art.
Non-Jewish music has been stigmatized as “high brow.” It is purveyable
only in expensively good society. The people, the masses, are fed from
day to day on the moron suggestiveness that flows in a hurtful flood out
of Tin Pan Alley.
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the region in Twenty-eighth street,
between Broadway and Sixth avenue, where the first Yiddish song
manufacturers began business. Flocks of young girls who thought they
could sing, and others who thought they could write song poems, came to
the neighborhood allured by dishonest advertisements that promised more
than the budding Yiddish exploiters were able to fulfill. Needless to
say, scandal became rampant, as it always does where so-called “Gentile”
girls are reduced to the necessity of seeking favors from the eastern
type of Jew. It was the constant shouting of voices, the hilarity of
“parties,” the banging of pianos and the blatting of trombones that gave
the district the name of Tin Pan Alley.
The first attempt to popularize and commercialize the so-called
“popular” type of music was made by Julius Witmark, who had been a
ballad singer on the minstrel stage. He ceased performing to become a
publisher, and was soon followed by East Side Jews, many of whom have
become wealthy through their success in pandering to a public taste
which they first debased.
Irving Berlin, whose real name is Ignatz or Isadore Baline, is one of
the most successful of these Jewish song controllers. He was born in
Russia and early became a singer and entertainer. With the rise of
“ragtime,” which was the predecessor of “jazz,” he found a new field for
his nimble talents, and his first big success was “Alexander’s ragtime
Band”—a popular piece which by comparison with what has followed it, is
a blushing, modest thing.
It was worth noting, in view of the organized eagerness of the Jew to
make an alliance with the Negro, that it was Jewish “jazz” that rode in
upon the wave of Negro “ragtime” popularity, and eventually displaced
the “ragtime.”
Berlin has steadily gone the road from mere interestingness to unashamed
erotic suggestion. He is the “headliner” in homes as well as in the
not-too-particular music halls, but his stuff without its music
sometimes savors of vile suggestion.
The motif of this business can be clearly seen in the “Berlin Big Hits.”
There are the so-called “vamp” songs, such as “Harem Life,” and “You
Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea.”
Among the “successes” is the song entitled, “I Like It.” It is a “vamp”
song which has been sung everywhere, even by myriads of children who
could not appreciate the full suggestion of the words, but were
hypnotized by the atmosphere which the words created when sung; and by
older folks who would not under any circumstances _speak_ the words of
the song, but who are victims of the modern delusion that a little
flashy music covers a multitude of sins. “I Like It” deals with a girl,
“Mary Green, seventeen,” whose mother reproves her for flirting with the
boys. (In the writing of this paragraph it was debated whether THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT should print what Mary replies to her mother. It
was argued that printing the words might give a salutary shock to
skeptical readers. It was also argued that the pages of this paper never
yet had been defiled by obscenity. Mary’s words, sung broadcast through
the country, are therefore not given here.)
Readers should reserve comment until they search the piles of moron
music rubbish in their own parlors. Readers have listened to much worse
stuff than Mary’s words, but covered by Yiddish “jazz.” It takes cold
type to show what a song really is. A good test for a song is to try to
read it aloud. Few normal people can.
“O-Hi-O,” as sung by Yiddish comedians, has a stench of its own. It may
be commented on more extensively later as an example of the Yiddish
practice of having three grades of the same song, to suit different
degrees of degenerate appetites.
Such songs are not the worst, by any means. Jewish purveyors to
degenerate appetites have a peculiarly devilish system of presenting the
same song in two or three grades. There will be the song as it is sold
at the music store to addle-pated young men and women who fill their
leisure with hearing or humming this syncopated senility—young men and
women who pitiably imagine they are keeping up with the times. The songs
thus sold and sung are rotten enough. But there is the same song, Class
2. The theme and the melody are the same, but it goes “a little
further.” There is a line or two in each stanza which dips below even
the low standard which Jewish “jazz” has permitted in some of our
parlors. And then there is Class 3—same theme, same melody—but “going
the limit.”
Young men about town usually know Class 2 and Class 3. The instance has
been known that young women have become acquainted with these lower
grades also. Forgetfulness by young men while singing at the piano
evenings has given hints of the filthier version. And even where version
1 has been strictly adhered to, the mutual knowledge, politely
concealed, has created an atmosphere far from wholesome.
The diabolical cunning with which an unclean atmosphere is created and
sustained through all classes of society and by the same influence, will
not be overlooked by any observer. There is something Satanic about it,
something calculated with demonic shrewdness. And the stream flows on
and on, growing worse and worse, to the degradation of the non-Jewish
public and the increase of Jewish fortunes.
If THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT were to print on this page the bare words of
the popular songs that are to be found in the parlors of the most
respectable section of every city, the reader’s sense of decency would
cry out against it. The same words when drawn out by numerous hyphens
and covered up with nervous music, insinuate their way into the hummed
tones of age and into the lilts of innocent childhood. Between the
movies and the popular songs the Jewish groups dictate the intellectual
life of the masses.
Among the latest Jewish “song hits” may be included these titles: “I’ll
Say She Does”; “You Cannot Shake That Shimmy Here”; “Sugar Baby”; “In
Room 202”; “Can You Tame Wild Wimmen?” and an almost endless list of the
same nature, some of which titles are too suggestive for print. Yet they
have free course everywhere—as everything Jewish does, in this country.
Ministers, educators, reformers, parents, citizens who are amazed at the
growth of looseness among the people, rail at the evil results. They see
the evil product and they attack the product. They rail at the young
people who go in for all this eroticism and suggestiveness.
But all this has a source! Why not attack the source? When a population
is bathed in sights, sounds and ideas of a certain character, drenched
in them and drowned in them, by systematic, deliberate, organized
intent, the point of attack should be the cause, not the effect. Yet,
that is precisely where the point of attack has not been made,
presumably because of lack of knowledge.
It is of little use blaming the people. The people are what they are
made. Give the liquor business full sway and you have a population that
drinks and carouses. After preaching abstinence to the victims for a
century, the country turned its attention to the victimizers and the
abuse was greatly curtailed. The traffic is still illicitly carried on,
but even so, the best way to abolish the illicit traffic is to identify
the groups that carry it on.
The entire population of the United States could be turned into narcotic
addicts if the same freedom was given the illicit narcotic ring as is
now given the Yiddish popular song manufacturers. But in such a
condition it would be stupid to attack the addicts; common sense would
urge the exposure of the panderers.
A dreadful narcotizing of moral modesty and the application of powerful
aphrodisiacs have been involved in the present craze for popular songs—a
stimulated craze. The victims are everywhere. But ministers, educators,
reformers, parents, and public-spirited citizens are beginning to see
the futility of scolding the young people thus diseased. Common sense
dictates a cleaning out of the source of disease. The source is in the
Yiddish group of song manufacturers who control the whole output and who
are responsible for the whole matter from poetry to profits.
Next to the moral indictment against the so-called “popular” song is the
indictment that _it is not popular_. Everybody hears it, perhaps the
majority sing it; it makes its way from coast to coast; it is flung into
the people’s minds at every movie and from every stage; it is advertised
in flaring posters; phonograph records shriek it forth day and night,
dance orchestras seem enamored of it, player pianos roll it out by the
yard. And by sheer dint of repetition and suggestion the song catches
on—as a burr thistle catches on; until it is displaced by another. There
is no spontaneous popularity.
It is a mere mechanical drumming on the minds of the public. There is
often not a single atom of sentiment or spiritual appeal in the whole
loudly trumpeted “success”; men and women, boys and girls have simply
taken to humming words and tunes which they cannot escape, night or day.
The deadly anxiety of “keeping up with the times” drives the army of
piano-owners to the music stores to see what is “going” now, and of
course it is the Yiddish moron music that is going, and so another home
and eventually another neighborhood is inoculated.
But there is no _popularity_. Take any moron music addict you know and
ask him what was the “popular” song three weeks ago, and he will not be
able to tell. These songs are so lacking in all that the term “popular”
means as regards their acceptableness, that they die overnight,
unregretted. Directly the Yiddish manufacturers have another “hit” to
make (it is always the public that is “hit”) a new song is crammed down
the public gullet, and because it is the “latest,” and because the
Yiddish advertisements say that it is a “hit,” and because the hired
“pluggers” say that everybody is singing it, that song too becomes
“popular” for its brief period, and so on through the year. It is the
old game of “changing the styles” to speed up business and make the
people buy. Nothing lasts in the Yiddish game—styles of clothing, movies
nor songs; it is always something new, to stimulate the flow of money
from the popular pocket into the moron music makers’ coffers.
There hasn’t been a real “popular” song of Yiddish origin since the
Jewish whistlers and back-alley songsters of New York’s East Side
undertook to handle musical America—not one, unless we except in genuine
gratitude George Cohan’s “Over There”, a song which came out of a period
of strain and went straight to the people’s heart.
Two facts about the “popular song” are known to all: first, that for the
most part it is indecent and the most active agent of moral miasma in
the country, or if not the most active, then neck and neck with the
“movies”; second, that the “popular song” industry is an exclusively
Jewish industry. But the inside story of the operation of this control
of the people’s music presents other facts which the people ought to
know, and these additional facts will appear in another article.
——
Issue of August 6, 1921.
XLVIII.
How the Jewish Song Trust Makes You Sing
Jews did not create the popular song; they debased it. The time of the
entry of Jews into control of the popular song is the exact time when
the morality of popular songs began to decline. It is not a pleasant
statement to make, but it is a fact. It would seem to be a fact of which
American Jews ought to take solemn cognizance, not to anathematize those
who do service by exposing the fact, but to curb that group of Jews who,
in this instance, as do other groups of Jews in other instances, bring a
stain upon the Jewish name.
The “popular” song, before it became a Jewish industry, was really
popular. The people sang it and had no reason to conceal it. The popular
song of today is often so questionable a composition that performers
with a vestige of delicacy must appraise their audience before they
sing. There are songs and choruses that can be purchased in any
reputable music store and found in many reputable parlors which cannot
be printed in this column of THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT. If they were
printed here, “Gentile fronts” would be the first to complain that this
paper was using obscenity to give interest to these articles. Yet, if
those songs were printed, this paper would be doing nothing more than
following its policy of going to Jewish sources for its material.
Americans of adult age will remember the stages through which the
popular song has passed during the past three or four decades. War songs
persisted after the Civil War and were gradually intermingled with songs
of a later time, picturesque, romantic, clean.
These latter were not the product of song factories, but the creation of
individuals whose gifts were given natural expression. These individuals
did not work for publishers but for the satisfaction of their work.
There were no great fortunes made out of songs, but there were many
satisfactions in having pleased the public taste.
The public taste, like every other taste, craves what is given it most
to feed upon. Public taste is public habit. The public is blind to the
source of that upon which it lives, and it adjusts itself to the supply.
Public taste is raised or lowered as the quality of its pabulum improves
or degenerates. In a quarter of a century, given all the avenues of
publicity like theater, movie, popular song, saloon and newspaper—in the
meantime having thrown the mantle of contempt over all counteractive
moral agencies—you can turn out nearly the kind of public you want. It
takes just about a quarter of a century to do a good job.
In other days the people sang as they do now, but not in such doped
fashion nor with such bewildering continuity. They sang songs
nonsensical, sentimental and heroic, but the “shady” songs were
outlawed. If sung at all, the “shady” songs were kept far from the
society of decent people. Like the styles of the demimonde that formerly
were seen only in the abandoned sections of cities, the songs of smut
had their geographical confinement, but like the fashions of the
demimonde they broke out of their confines to spread among polite
society.
The old songs come readily back to memory. Though years have intervened
since they were the fashion, yet their quality was such that they do not
die. The popular song of last month—who knows its name? But there are
songs of long ago whose titles are familiar even to those who have not
sung them.
Recall their names—“Listen to the Mocking Bird”—what song today has been
boosted to general acceptance on such a simple theme? The only “birds”
the people are encouraged to sing about today are “flappers” and
“chickens.”
And there were “Ben Bolt”; “Nellie Gray”; “Juanita”; “The Old Folks at
Home”; “The Hazel Dell”; “When You and I Were Young, Maggie”; “Silver
Threads Among the Gold.” What margin did these songs leave for the
suggestive, for the unwholesomely emotional?
In those days the people sang; they sang together; they sang wherever
they met; it was the days of that now extinct institution known as “the
singing school.” People could sing together. The songs were common
property, known to everybody, proper to everybody.
Is there such singing today? Hardly. At a recent meeting of young men in
a church the chorus, “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” was called for,
and the chairman in agreeing called out “Mustn’t say the naughty word!”
With that warning the chorus was given. In calling for public singing
there is an immediate uneasiness about possible indecency. There was not
this uneasiness before the days of Jewish jazz.
In course of time the fashion of public song underwent a change. An
entirely new crop of titles appeared, dealing with an entirely different
series of subjects than the songs they displaced.
It was the period of “Annie Rooney”; “Down Went McGinty to the Bottom of
the Sea”; “She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage”; “After the Ball is
Over”—all of them clean, lighter than the preceding fashion in songs,
but just as clean, and also giving a true touch to life.
Sentiment was not lacking, but it was the unobjectionable sentiment of
“My Wild Irish Rose” or “In the Baggage Coach Ahead.”
The non-Jewish period was marked by songs like these: “On the Banks of
the Wabash,” by Paul Dresser; “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree”;
“When the Sunset Turns the Ocean’s Blue to Gold”; “Down by the Old Mill
Stream”; “My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon,” by Jim Thornton; “The
Sidewalks of New York,” by Charles Lawlor.
There was also the “western” and “Indian” strain of songs, represented
by “Cheyenne, Cheyenne, Hop on My Pony”; “Arawanna”; “Trail of the
Lonesome Pine.”
Then came the African period, being the entrance of the jungle motif,
the so-called “Congo” stuff into popular pieces. “High Up in the
Cocoanut Tree,” “Under the Bamboo Tree,” and other compositions which
swiftly degenerated into a rather more bestial type than the beasts
themselves arrive at.
Running alongside all this was the “ragtime” style of music which was a
legitimate development of Negro minstrelsy. Lyrics practically
disappeared before the numerous “cake walk” songs that deluged the
public ear. “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”—the
marching song of the Spanish-American War, belongs to that period. The
“black and tan” resorts of the South began to reign over the nation’s
music both North and South. Seductive syncopation captured the public
ear. The term, “ma baby,” brought in on the flood of Negro melody has
remained in uncultivated musical speech ever since. Minstrelsy took on
new life. “Piano acts” made their appearance. “Jazz bands” were the
rage.
By insensible gradations, now easily traceable through the litter of
songs with which recent decades are strewn, we have been able to see the
gradual decline in the popular song supply. Sentiment has been turned
into sensuous suggestion. Romance has been turned into eroticism. The
popular lilt slid into ragtime, and ragtime has been superseded by jazz.
Song topics became lower and lower until at last they were dredges of
the slimy bottom of the underworld.
The first self-styled “King of Jazz” was a Jew named “Frisco.” The
general directors of the whole downward trend have been Jews. It needed
just their touch of cleverness to camouflage the moral filth and raise
it half a degree above that natural stage where it begets nothing but
disgust. They cannot gild the lily, but they can veil the skunk-cabbage,
and that is exactly what has been done. The modern popular song is a
whited sepulcher, sparkling without, but within full of the dead bones
of all the old disgusting indecencies. Plain print returns them to their
rightful status of disgust.
We are now in the period of “The Vamp”—that great modern goddess upon
whom tens of thousands of silly girls are modeling themselves—“The
Vamp.” The original “vamp” is to be found in a forbidden French novel
upon which Morris Gest founded his grossly immoral spectacle called
“Aphrodite.” In the Jewish popular song and the Jewish motion picture
film a unity has at last been reached in “The Vamp.” The vamp heroine
and the harem scene—a fitting climax!
There is work here for the Anti-Defamation League. That league knows how
to put the screws on anyone who disparages the Jews. From important New
York publishers, down to inconsequential country newspapers, the
Anti-Defamation League makes its power felt. There is work for it in the
movies and the popular song industry. Why does not the league put the
screws on those Jews who have degenerated the movies and debauched the
popular song movement and thus brought shame upon the racial name? Why
not? Is it possible that only the non-Jews are to be controlled, and
Jews let to run loose? Is it possible that “Gentiles” can be curbed as
by bridle and bit and that Jews cannot?
It is repeated: there is work for the Anti-Defamation League among the
Jews.
More than that: there are Jews who have begged the Anti-Defamation
League to purge the name of Jewry of the shame the liquor Jews, the
movie Jews, the popular song Jews, the theatrical Jews, and the others
are bringing on that name, and the Anti-Defamation League has not done
so. It dare not.
American Jewry is desperately afraid of opening a single seam in its
armor by means of a single investigation or reform. They are afraid of
how far the fire of self-correction may spread.
It was the intention of THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT to give in this article
a sample of the manner in which Jewish jazz is written in three
classes—No. 1 for general consumption; No. 2 for stage consumption; No.
3 for the lowest resorts. On searching through the songs for the least
offensive example it is found that even the least offensive cannot be
printed here. The fact is greatly regretted, for certainly some method
must be found by which the public can be put into possession of full
information as to what is transpiring in this hideous traffic.
The Jewish art of “camouflage” (the reader may not be aware that wartime
camouflage was a Jewish invention) has always been operative. “Cover
names”, “cover nationalities” (these are Jewish terms) have long been
known. It is quite common for Jews of the higher type to band themselves
together into societies for political and racial purposes, the purposes
being camouflaged by a name, such as Geological Society, or Scientific
Society, or something of the sort. And thus in the vilest versification,
which only a few years ago would have been refused the mails, they have
flung broadcast among the youth of the world dangerous ideas under the
camouflage of catchy tunes.
The tunes themselves carry a tale with them. There have been cases in
the courts dealing with the “adaptation,” or stealing, of tunes for
“popular song” purposes. If you observe carefully you will catch
reminiscent strains in many of the popular songs which you sing. If you
sing, “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” and then sing, “I’m Always
Chasing Rainbows,” you will notice a basic resemblance; but that does
not prove that “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep” is itself original,
its melody was originally taken from an Opus of Chopin. This is a
practice which has been greatly extended of recent years.
The reason for the spread of this peculiar kind of dishonesty is to be
found in the Jewish policy of “speeding up business.” Ordinarily one
play a week, and one or two new songs a season, was the limit of
indulgence. But with the coming of the movies the “one play a week” plan
has been smashed to smithereens. To get the people to pay their money
every day, the programs are changed every day; and to get new plays
every day, something must be cheapened. So with songs. The output is
rushed to increase the income of money, and quality is sacrificed all
round. There are not enough good songs in the world to supply a new one
every week; not enough good plays in the world to supply a new movie
every day; and so, what the songs and plays lack in worth, they make up
in nastiness. In brief, nastiness is the constant quality on which the
producers depend to “put across” mediocre songs and otherwise pointless
plays. Nastiness is the condiment that goes with cheapness in songs and
movies.
Plagiarism is the result of mediocre artists being spurred on by
non-artistic promoters to produce something that can be dressed up with
sufficient attractiveness to draw the public’s money. But even
plagiarism requires a little brains mixed with it, and when the rush of
demand overwhelms the available brains, the lack is covered up by an
elaborate covering of sensualism.
Men who are on the inside of the popular song business, and certain
court records, all testify to the exact truth of these statements.
“But how do the Jews do it?” is a question often asked. The answer is,
not public demand, nor artistic merit, nor musical ingenuity, nor poetic
worth—no; the answer is simple salesmanship. The public doesn’t choose,
the public simply takes what is persistently thrust upon it. It is a
system impossible to any other race but the Jews, for there is no other
race that centers its whole interest on the sale. There is no other race
that makes so startling a choice in favor of “getting” money to the
exclusion of “making” money. Who for a moment would think seriously of
using the terms “production” and “service” with reference to popular
songs or motion pictures? Motion pictures in their higher reaches might
have some claim on those terms—not the typical Jewish pictures, however;
but the modern crop of popular songs, never! The terms “production” and
“service” do not belong to the popular song industry at all, but the
term “salesmanship” does, as the reader will presently see. It is well
to remember that where there is only “salesmanship” without the other
two qualities, the public is always the sufferer.
“Popularity,” when interpreted by the Jews who manufacture jazz for the
United States, means “familiarity,” that’s all. The theory is that a
song need not possess merit as regards words or music to be successful.
_It can be “popularized” artificially by constant repetition_, until it
becomes familiarized to the public ear, and thus familiarized it becomes
“successful.”
The principle is expressed in the words of the song, “Everybody’s Doin’
It.” You go to the theater and hear a song. Next day at lunch the café
singer is singing the same song. Blaring phonographs used for
advertising purposes blat out the same song at you as you pass on the
street. You walk past an afternoon band concert in the park—the band is
playing the same song. If you are a normal person you have a feeling
that perhaps something has been going on in the world while you were
engaged with your own affairs. The song—you say to yourself frankly—is
silly and the music trivial; but you keep your opinion a secret,
because, after all, “everybody’s singin’ it.” Not long after you find
yourself humming it. You go home, and your daughter is “practicing up”
on the piece. It yells its way through your home and through your
neighborhood and through your city and through your state until in sheer
disgust, and in one day, the people pitch it bodily out-of-doors. But,
behold, another song is waiting to take its place—a song fresh from
Yiddish Tin Pan Alley. And the agony is repeated. _This occurs from 30
to 50 times a year._
That is the principle—repeat it until it becomes familiar; that gives it
the veneer of popularity.
Now, there is a method by which all this is done. Nothing “happens.” It
is like the “mob risings” which have been practiced in some of our
cities—there is always a well-organized center that knows the technology
of riot and knows exactly what it is doing. There is a way of making
“revolution” as common and as familiar a thought as the movies and
popular songs have made “vamps” and “harems” and “hooch” and “Hula
Hula.” The principle is the same—constant repetition for the purpose of
familiarization.
More than one tune has been deliberately rejected by the public, has not
been “liked,” but the song-tinkers did not allow that little fact to
intimidate them; they simply hammered it into the ears and memories of
the public, knowing that “familiarization” was obtainable some time.
“Whispering,” for example, did not catch on for a long time. Long ago it
used to be known as “Johnnie’s Melody” because John Schoenberger wrote
it—but finally it was driven home to its present popularity. There is
this to say about it, it is far more deserving of its popularity than is
98 per cent of the so-called “popular” music.
Having the principle, then, that _any song can be popularized by
constant repetition_, the Yiddish music purveyors go about their
business very systematically.
The song is procured—by what means, it is not always possible to say.
Perhaps one of the “staff” originates a catchy tune, or a girl who plays
the church organ in a distant village sends in a pretty little melody.
The girl’s melody is, of course, sent back as unsuitable, but if it
really had a heart of melody in it, a copy is kept and “adapted.” In
such ways are “ideas” procured.
Then there are plenty of Jewish musical comedies and vaudeville teams. A
study of the vaudeville and musical comedy business will show it to be
as distinctively Yiddish as are the movies and the popular song
industry. So, the Jewish song publisher makes an arrangement with the
Jewish manager of the musical comedy show. This arrangement provides
that one or more of the song publisher’s songs should be sung several
times at every performance, in response to the applause and encores of a
professional song boosters’ claque which is always on hand for such
purposes. This claque is paid for just as any other service might be
paid for.
The night comes. The song is sung. Persistent applause. Sung again. More
applause. Apparently the song is a “hit.” As the audience files out the
lobby is echoing with the cries of Yiddish song vendors proclaiming the
song of the evening to be “the big hit of the season,” hundreds of
copies being sold in the meanwhile.
That is the usual Broadway introduction.
The next step is to capture the “provinces”—the musical comedies and
vaudeville acts playing within 100 miles of the metropolitan centers.
Actors called “song pluggers” are engaged. The arrangement with them is
that they will sing a particular song exclusively—give no other song a
chance. The public pays to hear the actor sing; the manager pays to have
him sing; the song publisher pays him to sing a certain song.
From theater to theater, from company to company, from artist to artist,
the publishers’ agents wend their way, making what terms they can to
single artists, vaudeville teams or comedy companies for boosting a new
song by giving it prominent place in the program.
There are also the “stag entertainers,” the young men who go about to
“parties” of one kind or another, offering amusement to the guests. This
is a class of entertainers known only to the rich, but numerous enough.
For instance, when the Prince of Wales toured America he was accompanied
by a young man nicknamed “Rosie,” of whose racial origin there need be
no doubt. “Rosie” played the piano and by songs and antics beguiled the
tedium of the royal journey. Well, young men of “Rosie’s” sort are quite
useful in advertising to select circles the latest product of the
Yiddish song factories and they are, of course, regularly utilized for
that purpose.
Orchestras, especially those of restaurants and dance halls, are worked
in the same way.
Get as many people singing and playing introductory renditions as you
can: that is the method of gaining an _artificial popularity by constant
repetition_.
The chances are that the song you are humming today is being hummed by
you simply because you have perforce heard it so often that it beats
unconsciously within your brain.
These methods are subject to variation, of course. There was a great
deal of “cutting” until the right Hebrew group survived, and then there
was a great deal of “trust” method adopted. The Music Publishers’
Association was organized by “Sime” Silberman and Maurice Goodman, and
now all the Jewish song manufacturers are included in it. The
organization has not changed any of the methods before used but has
curtailed the expense. Moreover, it has served to relieve the public to
this extent, that, instead of clinging to the one song paid for until
the public positively gags on it, the vaudeville or movie performers now
sing impartially the various songs of the various publishers forming the
trust. More variety has been introduced, that is all. The same old
commercialization continues.
As readers of the studies of Jewish theatrical control, which appeared
in this paper, will readily understand, the Jewish control of the
popular song field means that all non-Jews are barred out. It would be
next to impossible for the song of a non-Jew, however meritorious, to
reach the public by the usual channels. The musical magazines, the
musical critics, the musical managers, the music publishers, the
music-hall owners, the majority of the performers are not only all Jews,
but are Jews consciously banded together to keep out all others.
The dishonest methods practiced by the Yiddish controllers of this field
have been such as to move the _Billboard_, the leading vaudeville
publication, to refuse to print advertisements calling for song poems.
Perhaps the reader has seen such advertisements, suggesting that someone
has a tune or a song-poem that will probably make a fortune if only sent
to an address on Broadway or in the region of Tin Pan Alley. The
_Billboard_ says:
“No More Song Poem Ads Accepted.
“After investigating the business methods practiced by some Song
Poem advertisers, the _Billboard_ believes it to be to the best
interest of its readers to eliminate the heading, ‘Music and Words’
under which Song Poem advertisements appeared, and hereafter, or
until existing conditions are changed, the _Billboard_ will not
accept any more Song Poem advertising from any concern or
person....”
Everywhere the “popular song” has been attacked by keen observers of
social tendencies—but the attack has not been made intelligently. No
public menace like this can be abolished without showing the public the
source of it. Newspapers are now beginning to attack “jazz,” “the
vicious movies,” “the disgraceful dance.” Others attack the young folk
who sing jazz, the people who patronize the objectionable movies, the
throngs who indulge in indecent dancing. But all the time a small group
of men are deliberately and systematically forcing jazz and movies and
dances upon the country, spending hundreds of thousands in the effort
and reaping millions of profits.
If these men were non-Jews, a multitude of fingers would be pointed
toward them in identification and denunciation.
Because these men are Jews, they are allowed to go free.
You will stop these abuses when you point out the Jewish group behind
them!
People sometimes say, “Well, if you went after any other nationality,
you could find just as much fault as with the Jews.” Is there any other
nationality on which you can fasten the responsibility for vile movies?
Is there any other on which you can fasten the responsibility for the
illicit liquor traffic? Has any other nationality control of the
theater? In the beginning action against the popular song trust, could
the United States find anyone to indict besides Jewish song publishers,
and could the United States Government lay less than 80 per cent of song
control to one New York group alone?
If these things were not strictly Jewish in their origin, method and
purpose, how could such statements be made?
Jews say, “Clean up among the Gentiles first, and then turn attention to
us.” Will the Jews charge Gentile control of movies, popular songs,
horse-racing, baseball gambling, theaters, the illicit liquor
traffic—will the Jews charge Gentile predominance in any line recognized
by moralists today as dangerously menacing the public welfare?
The question is too big to be explained by prejudice. The facts are too
challenging to be thrust aside as universal. It is a Jewish question,
made such by a series of Jewish facts.
Not content with hedging life about on every side, from the gold that is
used in business to the grain that is used in bread, Jewish influence
enters your parlor and determines what you shall sing at your piano or
hear upon your music reproducing machine. If you could put a tag marked
“Jewish” on every part of your life that is Jew-controlled, you would be
astonished at the showing.
——
Issue of August 13, 1921.
XLIX.
Jewish Hot-Beds of Bolshevism in the U.S.
Bolshevism is working in the United States through precisely the same
channels it used in Russia and through the same agents—Revolutionary and
Predatory Unionism, as distinct from Business and Uplift Unionism, and
Jewish agitators. When Martens, the so-called Soviet ambassador, “left”
the United States after being deported, he appointed as the
representative of Bolshevik sovietism in the United States one Charles
Recht, a Jew, a lawyer by profession, who maintained an office in New
York. This office is the rendezvous of all the Jewish union leaders in
New York, some of the labor leaders throughout the country, and
occasionally of one or two American government officials known to be
henchmen of Jewish aspirations in the United States and sympathizers
with predatory radicalism.
The situation in New York is important because from that center lines of
authority and action radiate to all the cities of the United States. New
York is the laboratory in which the emissaries of the revolution learn
their lesson, and their knowledge is being daily increased by the
counsel and experience of traveling delegates straight out of Russia.
The American does not realize that all the public disturbances of which
he reads are not mere sudden outbreaks, but the deliberately planned
movements of leaders who know exactly what they are doing. Mobs are
methodical; there is always an intelligent core which gets done under
the appearance of excitement what had been planned beforehand. Up
through the German revolution, up through the French revolution, up
through the Russian revolution came the previously chosen men, and to
this day in all three countries the groups thus raised to power have not
lessened their hold—and they are Jewish groups, Russia is not more
Jew-controlled than is France; and Germany, with all her so-called
anti-Semitism, tries in vain to loosen the grip of Judah from her
throat.
It is this fact of prepared disorder which makes the New York situation
of interest today, because its lines of influence and authority reach
everywhere throughout the country.
For that reason, and before showing how the Jewish organizations advance
Bolshevism and revolution in the United States, the first step will be
to describe the condition and extent of the Hebrew labor movement.
Most New Yorkers remember the “Save Fifth Avenue” movement. That avenue,
from Fourteenth to Thirty-fourth street, with sections of Broadway, is
historic ground. It is wrought into the history of America in a
peculiarly intimate way. A little more than 15 years ago it contained
the homes of the older families, the establishments of famous
publishers, the stores of art dealers, and the famous shopping center.
It was a district known throughout the United States as typifying
American substance and good taste.
But presently, Americans who thought they were secure in their own city,
were aware of an advancing shadow. A subtle atmosphere of deterioration
became evident. In the top lofts of buildings, sweatshops had been
installed, which noon and night poured into the streets an alien
stream—not a glad, hopeful-eyed immigrant rejoicing to be in America and
at work, but something darker.
It was the Russian and Polish Jew. He swarmed into this district, the
most typically American of any outside of Boston and Philadelphia, from
the first. Nowhere else would the sweatshops go except in the very heart
of Goy respectability. There were protests and organizations; Jews were
appealed to in the name of the city; they smiled and promised, but like
a tide coming in, the invasion swept farther and stronger every week.
New Yorkers hesitated to go down into the district to trade, and
merchants lost their business. Real estate values dropped in
consequence, the Jews bought valuable properties at low figures.
Today, at noontime, Fifth Avenue is packed from wall to curb with dark,
squat figures in masses of thousands. They parade in dense throngs and
make the street impassable. They make a strange, un-American atmosphere,
Slavonic with some Oriental admixture. Their tongue is alien, their
attitude is one of sullenness mingled with a sense of power. You leave
the New York of American meaning whenever you approach that alien
throng. They have taken over the district as completely as if they had
invaded it with the bayonet.
All this would be very hopeful, of course, if we could take and sustain
the attitude of the unsophisticated young reader of fiction, and regard
these people as “new Americans.” There is a mass of moving stories
(mostly written by Jews, by the way) pretending to describe the glowing
hearts with which these throngs look out upon America, their intense
longing to be American, their love of our people and our institutions.
Most unfortunately, the actions of these people and the utterances of
their leaders give the lie to this fair picture which, as Americans, we
would fain believe. The resistance offered to Americanization,
consisting in the limitations put upon the Americanization program, has
been sufficient to convince all observers that, so far as the Jewish
invasion is concerned, it is not their desire to go the way America is
going, but to influence America to go the way they are going. They talk
a great deal of what they bring to America, hardly anything at all of
what they found here. America is presented to them as a big piece of
putty to be molded as they desire, not as a benign mother who is able
and willing to make these aliens to be like her own children. The
doctrine that the United States is nothing definite as yet, that it is
only a free-for-all opportunity to make it what you will, is one of the
most distinctive of Jewish political teachings. If it be provincialism
to insist that our alien guests become American and cease their
endeavors to make America something alien, then there are hundreds of
thousands of Americans to plead guilty to provincialism.
“The Melting Pot,” a term to which Mr. Zangwill gave currency, is not a
very dignified name for our Republic, but aside from that, it is being
more and more challenged as descriptive of the process that goes on
here. There are some substances in the pot that will not melt. But more
significant still, there are rapidly increasing interests _who want to
melt the pot_.
So far as Fifth Avenue was concerned, it was the pot that melted. At
least, not the most intrepid Jewish leader will shout much about the
American characteristics of the most conspicuous Jewish colony in the
world, that of New York.
The lofty buildings in this district are filled with clothing workshops,
of which the Jew has a monopoly in the United States. Coatmakers,
pantmakers, buttonhole workers, ladies’ garment workers, these men are
engaged in the “needle trades” in which adult men of no other race
participate.
Why the tendency of the Jew to the “needle trades”? It is explained by
his aversion to manual labor, his abhorrence of agricultural life, and
his desire to arrange his own affairs. Arriving in the city of his
destination, the Jew would rather not leave it except for other cities.
There is one Hebrew society whose charter would indicate that its work
is the placing of Jews in the rural districts, but it does next to
nothing in this respect. On the other hand, there is testimony that city
colonization goes on apace. Widespread Jewish associations are on the
lookout for likely towns in which to settle a few Jews, who in time
become a larger colony, and in a little longer time run the place. There
is nothing haphazard about it. The Jew is not an adventurer, he does not
cut himself off from his base, but all his movements are made under
consultation and direction. New York is the great training school in
which the newly arrived immigrant receives his instructions as to the
method of handling the American goyim.
Thus, preferring any kind of a life in the city, and not taking to the
trades which involve much bodily effort, the Jew gravitates to the
needle, not in the capacity of a creative artist, as is the commercial
tailor, but in the production of quantities of ready-to-wear goods.
Aside from the “white collar quality of the job,” the “needle trades”
appeal to the Jew because at such work he can practically arrange his
own hours. For this reason, the Jew generally prefers piece work to day
work, domestic industries to factories—he can arrange his own time. Many
people wonder how the Jews of New York have so much time for
revolutionary consultation, parades, meetings, demonstrations,
restaurant debates and radical authorship. No other class of working
people can get the time; other people work pretty steadily. The
explanation is at hand: extreme Socialism and Bolshevism have a great
deal of “time off.”
Trotsky, the present head of Russia, lived that way in New York. His
main arrangement was for leisure to work up his scheme. All the East
Side leaders knew that Trotsky was to “take the Czar’s job,” even though
he never had an extra dollar to spend. There was nothing haphazard about
it. It was prearranged, and the appointed men went directly to their
preappointed places. The East Side has other rulers ready now, and they
live in the midst of the revolutionary “needle trades.”
One point that should not be overlooked in all this, of course, is that
the “needle trades” being exclusively Jewish, all their abuses are
Jewish too. This is said for the benefit of those apologists for Russian
Bolshevism who explain that the reason for it all is the way the poor
“Russian” was treated in America. If Americans will ever learn to
remember that the Russian is not a Jew, and that Bolshevism is not
Russian but Jewish, and if in addition to that the American will ever
learn to remember that every Russian-Jewish laborer in New York comes
into contact with a Russian-Jewish employer, and every Russian Jew
tenant pays his exorbitant rent to a Russian Jew landlord, it will then
be clear that once more has the United States been made to bear a
slander that does not belong to it.
It may be well to remember also that it was on account of these Russian
and Polish Jews, while they yet resided in Russia, that the United
States broke off her trade treaty with that country—broke off with the
Russia that was a country and a government before America was
discovered; and, having by that act contributed to the Jewish throttle
on Russia through Germany, it is now proposed that the United States, on
account of these same Jews, enter into trade agreements with the present
Russian tyranny. Verily, the diplomacy of Judah has come very near
determining our foreign policy. If they were strong enough, in spite of
President Taft’s refusal, to make us break with Russia, they may also be
strong enough to make us shake hands with Bolshevism.
The Jewish trade union is exclusively Jewish for the reason that the
trades affected are exclusively Jewish. That is, the Jewish trade union
is not an American trade union, it is not a mixed trade union, it is
Jewish. Like all other Jewish activities the purpose of the trade union
is to advance Jewish interests alone. These unions are one aspect of
United Israel.
This should be borne in mind with reference to the widespread strikes in
the clothing trade and the rapid increase in the price of clothing to
the 99,000,000 non-Jews in the United States. In spite of all the
strikes, the profits advanced enormously; it may be said that the
strikes were essential to the advance of profits; and the country as a
whole paid.
Look at some of the figures of the “needle trades” before the war. In
the entire United States, the men’s and women’s clothing manufactured in
1914 had a value of $932,099,000. In New York alone, $542,685,000 was
produced. The rest was produced by the Jewish clothing centers in
Chicago, Cleveland, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
The figures for the period of the war and since will be staggering.
Clothing in the regular trade began to mount in price, until at the end
of the war in 1918, it had attained an increase of 200 per cent and 300
per cent. Until well into 1920 the monopoly held up the price. This was
done in face of the declaration by the manufacturers of _cloth_ that the
whole profiteering persistence was due to the manufacturers of
_clothing_. Russian-Polish Jews, in this country only a few months, drew
$50 to $80 a week. Threats of strike were used to get a five per cent
increase in wages, which was met by a 20 per cent increase in the cost
of clothing. The American public paid.
If, however, these statements were merely an attempt to arouse
indignation that for once the workers got more than they earned, the
attempt would be a failure. It is pretty hard to find anyone to regret
the workers getting hold of a bonanza. The high wages weren’t of much
use, as it proved, but people at least had the satisfaction of handling
them.
These statements are made to show that during the war the Jewish unions
waxed fat, a fact which has a bearing on their Bolshevik attitude today.
Not all the wage was the gain of the man who earned it—there was the
union to pay. Girls in the fur trade in New York earned $55 a week, of
which they paid in $27.50 a week to the unions. Other workers paid in
like proportion. There was great talk of what would be done. In Russia,
of course, they had the government’s gold vaults immediately upon the
success of the revolution, but in the United States the preliminary
funds would have to be supplied by themselves. A great revolutionary
stroke was planned of which the written evidence still remains.
There are two divisions of Jewish wealth and power centering in New
York. The first is German Jewish, represented by the Schiffs, the
Speyers, the Warburgs, the Kahns, the Lewisohns and the Guggenheims.
These play the game with the aid of the financial resources of the
non-Jews. The other division is composed of the Russian and Polish Jews
who monopolize the hat, cap, fur, garment and toy trades. (By the way—it
is the Russian and Polish Jew who controls the American stage and movies
also.) Between them their grip and influence is far from negligible.
They may sometimes have internecine quarrels regarding the division of
the profits and eager publicists may zealously call attention to these
quarrels as evidence of the lack of unity among the Jews, but in the
Kehillah and elsewhere they understand each other pretty well, and on
the question of Jew vs. “goy” they are indivisibly one.
Between these two forces the attempt to hold up prices was continued
until late in 1920. The heads of the Jewish clothing associations
announced that the price of clothing would not be lowered. Solidly
behind them were the associated Hebrew labor unions, so-called, which
threatened dire things if the prices came down. The first great store to
reduce prices in New York was Wanamaker’s, a non-Jewish house. In fact
there was no reduction of prices among Jewish manufacturers and
merchants, generally, until in the month of November less than a dozen
Jews were called into the presence of a non-Jewish financier, after
which a belated effort was made to save the buying market by sensational
reductions. The Jewish controllers of the clothing business had just
previously stated that not only would prices not go down, but the 1921
prices would go still higher.
There is a distinction between what the Jewish coalition _would_ do and
what it _could_ do, but its will and its power never so closely
correspond as when the non-Jewish element is asleep, and never are
Jewish will and power so widely divorced as when the non-Jewish mind is
alert. When the non-Jewish financial mind made itself felt in November,
1920, the bottom dropped out of Jewish trade prophecies and policies.
The only thing to fear is not the alert Jew, but the consequences of
sleepiness among the Christians. _The Jewish Program is checked the
moment it is perceived and identified._
Ordinary people who for five years have been paying high tribute to the
clothing trust are entitled to know who comprise that trust. But that is
a trifling affair compared with the political uses to which the clothing
trust has been put in this country. The clothing trust, being composed
exclusively of Jews, most of whom have formed the ax-head of Jewry in
the fight against certain Old-World governments, is today the heart and
center of a movement which, if successful, would leave not a shred of
the Republic, its institutions, nor even the liberty, which is every
American’s by inheritance.
What is the strength of these people? How are they banded together? What
are the facts concerning them?
In New York City alone there are 2,760 Jewish cloak and suit
manufacturing concerns; 1,200 Jewish clothing manufacturers; 2,880
Jewish fur manufacturers; 600 Jewish skirt manufacturers; 600
manufacturing tailoring establishments; 800 Jewish merchant tailoring
concerns.
These employers have organized themselves into associations such as the
following:
Associated Boys’ Clothing Manufacturers of Greater New York.
Associated Fur Manufacturers.
Associated Shirt Manufacturers.
Association of Embroidery and Lace Manufacturers.
Children’s Dress Manufacturers’ Association.
Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers’ Protective Association.
Cotton Garment Manufacturers of New York.
Dress and Waist Manufacturers’ Association.
East Side Retail Clothing Manufacturers’ Association.
Ladies’ Hat Manufacturers’ Protective Association.
Mineral Water Dealers’ Protective Association.
National Association of Separate Skirt Manufacturers.
National Society of Men’s Neckwear Manufacturers.
New York Association of House Dress & Kimono Manufacturers.
New York Tailors’ Verein.
Shirt Manufacturers’ Protective Association.
Among the employed Jews, the unions are numerous but all gathered up
into one central organization. For example, the International Fur
Workers’ Union of the United States and Canada, is made up of the
following:
Feather Boa Makers’ Union.
Fur Cap Makers’ Union.
Fur Cutters’ Union.
Fur Dressers’ Union.
Fur Dyers’ Union.
Fur Floor Walkers’ Union.
Fur Hatters’ Union.
Fur Head and Tail Makers’ Union.
Fur Lined Coat Finishers’ Union.
Fur Nailers’ Union.
Fur Operators’ Union.
Fur Pluckers’ Union.
Muff Bed Workers’ Union.
In the garment industry, the organizations include every operation in
the process of making clothes. There are separate unions for buttonhole
makers, vest makers, pants makers, coat cutters, coat operators, coat
pressers, coat tailors, coat basters, lapel makers, knee pants makers,
clothing turners, overall workers, palm beach workers, shirt makers,
vest pressers, and even a washable sailor suit union. These together
comprise the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
In children’s clothing we have another complete organization:
Children’s Jacket Makers (three unions).
Children’s Jacket Pressers.
Children’s Sailor Jacket Makers’ Union.
Children’s Cloak and Reefer Workers’ Union.
Children’s Dressmakers’ Union.
In women’s wear, there are unions organized around every garment known
to the wardrobe, some of which are:
Amalgamated Ladies’ Garment Cutters’ Union.
Bonnaz, Singer and Hand Embroiderers’ Union.
Buttonhole Makers and Button Sewers Union.
Children’s Cloak and Reefer Workers’ Union.
Cloak and Suit Tailors’ Union.
Cloak and Suit Piece Tailors and Sample Makers’ Union.
Cloak Examiners, Squarers and Bushelers’ Union.
Cloak Makers’ Union.
Cloak Operators’ Union.
Cloak, Skirt and Dress Pressers’ Union.
Ladies’ and Misses’ Cloak Operators’ Union.
Ladies’ Tailors Alteration & Special Order Union.
Ladies’ Waist and Dressmakers’ Union.
Skirt and Cloth Dressmakers’ Union.
Waterproof Garment Workers’ Union.
White Goods Workers’ Union.
Wrapper, Kimono, House Dress and Bath Robe Makers’ Union.
These unions comprise the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
The reader will have an idea, after reading these lists, that the
employes represented in these unions are women. The majority are men. It
may require something of an effort to remember that, but it is
essential. These organizations control an essential business which
_before the war_ produced over One Billion Dollars’ worth of goods a
year, and since the war has probably received for its products each year
the amount of a big fat Liberty Loan; and these unions have received 30
to 40 per cent of that for wages and propaganda funds.
_Now, let it be said at once that these Jewish unions are not to be
confused with the regular Labor Union Movement, as we know it in the
United States._
They are not Jews who have gone into the American trades unions. They
have started unions of their own which are Jewish in membership, control
and purpose. It is true, of course, that the regular trades union
movement which heads up in the American Federation of Labor is under the
presidency of a Jew, Samuel Gompers, but the membership is mixed, the
large majority being non-Jews, and the purpose is not racial.
These Jewish unions comprise a body by themselves and are to be reckoned
with, not only as labor union groups, but as racial and political groups
whose purposes can be determined by the character and utterances of
their leaders, as well as by the actions authorized and approved by the
unions themselves.
Now, _this Hebrew union movement is a part of the New York Kehillah._
Jewish leaders have sought to counteract THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT’s
account of Kehillah activities by saying that the Kehillah is such a
little weak thing. Admittedly, however, the Jewish clothing trust and
the Jewish garment workers’ unions are among the biggest and most
powerful aggregations in the country. Not even a Jewish leader would
have the temerity to deny that. Well, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers
of America and the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union are
affiliated with the Kehillah.
More than that: this Kehillah, which Jewish spokesmen with cool contempt
for truth would have the public believe was weak and unimportant—_this
same Kehillah, in its Executive Committee, constitutes The American
Jewish Committee_.
Is the American Jewish Committee a nonentity? Ask any President of the
United States, any Senator or Governor.
The American Jewish Committee heads up in District No. 12—New York
City—and the Committee for District No 12 is also the Executive
Committee of the Kehillah.
The men who represent before the world the combined organizations
mentioned in this article _are_ the Kehillah, and they _are_ the
American Jewish Committee, and besides, they are the men whose failure
in candor has left such an impression of dissatisfaction throughout the
masses of the Jewish people.
Who are they? Who are these men with whom the Kehillah is said to be
such a puling thing?
Louis Marshall, of the law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and
Marshall. Mr. Marshall is not only head of District No. 12, but he is
also head of the American Jewish Committee. His headship of the A. J. C.
makes him Jewish leader of the United States. His headship of District
No. 12 makes him head of the New York Kehillah. Quite an important man?
Yes; and an important place, in spite of lying Jewish spokesmen.
Who are the others? Eugene Meyer, Jr., formerly of the Capital Issues
Committee of the United States war government.
Who else? Judah L. Magnes. Judah L. Magnes is the organizer and active
leader of the New York Kehillah. The two bodies are linked up again.
They are linked up by the Kehillah’s constitution which is able to
decree that its executive committee shall be the American Jewish
Committee as far as District No. 12 (New York City) is concerned.
There are other names on the American Jewish Committee which also
constitutes the executive committee as the Kehillah—Adolph Lewisohn,
Cyrus L. Sulzberger, Felix Warburg, and so on, 36 in all.
In the current annual report of the American Jewish Committee this
relation with the Kehillah is acknowledged in a note at the foot of page
123, just as in the constitution of the Kehillah its relation with the
A. J. C. is acknowledged and explained.
Now to recapitulate.
The Hebrew labor unions, both of employes and employers, which are in
complete control of the garment industry of the United States, represent
one wing of Jewish aggression in the realm of political revolutionism.
It is not a small wing in itself. Certainly it does not become smaller
by its connection with the Kehillah nor the Kehillah by its gain of
these workers. The two unions mentioned above number over 337,000
members. That figure is conservative. Besides these there are associated
with the Kehillah the members of 1,000 other Jewish organizations, such
as synagogues, charitable societies and educational bodies, and 100,000
individual members who belong on their own account.
Link this organization with the powerful American Jewish Committee, and
at once the protest of the editors and the spokesmen that the Kehillah
is a weak, unimportant body becomes a deliberate falsehood.
And as for those “Gentile fronts” who are ready victims of Jewish
propaganda, and who, without personal knowledge, are describing the
Kehillah as a large and nourishing charitable society (bad teamwork
there!) let them read in the next article what some of the Kehillah
leaders are trying to do to the United States.
——
Issue of April 16, 1921.
L.
Jew Trades Link With World Revolutionaries
There are more Bolsheviks in the United States than there are in Soviet
Russia. Their aim is the same and their racial character is the same. If
they are not able to do here what they have done there, it is because of
the greater dissemination of information, the higher degree of
intelligence and the wider diffusion of the agencies of governmental
authority, than obtains in unhappy Russia.
The power house of Bolshevik influence and propaganda in the United
States is in the Jewish trade unions which, almost without exception,
adhere to a Bolshevik program for their respective industries and for
the country as a whole.
This fact is proving most embarrassing to the Jewish leaders at the
present moment. It is bad enough that Russian Bolshevism should be so
predominantly Jewish, but to confront the same situation in the United
States, is a double burden of which Jewish leaders do not know how to
dispose.
Yet it is difficult to see how the International Jew can be absolved
either from the necessity of being confronted with it, or from the
necessity of bearing sole responsibility for it. Russian Bolshevism came
out of the East Side of New York where it was fostered by the
encouragement—the religious, moral and financial encouragement—of Jewish
leaders. Leon Trotsky (Braunstein) was an East Sider. Whether he was a
member of the New York Kehillah is not known. But the forces which
fostered what he stood for centered in the Kehillah, and both the
Kehillah and its associated American Jewish Committee were interested in
the work he set out to do, namely, the overthrow of an established
government, one of the allies of the United States in the recent war.
Russian Bolshevism was helped to its objective by Jewish gold from the
United States. And now that it is found to be numerically much stronger
in the United States than it is in Russia, the fact causes no little
embarrassment.
Denial is useless, for the thing is too blatant and has advertised
itself too long. What amazes the student of the Jewish Question in the
United States is the stupidity which permitted Jewish Bolshevism to
flaunt itself so openly during the past few years. The only explanation
that seems at all adequate is that the Jews never dreamed that the
American people would become sufficiently awake to challenge them. The
present widespread exposure of Jewish tactics in the United States has
doubtless come as a surprise to the Jewish leaders, and this cannot be
accounted for otherwise than that they thought they had gained too
strong a grip on the American mind to make a challenge possible.
It remains to be seen whether the Jewish leaders shall be able to
control the Frankenstein that their false policies have created.
Following exactly the program which the Jewish leaders approved for
Russia, the organized Jews of New York are exhibiting a zeal and a
directness which Jewish leaders would like to curb for the present, if
we are to judge from some of the complaints that the Bolshevik Jews are
making.
Benjamin Schlessinger, president of the International Garment Workers’
Union, whose membership numbers 150,000, and which is a part of the New
York Kehillah, is one of the complainants. His union, of course, is not
the regular American labor union formed for the betterment of working
conditions and wages; it is a revolutionary union for the complete
change of the social system, involving also a change of government. In
an interview printed in the _Jewish Forward_ of April 8, Schlessinger
complains against the manner in which Jewish judges have recently come
to interfere with Jewish strikes:
“‘And Jewish judges come to their assistance. They issue injunctions;
and it is said that they do it to save the Jewish name, so that it shall
not be said that “all Jews are Bolshevists.” So the injunctions become a
Jewish affair....’
“‘We have a gigantic wide-branched Kehillah in New York. In all corners,
Jews! All over, what you see and what you hear—Jews. And, of course,
also dress; politicians and greater ones.’
“But only _we_ may say this. And I understand Schlessinger....
Schlessinger explains it this way: Several reasons are given why judges
like (here a Jewish judge is named) twist the law.... The real purpose
is to break our strike.... But, then, after all, there is a reason, a
Jewish reason. He wants to demonstrate to the American community, he
claims, that not all Jews are Bolshevists.”
This excerpt shows several things: that only “we” may say certain
things; that Jewish authority is trying to cover the blemish of
Bolshevism; and that this is done in order to demonstrate to “the
American community” a certain desirable thing. The Jewish community, it
is presumed, is not so easily impressed. The Kehillah is apparently
trying to call in its kites but they have apparently flown too high in
the rarefied atmosphere of revolutionism.
Another big union which makes part of the New York Kehillah is the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, whose membership is about
200,000. It is officered by Russian Jews whose pronounced Bolshevik
utterances have been widely reported in the Jewish press of New York,
until plain and unprivileged Americans have wondered how far treason to
the United States Government could go on our own soil.
Sidney Hillman, the president, is one of the most radical Socialists in
the United States—so radical that he would probably spurn the name of
Socialist as ordinarily used. He is a Sovietist. He is so far “advanced”
that to him the regular type of American labor union is “a scab union.”
The purpose of the American labor union is stated to be the improvement
of the workers’ condition in industry and the establishment of their
industrial rights, whereas the object of Hillman’s union is the
overthrow of industry and its communization in the hands of the radical
element. That is to say, Russia over again. Hillman was born in Russia.
He personally knows most of the Bolshevik Jews now ruining that great
land.
The secretary of the Amalgamated is Joseph Schlossberg, also born in
Russia. Schlossberg has a very free gift of words. One of his promises
to his Jewish followers, publicly made at Madison Square Garden, is
this:
“The clothing industry is ours. We are not going to permit the employer
to determine where his factory shall be, or how many hours we shall
work.”
Abraham Shiplacoff, a Socialist member of the New York board of
aldermen, and next to Sidney Hillman in command of the Amalgamated, is
also a free speaker, as the following excerpt will show:
“We are going to move heaven and earth to educate our people that
they and they alone are the owners of industry. The workers of
Russia have found it out, God bless them!
“If I knew old Sammy Gompers knew as much as that, I would tell you
to go and do what the workers did in Turine. Ten thousand of them
marched to the factory with music and a flag, and they opened the
doors and went to work and said, ‘To hell with the owners of the
factory.’
“Everybody knows it is war. We are going to control the industry.”
Always the omission, of course, that the factories so spectacularly
captured, cease to run soon after. The Hillmans and the Schlossbergs and
the Shiplacoffs are heroic figures on the platform, but in manufacturing
the common commodities of life and making both ends meet so that the
consumer may be served and the producer rewarded, they have been the
most tragic failures. “The workers of Russia have found it out, God help
them!”
As a matter of fact, besides the I. W. W., the Amalgamated is the only
organization which not only preaches Bolshevism but actually practices
it—all in the United States, and all apparently in perfect consistency
with its membership in the Kehillah and under the officership of the
high gentlemen of the American Jewish Committee. The Amalgamated
actually does run the industry which has mulcted such a heavy tax from
the American public since 1914.
They tell the factory manager where the factory is to be located.
They have a minimum wage of $12 a day, independent of skill or
production.
They enforce that rule, that an employe who has worked for two weeks has
thereafter a job for life.
No improved machinery can be introduced without the union’s permission.
The employer cannot hire even a cartage firm that the union has not
first approved.
The employer cannot withdraw from business unless he goes into
bankruptcy, else the whole force of the union and its allies will be
marshaled against him and his. He must inform the union of all his plans
in advance.
This, of course, is part of the endowment of Trotsky to the East Side.
He did great missionary work there while waiting to go across and take
the Czar’s place. Even to this day in the Jew-controlled theaters that
crowd Broadway, the picture of Trotsky brings wild delirious cheering,
while the portrait of the President of the United States is hissed. A
favorite stage scene is the Star of David high over all flags. The
recent debate between Senators King and France, said to have been
organized with the assistance of two rabbis, developed into such an
outrageously anti-American pro-Soviet demonstration, that prudence
intervened to prevent a vote. Recently when pro-Jewish Germans
endeavored to stir up trouble by holding a great mass meeting to protest
the alleged “Black horror on the Rhine,” the audience was packed with
Jews. Not that they love Germany more, but they love any regular
government less. While a few days later, at a great American meeting,
the Jews of New York, according to the testimony of incredulous
observers, were most conspicuous by their absence.
Now, the Jewish leaders must admit that the Jewish Question does not
consist in American citizens uncovering these facts and helping other
American citizens to become aware of them; the Jewish Question inheres
in the facts themselves and in Jewish responsibility for the facts. If
it is “anti-Semitism” to say that Bolshevism in the United States is
Jewish, so be it; but to unprejudiced minds it will look very like
Americanism.
There is not a single, solitary American-born citizen serving as officer
or director of those great unions which form part of the New York
Kehillah. These men have not the faintest idea of what America stands
for. They are not here to become Americanized, but to change America to
their own model. In this they have the articulated support of most of
the Jewish rabbis who have been very keen to explain that
_Americanization does not at all mean what the American means by it_.
America will have become what these people want it to be when America is
sovietized with Jewish radicals in control, and that is the objective
toward which they are working now.
The other officers of the Amalgamated are Jacob Petowsky, secretary, who
is a Russian Jew, and J. B. Salutsky, who is also a Russian Jew and
“National Director of the Educational Department,” which means that he
is the propagandist of the union in the United States.
Regarding the assertion that the great radical unions are not officered
by native-born citizens (the statement has been made that Russian Jews
do not usually complete their citizenship but stop short at the
“declaration of intention”), there is some interesting material in a
study of 2,000 presidents of Jewish organizations in New York City.
Of this number, 1,054 were born in Russia, 536 in Austro-Hungary, 90 in
Rumania, 64 in Germany and four in Palestine. These countries produced
89.1 per cent of Jewish leaders in New York.
Of this number, 531 entered the country between the ages of 14 and 21,
and 977 entered over the age of 21.
Of this number, 1,270 are still under 50 years of age.
These figures include all organizations from synagogues to trade unions.
How far they have been Americanized, or wish to be, can only be judged
by the policies and activities of the organizations which they direct.
The big Jewish labor organizations are the direct offspring of the
Jewish Socialist Bund of Russia. It is due to the propaganda of the Bund
in the United States that the united Hebrew trades have gone over to the
ranks of radicalism. Bundists swarmed to the United States after the
abortive revolution of 1905 at which time they failed to put Bolshevism
over in Russia, and these Bundists gave their time to the Bolshevizing
of the Hebrew Trade Unions in this country. An Agitation Bureau was
formed which propagated radical Socialism through the medium of the
Yiddish language, which is one of the official languages of the New York
Kehillah, made so by the demands of the Kehillah’s overwhelming radical
constituency.
The Bundists incorporated in 1905 in New York an organization known as
“The Workmen’s Circle” and “swelled the ranks of the Jewish trade
unions,” to quote the Kehillah’s Register. After a brief attempt to
propagate Socialism without reference to the Jewish Question, it was
given up, and in 1913 a resolution was adopted declaring that the whole
purpose of the work was Jewish. This is attributed, in the Kehillah
record, to the spread of “the idea of Jewish nationalism.”
Now, care would have to be exercised to avoid confusion between the
Hebrew labor unions, radical as they are, and the avowed communistic
bodies, if it were not the fact that the unions and the Communists are
so inextricably interlocked as to make distinctions unnecessary.
That this is not a judgment dictated by mere adverse attitude may be
seen from the following facts:
The Workmen’s Circle has 800 branches throughout the United States and
is officered by Jews throughout. The membership is 98 per cent
foreign-born and is Jewish in like proportion.
Among the higher officers of this organization are Joseph Schlessinger,
Sydney Hillman, Benjamin Schlossberg, Sam Feinstein and J. B. Salutsky.
The names will probably have become familiar to the reader by this time.
They form part of the interlocking directorate so commonly found among
Jewish organizations, a system which finally heads up in the executive
committee of the Kehillah which also composes the leaders of the
American Jewish Committee, of which the great public lights of Jewry are
members.
Schlessinger is president of the Union of Ladies’ Garment Workers, and
made a trip to Russia in behalf of communism in the United States, to
finance which the members of the Communist party were assessed $1.50
each.
Hillman is president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Schlossberg is secretary of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.
Feinstein is secretary of the United Hebrew Trades.
Salutsky is food commissar to the striking Amalgamated, and is national
director of Bolshevik propaganda carried on by his crowd.
They are, of course, all Jews.
The line-up is this: Hebrew trade union leaders are also members of the
Workmen’s Circle and of the Communist party, and the majority of their
trade union followers go with them into the other associations. The
reverse process is this: Communism and radical Bolshevism then find
their way to the consciousness of the American public by the Bolshevik
demands of the so-called trade unions of Jewry.
An extreme defense of all this activity might be that these Jewish
leaders and workers are only enamored of the _idea_ of Bolshevism, are
playing with it academically, and are not to be considered as actively
the proponents of a form of government contrary to the Constitution of
the United States and to be established by “direct action.”
This defense, however, appears insufficient when confronted by another
set of facts in which these same union leaders and Communists are shown
to be in communication with the Soviet government in the United
States—and the Soviet government in the United States is not a mere
_idea_, it is a _program_. Moscow has repeatedly stated that the purpose
of the Lenin-Trotsky government has been World Revolution. And one
reason for the colossal economic failure of the Soviet governmental
experiment has been the Jewish Soviet leaders’ neglect of their proper
work to follow this fetish of World Revolution. If one-tenth the effort
had been made to govern and feed Russia that has been made to sow
Bolshevik ideas in other countries, Russia might today have been in a
less unhappy plight. Propaganda is the sole art which the Bolsheviks
have mastered.
This Soviet government in the United States, therefore, must be regarded
as an advance post of World Revolution. It is so regarded by those who
know anything about it. It is so regarded by those who ordered the
deportation of L. C. A. K. Martens, the “Soviet Ambassador.” Martens was
announced to be here for the purpose of opening up trade relations with
the United States. He had a vast fund of gold—indeed, it was to explain
his gold hoard that he used the story about trade relations. The
Government of the United States judged, however, that his purpose here
was World Revolution—and the government was right.
Martens has departed but the Soviet Embassy remains. As stated in a
former article, Martens’ successor is Charles Recht, who is a Russian
Jew about 36 years of age. In the same building with Recht is Isaac A.
Hourwich, another Russian Jew and attorney, whose office is supposed to
be the headquarters whence proceeds much of the Russian Bolshevik
propaganda.
Now, the people who go to the offices of Recht and Hourwich are the same
people whose names we have been tracing all through this interlocker,
with some notable additions. Into the sanctum of ambassadorial
Bolshevism in the United States, come, of course, Recht the
representative and Hourwich the attorney for Lenin and Trotsky in this
country.
Another caller is Judah L. Magnes, head of the New York Kehillah. He is
a rabbi without a synagogue, an extreme extremist, a master of the
language of agitation, and pro-Bolshevist in his influence and
associations. He is credited with being the mediator between rich Jews
and radicals when the latter are in need of funds. This is the Judah L.
Magnes, head of the Kehillah, who tried to tell New York newspaper
reporters what a weak and innocent foundling the New York Kehillah is;
the same Judah L. Magnes whom the _American Hebrew_ tried to picture as
a diaphanous idealist broken-hearted because the ghetto doesn’t fall in
with his educational schemes. The Kehillah is _not_ an educational
institution; it is _not_ a welfare institution in the charitable sense;
it is a nerve-center of Jewish power; in Rabbi Magnes’ own words, “a
clearing house”; and if it amounted to nothing politically and
nationally, the men who are now prominent in it would soon desert it.
Kehillah is just what the word signifies—the whole Jewish community.
Then, of course, there are Benjamin Schlessinger again, president of the
Ladies’ Garment Workers, and Sydney Hillman, president of the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers, and Joseph Schlossberg, another
Amalgamated official whose Bolshevik utterances were quoted earlier in
this article, and others of the Hebrew trades crowd whose radical
relationships have been shown.
In addition, there are certain immigration inspectors from Ellis
Island—all Jews, of course; occasionally a courier from Russia who has
slipped into the country for a secret purpose; occasionally also a
courier to Russia bearing messages from Recht and Hourwich.
Then I. W. W. leaders—Jews. Among them Baletin, secretary of the I. W.
W. Metal Machinery Workers’ Branch, and Peltner, joint secretary of the
I. W. W. branches in New York.
In close touch with these Jewish radicals are a number of revolutionists
of other countries, representing various violent programs against the
established order.
It is through the office of Charles Recht that passports, issued by the
State Department of the government of the United States, are being
viséed. This statement refers to a regular practice known to have been
followed until a few days preceding this writing, and there is no reason
to believe it has since been altered. Ambassador Recht, or Acting
Ambassador Recht, or whatever he may be called, is in close touch with
Soviet authorities and has full notice of all their intentions regarding
American affairs.
A frequent subject of conferences in Recht’s office is the Soviet
propaganda in America. Men like Hillman and Schlossberg and Schlessinger
are merely liaison officers between the Soviets and the Hebrew trades
unions. The orders received from Moscow are thus transmitted to the Jews
in America, and are obeyed along perfectly defined lines.
Of course, Rabbi Magnes, head of the New York Kehillah, could hardly be
expected to remain in ignorance of what the whole Kehillah knows. And
that Magnes is temperamentally a radical, any two-minute perusal of his
speeches will show. He is head of what Schlessinger calls the “gigantic,
wide-branched Kehillah,” the foremost political racial organization in
this country, a close community of a single racial type which has its
own code and its own customs and its own method of gaining its ends.
This is not the whole story by any means. Schlessinger and Schlossberg
and Hillman and the rest are leaders, but they are not the higher-ups.
The connections run straight up to the lofty heights of those who dwell
in palaces and sway the finances of the nation, and to those who play
large parts in the government of the United States. The Jews who finance
radical publications—good conservative Jews who form the standing
illustration in the argumentative question, “What possible gain can they
hope from Bolshevism?” Jews who pull official wires to gain immunity and
privilege for known traitors and revolutionists. Jews who replenish the
coffers of dangerous elements. It is a long story, and all of it does
not require telling, for the point to be gained is not that everyone
should be told, but that the involved persons should be aware that it is
known, proved, safely put away, in hope that the occasion to use it may
never come. However, it is due the public to tell at least a part of it.
The Jewish leaders never played so stupid a card as when they endeavored
to minimize the Kehillah and the place it fills. Nor did their Gentile
echoes ever fall for so miserable an imposition.
——
Issue of April 23, 1921.
LI.
Will Jewish Zionism Bring Armageddon?
When the British Army passed into Jerusalem in the memorable capture of
the city in 1917, the Protocols went in with it. A symbolic circle was
thus closed, though not in the way the Protocolists had hoped. The man
who carried the Protocols knew what they signified, and they were
carried not in triumph but as the plans of the enemies of world liberty.
Zionism is the best advertised of all present Jewish activities and has
exerted a greater influence upon world events than the average man
realizes. In its more romantic aspects it makes an appeal to Christian
as well as to Jew, because there are certain prophecies which are held
to concern the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. When this return takes
place, certain great events are scheduled to ensue.
Because of this admixture of the religious sentiment, it will be rather
difficult for a certain class of people to scrutinize modern Political
Zionism; they have been too well propagandized into believing that
political Zionism and the “return” promised by the prophets are the same
thing. Having succumbed to the initial confusion of mistaking Judah for
Israel they have entirely mistaken the ancient writings that relate to
these two, and have made the single tribe of Judah (whence comes the
name of Jew) the hub around which all history and humanity swing. Judah
was the tribe with which Israel could not live in peace over two
thousand years ago, and which has the fateful gift of stirring up the
same kind of dissension today. And yet no one ever thought of charging
the Ten Tribes of Israel with “anti-Semitism.”
Zionism is challenging the attention of the world today because it is
creating a situation out of which many believe the next war will come.
To adopt a phraseology familiar to students of prophecy, it is believed
by many students of world affairs that Armageddon will be the direct
result of what is now beginning to be manifested in Palestine.
For these, if for no other reasons, the subject becomes important.
With Zionism as a dream of pious Jews this article has nothing to do.
With Zionism as a political fact, every first class government is now
compelled to have something to do. It is a bigger question than the
German indemnities or American immigration, because it lies back of
both, and is rapidly proceeding under cover of both.
It is worthy of note, if only in passing, that Zionism in the active
modern political sense took its rise racially and geographically where
Bolshevism arose, namely, in Russia, and that its center, the seat of
its Inner Actions Committee, was at Berlin. There was always a close
relationship between the Zionists of Russia and the New York Kehillah,
as is evidenced by public utterances made in Russia after the Revolution
in which the Kehillah is extolled.
At the time the war was declared in 1914, the Inner Actions Committee
was spread about in various countries. For example: Dr. Schmarya Levin,
of Berlin, was in the United States and remained here. He was Russian
rabbi, German scholar, and cosmopolitan. Although his headquarters were
Berlin, he remained in the United States and became recognized as the
leader of the leaders of Zionism, until the great Jewish shift to
Versailles. Another member of the Inner Actions Committee was one
Jacobson, who was in Constantinople. “When he saw that Constantinople
could no longer be the center of Zionist politics, he left and went to
Copenhagen, Denmark, where in a neutral country he could be of practical
usefulness to the Zionists _by transmitting information and funds_.”
(Guide to Zionism, page 80.) In fact, the entire Inner Actions
Committee, with headquarters at Berlin, moved freely through a
war-locked world, the only two exceptions being Warburg and Hantke—and
there was no need for the Berlin Warburg to move about, for there were
others who represented him.
Dr. Levin gave his sanction for the shifting of the center of Jewish
gravity from Berlin to America, and “as early as August 30, 1914, a
month after the outbreak of war, an extraordinary conference of American
Zionists was called in New York.”
What this change of seat meant, has formed the subject of much
discussion. In 1914 the Jews apparently knew more about the probable
duration of the war than did the principals. It was not to be a mere
excursion through Belgium, as some fancied. There was time to dicker,
time to show the value of certain Jewish support to the governments.
Germany gladly pledged the land of Palestine to the Jews, but the Jews
had already seen what Wilhelm had done in that ancient state when he
enthroned himself on the Mount of Olives. Evidently the Allies won in
the contest of making promises, for on November 2, 1917, when General
Allenby was pushing up through Palestine with his British Army, Arthur
James Balfour, the British secretary of state for foreign affairs,
issued the famous declaration approving Palestine as a national home for
the Jewish people.
“The wording of it came from the British foreign office, but the text
had been revised in the Zionist offices in America as well as in
England. The British declaration was made in the form in which the
Zionists desired it, and _the last clauses were added_ in order to
appease a certain section of timid anti-Zionist opinion.” (Guide to
Zionism, pages 85–86.)
Now please read the declaration and note the italicized clauses just
referred to:
“His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use
their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object,
_it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may
prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities
in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in
any other country._”
Zionism is of particular interest, not merely because of the quarrels
which have arisen among the leaders over money—it is the war of
“interest” against “capital”—but also because of the light it throws on
the two great armies of Jews in the world, the way in which they use
their power where they can, and the trouble that always embroils the
nations which become Jewish tools.
People sometimes ask why Jewry, which is capitalistic, should favor
Bolshevism, which is the announced enemy of capital. It is an
interesting question. Why should a New York Jewish financier, an officer
of the government of the United States, help finance a “Red” publication
which even our tolerant government cannot stomach? In addition to the
fact that it is only “Gentile capital” that is attacked, the answer is
that the Jew who has fallen for the worship of the Golden Calf is
anxious to keep in the good graces of the Jew of the East—the Mongolian
Jews—who are rampaging against orderly systems of society. It is quite
useful when there is a revolution in Paris to have the 600 houses which
you may own spared by the incendiary mobs—as were Rothschild’s houses.
Zionism has been one of the subjects upon which Western and Eastern Jew
can unite. Indeed, it was the Eastern Jew that compelled the Western Jew
to take a favorable stand on this matter. The Jewish gentlemen who are
receiving the freedom of our cities today in their various aspects as
“German” and “British” scientists are Eastern Jews. They have come to a
contest with the Jews of America on the question of Money. The Jews of
America have smothered some very ugly charges. The Jews of the East,
more recently of Germany or England, are not likely to be browbeaten by
the moneybags of Jewish New York, for _the Eastern type of Jew knows of
a situation in which money is the most useless thing in the world_—and
that is why he is feared and favored by Western Jewry of the Golden
Calf.
The Jewish defenders are just now capitalizing the “split” in Jewry. The
real split in Jewry will come when Jews of vision begin to support the
attempts which have been made to liberate the Jews from their leaders.
This internal squabble means nothing but a squabble of leaders; but when
the Jews themselves divide, one side for twentieth century light and the
destruction of the class power of selfish leaders, then may we look up
hopefully. When the Jew recognizes the honesty of his critics and the
righteousness of what they charge, then will there be a “split,” but not
before. The division in Jewry as evidenced by the contempt of the
revolutionary party for the financial party, and as even more strongly
evidenced by the fear of the revolutionary party by the financial party,
is being brought about by the insincerity of the Western Jew’s Zionism.
The Western Jew says that the United States is the Promised Land,
profits and interest are the “milk and honey” and New York is Jerusalem;
the Jew of Russia has another view.
A knowledge of Political Zionism is worth while also as an authoritative
illustration of what the Jew does when he is in power. Heretofore there
has been Russia to illustrate this, but now there is Palestine. With
every fact against them, with every traveler and observer giving them
the lie direct, there are still Jewish spokesmen and poor befuddled
“Gentile fronts” who insist that Bolshevism is not Jewish and that
Russia is not now governed by Jews. It is just this constant denial of
facts, this failure to use their opportunity to be honest, that is going
to be the judgment of Jewish leaders. Bolshevism all over the world, not
in Russia only, but in New York, in Chicago, in New Orleans, in San
Francisco, is Jewish.
However, there is no need further to insist upon that, except
occasionally to add confirmatory illustrations of it. More to the
present point is Palestine. It will be very difficult for the most
irresponsible Jewish spokesman to deny that Palestine is Jewish. The
government is Jewish, the plan of procedure is Jewish, the methods used
are Jewish. Does anyone rise to deny that? Scarcely.
Very well, Palestine will do to illustrate the genius of the Jew when he
comes to power.
Professor Albert T. Clay, in the _Atlantic Monthly_ (will anyone declare
that this long-established and thoroughly respectable Boston publication
is “anti-Semitic”?) warns us that the information about Palestine which
we receive in America comes to us through the Jewish Telegraph Service
(which is the Associated Press of world-wide Jewry) and the Zionist
propaganda. “The latter,” he says, “with its harrowing stories of
pogroms in Europe, and its misrepresentations of the situation in the
Near East, has been able to awaken not a little sympathy for the Zionist
propaganda.”
This propaganda of pogroms—“thousands upon thousands of Jews
killed”—amounts to nothing except as it illustrates the gullibility of
the press. No one believes this propaganda, and governments regularly
disprove it. But the fact that it continues indicates that something
besides facts is necessary to keep the scheme going.
In Jerusalem, as this is being written, martial law is proclaimed. There
has been a struggle between the native inhabitants, whom the Balfour
declaration sought to protect, and the new-come Jews. As in the famous
Easter disorders of last year, the wounded in the hospitals show that
the Jews were armed and the natives fought with whatever weapons they
could find on the spot; the conclusion of all impartial observers under
the circumstances being that the Jews prepared for and sought the fight
with unprepared natives.
The mark of disorder perpetrated by the Jews is all over the place, the
“persecuted” turned persecutor, and lest this should be charged to the
general wildness of the people in Palestine let it be said that the
rioters were only expressing in deeds what cultivated American and
English Jews have expressed in words—namely, that the lawful inhabitants
of the land ought to be driven out, in spite of governmental promises to
the contrary. One of the first Easter rioters, Jabotinsky, whom the
British authorities sentenced to 15 years in prison, was released
immediately upon the arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, and is now traveling
in state, and is talked of as a possible successor to Sir Herbert,
although he is originally one of the Russian Bolsheviki come down to
practice the gentle arts of that tribe in Palestine.
The government is Jewish. Sir Herbert Samuel is High Commissioner,
representing the power of the British Government, which holds the
mandate over Palestine. The head of the judicial department, who
appoints the judges of Palestine, is a Jew. Christian or Moslem judges
who do not give the Jews a shade the better of the proceedings are
ousted—a condition not unknown in New York. Chaim Weizmann is head of
the department of works—he is a Jew, now traveling in this country and
having the polite lie passed to him occasionally by Judge Julian W.
Mack. In fact, at the heads of all departments are Jews, a former New
York Jew being head of the department of immigration, who has made
splendid rules for the protection of Palestine from an undesirable class
of Jews, rules so well adapted for the purpose that if the Congress of
the United States should adopt them the cry of “persecution” would
girdle the world.
It is to be noted that the Jewish government of Palestine is very much
like that of Russia—mostly foreign. Trotsky came from the East Side of
New York. A gentleman recently released from Bolshevik custody told the
writer that the governor of his prison was an ordinary Jew who formerly
lived on Fourteenth street, Detroit. Practically every big American city
is represented in the Bolshevik government of Russia. There is another
full-fledged government waiting in this country for service wherever
necessary.
The methods being adopted to get the land are such as will fill the
world with indignation once the world fully understands what is being
done. And that it is done with the knowledge and approval of the Zionist
Commissioner is indicated by the fact that he suspended the activities
of the British officer who endeavored to stop the abuse. It was the old
game of lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest to people hard
pressed by war and crop failure, and then seizing their land when they
could not pay. The bank that did this was the Anglo-Palestine Bank, a
Zionist concern. This British officer, to save the people and the land,
made arrangements with a British bank to lend them money at 6½ per cent,
with five years to pay. If payment failed, the land was to go to the
government for redistribution; not to the Zionist bank. This was the
humane plan which the Zionist Commissioner forbade, whereupon the
British officer resigned. Some effort was afterward made to redress the
terrible act, but there it stands as the well-considered action of Jewry
in power.
Then follows what is described by every impartial observer as an
“arrogant” attempt to expropriate everything in sight. In Russia it
could have been done very easily under the plea of “nationalization,”
but there was Great Britain whose laws do not condone theft. The only
schools that have been established in Jerusalem have been built and
manned by the so-called “Gentiles,” although the Jews of Jerusalem have
been the pensioners of world-wide Jewry for centuries. As long ago as
1842 Dr. Murray M’Cheyne noted that the Jerusalem Jews cared noth’ing
for schools because their children were only growing up into pensioners
too. But Christians, with a warm regard for the Holy City, set about to
improve the miserable condition of the Jewish inhabitants, and thus it
came that at the time of the Zionist invasion a considerable number of
Jewish children were in attendance at the schools. The new-come Zionist
leaders demanded that the best of the schools be given up to them. Of
course, this was refused.
“The Council of Jerusalem Jews” then caused it to be published in the
Hebrew daily that parents who did not withdraw their children from the
schools would be punished. And now look at the typical punishments
threatened:
If any parent refused whose name was on the list of the American Relief
Fund, the relief would be withdrawn. An interesting bit of news to
subscribers to that fund.
Doctors would be forbidden to visit the families that had children
attending the enlightened schools.
Their names would be sent to the blacklist at the places where
circumcision was performed, so that new-born descendants of the
recalcitrants might be refused the rite of Moses.
They would be denied all share in Zionist benefits or funds.
If they were in business, they would be boycotted.
If they were workmen, they could get no work.
“Anyone who refused, let him know that it was forbidden for him to be
called by the name of Jew. They will be fought by all lawful means.
Their names will be put upon a monument of shame and their deeds made to
reproach them to the last generation. If they are supported, their
support will cease. If they are rabbis, they will be moved far from
their office. They shall be put under the ban and persecuted, and all
the world will know that in this justice there has been no mercy.”
It is the Jewish Bolshevist spirit all over again, that spirit which so
many people have been vainly endeavoring to reconcile with the Russian
temperament—because it is so un-Russian.
It is tyranny, and not the tyranny of strength, but of meanness and
darkness. It is now perfectly clear what was meant by Dr. McInnis, who
is Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, when he said: “The emigrants so far
brought in (to Palestine, under the Commission) did not include many
respectable English Jews; but they did include a great number of
Russians, Poles and Rumanians, many of them thoroughly Bolshevik in
their attitude to the government.”
If this spirit obtains at the beginning of a movement which the
Christian world has been taught by propaganda to regard as a profoundly
religious and respectable exodus, it burdens the imagination to forecast
what will be done in a period of full and unquestioned rule.
Observing and weighing the events and tendencies of Jewish rule thus far
in Palestine, it is not difficult to see the purpose in it all. The Jews
still distrust their ability to make a State. They do not distrust the
world’s willingness to let them have a State; indeed, it is amazing how
naturally the Jews place confidence in that portion of the world they
have always affected to despise. But deep-seated in the Jew is a
distrust of himself. He doesn’t know how his people will contrive to
live together. He doesn’t know how they will contrive to drop the
principles and practices which are so destructive of social comity
elsewhere. And he feels that, patient as the mandatory power may be now,
it is doubtful how long that patience will hold out under the blunders
and brutalities that will be inseparable from Zionist rule, if any
deductions can be drawn from the facts at hand. Therefore, feeling that
the time may be short, he is endeavoring by such actions as interference
with the cultural question, with the racial rights of the natives, and
by such schemes as the land-grabbing device described above, to get so
strong a hold on the situation as will seriously complicate it whenever
Great Britain shall feel it to be her duty to the world to step in and
attempt to bring some kind of order out of the chaos.
It begins to be very clear that Jewish nationalism will develop along
the line of enmity to the rest of the world. Already the dangerous
proposal has been made to organize a Jewish army for the protection of
the Suez Canal. Instead of thinking of roads and farmsteads, of
vineyards and oil presses, of schools and sanitary villages, the Jews
are thinking of elevating themselves into the military power that shall
stand between East and West on that most strategic strip of ground in
the world. The whole situation is fraught with danger, and men who wish
well to the Jews are alarmed and saddened by the prospect.
There are three elements of danger in the situation as it exists today:
the overwhelmingly predominant Bolshevik element that is being poured
into Palestine; the intense, egotistic and challenging nationalism that
Zionists exhibit even before they get a potato patch—the taste for world
politics and world power; and the racial confusion which now exists in
Palestine.
These combined are dynamite. The first is more vital than many realize.
Already the Jews who have gone to Palestine at great sacrifice and for
pious reasons are complaining that instead of the Psalms of David the
people are singing songs of the Red Revolution, and instead of meeting
for instruction and prayer there are riotous gatherings extolling
Trotsky as Messiah and the Soviet as the kingdom of heaven. On the third
anniversary of the Jewish Revolution in Russia, the streets of Jerusalem
were placarded with sentiments of blasphemy and treason, and May Day
this year was devoted to the exaltation of anarchy.
This fact will be of interest to students of prophecy. It is as certain
as any human forecast can be that this sort of thing will not be
permitted to go forward in the face of the world. It is unimaginable
that the nations responsible to humanity for the conduct of that
important strip of territory will remain supine while Bolshevism spreads
under the false pretense of a religious movement favored by Christendom.
An attempt will be made to stop it. The Jews of Palestine will turn on
their sponsor nation. The Jews of Russia will come down to help. Great
Britain and perhaps the United States will defend the old pure vision of
a Jerusalem redeemed. Then will come to pass the prophecy of Zachariah:
“_And Judah also shall fight against Jerusalem._”
Judah also! It is a thought to make a Jew bethink himself where the
lawlessness of the East and the materialism of the West will lead him.
Against Jerusalem! What a terrible ending of Judah’s present mad
delusion.
Palestine has been called the center of the earth. It is. The power that
controls Palestine controls the world. Although exercising no
sovereignty over the land itself, Great Britain’s control of adjacent
waters and of Egypt and Persia and India, forms the key of her power.
The white race has thus far been the Chosen People to whom the dominion
of the earth has been given. Palestine is the key to world military
strategy and trade. In question 12 of the Questions and Answers
published by the department of education, Zionist Organization of
America, this occurs:
12. What are the commercial possibilities of Palestine?
The location of Palestine _between the three continents_ favors
foreign trade.
All this lends itself to dreams of future glory, and many Christian
friends of the Jew have pleased themselves by conceiving an universal
Hague at Jerusalem and a new social order going out to bless the nations
from Zion. It is the idea conveyed by men like A. A. Berle in books like
“The World Significance of a Jewish State.” All this might be expected
if the Jews of today were Old Testament people, anxious to re-establish
the social laws of Moses, which are conceded to be the best safeguards
ever devised against pauperism on the one hand and plutocracy on the
other. But Palestine has not fallen into the hands of that sort of Jews.
Before the dream can be fulfilled Judah must come to himself, as he has
not yet, for from of old the Word is—
“And Judah also shall fight against Jerusalem.”
The racial situation in Palestine just now is very delicate. Americans
do not understand it. The Zionist propaganda has always been accepted on
the assumption that Palestine is the Jews’ land and that they only need
help to go back. It is an historical and political fact that Palestine
has not been the Jews’ land for more than 2,000 years. There are in
Palestine 500,000 Moslems, 105,000 Christians and 65,000 Jews. The
industry of the land is agriculture. Engaged in this are 69 per cent of
the Moslems, 46 per cent of the Christians and 19 per cent of the Jews.
Neither numerically nor industrially have they held the land. Yet, as
the result of a war bargain, it is handed over to them as regardless of
the native inhabitants as if Belgium had been handed over to Mexico.
Many of the natives are Semites, like the Jews, but they do not want the
Jews among them.
That is a strange fact for those who use the term “anti-Semitism”; why
do real Semites also dislike the Jews? Surely Semites are not victims of
“anti-Semitism.”
The Balfour Declaration, as well as the terms of the Mandate adopted at
San Remo, recognized the rights of the native races. Indeed, everyone
who knows about the people who have been native to Palestine for 2,000
years recognizes their rights, everybody except the Jews. Bethlehem was
a Christian town, as befits the birthplace of Christ. Yet the Jews have
contrived that 2,000 Bethlehemites leave Palestine rather than submit to
what they see coming. The other races are not so placid about it, hence
the trouble. It is now that the last clauses, added as the Zionist
historian declares, “in order to appease a certain section of
anti-Zionist opinion,” begin to get a meaning for the reader. “Was the
purpose only to quiet disturbing questions until all the arrangements
were made? Evidently. It was then a dishonest appeasement! Such may have
been the Zionists’ intention, but no one need expect perjury on the part
of the responsible nations. The end of the matter will see those last
clauses redeemed by honest application of their terms to the people
involved.
General Allenby promised those native races of Palestine that their
rights would be respected. So did the Balfour Declaration. So did the
San Remo Conference. So also did President Wilson in the twelfth of his
Fourteen Points.
But Judah says, “Let them get out!” “The last clauses were added in
order to appease a certain section of timid anti-Zionist opinion.”
“Let them get out!” says Israel Zangwill. “We must gently persuade them
to ‘trek.’ After all, they have all Arabia with its million square
miles, and Israel has not a square inch. There is no particular reason
for the Arabs to cling to those few kilometers. To fold their tents and
silently to steal away is their proverbial habit; let them exemplify it
now.” Aside from the falsity of using the term “Arab,” there is the
delightful Jewishness of it—let them give it up to us, we want it!
Americans have been in their land less than 150 years as a nation, and
there is China and Arabia or Siberia for us to go to if we should want
to, but we prefer our own country, and so do the native races of
Palestine, who have dwelt there for 2,000 years.
The watchmen on the towers of the world are alarmed at what seems
brewing in Judah’s geographical caldron.
——
Issue of May 28, 1921.
LII.
How the Jews Use Power—By an Eyewitness
The Jewish Question continues to mount the scale of public attention,
attracting ever a higher type of mind to the discussion of its
significance. When THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT first began to print some of
the results of its research into the Question, the initial response was
largely from those who disliked the Jew because he was a Jew. This class
expected to find in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT a spokesman for all their
coarse humor and abuse.
The method that was followed by this paper, however, was not abusive
enough, nor bitter enough to satisfy Jew-baiters and Jew-haters, and
gradually a new response from another class began to be heard, which by
this time has attained massive proportions. The better class of people,
seeing that racial and religious prejudice had no part in the work,
began to consider the Question with relation to our American life and
the future of this nation as a Christian people.
Upon this ascent of the discussion to its proper plane, the better
periodicals began to give thoughtful attention to the matter. These
publications have been referred to in previous articles. There is to be
added to the list the _Century Magazine_ for September, which contains
an article by Herbert Adams Gibbons which clearly intends to be fair and
is certainly able, in spite of a difference of opinion that might exist
with regard to some of the author’s conclusions. Mr. Gibbons states some
matters more plainly than they have been stated outside the pages of THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, and some matters he states just as plainly; and he
will be justified by the unprejudiced reader.
One of the most notable studies of the Jewish Question has come out of
the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee. It is entitled
“Zionism and the Jewish Problem,” the author being the Rev. Dr. John P.
Peters, formerly canon residentiary of the Cathedral of St. John the
Divine, Morningside Heights, New York, also rector emeritus of St.
Michael’s Church, New York, and professor of New Testament Languages and
Literature in the University of the South. The article has been
reprinted from the Sewanee _Review_ and makes a brochure of 29 pages.
Dr. Peters begins with an historical sketch of the development of the
two lines of thought among the Jews, the nationalistic which made for
exclusiveness, and the religions which made for inclusiveness, and he
describes the domination of the latter by the former with the coming of
modern Zionism which he finds to be racial and not religious. He says
“the dominant control of the Zionist party is at present in the hands of
those who are not religious but merely racial Jews.” He believes that
the development of race consciousness along these lines “must be
inevitably in the end to make the Jews bad citizens of the United States
or of any other country and to keep alive and increase the hostility to
the Jews....”
This monograph by Dr. Peters will repay study. By permission, THE
DEARBORN INDEPENDENT reprints the article from page 20 to the end, this
portion being selected because it deals with Dr. Peters’ testimony as an
eyewitness of certain conditions in Palestine: (The italics are ours,
there being none in the university reprint.)
“The experiment of the Zionist homeland is now being tried. It is too
early to determine fully how it will work, but it is at least of
interest to consider its manifestations so far. My earliest contact with
Zionism and Zionistic influences in Palestine dates from 1902. When I
first visited Palestine, in 1890, the Jews in Jerusalem were almost
exclusively of old oriental Sephardic families. Jerusalem was then still
the old Jerusalem within the walls. There were no houses without. Jewish
colonization, economic and philanthropic in character, had just then
begun on the Sharon plain, but what little there was in the way of
colonization was a feeble, unsuccessful exotic—an attempt to replace the
persecuted Jews of Russia on the land, where, however, the Jew, unused
to manual and especially farm labor, sat under an umbrella to protect
himself from the sun and engaged native Syrians to do the work.
“On my next visit, in 1902, more colonies had been planted, and a
serious effort was being made to turn the Jewish colonists into farmers.
The majority of the Jews who had come to Palestine, however, were
settled about Jerusalem, and the new Jerusalem without the walls was
larger, in space at least, than the old Jerusalem within. The Alliance
Israelite had developed there splendid schools to teach agriculture, and
manual and industrial arts. I was urgently solicited by the management
to visit and inspect these schools. Here I found Jew, Moslem and
Christian working side by side without prejudice. This was, in my
judgment, the best work of any sort being done in Palestine, for two
reasons: first, these schools were teaching the dignity and the worth of
manual labor, which the oriental of all sorts had theretofore despised,
regarding it as unworthy of any man of intelligence or capacity;
secondly, because they brought Moslem, Christian and Jew together on a
plane of common work and common worth, the most valuable agent for the
breaking down of those ancient prejudices, religious, racial and social,
which have been the curse and bane of the land.
“I was asked to put this down in writing because, I was told, _great
pressure was being exerted—I regret to say, especially from America—to
prevent the management from continuing this particular work_ of teaching
Jew, Christian and Moslem on the same plane, the demand being that the
Jew should not be brought into such contact with the Moslem and the
Christian, and that he alone should be trained, that he might not be
infected, as it were, by the others, _and that they might not be
prepared to compete with him for possession of the land. This spirit I
met in a more thoroughly organized and offensive form on my latest visit
in 1919 and 1920_.
“I found immense progress in the development of agricultural colonies.
There was still difficulty in persuading the Jew, except only the
African or Arabian Jew, to do the actual work of the colony, but
colonies were prospering, and fruit-culture, vine-culture and especially
the manufacture of wine and liquors on a grand and most scientific
scale, had progressed wonderfully. In general, the land occupied by
those colonies was not in a proper sense ancient Jewish land. They were
on the Sharon and Esdraelon plains and in the extreme upper end of the
Jordan Valley; but those regions were being enriched, and the country at
large benefited by the colonists. The great bulk of the Jews were still
gathered in Jerusalem as heretofore, and there were on one hand the
intellectuals and on the other the parasitic or pauperized Jew, what
would ordinarily be regarded as the very best and the very worst. Life
in the colonies was often very sweet and very lovely, a wholesome,
normal family life, and an exhibition in peace and prosperity of what
religious Judaism at its best may be.
“In Jerusalem one found the extremes of intensely narrow and bitter
orthodoxy, and unbelief with extreme Bolshevik radicalism. Here, too,
aggressive Zionism manifested itself in an attitude of bumptiousness and
aggressiveness. The country was for the Jew. It belonged to him and he
would shortly take possession. One was made to feel that one’s presence
in the land was objected to. The Hebrew press contained angry diatribes
against the existence of Christian schools and missions. The attitude
taken by these Zionists at first alarmed, then aroused and irritated
enormously, the native population, both Christian and Moslem, making the
Jew an object of dread and hatred as he had never been before. I had
opportunities to talk on intimate and friendly terms with leaders in all
camps, albeit I was unable, through language difficulties, to
communicate with the rank and file as freely as I should like to have
done. I myself felt the annoyance and in some places the danger of the
animosity aroused. Under government order I was not permitted to visit
certain sections of the country on account of the raids or uprisings of
the Arabs, partly due to animosity roused by their apprehension of the
Jewish invasion, and partly due to banditry, which took advantage of
that as an occasion. In other parts it was difficult to travel, because
any stranger, unless he could prove the contrary, was suspected of being
an agent of the Zionists, spying out the land for possession by the
Jews. It was difficult to obtain lodgings or food, and there were
sometimes unpleasantly hostile demonstrations on account of these
suspicions. Everywhere it was believed that the Jew by unfair means was
seeking to oust the true owners and to take possession of their land.
“In Jerusalem it was asserted that the Zionist funds, or the Jewish
funds which the Zionists could influence or control, were used to
subsidize Jewish artisans or merchants to underbid Christians and
Moslems and thus oust them by unfair competition, and that similar means
were being used to acquire lands or titles to lands. It was even
believed by many that the English authorities were unduly favoring and
helping the Jews in these endeavors, as is shown by a letter from a
Christian in Jaffa published in the _Atlantic Monthly_:—
“‘We are already feeling that we have a government within a
government. British officers cannot stand on the right side because
they are afraid of being removed from their posts or ticked off.’
“From time immemorial the Jews the world over have contributed for the
help of pious Jews in Jerusalem and the other sacred cities, Hebron,
Tiberias and Safed, the so-called _halukha_ or dole, in return for which
the Jews in those cities were to win merit for themselves and those who
contributed to their support by study of the law, prayer and pious
observances. St. Paul carried over the same practice into the Christian
Church, causing alms to be collected in the different congregations to
be transferred to Jerusalem for the benefit and support of the
Christians living there. To this day annual collections are taken in the
Roman Catholic churches throughout the world which go to the Franciscans
for the same use in Jerusalem. The Greeks and Armenians have like
customs. In the past there had been no prejudice with regard to these
doles, but now, it was claimed, the Zionist committees were using the
moneys thus collected or contributed to organize and help their people
in a systematized attempt to gain the upper hand in the land.
“Perhaps the attitude of the extremists who possessed the dominating
power in the community can best be shown by the utterances of one of
their own organs, written in Hebrew. (It should be stated that _the
English edition of this journal was, as a rule, quite different in its
contents from the Hebrew edition_.) One article, entitled ‘Malignant
Leprosy,’ is a denunciation of parents who allow their children to go to
any school except those under the control of Jews and conforming to the
demands of the local Zionist Committee. Parents are notified that a list
has been made by the Zionist Committee of all children who are attending
foreign schools, even though they are not subjected to any religious
teaching, and it is demanded that they shall be withdrawn from those
schools and placed in schools where they shall be taught the Hebrew
language, customs and traditions, and kept separate from contamination
by the Gentile, with his different ways and customs. Those teaching in
foreign schools, or schools not complying with the conditions laid down
by this committee, are ordered to withdraw from their positions. The
‘malignant leprosy’ is the contamination by the outside world which
results from education with the Gentiles. It is admitted in this
article, in answer to protests, that the opportunities in some of the
non-Jewish schools, are better than in the Jewish schools—for example,
in the teaching of foreign languages, so important for conducting
business or securing employment; that there is greater diligence in
instructing; and better hours and better care of pupils. Nevertheless,
parents are informed that they must sacrifice for the sake of their race
those chances for their children, doing their best meanwhile to raise
their own schools to the higher level. Those who are failing to live up
to these ideals are designated as ‘traitors’ and by other opprobrious
names, and the article ends with this threat of persecution to any who
do not obey the orders of the Zionist Committee thus conveyed:
“‘Let him know at least that it is forbidden him to be called by the
name of Jew and there is to him no portion or inheritance with his
brethren, and if after a time they will not try to reform, let them
know that we will fight against them by all lawful means at our
disposal. Upon a monument of shame we will put their names for a
reproach and blaming forever, and unto the last generation shall
their deeds be written. If they are supported, their support will
cease, and if they are merchants, with a finger men will shoot at
them, and if they are Rabbis, they will be moved far from their
office, and with the ban shall they be persecuted, and all the
people of the world shall know that there is no mercy in judgment.’
“This was followed about a month later by a second article, also in
Hebrew, entitled ‘Fight and Win,’ which announced that the threatened
persecution would now be carried out:
“‘The names of the traitorous parents and of the boys and girls who
have not taken notice of the warnings ought to be published at once
and without delay, in the papers and on public notices, placarded at
the entrance of every street. The list of these names should be sent
to the heads of every institution and to the rulers of the
synagogues, to hospitals, to those who arrange and solemnize
marriages, and to the directors of the American Jewish Relief Fund,
and so on. It should be the title of “Black List” and “Traitors to
Their People.” An order should go forth to all, and if one of these
men has a son, he shall not be circumcised; in case of death the
body is not to be buried among Israelites; religious marriages will
not be sanctioned; Jewish doctors will not visit their sick; relief
will not be given to them when they are in need, if they are on the
list of the American relief fund—in short, we must hunt them down
until they are annihilated. Men will cry to them: “Out of the way,
unclean, unclean!” Because these people will be considered as
malicious renegades, there can be no connecting link between them
and us. Again, the society of young men and girls of Jerusalem must
accept it as a principle to expel from their societies all those who
visit these schools; to point the finger of scorn at them; and to
make them see that they are put out of the camp. These traitor
scholars, boys and girls, must understand themselves that they are
sinners and transgressors, who are isolated, driven from all
society, separated from the Jewish community, after they have once
despised Israel and its holiness, and it will be interdicted to all
sons of Israel to come near them.... War against the traitors among
our people. War by all means legal. War without pity or mercy; that
the traitors may know that they must not trifle with the sentiment
of a people. Fight and win.’
“The Zionist Committee, _of whom one was an American_, followed this by
a printed announcement that the time of grace had passed and that
forthwith the names of those who were still refractory would be posted
publicly on street-corners, and the boycott begin. Miss Landau, a devout
Jewess, the head of the best and highest Jewish school for girls in the
city, the Eva Rothschild School, one of those, however, whose pupils and
teachers were threatened under these rulings because they would not
follow the dictates of the Zionist Committee, appealed to the civil
authorities. The committee was haled into court and the threatened
boycott enjoined.
“With such an attitude on the part of Zionist leaders in Jerusalem it
might be expected that violence would ensue. Easter is a time of great
excitement and unrest in Jerusalem for Christians, Jews and Moslems
alike, for with Easter coincide the Jewish Passover and the Moslem
pilgrim feast of Nebi Musa, when Moslems gather from all over Palestine
to hear sermons in the Haram Esh-Sherif, and then march to the so-called
tomb of Moses near the Dead Sea. The religious excitement of that season
which vents itself in curses of each against the others, is always
likely to produce physical outbursts if the cursers come into contact
with one another. The Turks wisely segregated at that time each religion
in its own quarter. This, in spite of warnings and requests from the
Moslem religious leaders, the English failed to do, either through
ultra-confidence in the _pax anglicana_, or because of objections from
Jewish representatives against such segregation as applied to them. For
days beforehand hot-heads among the Jews and Moslems were inciting to
riot, and in their quarter Jewish trained bands were preparing for the
conflict, a preparation of which Moslems from long wont probably had no
need. On Easter morning, 1920, the fanatical Moslems of Hebron arrived
at the Jaffa gate with their sacred banner, singing their songs of
religions intolerance. There numerous Jews were waiting to greet them.
The English Tommies with their officers were all in church. Whose
insults were the worst and who struck the first blow is not clear.
Battle was speedily joined. _The Jews were better armed_, with guns
against the Moslem knives; but the Moslems were the better fighters. The
city within the walls was speedily in their hands. The Jews living there
were the old-time Sephardic families, dwelling close-packed in miserable
slums, with no sympathy with Zionism, peaceful and quite unprepared.
Moslem fury vented itself on these poor wretches. Without the walls the
Jews were in the vast majority. All told, by official count there were
at that time 28,000 Jews, 16,000 Christians and 14,500 Moslems in
Jerusalem. What the Moslem did within the walls the Jew endeavored to do
without the walls. Before my eyes an Arab camp just below the great
Jewish quarters was set upon, burned and plundered, the poor inhabitants
fleeing for their lives while guns popped from the Jewish quarter. Two
men were killed there. When the troops reached the scene the great bulk
of rioters whom they rounded up were Jews. The subsequent court
proceedings also seemed to place the chief responsibility for the
outbreak on them. The major sentences were equally divided between Jews
and Moslems, but of _the criminals who received lighter sentences the
majority were Jews_. For a week we lived in a state of siege, not
allowed to pass in or out of the city gates, or to show ourselves on
roof or balcony after sundown, and for months there were guards at every
turn, assemblies were prohibited and there was continual danger of a new
outbreak.
“The appointment of Sir Herbert Samuel, a Jew, as governor of the new
protectorate under the Zionist Mandate, greatly increased the
excitement. In Moslem towns like Nablus it was openly said in my
presence that no Jew might enter the place and live. The Christians, who
had taken no part in the riots, were nevertheless to a man in sympathy
with the Moslems, and one saw the curious spectacle of Cross and
Crescent making common cause. It was prophesied that should Sir Herbert
come as governor, he would never enter Jerusalem alive. In point of
fact, he landed at Jaffa and came up to Jerusalem under strong guard,
_with machine-guns before and behind_, and the following week made a
visit to Nablus and Haifa in the same manner. That was the situation
when I left Palestine. Sir Herbert had at that time just issued his
declaration and his interpretation of the mandate. _English officers and
officials almost to a man were against the Zionist Mandate_, and their
utterances in many cases were extraordinarily frank. Some of the most
prominent and best-trained sought transfers to other posts because of
their feelings on the matter, and some resigned.
“It has since that time been extremely difficult to obtain reliable
information of prevailing conditions. It would seem, however, from all
the information I have been able to gather, that Sir Herbert, who is, I
believe, not himself a Zionist, has acted with singular tact and
discretion. He has shown great fairness and indicated his intention to
govern with impartiality, granting no special favors to any, nor
allowing outside committees or local organizations to dictate or assume
to dictate unfair policies. When I left Palestine, Jews were leaving in
considerable numbers, especially those claiming American citizenship, so
that the outgo was larger than the income. Since then, if I may judge by
reports, Jews have been coming in, chiefly from eastern European
countries, some parasitic and objectionable, others of a higher type.
Some of the latter, graduates of universities, both men and women, may
be seen engaged in hard manual labor, I am told, building roads and the
like, not despising to do such work in order to secure their Palestinian
home and fulfill their aspirations.
“It is too soon to judge the future of the Zionist experiment in
Palestine. If the English authorities will give fair play to all, and if
the Jews will pursue the old policy of the Alliance Israelite and its
schools of seeking to benefit all dwellers of the land alike, to break
down, not to build up, religious, racial and social prejudices, then the
Jew may perhaps overcome the present prejudice against him, and his
invasion of Palestine may prove to be a blessing both to himself and to
the land. The methods of those in control of the Zionist movement in
Palestine while I was there were, however, aimed in the opposite
direction and tended to make the Jew an object of hatred and violence
wherever the opportunity for violence offered. This has been illustrated
again by the recent bloody riot in Jaffa which compelled the expedition
of a British warship to that port; and the order issued holding up all
immigration shows that not Jaffa only but the whole country is unsafe.
_The Jews in Palestine are now protected only by force of British arms.
Were the British troops withdrawn, the Jews would be exterminated by the
angry natives, of whom the Moslems alone outnumber them in the ratio of
more than ten to one; and with such action the neighboring countries
would sympathize, yielding ready assistance if any were required.
Mesopotamia and Egypt are seething with disaffection against British
rule, and racial-religious ferment, and Palestine is to them and to the
Arabs of Arabia a holy land included in the heritage of Islam. Moslem
India also feels this keenly, and the British have been obliged to
withdraw Moslem Indian troops from Palestine, because they will not
fight fellow-Moslems._
“In this country the Jewish problem which we have hitherto had to face
is not a result of religious antipathy. Religiously, politically and
economically, the Jew has the same opportunity as everyone else. The
Jewish problem here has been merely a matter of social prejudice,
resulting from the extremely difficult task of amalgamating with great
rapidity an enormous population, alien in race, culture, custom and
habit. In 1880 there were, according to Jewish statistics, 250,000 Jews
in this country. The Jews now claim 3,500,000, for the most part an
undistributed mass huddled together in a few of the great
cities—one-third of them in New York. Coming in such great numbers in so
short a time and herding together thus, intentionally or unintentionally
they help one another to resist the process of Americanization. This
enormously increases the incidence of social prejudice. Those who have
no conscious prejudice either of religion or of race are in danger of
imbibing or developing such prejudice as a method of protection of their
institutions, their traditions and their habits. The Zionist movement,
with its intentional development of race consciousness and race
peculiarity on the part of the Jew, is an additional obstacle against
the efforts of those Jews and those Christians who are seeking to break
down prejudice and to bring Jew and Christian together within a common
recognition of the Golden Rule: that each should treat the other as he,
in like instance, would wish to be treated by him. One of the greatest
of English Jews, honored and respected by Jew and Christian alike for
his learning, his philanthropy and his godly piety, says of this
racial-political Zionism that it has broken his heart, and set the clock
backward for his people a hundred years. The Christian lover of his
country and his fellow-men may well express a similar feeling on his
side.”
——
Issue of September 17, 1921.
LIII.
How Jews Ruled and Ruined Tammany Hall
Within the memory even of young men, Tammany Hall has been the synonym
of all political trickery, in the vocabulary of popular criticism.
Tammany Hall was held up as the worst example of boss rule and political
corruption that it was possible to find in either of the parties. Its
very name became a stigma.
But even the most unobservant newspaper reader must have observed the
gradual fading out of Tammany Hall from public comment, the cessation of
the bitter criticism, the entire absence of headlines bristling with
ugly charges, and the calling of the hosts of good citizenship to do
battle against the grim bossism that maintained its headquarters at the
Wigwam.
Why this change? Is it due to the dying out of Tammany Hall as a
political force? No, Tammany is still there, as any New York politician
will tell you. Is it due, then, to a reform of that organization? No,
the Tammany tiger has not changed its stripes. Then, perhaps, this
change is due to public sentiment? Not at all. The explanation is to be
found along other lines.
There was a time when fearless publications told the truth about
Tammany, but _Harper’s Weekly_ and others which waged fierce war against
the Tiger, have either gone out of existence or have fallen under
control of the Jews. The silence which has shrouded certain matters must
not be noted and set aside without reference to the changed control of
the press. There was a time when public bodies like the Citizens’ Union
organized to oppose Tammany and to keep a volunteer vigil on its
activities: these groups have succumbed to Jewish contributions and
officership and no longer stand guard.
The outcry against Tammany seemed to be hushed the moment that Tammany
patronage fell into the hands of New York Jews, where it now reposes,
the Kehillah being the real political center, and Tammany but a
distributing station—a sort of organizational “Gentile front” for the
more powerful Kehillah. A few Tammany leaders are permitted to strut out
in front, but everyone knows that from the Wigwam chiefs the power has
departed, it is now to be found in Jewish conferences. Murphy is still
the titular head of Tammany, but like a Samson shorn, he is not feared
and obeyed as of yore. In fact, the Judaization of Tammany Hall is now
complete. Once in a while the Irish—always a match for the Jews—rear
their heads and show battle, but for the most part Jewish money rules
and the Tiger lies down.
Tammany Hall was one of the strongest political organizations ever seen
in the United States, potent not only in municipal and state politics,
but often exercising a decisive influence on national affairs. It was,
without exaggeration, _powerful_.
If there is one quality that attracts Jews, it is power. Wherever the
seat of power may be, thither they swarm obsequiously. As Tammany was
power and the gate of power, it was natural that the Jews of the biggest
Jewish city in the world should court it. Doubtless, they were also
affected by the incongruity of the fact that in the biggest Jewish city,
the most solid political power was non-Jewish. That was a condition
which called for correction.
When the German Jewish banker, Schoenberg, came to this country under
the name of August Belmont to represent the interests of the
Rothschilds, his keen eye at once took in the situation and at once he
began to court the favor of Tammany. He became a member and a supporter.
It was good business for this Jewish banker, because the funds of the
Rothschilds were heavily invested in New York tractions. The properties
of city tractions were and to a great extent still are, as in all
American cities, at the mercy of the local Tammany power, by whatever
name it may be known. Belmont was insinuating himself under the wing of
power to protect the investments for which he was responsible.
August Belmont eventually attained the coveted eminence of Grand Sachem
of the Tammany Society. The Belmont family for a time represented the
sole Jewish banking support of Tammany Hall, but that honor is now
divided among many.
In Richard Croker’s day, when corruption went hand in hand with power,
and power apparently was none the weaker for it, we find that this
notorious leader’s intimate friend, business partner and political
associate was a Jew—Andrew Freedman. Freedman and Croker lived together
at the Democratic Club in Fifth Avenue, Tammany politicians even then
having become rich enough to despise Fourteenth Avenue. Freedman held
the purse strings of the organization, as head of the Committee on
Finance, and he was Croker’s representative and mouthpiece when the
chief went into exile on an over-sea estate.
The most recent Jewish power in Tammany Hall, and one of the most
liberal contributors to Tammany campaign funds, is the lawyer, Samuel
Untermeyer, whose specialty of recent years seems to be to serve as the
battering ram of the Jewish power against interests which it wants
destroyed, and whose efforts are usually camouflaged under exaggerated
journalistic advertisements as being wholly in the public interest. Mr.
Untermeyer is not in particularly good humor with Tammany these days,
because of the recent defeat of his son, Irving Untermeyer, for a
judgeship. There was somewhere a slip. The Jews deserted the Wilson ship
anyway, apparently seeing what was coming in the way of retribution for
the colossal and amazing mismanagement of war business which was
principally in their hands; and in the ensuing mix-up, a scion of the
house of Untermeyer tasted defeat.
Tammany numbers other Jews among its supporters. Nathan Straus, one of
the owners of R. H. Macy & Company, has been for years an active member
of the organization and one of the rulers of its inner councils.
A Jewish ghetto politician, Henry M. Goldfogle, has represented the
Jewish interests in Congress for a number of years, and expected to
continue, but he slipped in the election and has recently been “taken
care of” by a city appointment.
There is also Judge Rosalsky who has been implicated in a number of
interesting matters which illustrate the completeness of the Jewish
network of control in New York City.
One might mention also M. L. Erlanger and Warley Platzek, justices of
the supreme court of the state of New York, but if one began a list of
the Jewish judiciary of that city, where would one end?
Another Tammanyite is Randolph Guggenheimer, founder of the corporation
law firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and Marshall—Untermeyer being the
aforesaid grand inquisitor of Gentile activities generally and Marshall
being head of the American Jewish Committee and the Kehillah.
It was doubtless necessary for a Jewry that contemplated control of the
judiciary as well as special protection for certain powerful Jewish
enterprises that are near enough the borderline of the law to merit
question—it was necessary to obtain control of the supreme political
engine through which favors were disbursed in local politics. And
control of such organizations can always be had by money.
Not that the Jews threw themselves entirely into Tammany. The Jew’s
natural political home seems to be in the Republican party, for thither
he returns after venture elsewhere. But his predilection for the
Republican party does not move the Jew to make the mistake of being
exclusively the partisan of one group. It is better, as he knows, to
control both groups.
As a matter of political fact, strong as is the Jewish element in
Tammany, it is still stronger in the ranks of the Republican party,
while New York Socialism is completely headed and manned by Jews. This
renders it extremely easy for the Jews to swing support in whichever
direction they choose, and for Kehillah to fulfill any threat it may
make. It also insures that any Jewish candidate on any ticket will be
elected. The fluke in the case of young Untermeyer is perhaps not to be
entirely explained politically; other causes were doubtless working in
that matter.
It is a long time since Ferdinand Levy bore the distinction of being the
first Jew in New York to hold a political job. He was only a coroner,
and the man who appointed him was only a fire commissioner, but that
fire commissioner was Richard Croker. And Levy was solidly backed by the
Independent Order of B’nai B’rith, whose success in this matter laid the
foundation for more ambitious demands later.
But at the beginning, the Kehillah Jews adopted the ancient policy, not
of putting forward their own people, but non-Jews who could be useful to
Judah. The difference between pro-Jewish politicians who are not
themselves Jews, and politicians of the Jewish race, is that the former
in office can sometimes go further than the Jew in office can, without
detection. This has been true at least up to this time, but it will
probably not be true very long, now that the people’s eyes are being
opened. The Jewish officeholder is only standing up for his race, but
the “Gentile front” has betrayed the people for the pottage of Jewish
favor.
Thus, in the early days of Tammany, indeed until comparatively recent
years, we see the “Gentile front” in Tammany offices and basking in the
glory of Tammany publicity, but in the background there is always his
“Jewish control.” This also is a formula for citizens who wish to know
the meaning of things otherwise unexplainable—“look for the ‘Jewish
control.’”
To this end, therefore, the Jews have been strong in all parties, so
that whichever way the election went, the Jews would win. In New York it
is always the Jewish party that wins. The campaign is staged as an
entertainment, a diversion for the people; they are permitted to think
and act as if they were really making their own government, but it is
always the Jews that win.
And if after having elected their man or a group, obedience is not
rendered to the Jewish control, then you speedily hear of “scandals” and
“investigations” and “impeachments,” for the removal of the disobedient
official. Usually a man with a “past” proves the most obedient
instrument, but even a good man can often be tangled up in campaign
practices that compromise him.
It has been commonly known that Jewish manipulation of campaign matters
has been so skillfully handled, that no matter which candidate was
elected, there was ready made a sufficient amount of evidence to
discredit him in case his Jewish masters needed to discredit him. To
arrange this is part of the thoroughness of Jewish control. And, of
course, the American people have been sufficiently trained to roar
against the public official immediately the first Jewish political hound
emits its warning bay.
Amazing as is the technique of the Jewish political process, the
readiness with which the American people can be counted on to do their
part in forwarding the game is still more amazing.
What Mr. Hylan, the present mayor of New York has done to merit
chastisement, is scarcely clear to a non-partisan investigator. But the
fact that the Jews have set out to “get” him for something, is evident
on every side.
In the Untermeyer so-called “housing investigation,” the people hauled
up were non-Jews, and the result of the whole business has been a
stronger Jewish hold than ever on the housing affairs of New York. Jews
are exempt from such inquisitions. The choice prey are non-Jewish
business houses whose secrets may be forced and whose good name may be
stained under cover of a legal procedure. There is such a thing as
blackmail so entirely respectable as to be unsuspected.
Governor Sulzer, of New York, was the choice of the Jews. They
subscribed money for his campaign, forced it on him, and kept careful
account of it. Finally, under pressure of a compelling sense of justice,
Sulzer pardoned a non-Jewish valet of an important Jewish New York
family, a young man whom a coterie of Jews very prominent in the
political, financial and social worlds had contrived to “put away” for a
period of 30 years. Sulzer had no option but to pardon young Brandt. But
he paid the penalty. He was impeached. The Jews who supported him
testified against him and their checks were used to assist his
dismissal.
The story of young Brandt hangs heavily over the heads of some of the
proudest Jewish names in New York.
Playing on both sides of the political fence, and always retaining a
string on the men they elect to office, are two Jewish characteristics
which should not fail to be reckoned with. THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, in
its recent articles showing the hand of Paul Warburg in the Federal
Reserve System, was able to prove by Mr. Warburg’s own words that his
firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, during the three-cornered fight between
Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson, supported all three. The Jewish owners of R.
H. Macy & Company, New York, illustrate the same principle; while Nathan
Straus looked after affairs at Tammany Hall, his brother and partner,
Isador Straus, was one of the most active opponents of Tammany. Were the
interests of the two men therefore different? Not at all.
Take the firm of Guggenheimer, Untermeyer and Marshall. This is a
notable firm for the part it plays in the people’s business. Every
community in America has been affected by Louis Marshall’s decisions as
head of the American Jewish Committee. Untermeyer is the arch-inquisitor
for Jewry. Randolph Guggenheimer, the founder of the firm, achieved the
foremost influence of any except the Chief in the old Wigwam, and was a
power to be reckoned with in all matters. But Louis Marshall is a
“staunch” Republican and a member of the Republican Club. Here again is
the favorite method of including all parties under the capacious wing of
the Jewish program.
Hence the popularity of “Fusion” in New York City elections. It has
become the fad, but its most notable purpose is to insure the election
of a Jew whatever his politics may be. In some Assembly Districts it is
impossible to find anyone but a Jew to vote for. When Otto A. Rosalsky,
a jurist who was implicated in the Brandt scandal, was re-elected Judge
of General Sessions in 1920, he was the “Fusion” candidate on both the
Democratic and Republican tickets. It was perhaps fortunate for his
candidacy that he was. The point just now is that whenever a candidate
may be vulnerable, it is very desirable to forestall a fight upon him by
eliminating all opposition before the election. “Fusion” is another
matter that should be carefully scrutinized in behalf of American rule
of American cities.
By the way things are going in New York, these inter-party and “fusion”
expedients may soon be unnecessary, because in any event it will be most
difficult to avoid electing a Jew. Of the candidates of all parties for
the offices of justice of the supreme court of New York, numbering 26,
14 were Jews. Of the Democratic presidential electors, 13 were Jews. Of
the Republican presidential electors, 14 were Jews. Of the Socialist
presidential electors, 22 were Jews.
The strength of Tammany had exactly the same source as the strength of
the Kehillah, namely, in the foreign population; the difference being
that the Kehillah had a more compact foreign mass to draw upon. But both
the Jewish leaders and the Tammany leaders have always been alertly
aware of the fact that their power depended upon an uninterrupted flow
of immigration, to supply the losses sustained by the Americanization of
the people. It is always the un-Americanized foreigner that makes the
best material for the Kehillah’s and Tammany’s purposes. The Kehillah is
based upon the principle of recognizing racial minorities, and Tammany
has made a specialty of giving representation of racial minorities in
its councils. This was a liberal policy, and was thoroughly American in
its original intent (as Tammany was a thoroughly American assemblage at
its inception) but it was soon seized upon by the Jews and used to their
own ends, and to the eventual ruin of all except Jewish representation.
Thus all through the history of immigration activity, Tammany has been
on the side of the wide open gate without any restrictions. The lower
the type of immigrant, the more easily amenable it is to the ward boss’s
orders.
Tammany of recent years has been the able seconder of the Kehillah in
all efforts to frustrate control of immigration.
The third great influx of immigration into the United States occurred in
1884 and was really the cause of the beginning of the degeneration of
Tammany Hall. The great wave was composed of Russian, Austrian and
Hungarian Jews, whose arrival was followed by a memorable period of
crime, the marks of which remain to this day. Indeed, the downfall of
Richard Croker was a direct result.
At that time the police department and the police courts before which
all criminal cases in the city were first brought, were in the hands of
Tammany Hall. The result was a partnership between local government and
crime which has not been duplicated outside of Semitic countries.
Immigrant Jews of the shadier type organized an association called The
Max Hochstim Association, which was known during the Lexow Investigation
as “The Essex Market Court Gang.” One of its chief rulers was Martin
Engel, Tammany leader of the Eighth Assembly District. The “king” of
this Jewish district was a man named Solomon who had changed his name to
the less revealing one of “Smith,” and who became known as “Silver
Dollar Smith” because of the fact that he ruled his little empire from
the Silver Dollar Saloon, which gained its name from the silver dollars
that were cemented into the floor of his place of business. This saloon
was just opposite the Essex Market Court, which was thronged daily by
hordes of Yiddish criminals, the bondsmen, false witnesses and lawyers.
Let not the fastidious reader deem it unnecessary to linger longer round
the old police court at Essex Market, for out therefrom came a word
which has fixed itself in common English speech—the term “shyster,” by
which a certain type of lawyer is described. A Clinton street lawyer
named Scheuster, whose practices were quite characteristic, made himself
very obnoxious to Justice Osborne. Whenever another Yiddish lawyer
attempted a shady trick, the judge would openly denounce it as
“Scheuster practice,” and so it came that the first men in the
profession to bear the name “shyster” were the Yiddish lawyers of Essex
Market Court.
To make a nasty story brief, the Max Hochstim Association became the
first organized White Slaver group in America, and the revelations made
by the Lexow Committee are shuddering glimpses into that lowest form of
depravity—a coolly conducted, commercialized, consolidated traffic in
women. The traffic was made to yield dividends to politicians, to
Tammany Jews in particular. The Ghetto became the Red Light District of
New York. The first man to undertake the export trade in women with
foreign countries, especially South America, was a man who later became
a Tammany notable.
The surprising fact is that, although these matters are written in
official documents, and although the same matters have been written into
the record of every similar investigation which has been made, Jewish
leaders persist in denying that the leaders in this particular form of
depravity are Jews. When the United States Government made a nation-wide
investigation, it found and recorded the same facts. The New York
Kehillah came into existence as a defense organization at a time when
the exposure of the Jewish White Slave traffic threatened to overwhelm
the New York ghetto.
The Max Hochstim Association was not the only organization of its kind.
The other was the New York Independent Benevolent Association, which was
organized in 1896 by a party of Jewish white slave dealers as they were
returning from the funeral of Sam Engel, brother of Martin Engel,
Tammany leader of the red light district.
The gangs that formed the backbone of Tammany power in the slum
districts were made up of “cadets.” Their principal field of operation
was the cheap dance halls. Paul Kelly’s gang originated in the halls
about lower Broadway. Monk Eastman’s gang grew strong in the
Russian-Jewish District below Delancey street. And Kid Twist’s gang
developed close to a dance hall for Galician Jews on the far East Side.
All of these three were Jewish gang leaders. They were slavers as their
forbears were in the days of Rome’s decline; they were bootleggers
before the days of prohibition; and they constituted a strong support of
the international narcotic ring which to this day has defied the law by
corrupting the officers of the law.
It was to associations like these that the lights of Tammany lent their
names. Tim Sullivan was a vice president of the Max Hochstim
Association. The name of the Honorable Henry M. Goldfogle also appeared
on the picnic announcements.
The exposure which resulted when the white people of New York finally
succeeded in getting the forces of the law to function impartially for a
little while, caused many of the implicated Jews to change their names.
These names are now representative of some of the best Jewish families,
whose concealed bar sinister is the fact that the foundation of the
family fortune was laid in the red light district. Society, sliced down
to its seeds, is a queer growth.
It is due in justice to say that men like Tim Sullivan were not the
originators of the Jewish abuses referred to, nor willing participants
in the gains therefrom. Tammany would do favors for its friends, at the
police court or elsewhere; Tammany had its occasional political
upheavals; Tammany believed that they who profited by political spoils
should divide with the Wigwam’s treasury; but with such traffic as
seduction and barter in women, Tammany had never been compromised until
the Yiddish invasion of New York and the Judaization of the Wigwam. This
much must be said for the Irish and American leaders.
The situation is the same in Boston. An Irish city, its chief political
control is in the hands of Jews. The old-time Irish leaders are still
permitted to be out in front, but the inner power has departed from
them. One Boston ward, where once none but Irish lived, now contains
only Jews, but the old-time Irish boss retains his seat. This is by
favor of the Jews and nothing else.
The same state of facts accounts in large degree for the connection
between a man like Tim Sullivan and the Jews. “Tim,” as everyone knew
him, was leader of a district inhabited by Irish and Germans. Then the
Jews came in. And then began the Jews’ practice of profiting by the
people’s dislike of them.
Foreign Jews well know that they are disliked. It is one of their assets
which never fails to produce dividends. They choose the part of the city
where they desire to live, and a few move in. Their immediate neighbors
move out. More Jews move in—more of the others move out. The property
nearest the Jews always goes down in value. People will sell at a loss
rather than live engulfed in a ghetto.
It was so in Tim Sullivan’s district. As the Jews swarmed in, the Irish
and Germans fled north. Sullivan stood his ground. It was his old
territory, he would not leave it, nor remove his family. He cultivated
the new arrivals and made a partnership with the ex-kosher chicken
butcher, Martin Engel.
The Jews lived under Sullivan’s rule for a time, awaiting the moment
when they should know what to do for themselves. The Yiddish flood
increased until the district was crowded, and then the Jews demanded
representation for themselves. With a premonition that a new force had
arisen, Tim Sullivan played safe and helped the Jews to get
recognition—Martin Engel was made leader of the old Eighth. But Sullivan
had previously gone to Tammany—or to what remained of the old non-Jewish
Tammany—and exacted an understanding that his rule should be left
unchanged below Fourteenth street.
From that time forward, in spite of the understanding, Sullivan’s power
began to wane, principally because he continued to get in deeper and
deeper with the Jews. He went into Jewish lines of business. He formed a
theatrical partnership with George Kraus, among his enterprises being
the Imperial Music Hall, the Dewey Theater, and the traveling Eagle
Burlesque Company. Still the old district continued to become crowded
and overcrowded and saturated with Yiddish newcomers, for whom neither
the name Sullivan nor the traditions of the district had any meaning.
In his closing years, scarcely more than a hanger-on around the former
scene of his power, Tim Sullivan bitterly lamented the ease with which
he was led into associations that undermined his power.
Croker was destroyed in public confidence by the terrific shock of the
exposure attending the Jewish “cadet” activities. Sullivan, equally
picturesque, was the slowly shoved-out victim of Jewish infiltration.
There were other occurrences and other downfalls, all of which are a
part of the real story of Tammany.
——
Issue of September 24, 1921.
_“I need hardly explain that I do not think Jews ought to insist
overmuch on their rights or nationality in a negative sense. They ought
to be as much Jews as they can, but ought to be as little as possible of
what is merely anti-Christian. For the Jews to try to get a song out of
the public schools because it praises Jesus is natural but perhaps
hardly wise. I admit that question, however, is an extremely complex and
baffling one. Again, the Jews have naturally taken a great interest in
this war, but in that case also they ought to choose as far as possible
the more tolerant view. Too much hostility to Russia was shown, it seems
to me, when some of their spokesmen were fighting over the wording of
the Immigration Act. They seemed to be fighting not for a real gain, but
simply to rub their political power in America into the Russian mind.”_
—_Norman Hapgood._
LIV.
Jew Wires Direct Tammany’s Gentile Puppets
The proposal that non-Jews emigrate from New York City, 500,000 in the
first exodus, and 500,000 in the second, to hasten the event which is
held to be certain of occurrence, namely, that New York shall become an
all-Jewish city, may be a joke; but it is no joke that the Jews
themselves discuss and have proposed that the City of New York be
separated from the state of New York, and made both a state and city in
itself. This would entail three governments—state, county and
municipal—whose offices the Jews could parcel out as they pleased.
Besides, it would rid them of Albany. It is a most amazing fact that the
state capital, bad as it is, has always been able to defeat the New York
Jew in his most ardently pursued quests, as notably, his insistent
appeal to abrogate the Sunday law.
Of course, if the non-Jews emigrated from New York, the Jews would soon
follow. They are not self-sufficient. If New York could be isolated,
Jewish initiative would not suffice to provide enough potatoes for the
inhabitants.
It is too trite to say that New York is already in the hands of the
Jews. But it would be most startling to give a schedule illustrating how
completely this is so. The New Yorker himself can scarcely comprehend
the extent of his vassalage to the Jew. The average intelligent New
Yorker does not know what the Kehillah is, nor yet how it works. Like
the child born within sound of Niagara Falls, the New Yorker takes
Jewish supremacy as a matter of course, as the way things should be, and
as the way they probably are elsewhere. The New Yorker is thus like a
native of the Balkans.
The Hylan administration, ostensibly non-Jewish, is really Jewish, as
any New York administration must necessarily be, except there should
arise a man whose ambition would be to prove that New York could be
better governed if the Jews should be excluded from the government.
Well-informed New Yorkers say that the power of Hylan is Hirschfield.
This is a rather peculiar situation to those who do not understand how
the Jewish leaders work. Directly you say the Hylan administration is
Jewish, it is objected: “But it is the arch-Jewish inquisitor,
Untermeyer, who is trying to break down the Hylan administration!”
Exactly. That is the game. It’s inside and outside that does it. There
is power gained in making them and there is power gained in breaking
them, and often it is profitable to try both ways with the same man.
That is the way Russia went: there were Jews plentifully sprinkled
throughout the government of Russia (in spite of the “persecution”) and
there were Jews outside. Between the two, they got Russia. It is the
same in a Texas city today. Four non-Jewish candidates for postmaster
were made the center of a political deadlock—up through the deadlock
pops a Jew as a compromise candidate for all sections. A sufficient
number of Jews were available in that city to keep all the non-Jewish
candidates in a deadlock until their own man was trotted out. The
“Gentile mind,” of course, does not easily realize these turnings and
twistings of group conspiracy. And that is why the Jews feel safe, as a
rule: they rely on what they call “Gentile stupidity.” The Gentile says,
“incredible!” And the traditional Jewish game is incredible, until by
mountainous proofs and centuries of illustration the actuality of it is
forced home to the mind.
But to return to the New York City government: The police department has
its Jewish streak in the higher offices—a Jewish police commissioner who
has fortunately escaped thus far the full story of his career. The
department of health, where it actually touches the people, is Jewish,
although occasionally a distinguished non-Jewish name meets the eye in
the roster of the higher officials. The public health is becoming more
and more a Jewish monopoly in all our cities. The department of
accounts, the board of child welfare, the board of inebriety, the
municipal service commission, the board of taxes and assessments, are
all under the leadership and domination of Jews.
The judiciary becomes increasingly Jewish, litigation is almost
overwhelmingly Jewish, and the consequences to the reputation of the
courts of justice and the profession of the law are well understood.
Real estate exploitation and speculation is strictly Jewish, the
profiteers treating even their own co-nationalists with the utmost
cruelty.
In short, New York’s most influential press (within New York) is the
Yiddish press; New York’s real government is the Yiddish Kehillah; New
York’s real administration of the law is the Yiddish administration; New
York’s real politics is Jewish. A little more, and New York’s official
language would be the Yiddish dialect.
In all this Tammany Hall is little more than a name; it is one of the
rallying centers which the Jews have left the non-Jew who still
interests himself in New York politics. There must be rallying places
for the non-Jews, and one or two do not hurt. The Jew has the double
advantage in such a matter, for while he claims equality with all, he
denies equality with any. That is, any Jew proclaims his right to join
any fraternity, or any club, or any society, or any party whose members
are chiefly non-Jewish, but where is the Jewish fraternity, or club, or
society that admits non-Jewish members? The newspapers carried the
report, after a certain occurrence, that hundreds of Jews had offered to
join the Knights of Columbus! It was very typical of Jewish character.
But let any non-Jew attempt to join the B’nai B’rith or the Hebrew Young
Men’s Association, or the Menorah Society, or any of the others: he will
see how far the principle of equality operates. “We want to be part of
yours, but we want our own for ourselves,” is the Jewish attitude.
So, politically, the New York Jew has the advantage. He belongs,
together with the non-Jew, to organizations like Tammany or the
Republican Club—but the non-Jew cannot with him belong to the Kehillah.
It is all so very familiar: the Jew insists on double everywhere. In the
Balkans he insists on a double citizenship. He insists on a double
protection. He insists on a double standard of education. He insists on
all his own religious rights as strenuously as he insists that all
Christian majority rights shall be stamped out in this country. He
insists that he shall have his Sabbath and that you shall not have
yours. He wants his own social rights and yours too—but he wants you to
have only your own and not his with it. It casts serious doubts on
Jewish intelligence that this course should be so seriously pursued, as
if on the one hand the humor of the “nerve,” and on the other hand the
disgusting impudence of it, had never appeared to his consciousness.
In New York, therefore, the Jew politically belongs twice, while all
non-Jews belong but once, and it can easily be perceived that this is an
advantage.
In the previous article it was rehearsed how Tammany besmirched its name
by association with Jews who used the organization as a protection for
their traffic in vice. This was in 1894. The revelations were so
terrible that in any other community they would have led to a complete
abolition of any possible chance of recovery, but as it was never made
plain to the people that the traffic in vice was not a sudden appearance
of rottenness among Americans, but was the normal activity of an alien
racial strain, the moral power of exposure was dissipated. The people
were left staggered by what they were allowed to believe about the
origin of the horror. People said it was Tammany because the press said
it was Tammany, and yet people could not understand how it could be
Tammany, and so in the midst of hesitancy the fire of reform burned out.
It was exactly like these days when we are told that “American business
men” abroad are doing terrible things; yet even while the press declares
them to be “American” we cannot understand how Americans could do such
things—and we never get the key to the matter, nor see the solution,
until we stumble on to the fact that these so-called “Americans” are not
Americans at all, but alien Jews. Over in Canada the name “American” is
becoming a stigma because it is borne by men who are not Americans. What
Canadians point out in the United States as definitely “American” is
mostly Jewish, but how are the Canadians to know? The national name
suffers. The whole cause of evil is camouflaged and a nation pays the
price of a racial group’s misdeeds. There should be some method of
protecting this forging of national names.
Thus Tammany became a synonym for what was not characteristically
Tammany at all, but what was characteristically Jewish.
The exposure of 1894 disclosed that vice was really a thing of cold
blood. Evil that springs from passion and impulse really amounts to far
less than is commonly supposed. It is when passion is deliberately
cultivated and impulse stimulated, that the great bulk of the world’s
social evil occurs. And this stimulation is undertaken in cold blood by
those who make profit out of providing the means of gratification—like
the old-fashioned bar keepers who served very salty free lunches to
stimulate the sale of beer.
This kind of vice is not a thing to be shamed by exposure as can be done
with involuntary vice, as it might be called. This cold-blooded
merchandising of human weakness was merely a matter of profits, and if
business had been interfered with by a Lexow Committee it was rather
unfortunate, but good business required that operations be resumed at
the earliest possible moment. And so, though the investigations of 1894
were successful and the exposure duly made, it was not to be expected
that mere oratory and printer’s ink would suffice to keep the serpent
down.
It was only seven years before scandal flamed again throughout the
length and breadth of New York, and strangely enough—strange enough in
all conscience for “Gentile fronts” of this day and generation to
heed!—it was found again that the traffic in evil and its ramifications
all over the land, and even to foreign countries, was in the hands of
Jews. There was no doubt about it. There was even no accident about it.
The fact was as continuous as it was colossal.
William Travers Jerome, then Justice of the Court of Special Sessions,
made in 1901 a ringing indictment of conditions in the city and used the
full power of his court to punish wrongdoers; he even went so far as to
specify individuals and political connections—but he did not mention the
keyword of it all, which was “Jew.” It was doubtless wise for him that
he did not, else he could not have enjoyed the subsequent political
career which came to him.
Tammany was defeated in the election of 1901. The defeat was due to the
same cause—the stigma of Jew-controlled vice traffic under political
protection.
It was at this time that Richard Croker “abdicated.” He was a rich man.
He sailed for Ireland, where he became a country squire on his Wantage
estate.
Public curiosity was fed the statement that Croker had selected Lewis
Nixon to be his successor, but this turn in Tammany’s career is too
important to be thus misstated. The truth is that _when Croker left he
surrendered Tammany to the Jews_.
Croker could confirm this if he would talk, if he should be permitted to
talk. It is, however, not well to have garrulous old men spilling the
secrets of other days. Croker in his age took a bride who is said to be
of “Indian descent,” and he has not been much in touch with his family
nor the public since.
Lewis Nixon was the convenient and perhaps unconscious “Gentile front.”
The real ruler of Tammany in Croker’s stead was Andrew Freedman,
mentioned in the former article as Croker’s friend and house mate.
(Judging from the habit of individual Jews to room with baseball players
before the baseball scandal, and the result of another Jew’s living with
Croker, it might be just as well to keep an eye on those other men who
are in positions to do favors or influence legislation, whose close
cronies happen to be Jews. Some of these friendships may indeed be
perfectly conceived; but there are numerous instances where the plans of
the “Jewish friend” are very completely matured through the agency of
the “Gentile chum.”)
So, upon the departure of Croker from these shores, we find Tammany
under the dictatorship of a Jew who was Croker’s chief influence, if not
his absolute master.
But by the time this occurred, it was useless for Tammany to rebel.
Tammany men who had noticed the infiltration of Jews and were alarmed by
it had consoled themselves with the thought that, at least, the higher
offices were immune from Jewish occupation. This consolation served only
to permit the filling of the lower offices by Jews, with less protest
from the membership. By the time the Jews were ready to permit Croker to
“abdicate,” they had permeated every part of the Wigwam and the
assumption of supreme control was thus made a simple matter. Croker
stepped aside; instantly into his place stepped the Jew, Freedman,
operating through Nixon.
It was too late for Tammany to remonstrate. Tammany could not protest
against the Wigwam _becoming_ Jewish, because the Wigwam already _was_
Jewish. To remonstrate then was to ruin Tammany. Becoming reconciled to
what seemed to be inevitable, Tammany leaders saw that their only hope
of survival came through preserving Jewish support.
Presently even Nixon was relegated to the background and Freedman issued
his orders directly. The Jews, however, with great astuteness continued
to make much of Nixon, because he was the last thin veil which concealed
the change which had come over Tammany, and he was valuable to that
extent. He was, unwillingly, perhaps, their puppet, but even puppets
must be accorded their proper dignity. Nixon was tendered a great
reception in 1902, but the influential men on the reception committee
were mostly Jews: Andrew Freedman was chairman; then followed the names
of Oliver H. P. Belmont, Max F. Ihmson, Samuel Untermeyer, Nathan
Straus, Randolph Guggenheimer, Henry M. Goldfogle, Herman Joseph, and
others.
On the executive committee of Tammany Hall at this time were Randolph
Guggenheimer, Isaac Fromme, Nathan Straus, Henry M. Goldfogle, O. H. P.
Belmont, and other Jews.
On the committee on law were Samuel Untermeyer, M. Warlet Platzek,
Abraham Levy, Henry W. Unger, Morris Cukor and Fred B. House.
Andrew Freedman had complete control of the committee on finance that
was nominally headed by Lewis Nixon.
Randolph Guggenheimer was president of the municipal council.
Ferdinand Levy was on the committee on resolutions and correspondence.
Jews had so spread themselves as to constitute a controlling group in
all the assembly districts that were under tribute to Tammany. In the
“Fighting Eighth” district, Martin Engel was leader. His chief aid was
“Manny” Eichner, chairman of the Isidor Cohn Association and of the
Young Men’s Democratic Association. His other assistants, Max J. Porges,
Max Levein, and Moe Levy were floor managers of the dances and balls of
the Florence Sullivan Association.
In the Tenth district, Simon Steingutt, “Mayor of Second Avenue,” was
one of the hardest workers in Tammany affairs.
Edward Mandell was the active Jewish Tammany man in the Twelfth
district.
In the Eighteenth district, Maurice Blumenthal was one of the principal
workers. He devoted his career chiefly to the training of Jewish
speakers for the Wigwam.
The Eighteenth district was known as “the Gashouse district,” notorious
for the Gashouse scandals over padded pay rolls, and here Charley Murphy
ruled, his aides being Julius Simon, Edward E. Slumasky, Joseph
Schlesinger, Leopold Worms, Hugo Siegel, Alfred B. Marx, Nathan
Fernbacher, and other Jews.
And so on through the list. Among the Sachems of the Tammany Society
there were to be found the wealthier and more socially exalted Jews.
However, the Jews made their cyclically recurring mistakes: they carried
things with too high a hand, and rebellion broke out. It is this Jewish
tendency to boast and overdo that has always given the game away.
Superficial observers and writers like John Spargo and Norman Hapgood
have observed the recurrent periods of protest against Jewish
presumption and bumptiousness and have explained them as being recurrent
spasms of a vile poison which is supposed to reside in the blood of the
Gentiles—the vile poison of anti-Semitism. That, of course, is the
conventional Jewish propagandist explanation, and Spargo and Hapgood are
merely retailing it. They say it always breaks out after wars. Why after
wars? Because in wars the world sees more clearly than at other times
the real purpose and personality of the Jew. Thus, it is not
anti-Semitism that breaks out—it is Semitism, gross and exaggerated
Semitism; and the serum that forms in the social body to encist and
control the germ of Semitism, comes in the form of public exposure and
protest. That serum is working now—the serum of publicity, and the
Jewish program cannot endure it. Study the history of all things
whatsoever into which Jews inject themselves, from summer resorts to
empires, and you see the same cycle appearing.
Thus it happened in Tammany Hall—“too much Jew” engendered revolt. Lewis
Nixon became aware of his position. As a gentleman of standing and
responsibility he could not continue in a position whose falsity had
become clear to him. When he accepted the leadership of Tammany Hall, it
was not with a purpose to continue the old order. His understanding was
that he was to be left free to restore Tammany to the plane of its
former serious purpose and respectable character. He discovered that he
was being used as the “respectable Gentile front” behind whose name the
Jews expected to carry on the old game. Therefore, in May, 1902, three
months after the great reception above mentioned, Nixon resigned as
leader of Tammany Hall. Doubtless the reception that was tendered him
was for the purpose of inducing him to love the exaltation of his
position so much that he would sacrifice its moral obligations.
Nixon accompanied his resignation with a speech in which he protested
that ever since he had accepted the leadership of Tammany he had been
hampered in his every action by a group headed by Andrew Freedman; they
dictated the names that were to be placed on the list of Sachems: “When
I rebelled, I found that at every turn I would be opposed by this
coterie of interferers; I found that all my important acts had to be
viséed before they could become effective.” He said he could no longer
retain his position and his self-respect; he had to give up one or the
other.
With this Mr. Nixon vanished from the scene of Tammany politics.
The resignation of Mr. Nixon had a bad effect on the reputation of
Tammany with the public. The plan had been to allow him to serve as long
as ordinarily and then replace him with a Jew by means of the usual
process of selection. But the resignation and the explanation that
accompanied it, showing as it did the Jewish influence in Tammany, made
it seem inadvisable to follow with a Jewish leader. So the district
leaders were obliged to find another “Gentile front,” only this time one
who would prove sufficiently docile. There was enough rankling disfavor
against the Jews in the old organization to warrant this observance of
appearances, at least.
The dictatorship of Freedman was seen to be a failure, much as the
dictatorship of Trotzky is seen to be a failure. A rearrangement of
committees automatically eliminated him from control, at the same time
the name of Croker was dropped. A triumvirate of leaders was chosen, of
whom Charles F. Murphy became and remains the chief. “Boss Murphy” he is
called. Mr. Murphy has been an ideal “front,” not attempting to do
anything, not attempting to interfere with the Jews doing anything,
keeping wisely silent and thereby gaining a reputation for silent
wisdom. Mr. Murphy is a millionaire. Those who do the higher Jewish
leaders’ bidding get their reward that way; there is no other reward
they can hope for; certainly they never have the reward of public
confidence and the people’s gratitude.
That is the status of Tammany Hall at the present time. A few of the Old
Guard are left at their posts, but they are officers in name only.
Tammany is no longer denounced by the public press, but the Jewish
leaders of Tammany live daily to a chorus of praise in the
Jewish-controlled newspapers of New York. Samuel Untermeyer, for
example, receives more publicity in New York than does the President of
the United States, but it is not discriminating publicity; it does not
penetrate to the inner purposes and consequences of his actions.
Those who were the lesser Jewish lieutenants of Tammany a few years ago
have now arrived at posts of influence and affluence. Morris Cukor was
made president of the municipal service commission, to be succeeded by
former State Senator Abraham Kaplan. Fred B. House rose to be a city
magistrate. The city marshals are mostly Jewish. Jews predominate in the
College of the City of New York. Jews control the municipal courts, the
city magistrates’ courts, the city court, the New York state court of
appeals, the New York state supreme court. They rule in the departments
enumerated in the fore part of this article. The New York judiciary has
a distinctly Semitic complexion.
The leadership of the Tammany-controlled districts tells the same story.
In the second, the leader is M. S. Levine; in the Sixth, David Lazarus;
in the Eighth, S. Goldenkranz, F. Bauman and S. Salinger; in the Ninth,
Mrs. P. Lau, in the Seventeenth, Nathan Burkan—and so on.
The Jewish conquest of Tammany, however, is only one phase of the
conquest of New York. The Jewish objective is more than political.
Merely to strive that the lucrative and powerful officers of the city
shall fall to their people, is not the end in view. New York has been
turned into the Red Center of America. There most of the alien treason
carried on against the government of the United States has its source.
The United States Government has been compelled at times to regard New
York as almost alien soil, but even that watchfulness on the part of the
national government is relaxed as Jewish influence becomes more potent
at Washington. Tammany is a convenient cover for ostensible political
activity as the Kehillah is for the more radical racial and
anti-American racial activity. The United States Government could not do
better than to investigate—through a committee of invulnerable
Americans—the Jewish activities of that center. And that there is much
to investigate is indicated by the rush of Jews to Washington when it
was recently proposed in the United States Senate that such a thing be
done.
——
Issue of October 1, 1921.
LV.
B’nai B’rith Leader Discusses the Jews
To the pro-Jewish spokesmen who have filled the air with cries of “lies”
and “slander,” to those self-appointed guardians of “American ideals”
who rule out with rare finality all those who would dare suggest that
possibly there is a hidden side of the Jewish Question, it must come as
something of a jolt to be reminded that in this series there is scarcely
a line that is without high Jewish authority.
The Protocols themselves are written for centuries in Jewish
authoritative teachings and records. All the plans that have been
described from time to time in these articles are written in the
fundamental laws of the Jews. And all that the ancients have taught, the
modern Jews have reaffirmed.
The writer of these articles has had to take constant counsel of
prudence in his selection of material, for the Jews have always counted
confidently on the fact that if the whole truth were told in one
comprehensive utterance, no one would believe it. Thus, bigots and minds
bursting with the discoveries they have made, have never been feared by
the Jews. They counted on the incapacity of the non-Jews to believe or
receive certain knowledge. They know that facts are not accepted on
proof, but only on understanding. Non-Jews cannot understand why human
beings should lend themselves to certain courses. They are, however,
beginning to understand, and the proof is therefore becoming more
significant.
There are yet more important revelations to be made, always following
closely the best Jewish sources, and when these revelations are made, it
will be impossible for the Jewish leaders to keep silent or to deny. The
time is coming for American Jewry to slough off the leadership which has
led it and left it in the bog. Leadership knows that. Indeed, it is
amazing to discover the number of indications that the attempts made to
suppress THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT have been made principally _to prevent
the Jews reading it_. The leaders do not care how many non-Jews read
these articles; but they do not desire their own people to read them.
The Jewish leaders do not desire their people’s eyes to be opened.
Why? Because, just now, only Jews can truly know whether the statements
made in these articles are true or not. Non-Jews may know here and
there, as their observations may confirm the printed statements. But
informed Jews really _know_. And large numbers of the masses of the Jews
really know. When they see the truth in all its relationships in these
articles, the hitherto “led” Jew may not be so tractable. Hence the
effort to keep the non-Jewish point of view away from him.
In support of the statements that these articles have been based on
Jewish authority, we quote today a series of declarations by one of the
most able of the presidents of the B’nai B’rith, Leo N. Levi. Mr. Levi
was American-born and died in 1904. He was a lawyer of distinction and
attained the presidency of the international Jewish order, B’nai B’rith,
in 1900. He took part in the international politics of his people and is
credited with collaborating with Secretary of State John Hay on several
important matters. The utterances here quoted were for the most made
while he was president of B’nai B’rith, but all of them were published
the year after his death under B’nai B’rith auspices. There is therefore
no question of their Jewishness.
Non-Jewish defenders of the Jewish program have pretended to much
indignation because of references that have been made to the Oriental
character of certain Jewish manifestations. The references in these
articles have been two in number, once regarding Oriental sensuality as
it has been introduced to the American stage by Jewish theatrical
panderers, and again in quoting Disraeli, the Jew who became premier of
Britain, to the effect that the Jews—his people—were “Mosaic Arabs.”
But it never seemed to have occurred to Leo N. Levi to deny the Oriental
character of his race. Instead, he asserted it. On page 104 of the B’nai
B’rith memorial, he excuses certain social crudities of the Jew on the
ground “that hailing originally from the Orient and having been
compelled for twenty centuries to live in a society of his own, he has
preserved in his tastes much that is characteristically Oriental.” Again
on page 116, he excused the multiplicity of religious rites as being due
to the fact that the Jew “drew upon his Oriental imagination for a
symbolism that appealed to his ideal emotions.” On page 312, he speaks
of the Jews’ “Oriental devotion to their parents.” This easy recognition
of the fact is commended to those bootlicking editors who, out of the
vastness of their ignorance of the Jewish Question, have seen in the
reference to Orientalism an “insult” to the Jews and an unfailing
indication of anti-Semitism.
The Jewish Question! Ah, that is another point which pro-Jewish
spokesmen hasten to deny, but they will be somewhat disturbed by the
candor with which true Jewish spokesmen admit the Question.
In a strong passage on page 101, Mr. Levi says:
“If I have dwelt so long upon this subject, it is because I recognize
that if the Jew has been denied so much that is rightfully his, he often
claims more than is his due. One of these claims, most persistently
urged, is that there is no Jewish Question; that a Jew is a citizen like
any other citizen and that as long as he abides by the law and does not
subject himself to criminal prosecution or civil action, his doings are
beyond legitimate inquiry by the public at large.
“This contention on his part would certainly be well based if he claimed
nothing further than the right to live in peace, but when he demands
social recognition the whole range of his conduct is a legitimate
subject of inquiry against which no technical demurrers can be
interposed ... nor must the Jew be over-sensitive about the inquiry.
“The inconsistencies and the unwisdom exhibited in the consideration of
the Jewish Question are not to be found altogether on the side of those
who are hostile to the Jews.”
“Since then the refugees from Russia, Galicia and Rumania have raised
the Jewish Question to commanding importance. Since then it has dawned
on the world that _we are witnessing another exodus which promises soon
to change the habitat of the Jews to the Western Hemisphere_.” (Page 59)
“The Jewish Question cannot be solved by tolerance. There are thousands
of well-meaning people who take to themselves great credit for
exhibiting a spirit of tolerance toward the Jews.” (Page 98)
Mr. Levi also lays down rules for “the study of the Jewish Question,”
and he says that if they were followed the result “would be startling at
once to the Jews and the general public.” (Page 93) How far present
Jewish leadership has departed from that frank and broad view taken by
Mr. Levi, is everywhere evident.
Not that Mr. Levi was a critic of his people, but he was a lawyer who
was accustomed to weighing facts, and he saw facts that weighed against
his people. But he was pro-Jewish even in his most severe observations.
He could make an attack on the rabbis, taunting them with the saying
that “many of you are ‘rabbis for revenue only,’” but he could also
insist on Jewish solidarity and exclusiveness.
In this connection it may be interesting to see how strongly Mr. Levi
supports the contention of Jewish leaders (as outlined in THE DEARBORN
INDEPENDENT of October 9 and 16, 1920) that the Jews are a _race_ and
not merely a _religion_, a nation and not merely a church, and that the
term “Jew” is biological rather than theological. This is specially
commended to the attention of those dim-minded shouters of “religious
prejudice,” who come into action whenever the Jewish Question is
mentioned. (Of “religious prejudice” there are many examples to give in
future articles.)
“Certain it is that thus far the race and the religion have been so
fused, as it were, that none can say just where the one begins and the
other leaves off.” (Page 116)
Attacking the contention of the “liberals” or “reformed Jews” to the
effect that “Jew” is the name of a member of religious denomination, and
not of a member of a certain race, Mr. Levi says:
“Nothing to my mind is more pregnant with error than this postulate of
unreason. (Page 185) It is not true that the Jews are only Jews because
of their religion.” (Page 189)
“The Jews are not simply an indiscriminate lot of people who hold to a
common belief.” (Page 190)
“A native Eskimo, an American Indian might conscientiously adopt every
tenet of the Jewish church, might practice every form and ceremony
imposed by the Jewish laws and the Jewish ritual, and as far as the
religion is concerned, be a Jew, but yet, no one who will reflect for a
moment would class them with the Jews as a people. If the truth were
known, a very large percentage of so-called Christians would be found to
be believers in the essentials of the Jewish religion, and yet, they are
not Jews.
“It requires not only that men should believe in Judaism, but that they
should be the descendants in a direct line of that people who enjoyed a
temporal government and who owned a country up to the time of the
destruction of the second commonwealth.
“That great event took away from the Jews their country and their
temporal government; it scattered them over the face of the earth, _but
it did not destroy the national and race idea_ which was a part of their
nature and of their religion.”
“Who shall say, then, that the Jews are no longer a race?... Blood is
the basis and sub-stratum of the race idea, and no people on the face of
the globe can lay claim with so much right to purity of blood, and unity
of blood, as the Jews.”
“If I have reasoned to any purpose, the inquiry of rights in the
premises is not to be limited to Jews as exponents of a particular
creed, but _to the Jews as a race_.” (Pages 190–191)
“The religion alone does not constitute the people. As I have already
maintained, a believer in the Jewish faith does not by reason of that
fact become a Jew. On the other hand, however, _a Jew by birth remains a
Jew, even though he abjures his religion_.” (Page 200)
This is the view of such men as Justice Brandeis, the Jew who sits on
the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Brandeis says, “Let us
all recognize that we Jews are a distinct nationality _of which every
Jew, whatever his country, his station, his shade of belief, is
necessarily a member_.”
Believing all this, Mr. Levi subscribes to the Jewish law and practice
of exclusiveness.
Describing the state of the Jews, Mr. Levi says (page 92): “The Jews
have not materially increased or diminished in numbers for 2,000 years.
They have made no proselytes to their religion.... They have imbibed the
arts, the literature and the civilization of successive generations, but
have abstained very generally from intermixture of blood.... They have
infused their blood into that of other peoples but have taken little of
other peoples into their own.”
As to intermarriage between the Jew and non-Jew, Mr. Levi calls it
miscegenation. “In remote countries, sparsely populated, the choice may
lie between such marriages and a worse relation.” Those are his words on
page 249. He does not advise the worse relation, but he has said quite
enough to indicate the Jewish view of the case. He continues:
“It seems clear to me that Jews should avoid marriages with Gentiles and
Gentiles with Jews, _upon the same principle that we avoid marrying the
insane, the consumptive, the scrofulitic or the Negro_.” (Page 249)
This exclusiveness goes down through all human relations. The Jew has
one counsel for non-Jews and another for himself in these matters. Of
the non-Jew he demands as a right what he looks down upon as shady
privilege. He uses the Ghetto as a club with which to bludgeon the
non-Jew for his “bigotry,” when as a fact he chooses the Ghetto for
well-defined racial reasons. He condemns the non-Jew for the exclusion
of the Jew from certain sections of society, when as a Jew his whole
care is to keep himself unspotted from that very society to which he
seeks entrance. The Jew insists on breaking down non-Jewish
exclusiveness while keeping his own. The non-Jewish world is to be
public and common, the Jewish world is to be kept sacrosanct. Read the
teachings of this enlightened leader of Jewry as published by the B’nai
B’rith.
He favors the public school for non-Jewish children, not for Jewish
children; they are to be kept separate; they are the choice stock of the
earth:
“Because the government tenders free education, it does not follow that
it must be accepted; if education be made compulsory, it does not follow
that government schools must be attended.... As a citizen I favor free
schools, because the education they afford, imperfect as it is, is
better than none, and society is benefited thereby; but as an individual
I prefer to pay to support free schools and send my children to more
select places.” (Page 253) He speaks of the fact that “all classes of
children frequent the public schools” as an argument against Jewish
children going there.
“In my judgment, Jewish children should be educated in Jewish schools.”
(page 254) “Not only is it a positive and direct advantage to educate
our children as Jews, but it is absolutely necessary to our
preservation. Experience has shown that our young people will be weaned
from our people if allowed indiscriminately to associate with the
Gentiles.” (Page 255)
Discussing the possibility of Jews losing their crudeness, Mr. Levi
asks, “How shall we best accomplish that end?” Then he quotes the
frequent answer: “Since the exemplars of gentility most abound among the
Gentiles, we should associate with them as much as possible, in order to
wear our own rudeness away.” He meets the suggestion this way:
“If gentlemen were willing to meet all Jews on a parity because they are
Jews, we should doubtless derive much benefit from such association.
But, while it is true that no gentleman refuses association with another
because that other is a Jew, he will not, as a rule, associate with a
Jew unless he be a gentleman. As we are far from being all gentlemen, we
cannot reasonably expect to be admitted as a class into good society.
So, better keep by ourselves,” concludes Mr. Levi. (Page 260)
That is, Mr. Levi admits the willingness of society to meet Jews on
equal terms, as with all others, but not on unequal terms. And this
being so, Mr. Levi holds they had better meet as little as possible,
they had better keep apart; in the formative years, certainly, Jewish
young people should be kept rigidly apart from non-Jews. The
exclusiveness of which the Jews complain is their own. The Ghetto is not
a corner into which the non-Jews have herded the Semites; the Ghetto is
a spot carved out of the community and consecrated to the Chosen People
and is therefore the best section of the city in Jewish eyes, the rest
being “the Christian quarter,” the area of the heathen. Mr. Levi himself
admits on page 220 that there is no prejudice against the Jew in this
country.
Certain wild-eyed objectors to the series of studies on the Jewish
Question have made the assertion that THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT has
declared cowardice to be a Jewish trait. That the statement is false as
regards this paper does not change the fact that the subject has been
generally discussed in and out of army circles. If it ever becomes
necessary to discuss it in these studies, the facts will be set forth as
far as they are obtainable. But the point just now is that Mr. Levi has
had somewhat to say which may repay reading:
“Physical courage has always been an incident, not an element, of Jewish
character. It has no independent existence in their make-up, and always
depended on something else. With some exceptions this may be said of all
Oriental people. The sense and fear of danger is highly developed in
them, and there is no cultivation of that indifference to it which has
distinguished the great nations of Western Europe.” (Page 205)
Were a non-Jew to call attention to this difference between the Jews and
others, he would be met with the cry of “anti-Semitism” and he would be
twitted with the fact that all his relatives may not have served in the
war. Loudest to twit him would be those who served in what our soldiers
called “the Jewish infantry,” the quartermaster’s corps in the late
National Army.
It is to this aversion to danger, however, that Mr. Levi attributes the
Jews’ greatness among the nations. Other nations can fight, the Jews can
endure, and that, he says, is greater. Note his words (the italics are
his own):
“Other nations may boast conquests and triumphs born of aggression, but
though the fruits of victory have been manifold, they have not been
enduring; and it may be truly said that the nation whose greatness grows
out of valor passes through the stages of discord and degeneracy to
decay.... In the virtue of endurance I believe the Jews have a safeguard
against the decay that has marked the history of all other peoples.”
It appears, therefore, that the draft-dodger, if he can _endure_ long
enough, may yet come to own the country.
Jewish leaders have lately tried to minimize as “wild words” the
disclosures made by Disraeli with reference to the Jews’ participation
in European revolutions. What Disraeli said can be found in his
“Coningsby,” or in the quotations made therefrom in THE DEARBORN
INDEPENDENT of December 18, 1920. With reference to the German
Revolution of 1848, Disraeli wrote—before it had taken place:
“You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which
the Jews do not greatly participate.... That mysterious Russian
Diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organized and
principally carried on by Jews. That mighty revolution, which is at
this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a
second and greater Reformation, and of which so little is yet known
in England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews.”
It is interesting, therefore, to hear Mr. Levi confirming from the
American side those significant statements made by Disraeli.
“The revolution of 1848 in Germany, however, influenced a great many
highly educated Jews to come to America.” (Page 181) “It is unnecessary
to review the events of 1848; suffice it to say, that not a few among
the revolutionists were Jews, and that a considerable number of those
who were proscribed by the government at home, fled to the United States
for safety.” (Page 182) These German Jews are now the arch-financiers of
the United States. They found here complete liberty to exploit peoples
and nations to the full extent of their powers. They still maintain
their connections with Frankfort-on-the-Main, the world capital of
International financial Jewry.
With these quotations from the speeches and writings of Leo N. Levi, a
famous president of the B’nai B’rith, it would seem to be a fair
question as to the reason for the denial and denunciation which have
followed the making of these statements in the course of this series of
studies. Leo N. Levi studied the Jewish Question because he knew a
Jewish Question to exist. He knew that the Jewish Question was not a
non-Jewish creation but appeared wherever Jews began to appear in
numbers. They brought it with them. He knew the justice of many of the
charges laid against the Jews. He knew the impossibility of disproving
them, the futility of shrieking “anti-Semitism” at them. He knew,
moreover, that for the Jews to solve the Jewish Question by departing
from the peculiar racial traditions of superiority, would be to cease to
be Jews. Therefore, he threw his whole influence on the side of the Jews
remaining separate, maintaining their tradition of The Chosen Race,
looking upon themselves as the coming rulers of the nations, and there
he left the Question just about where he found it.
But in the course of his studies he gave other investigators the benefit
of his frank statements. He did not put lies into the mouths of his
people. He was not endeavoring to maintain himself in position by
prejudiced racial appeals. He looked certain facts in the face, made his
report, and chose his side. Several times in the course of his argument,
his very logic led him up to the point where, logically, he would have
to cast aside his Jewish idea of separateness. But with great calmness
he discarded the logic and clung to the Jewish tradition. For example:
“The better to facilitate such happiness in every country and in every
age, various kinds of organizations have existed as they exist today.
The Jews have theirs.
“For many reasons they are exclusive. In theory they should not be so.
In our social organizations we should, in deference to the argument
which I have already named, admit any congenial and worthy Gentile who
honors us with his application. But what may be theoretically correct
may be found practically wrong. It certainly is a wrong to exclude a
worthy person because he does not happen to be a Jew; but on the other
hand, where are you to draw the line?”
This is frankness to a fault. Of course, it is wrong, but the right is
impractical! Logic goes by the boards in the face of something stronger.
Mr. Levi is not to be blamed for having gone to his tribe. Every man’s
place is with his tribe. The criticism belongs to the lick-spittle
Gentile Fronts who have no tribe and become hangers-on around the
outskirts of Judah, racial mongrels who would be better off if they had
one-thousandth of the racial sense which the Jew possesses.
This brief survey of the philosophy which Mr. Levi both lived and
taught, and which is shared by the leaders of American Jewry, is in
strict agreement with Jewish principles all down the centuries. In his
published addresses Mr. Levi does not touch upon all the implications of
the separateness which he enjoins upon his nation. Why do they keep by
themselves? What is it that keeps them distinct? Is it their religion?
Very well; let us regard them as a sect of religious recluses and wish
them well in their endeavors to keep themselves unspotted of the world.
Is it their race? So their leaders teach. Race and nationality are
strictly claimed. If this is so, there must be a political outlook. What
is it? Palestine? Not that any one can notice. A great deal may be read
about it in the newspapers, the newspapers in turn being supplied
through the Associated Press with the Jewish Telegraph Agency’s
propaganda dispatches; but no one in Palestine notices the Land becoming
more Jewish. Jewry’s political outlook is world rule in the material
sense. Jewry is an international nation. It is this, and nothing else,
which gives significance to its financial, educational, propagandist,
revolutionary and immigration programs.
——
Issue of May 14, 1921.
LVI.
Dr. Levy, a Jew, Admits His People’s Error
A Jew of standing, Dr. Oscar Levy, well known in English literary
circles and lover of his people, has had the honesty and the wisdom to
meet the Jewish Question with truth and candor. His remarks are printed
in this article as an example of the methods by which Jewry can be saved
in the estimation of Twentieth Century Civilization.
The circumstances were these: George Pitt-Rivers, of Worcester College,
Oxford, wrote a most illuminating brochure entitled, “The World
Significance of the Russian Revolution,” which is published and sold for
two shillings by Basil Blackwell, Oxford. The book is the result of
unprejudiced observation and study and agrees with the statements made
in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT about the personnel of Bolshevism. The
manuscript was sent to Dr. Oscar Levy, as a representative Jew, and Dr.
Levy’s letter was subsequently published as a preface to the book.
That the reader may understand the tenor of Mr. Pitt-Rivers’s book,
section XVI, pp. 39–41, is herewith given in full, and is followed by
Dr. Levy’s comments. The italics throughout are intended to remind the
reader of remarks on similar lines made in this series:
It is not unnaturally claimed by Western Jews that Russian Jewry, as a
whole, is most bitterly opposed to Bolshevism. Now although there is a
great measure of truth in this claim, since the prominent Bolsheviks,
who are preponderantly Jewish, do not belong to the orthodox Jewish
Church, it is yet possible, without laying oneself open to the charge of
anti-Semitism, to point to the obvious fact that Jewry, _as a whole_,
has, consciously or _unconsciously_, worked for and promoted an
international economic, material despotism which, with Puritanism as an
ally, has tended in an ever-increasing degree to crush national and
spiritual values out of existence and substitute the ugly and deadening
machinery of finance and factory. It is also a fact that Jewry, as a
whole, strove every nerve to secure and heartily approved of the
overthrow of the Russian monarchy, which they regarded as their most
formidable obstacle in the path of their ambitions and business
pursuits. All this may be admitted, as well as the plea that,
individually or collectively, most Jews may heartily detest the
Bolshevik régime, yet it is still true that the whole weight of Jewry
was in the revolutionary scales against the czar’s government. It is
true their apostate brethren, who are now riding in the seat of power,
may have exceeded their orders; that is disconcerting, but it does not
alter the fact. It may be that the Jews, often the victims of their own
idealism, have always been instrumental in bringing about the events
they most heartily disapprove of; that perhaps is the curse of the
Wandering Jew.
Certainly it is from the Jews themselves that we learn most about the
Jews. It is possible that only a Jew can understand a Jew. Nay, more, it
may be that only a Jew can save us from the Jews, a Jew who is great
enough, strong enough—for greater racial purity is a source of strength
in the rare and the great—and inspired enough to overcome in himself the
life-destructive vices of his own race. It was a Jew who said, “Wars are
the Jews’ harvest”; but no harvest so rich as civil wars. A Jew reminds
us that the French Revolution brought civil emancipation for the Jews in
Western Europe. Was it a _Jew_ who inspired Rousseau with the eighteenth
century idea of the sameness of man according to nature? Dr. Kallen, a
Zionist author, writes: “Suffering for 1,000 years from the assertion of
their difference from the rest of mankind, they accepted eagerly the
escape from suffering which the eighteenth century assertion of the
sameness of all men opened to them.... They threw themselves with
passion into the republican emancipating movements of their fellow
subjects of other stocks.” It was a Jew, Ricardo, who gave us the
nineteenth century ideal of the sameness of man according to machinery.
And without the Ricardian gospel of international capitalism, we could
not have had the international gospel of Karl Marx. Moses Hess and
Disraeli remind us of the particularly conspicuous part played by Jews
in the Polish and Hungarian rebellions, and in the republican uprising
in Germany of ’48. Even more conspicuous were they in the new
internationalism logically deducible from the philosophy of Socialism.
This we were taught by the Jew Marx, and the Jew Ferdinand Lasalle, and
they but developed the doctrine of the Jew David Ricardo.
It was Weininger, a Jew—and also a Jew hater—who explained why so many
Jews are naturally Communists. Communism is not only an international
creed, but it implies the abnegation of real property, especially
property in land, and Jews, being international, have never acquired a
taste for real property; they prefer money. Money is an instrument of
power, though eventually, of course, Communists claim that they will do
away with money—when their power is sufficiently established to enable
them to command goods, and exercise despotic sway without it. Thus the
same motives prompt the Jew Communist and his apparent enemy, the
financial Jew. When owners of real property in times of economic
depression feel the pinch of straightened circumstances, it is the
Jewish usurers who become most affluent and who, out of goodness of
their hearts, come to their assistance—at a price.
To these and other statements, Dr. Levy, as a Jew, made this reply:
Dear Mr. Pitt-Rivers:
When you first handed me your MS. on _The World Significance of the
Russian Revolution_, you expressed a doubt about the propriety of its
title. After a perusal of your work, I can assure you, with the best of
consciences, that your misgivings were entirely without foundation.
No better title than _The World Significance of the Russian Revolution_
could have been chosen, for no event in any age will finally have more
significance for our world than this one. We are still too near to see
clearly this Revolution, this portentous event, _which was certainly one
of the most intimate and therefore least obvious, aims of the
world-conflagration, hidden as it was at first by the fire and smoke of
national enthusiasms and patriotic antagonisms_.
It was certainly very plucky of you to try and throw some light upon an
event which necessarily must still be enveloped in mist and mystery, and
I was even somewhat anxious, lest your audacity in treating such a
dangerous subject would end in failure, or what is nearly the same, in
ephemeral success. No age is so voracious of its printed offspring as
ours. There was thus some reason to fear lest you had offered to this
modern Kronos only another mouthful of his accustomed nourishment for
his immediate consumption.
I was, I am glad to report, agreeably surprised—surprised, though not by
the many new facts which you give, and which must surprise all those who
take an interest in current events—facts, I believe, which you have
carefully and personally collected and selected, not only from books,
but from the lips and letters of Russian eye-witnesses and sufferers,
from foes as well as from friends of the great Revolution.
What I appreciate more than this new light thrown on a dark subject,
more than the conclusion drawn by you from this wealth of facts, is the
psychological insight which you display in _detecting the reasons why a
movement so extraordinarily bestial and so violently crazy as the
Revolution was able to succeed and finally to overcome its adversaries_.
For we are confronted with two questions which need answering and which,
in my opinion, you have answered in your pamphlet. These questions are:
(1) How has the Soviet Government, _admittedly the government of an
insignificant minority_, succeeded not only in maintaining but in
strengthening its position in Russia after two and a half years of
power? and (2) Why has the Soviet Government, in spite of its outward
bestiality and brutal tyranny, succeeded in gaining the sympathies of an
increasing number of people in this country?...
You rightly recognize that there is an ideology behind it and you
clearly diagnose it as an ancient ideology. There is nothing new under
the Sun, _it is even nothing new that this Sun rises in the East_....
For Bolshevism is a religion and a faith. How could these half-converted
believers ever dream to vanquish the “Truthful” and the “Faithful” of
their own creed, these holy crusaders, who had gathered round the Red
Standard of the Prophet Karl Marx, and who fought under the daring
guidance of _these experienced officers of all latter-day
revolutions—the Jews_?
I am touching here on a subject which, to judge from your own pamphlet,
is perhaps more interesting to you than any other. In this you are
right. _There is no race in the world more enigmatic, more fatal, and
therefore more interesting than the Jews._
_Every writer, who, like yourself, is oppressed by the aspect of the
present and embarrassed by his anxiety for the future, MUST try to
elucidate the Jewish Question and its bearing upon our Age._
_For the question of the Jews and their influence on the world past and
present, cuts to the root of all things, and should be discussed by
every honest thinker, however bristling with difficulties it is, however
complex the subject as well as the individuals of this Race may be._
For the Jews, as you are aware, are a sensitive Community, and thus very
suspicious of any Gentile who tries to approach them with a critical
mind. They are always inclined—and that on account of their terrible
experiences—to denounce anyone who is not with them as against them, as
tainted with “medieval” prejudice, as an intolerant Antagonist of their
Faith and of their Race.
Nor could or would I deny that there is some evidence, some prima facie
evidence of this antagonistic attitude in your pamphlet. You point out,
and with fine indignation, _the great danger that springs from the
prevalence of Jews in finance and industry, and from the preponderance
of Jews in rebellion and revolution_. You reveal, and with great fervor,
_the connection between the Collectivism of the immensely rich
international Finance_—the Democracy of cash values, as you call it—_and
the international Collectivism of Karl Marx and Trotsky_—the Democracy
of and by decoy-cries.... And all this evil and misery, the economic as
well as the political, you trace back to one source, to one “_fons et
origo malorum_”—the Jews.
Now other Jews may vilify and crucify you for these outspoken views of
yours; I myself shall abstain from joining the chorus of condemnation! I
shall try to understand your opinions and your feelings, and having once
understood them—as I think I have—I can defend you from the unjust
attacks of my often too impetuous Race. But first of all, I have to say
this: _There is scarcely an event in modern Europe that cannot be traced
back to the Jews. Take the Great War that appears to have come to an
end, ask yourself what were its causes and its reasons: you will find
them in nationalism. You will at once answer that nationalism has
nothing to do with the Jews, who, as you have just proved to us, are the
inventors of the international idea._ But no less than Bolshevist
Ecstasy and Financial Tyranny can National Bigotry (if I may call it so)
_be finally followed back to a Jewish source_—are not they the inventors
of the Chosen People Myth, and is not this obsession part and parcel of
the political credo of every modern nation, _however small and
insignificant it may be_? And then think of the history of nationalism.
It started in our time and as a reaction against Napoleon; Napoleon was
the antagonist of the French Revolution; the French Revolution was the
consequence of the German Reformation; the German Reformation was based
upon a crude Christianity; this kind of Christianity was invented,
preached and propagated by the Jews; THEREFORE the Jews have made this
war!... Please do not think this a joke; it only seems a joke, and
behind it there lurks a gigantic truth, and it is this, _that all
latter-day ideas and movements have originally sprung from a Jewish
source_, for the simple reason, that the Semitic idea has finally
conquered and entirely subdued this _only apparently irreligious
universe of ours_.
... There is no doubt that the Jews regularly go one better or worse
than the Gentile in whatever they do, there is no further doubt that
_their influence today justifies a very careful scrutiny, and cannot
possibly be viewed without serious alarm_. The great question, however,
is whether the Jews are conscious or unconscious malefactors; I myself
am firmly convinced that they are unconscious ones, but please do not
think that I wish to exonerate them on that account.... A conscious
evildoer has my respect, for he knows at least what is good; an
unconscious one—well, he needs the charity of Christ—a charity which is
not mine—to be forgiven for not knowing what he is doing. But there is
in my firm conviction not the slightest doubt that these revolutionary
Jews do not know what they are doing; that they are more unconscious
sinners than voluntary evildoers.
I am glad to see that this is not an original observation of mine, but
that you yourself have a very strong foreboding about the Jews being the
victims of their own theories and principles. On page 39 of your
pamphlet you write: “It may be that the Jews have always been
instrumental in bringing about the events that they most heartily
disapprove of; that maybe is the curse of the Wandering Jew.” If I had
not the honor, as well as the pleasure, of knowing you personally, if I
were not strongly aware of your passionate desire for light and your
intense loathing of unfairness, this sentence, and this sentence alone,
which tells the truth, will absolve you in my eyes from the odious
charge of being a vulgar anti-Semite.
No, you are not a vulgar, you are a very enlightened, critic of our
Race. _For there is an anti-Semitism, I hope and trust, which does the
Jews more justice than any blind philo-Semitism_, than does that merely
sentimental “Let-them-all-come Liberalism” which in itself is nothing
but the Semitic Ideology over again. _And thus you can be just to the
Jews, without being “romantic” about them._
You have noticed with alarm that the _Jewish elements provide the
driving forces for both Communism and capitalism_, for the material as
well as the spiritual ruin of this world. But then you have at the same
time the profound suspicion that the reason of all this extraordinary
behavior may be the intense Idealism of the Jew. In this you are
perfectly right. The Jew, if caught by an idea, never thinks any more in
watertight compartments, as do the Teuton and Anglo-Saxon peoples, whose
right cerebral hemisphere never seems to know what its left twin brother
is doing; he, the Jew, like the Russian, at once begins to practice what
he preaches, he draws the logical conclusion from his tenets, he
invariably acts upon his accepted principles. It is from this quality,
no doubt, that springs his mysterious force—that force which you no
doubt condemn, but which you had to admire even in the Bolshevists. And
we must admire it, whether we are Jews or whether we are Christians, for
have not these modern Jews remained true to type, is there no parallel
for them in history, do they not go to the bitter end even in our
day?...
Who stirred up the people during the late war in Germany? Who pretended
to have again the truth, _that_ truth about which Pontius Pilate once
shrugged his shoulders? Who pleaded for honesty and cleanliness in
Politics, _that_ honesty which brings a smile to the lips of any
experienced Pro-consul of today? Writers, who were mostly Jews: Fried,
Fernau, Latzko, Richard Grelling—the author of “J’accuse.” Who was
killed and allowed himself to be killed for these very ideas and
principles? Men and women of the Jewish Race: Haase, Levine, Luxemburg,
Landauer, Kurt Eisner, the Prime Minister of Bavaria. From Moses to
Marx, from Isaiah to Eisner, in practice and in theory, in idealism and
in materialism, in philosophy and in politics, they are today what they
have always been: passionately devoted to their aims and to their
purposes, and ready, nay, eager, to shed their last drop of blood for
the realization of their visions.
“But these visions are all wrong,” will you reply.... “Look where they
have led the world to. Think, that they have now had a fair trial of
3,000 years’ standing. How much longer are you going to recommend them
to us and to inflict them upon us? And how do you propose to get us out
of the morass into which you have launched us, if you do not change the
path upon which you have led the world so disastrously astray?”
To this question I have only one answer to give, and it is this: “You
are right.” This reproach of yours, which—I feel it for certain—is at
the bottom of your anti-Semitism, is only too well justified, and upon
this common ground I am quite willing to shake hands with you and defend
you against any accusation of promoting Race Hatred: _If you are
anti-Semite, I, the Semite, am an anti-Semite too, and a much more
fervent one than even you are.... We (Jews) have erred, my friend, we
have most grievously erred. And if there was truth in our error 3,000,
2,000, nay, 100 years ago, there is now nothing but falseness and
madness, a madness that will produce an even greater misery and an even
wider anarchy. I confess it to you, openly and sincerely, and with a
sorrow, whose depth and pain an ancient Psalmist, and only he, could
moan into this burning universe of ours.... We who have posed as the
saviours of the world, we who have even boasted of having given it “the”
Saviour, we are today nothing else but the world’s seducers, its
destroyers, its incendiaries, its executioners...._ We who have promised
to lead you to a new Heaven, we have finally succeeded in landing you
into a new Hell.... There has been no progress, least of all moral
progress.... And it is just our Morality, which has prohibited all real
progress, and—what is worse—which even stands in the way of every future
and natural reconstruction in this ruined world of ours.... I look at
this world, and I shudder at its ghastliness; I shudder all the more as
I know the spiritual authors of all this ghastliness....
But its authors themselves, unconscious in this as in all they are
doing, know nothing yet of this startling revelation. _While Europe is
aflame, while its victims scream, while its dogs howl in the
conflagration, and while its very smoke descends in darker and even
darker shades upon our Continent, the Jews, or at least a part of them
and by no means the most unworthy ones, endeavor to escape from the
burning building, and wish to retire from Europe into Asia, from the
somber scene of our disaster into the sunny corner of their Palestine.
Their eyes are closed to the miseries, their ears are deaf to the
moanings, their heart is hardened to the anarchy of Europe: they only
feel their own sorrows, they only bewail their own fate, they only sigh
under their own burdens...._ They know nothing of their duty to Europe,
which looks around in vain for help and guidance, they know nothing even
of their own great ancestor to whose heart the appeal of pity was never
made in vain: they have become too poor in love, too sick at heart, too
tired of battle, and lo! these sons of those who were once the bravest
of soldiers are now trying to retire from the trenches to the rear, are
now eager to exchange the grim music of the whistling shells with that
of the cow-bells and vintage songs in the happy plain of Sharon....
And yet we are not all Financiers, we are not all Bolshevists, we have
not all become Zionists. And yet there is hope, great hope, that this
same race which has provided the Evil will likewise succeed in supplying
its antidote, its remedy—the Good. It has always been so in the past—was
not that fatal Liberalism, which has finally led to Bolshevism—in the
very midst of that dark nineteenth century, most strenuously opposed by
two enlightened Jews—Friedrich Stahl, the founder of the Conservative
Party in Germany, and by Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the Tory Party
in England? _And if these two eminent men had no suspicion yet that
their own race and its holy message were at the bottom of that
unfortunate upheaval, with which their age was confronted_: how eager,
how determined, how passionate will be the opposition of the Disraelis
of the future, once they have clearly recognized that they are really
fighting the tenets of their own people, and that it was their “Good,”
their “Love,” their “Ideal,” that had launched the world into this Hell
of Evil and Hatred. A new “Good” as new Love, a true Love, an
intelligent Love, a Love that calms and heals and sweetens, will then
spring up among the Great in Israel and overcome that sickly Love, that
insipid Love, that romantic Love, which has hitherto poisoned all the
Strength and all the Nobility of this world. For Hatred is never
overcome by Hatred: it is only overcome by Love, and it wants a new and
a gigantic Love to subdue that old and devilish Hatred of today. That is
our task for the future—a task which will, I am sure, not be shirked by
Israel, by that same Israel which has never shirked a task, whether it
was for good or whether it was for evil....
Yes, there is hope, my friend, for we are still here, our last word is
not yet spoken, our last deed is not yet done, our last revolution is
not yet made. _This last Revolution, the Revolution that will crown our
revolutionaries, will be the revolution against the revolutionaries._ It
is bound to come, and it is perhaps upon us now. The great day of
reckoning is near. It will pass a judgment upon our ancient faith, and
it will lay the foundation to a new religion. And when that great day
has broken, when the values of death and decay are put into the melting
pot to be changed into those of power and beauty, then you, my dear
Pitt-Rivers, the descendant of an old and distinguished Gentile family,
may be assured to find by your side, and as your faithful ally, at least
one member of that Jewish Race, which has fought with such fatal success
upon all the spiritual battlefields of Europe.
Yours against the Revolution and for Life ever flourishing,
OSCAR LEVY,
ROYAL SOCIETIES CLUB,
ST. JAMES STREET,
LONDON, S. W.,
JULY, 1920.
——
Issue of April 30, 1921.
LVII.
Jewish Idea in American Monetary Affairs
Mr. Brisbane says that Jewish bankers exercise their large measure of
control because they are abler than the other bankers. It was very good
of Mr. Brisbane to say so, and it adds to the sum of his weekly, almost
daily, worship at the Jewish shrine, but it is scarcely true. Jewish
bankers do not yet control the United States, and the principal reason
they do not is that they are not abler than the other bankers. Doubtless
they seek control; doubtless they have almost grasped it on several
occasions; but not yet.
Nevertheless they form such a formidable force, and with their
international connections constitute such a political problem, that the
mere fact of their failing to top the column of control is not so
reassuring as it sounds.
The great Jewish banking houses of the United States are foreign
importations, as perhaps everyone knows. Most of them are sufficiently
recent to be considered in their immigrant status, while the thought of
them as aliens is stimulated by their retention of over-sea connections.
It is this international quality of the Jewish banking group which
largely accounts for Jewish financial power: there is team-play,
intimate understandings, and while there is a margin of competition
among themselves (as at golf) there is also a wiping out of that margin
when it comes to a contest between Jewish and “Gentile” capital.
Four conspicuous contemporary names in Jewish-American finance are
Belmont, Schiff, Warburg and Kahn. All of them, even the most recent,
are of foreign origin.
August Belmont was the earliest and arrived in America in 1837 as the
American representative of the Rothschilds in whose offices he had been
raised. His birthplace was that great center of Jewish international
finance, Frankfort-on-the-Main. He became the founder of the Belmont
family in America, which has largely forgotten its Jewish origin.
Politics was a part of his concern in this country, and during the
critical time from 1860 to 1872 he was chairman of the National
Democratic Committee. His management of the Rothschild interests was
exceedingly profitable to that house, although the operations in which
he engaged were quite simple compared with the operations of the present
day.
Jacob Schiff is another Jewish financier who was given to the world by
Frankfort-on-the-Main. He entered the United States in 1865, after
having passed his apprenticeship in the office of his father, who was
also an agent of the Rothschilds. The name Schiff runs a long way back
without change, unlike the name of Rothschild. Originally named Bauer,
this family of financiers took a new name from the red shield which
adorned their house in the Jewish section of Frankfort and thus became
“Rot-schild.” Commonly the last syllable is pronounced as if it were
“child”; it is “schild,” shield. An epoch-making family in itself, it
has trained hundreds of agents and apprentices, of whom Jacob H. Schiff
was one. He became one of the principal channels through which
German-Jewish capital flowed into American undertakings, and his agency
in these matters gave him a place in many important departments of
American business, especially railroads, banks, insurance companies and
telegraph companies. He married Theresa Loeb, and in due time came to be
head of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.
Mr. Schiff, too, was interested in politics with a Jewish angle, and was
perhaps the moving force in the campaign which forced Congress and the
President to break off treaty relations with Russia, then a friendly
nation, on a strictly Jewish question which had been skillfully given an
American aspect. Mr. Schiff was of inestimable assistance to Japan in
the war against Russia, but is understood to have been disappointed by
Japan’s shrewdness in preventing too high a return being made for that
assistance.
Associated with Mr. Schiff in Kuhn, Loeb & Company is Otto Herman Kahn,
who is probably more international than were either of the two gentlemen
mentioned above and is more constantly engaged in dabbling in mysterious
matters of an international nature. This characteristic may be accounted
for, however, by his experience of many countries. He was born in
Germany and is also a product of the Frankfort-on-the-Main school of
finance, having had connection with the Frankfort Jewish house of
Speyer.
Of just how many countries Mr. Kahn has been a citizen is a question not
easy to determine here because of the doubt that was recently cast upon
his American citizenship by a protest against his being permitted to
cast his vote last year and by his failure—the announced cause being
physical indisposition—to cast his vote. If Mr. Kahn is a citizen of the
United States (a status that will be readily proclaimed upon proof that
he is), that probably increases the number of his citizenships to three.
He was a German citizen by birth, and served in the German Army. And in
1914, in August, at the time of the outbreak of the European War, when
efforts were being made, which afterward succeeded, to put Paul M.
Warburg, a member of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, on the Federal
Reserve Board, Mr. Warburg testified that at that time Mr. Kahn was not
a citizen of the United States.
Senator Bristow—“How many of these partners are American citizens,
or are they all American citizens....”
Mr. Warburg—“They are all American citizens except Mr. Kahn.”—(P. 7,
Senate Hearings, August 1, 1914.)
Senator Bristow—“Now, the members of your firm, are they all
American citizens except Mr. Kahn?”
Mr. Warburg—“Except Mr. Kahn, yes.”
Senator Bristow—“Was Mr. Kahn ever an American citizen?”
Mr. Warburg—“No.”
Senator Bristow—“He never was?”
Mr. Warburg—“No; he is a British subject.”
Senator Bristow—“He is a British subject?”
The Chairman—“He lives in England, does he not?”
Mr. Warburg—“No. At one time he thought he would move to Europe, and
that was when the question arose of his standing for Parliament;
then he changed his mind and moved back to the United States.”
Senator Bristow—“He was at one time a candidate, or a prospective
candidate for Parliament, was he not?”
Mr. Warburg—“No; he was not; but there was talk about it; it had
been suggested, and he had it in his mind. Something had been
written about it in the papers.”—(P. 76, Senate Hearings, August 3,
1914.)
So, that if Mr. Kahn is a citizen of the United States now, which as a
matter of fact has been disputed, then he has been a citizen of three
countries, Germany and Great Britain being the other two.
Mr. Kahn, by the way, is one of those Jews whose adoption of another
form of faith brings no denunciation whatever from the Jews themselves.
A most peculiar circumstance! But doubtless not inexplicable. Mr. Kahn
is not called a “renegade Jew” nor any of the other nasty names heaped
upon Jewish converts to Christianity, because he does not deserve them.
They would not fit him. He is not renegade. And he never was regarded
for a moment by Jacob H. Schiff as anything but a Jew, else that “Prince
of Israel” would not have chosen him to remain in America and run the
business of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, at a time when it seemed undesirable
to put the junior Schiff in full charge of it.
Doubtless it was Mr. Kahn’s desire, just at the time Jacob Schiff made
his wishes known, to go to England and stand for Parliament.
But from New York he fulfills, probably as well as he could from London,
those mysterious missions which frequently take him to the Continent, at
which times he makes what are regarded as certain authoritative
decisions, though just _whose_ decisions it is not always possible to
say. In Paris particularly, and at points east thereof, Mr. Kahn has
been established in the position of spokesman of the American Financial
Hierarchy, which, of course, he is not. But he undoubtedly is the
spokesman of some group, possibly the group which so ably put through
the Jewish program at the Peace Conference, the group that impressed
Eastern Europe with the feeling that the United States of America was a
very powerful Semitic empire. Mr. Kahn’s trips abroad are usually
unheralded, but their results richly repay observation.
A fourth member of the Jewish financial group in America (which is the
form of statement which Mr. Chaim Weizmann would sanction, rather than
to say “Jewish-American financiers”) is Mr. Paul Warburg, to whose
testimony we have just alluded.
Mr. Warburg is the most recent of all. He was born in Germany in 1868;
he came to the United States in 1902; he became an American citizen in
1911. He came to the United States for the express purpose of reforming
our financial system, and it is hardly possible to understand fully the
system in operation today without reference to Paul Warburg. He is a man
of very fine mind, a money-maker, but something more—a shrewd student of
the systems by which money is made. There are two types engaged in the
mere work of money-making which is better described as “money-getting,”
without reference to production; one type grubs away under whatever
system obtains, regarding it as fixed as the solar system; another type
is sufficiently detached to see the system as an artifice which may be
mended, remodeled or supplanted altogether. Paul Warburg, scion of a
long line of German Jewish bankers, is of the latter type. He is not
content with the fact that the cash-register fills itself with money; he
wants also to know how the cash-register works, and whether it can be
worked. He is thus a student of money and of the number of ways in which
it can be manipulated.
Perhaps it will be best to let him tell his own story as far as he goes.
When he told it to the Committee on Banking and Currency of the United
States Senate in executive session, there was some dispute as to whether
the proceedings should be recorded by the stenographer. It was finally
agreed that notes should be made but should not be divulged. The
testimony was printed “in confidence” on August 5, 1914, and nominally
“made public” on August 12.
The Warburgs are one of the international families whose importance was
not realized until the war, and would not have been realized then if
their internationalism had not been so apparent. It was an interesting
spectacle to see brothers occupying important places of counsel on
either side of the great struggle.
Paul Warburg learned the rudiments of banking in his father’s bank at
Hamburg, Germany, studying the over-sea trade which is the foundation of
that city’s business. The banking house of Warburg in Hamburg dates from
1796.
“After that I went to England, where I stayed for two years, first in
the banking and discount firm of Samuel Montague & Company, and after
that I took the opportunity of staying two months in the office of a
stockbroker in order to learn that part of the business.
“After that I went to France, where I stayed in a French bank, so that—”
The Chairman—“What French bank was that?”
Mr. Warburg—“It is the Russian bank for foreign trade, which has an
agency in Paris.
“And after that I went back to Hamburg and worked there again for a
year, I think.
“Then I went round to India, China and Japan.
“And then I came to this country for the first time in 1893. I stayed
here only a short time then, and went back to Hamburg, and then became a
partner of the firm in Hamburg.”
The Chairman—“How long were you in Hamburg then in the banking
business?”
Mr. Warburg—“Until 1902.... And then I moved over here to this country
to become a partner of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.”
“I explained in the curriculum which I gave you, Mr. Chairman, that by
marriage I am related to members of the firm, the late Mr. Loeb having
been my father-in-law, which brought about a desire on the part of the
family to bring me over here.... I ought to say that I got married in
this country in 1895 and that I have been in this country every year
since, for several months.... That is the history of my banking
education.”
It will be recalled that Jacob H. Schiff also married a daughter of Mr.
Loeb, so that Mr. Warburg married the sister of Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff.
Felix Warburg, Paul’s brother, who is also in the firm, married Mr.
Schiff’s daughter.
Mr. Warburg immediately cast a critical eye upon the state of financial
affairs in the United States and it is significant of the grasp he
already had on such matters that he found the country rather behind the
times.
He conceived the ambition—the very daring ambition—of taking hold of the
United States’ monetary system and making it what he thought it ought to
be.
This alone would make him a remarkable man. It illustrates very well
that detached point of view which the Jew is more fitted to take than
any other man perhaps. He sees countries and systems with the same
freedom from intimate bias with which another man would view assorted
fish upon a market stall. Most of the world is engaged in doing its work
and indulging its national, racial, domestic and social affections and
inclinations; a small minority stands in the background and watches the
entire mass at its unconscious maneuvers, and studies it as an observer
studies a hive of bees. The man at work has no time except for his job.
One man, standing back and studying 1,000 men at work, is able to see
how he might utilize their labor or possess himself of a first toll on
their production. Doubtless there must be men to stand at a sufficient
distance from things to get a correct idea of their interrelationship,
and doubtless such an attitude may be made of great service to the race,
but doubtless it has also contributed to the selfish manipulation of
natural and social processes.
Mr. Warburg testified: “When I came here I was at once impressed by the
lack of system, by the old-fashioned nature of the system that prevailed
here; and I got immediately into one of those periods of high interest
rates, where call money went up to 25 and 100 per cent; and I wrote an
article on the subject then and there for my own benefit.
“I was not here three weeks before I was trying to explain to myself
the roots of the evil. I showed the article to a few friends but I
kept it in my desk, because I did not want to be one of those who
try to inform and educate the country after they have been here for
a month or so; and I kept that article until the end of 1906,
shortly before the panic, when those conditions arose again, and
when one newspaper wanted for an issue at the end of the year an
article dealing with the conditions in our country.
“Then I took out that article and touched it up and brought it up to
date; and that was the first article of mine that was published. It
was called, ‘Defects and Needs of Our Banking System.’...
“That was, however, the first time that I know of that the question
of the discount system and the concentration of reserves was really
brought out; and I got a great many encouraging letters asking me to
go on and explain my ideas.”
Mr. Warburg was perfectly willing to talk to the committee about
himself, but not about Kuhn, Loeb & Company, his firm.
“I cannot discuss the affairs of my firm nor my partners,” he said,
“nor be asked to criticise acts of my partners, either to approve
them or in any other way,” but eventually he did tell a number of
things which students of American financial affairs have considered
interesting. Of which more later.
On page 77 of the testimony, more personal matters appear:
Senator Bristow—“When did you become a citizen of the United States,
Mr. Warburg?”
Mr. Warburg—“1911. Did I not answer that?”
Senator Bristow—“Perhaps so. Did you intend to become a citizen when
you came to the United States in 1902?”
Mr. Warburg—“I had no definite intentions then, because some of the
reasons that brought me over here were family reasons;.... That had
a good deal to do with my first coming here; and I was not sure at
all that I would stay here when I came.”
Senator Bristow—“When did you decide to become a citizen of the
United States?”
Mr. Warburg—“In 1908, when I took out my papers.”
Senator Bristow—“When you took out your first papers? You took out
your second papers, then, in 1911?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes.”
Senator Bristow—“You made your declaration in 1908; that is when you
decided to become an American citizen?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes.”
Senator Bristow—“Why did you wait as long as you did after you came
to this country, before deciding to become a citizen of this
country?”
Mr. Warburg—“I think that a man that does not come here as an
immigrant; a man who has had, if you may call it such, a prominent
position in his own country, will not give up his nationality so
easily as a man who comes over here knowing that he does not care
for his own country at all. I had been a very loyal citizen of my
own country; and I think that a man who hesitates in giving up his
own nationality and taking a new one, is apt to be more loyal to his
new country when he does change his nationality than a man who gives
up his old country more lightly.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes.”
Mr. Warburg—“I may add this: That a thing which had a great deal of
influence on my making up my mind to remain in this country and work
here, and become a part and parcel of this country, was that
monetary reform work, for I felt I had a distinct duty to perform
here; and I thought I could do that; and in fact I have been working
on it since 1906 or 1907.
“Then I felt that it was the right thing for me to become an
American citizen and work here and throw in my lot definitely with
this country.”
Senator Bristow—“When you became an American citizen; and the motive
which induced you to become an American citizen was, then, as I
understand it, largely with a view of laboring to bring about a
reform of the American monetary system?”
Mr. Warburg-“Well, you put it nearly exclusively on that. I think a
man wants to feel that he is going to do some useful work in his
country; that he has a mission to perform; and that is what happened
to me.... Moreover, I had been long enough in this country then to
have thoroughly taken root and feel that I was a part and parcel of
it.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes. When did you first become active in promoting
the monetary reforms in the United States?”
Mr. Warburg—“1906.”
Senator Bristow—“What was your method of promoting your ideas with
regard to monetary reforms?”
Mr. Warburg—“Mainly writing.”
Senator Bristow—“Were you connected with the Monetary Commission?”
Mr. Warburg—“No, not directly....”
Senator Bristow—“Were you consulted in regard to the report of the
Monetary Commission in any way?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes, Senator Aldrich consulted with me about details,
and I gave him my advice freely.”
Senator Bristow—“And in regard to the bill which was prepared by
Senator Aldrich in connection with the commission, were you
consulted in regard to that?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes.”
Senator Bristow—“What part did you have in the preparation of that
bill, directly or indirectly?”
Mr. Warburg—“Well, only that I gave the best advice that I could
give.”
Most readers will recall that the name of “Aldrich” was, a few years
ago, the synonym for the money power in government. Senator Aldrich was
an able man and a tireless worker. His character for thoroughness and
industry did more than anything else to disabuse the popular mind of the
notion that such men were mere “tools of the money interest,” or engaged
in their work out of lust for gain, or out of sheer pleasure in
legislating against the interests of the people. Senator Aldrich led on
tariff and financial matters because he understood them; and he
understood them by tireless study of them; and, therefore, he was the
master of other men who had not paid the price of knowledge. But, he
understood these matters from the standpoint of the business interests
only. He was sincerely desirous of the prosperity of the country, but
that prosperity was written in banking balances. Fifteen years ago it
might not have been possible to judge him thus calmly, because then he
represented in the public mind, more than any individual does today, the
concentrated power of the financial group. Their prosperity was his
first care, possibly because he believed that their prosperity was also
the country’s.
It was such a man, then, that came to Mr. Warburg for advice. The labors
of Senator Aldrich comprise many volumes of difficult material and
Senator Aldrich’s appeal to Mr. Warburg was a very high compliment to
the quality of the latter’s mind and financial experience—this, of
course, assuming that Mr. Warburg’s counsel was not forced upon the
Aldrich committee by the New York money interests.
In his testimony, Mr. Warburg did not tell all. The omission, however,
was supplied by an article in _Leslie’s Weekly_ in 1916, the author
being B. C. Forbes.
It is a story of which _Current Opinion_ said: “It reads like the
opening in a shilling shocker.”
It appears that the conferences between Mr. Warburg and Senator Aldrich
took place on an isolated island off the coast of Georgia—Jekyl Island.
Included in the party, besides Senator Aldrich and Mr. Warburg, were two
New York bankers and the then Assistant Treasurer of the United States.
The mysteriousness of it all was well brought out by Mr. Forbes:
“Picture a party of the nation’s greatest bankers stealing out of
New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness,
stealthily hieing hundreds of miles south, embarking on a mysterious
launch, sneaking out to an island deserted by all but a few
servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the
name of not one of them was once mentioned lest the servitors learn
their identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret
episode in the history of American finance.
“The utmost secrecy was enjoined upon all. The public must not glean
a hint of what was to be done. Senator Aldrich notified each one to
go quietly into a private car which the railroad had received orders
to draw up at an unfrequented platform. Drawn blinds balked any
peering eyes that might be around. Off the party set. New York’s
ubiquitous reporters had been foiled. So far so good. After bowling
along the railroad hour after hour into southern country, the order
was given to prepare to disembark.
“Stepping from the car when the station had been well cleared of
travelers, the members of the expedition embarked in a small boat.
Silence reigned, for the boatmen must not find out how distinguished
were their passengers.
“In due time they drew up at another deserted pier. They were at
Jekyl Island, off Georgia. The island was entirely unpeopled save
for half a dozen servants.
“‘The servants must under no circumstances learn who we are,’
cautioned Senator Aldrich.
“‘What can we do to fool them?’ asked another member of the group.
The problem was discussed.
“‘I have it,’ cried one. ‘Let’s all call each other by our first
names. Don’t ever let us mention our last names.’
“It was so agreed.
“The dignified veteran Senator Aldrich, king of Rhode Island and a
power second to none in the United States Senate, became just
‘Nelson’;... and the quiet, scholarly member of the powerful
international banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, became ‘Paul.’
“Nelson had meanwhile confided to Harry, Frank, Paul and Piatt that
he was to keep them locked up on Jekyl Island, cut off from the rest
of the world, until they had evolved and compiled a scientific
currency system for the United States, a system that would embody
all that was best in Europe, yet so modeled that it could serve a
country measuring thousands where European countries measured only
hundreds of miles.”
Mr. Forbes does not omit to write this further description of Mr.
Warburg’s condition at the time:
“unable then to speak idiomatic English with perfect freedom and
without an accent, an alien not naturalized.”
Mr. Forbes also wrote—“Here is a German-American, but the sort of one
that makes the hyphen look like a badge of honor.”
That was in 1916. Hyphens went out of fashion, though not entirely out
of use, soon after.
Thus far the story of Paul Warburg.
——
Issue of June 18, 1921.
LVIII.
Jewish Idea Molded Federal Reserve Plan
The last view the reader had of Paul M. Warburg in the preceding article
was as “an alien not naturalized” secretly closeted with Senator Nelson
W. Aldrich and a party of bankers on an obscure island off the
southeastern coast of the United States, all the members of the party
concealing their identity even from the servants by calling each other
by their first names.
That conference in its ultimate results was of the utmost importance to
the United States, for then and there were formulated those fiscal
devices, those financial methods, those “monetary reforms” which have
exerted an influence on every citizen, rich and poor, of the Republic.
Much history was made in that little trip. It irresistibly calls to
memory that other trip made in 1915—almost two years before America’s
entry into the war—by Bernard M. Baruch. As readers of THE DEARBORN
INDEPENDENT of November 27, 1920, will recall, Mr. Baruch had been
financial backer of the Plattsburg camp, and in his testimony he said he
thought that General Wood would admit this. Then—“I went off on a long
trip, and it was while on this trip that I felt there ought to be some
mobilization of the industries, and I was thinking about the scheme that
practically was put into effect and was working when I was chairman of
the board. When I came back from that trip I asked for an interview with
the President.... The President listened very attentively and graciously
as he always does.” Mr. Baruch was an authority on the President’s
demeanor, for there was a long period in 1917 and 1918 during which he
called at the White House every afternoon.
Two momentous trips in our recent history, both of them signalized and
given their principal meaning by the presence of Jews. Not that there
should not have been Jews in either case; to insist upon their total
exclusion would be going too far. The Jew as a citizen, bearing his
part, is one matter; the Jew as a master, directing the national show,
is quite another thing. It is by no means agreed that Barney Baruch was
the only man in the United States who could have run this nation’s war
business. That is the explanation made of the high place he took—that he
was the _only_ man who could do it. Nonsense! If that be so, let us
close up the nation and hand the keys over to the New York Kehillah. Mr.
Baruch could say—“I probably had more power than any other man did in
the war; doubtless that is true,” but he had that power because he was
for the time the head and front of the Jewish group for war purposes.
If the explanation of Jewish mastery at critical moments were “brains,”
well and good, but if it were, it would be more evident to the people;
brains do not need to be advertised, they advertise themselves. There is
another reason.
The British public recently awoke to the fact that not Lloyd George but
Mr. Montagu and Sir Alfred Mond were in charge of the recent
negotiations over the German indemnities. These gentlemen are both Jews,
one of them of German descent. Of all the British Empire are they the
only two men to advise the premier in a great crisis? If they are, why
is it? The Montagus, we know, control the silver of the world; Sir
Alfred Mond, we know, turned the very neat trick of keeping the sign of
the Cross off the war memorials raised to the soldiers of the empire;
their Jewishness always so apparent. Both financiers; both the close
advisers of the premier; as Baruch to Wilson, so they to Lloyd George.
Apparently there are no Anglo-Saxons on either side of the sea capable
of managing these deep matters, if we are to judge from the war
administrations—those that have passed off the stage and those that
still linger. Lloyd George, for once stung to the quick by the criticism
of the British public of his tendency to closet himself with Jews when
confronted with a crucial question, retorted bitterly—with what? With
the old outworn Jewish propagandist boast, that it ill became people who
sang Jewish psalms in church to rag the race that wrote them! A most
illuminating defense! The world would give a good deal for a true psalm
from Sir Alfred Mond, Mr. Montagu, or even Sir Philip Sassoon, who is
soon to become the premier’s son-in-law.
In our own history, Barney Baruch boldly claims his place, he
unhesitatingly asserts that he had more power than any man in the war.
If Allenby in Palestine needed a locomotive, if the Americans in Russia
needed clothing, if the munition mills needed copper—it was Baruch who
gave or withheld the word.
Mr. Warburg, being of somewhat finer grain, probably due to his having
less than Mr. Baruch of the rough experience of “the Street,” does not
make the claim that he is the chief factor in the present monetary
system of the United States, nor does THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT undertake
to make it for him lest the cry of “anti-Semitism” wax wrathful again;
but fortunately the fact is amply attested by a Jew whose knowledge of
the matter is unquestionable.
Readers have doubtless become aware by this time that for a non-Jew to
say that a certain Jew is a most important factor in any field is to be
guilty of anti-Semitism, while for a Jew or a “Gentile front” to say it
is perfectly proper. It is a rather odd etiquette in which simple minds
sometimes become confused.
Professor E. R. A. Seligman, of Columbia University, is the sponsor of
this great honor for Mr. Warburg. What Professor Seligman says is of
such importance, both as to its source and its subject, that quotation
is justified: (the italics in all cases are ours)
“It is in a general way known to the public that Mr. Warburg was in some
way connected with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, and his
appointment to his present responsible position on the Federal Reserve
Board was acclaimed on all sides with a rare degree of approval and
congratulation; but I fancy _it is known only to a very few how great is
the indebtedness of the United States to Mr. Warburg. For it may be
stated without fear of contradiction that in its fundamental features
the Federal Reserve Act is the work of Mr. Warburg more than of any
other man in the country_....
“When the Aldrich commission was appointed it was not long before
Senator Aldrich—to his credit be it said—was won over by Mr. Warburg to
the adoption of these two fundamental features. The Aldrich Bill
differed in some important particulars from the present law.... _The
concession in the shape of the twelve regional banks that had to be made
for political reasons is, in the opinion of Mr. Warburg as well as of
the writer of this introduction, a mistake_; for it will probably, to
some extent at least, weaken the good results which would otherwise have
followed. On the other hand, the existence of a Federal Reserve Board
creates, in everything but in name, a real central bank; and it depends
largely upon the wisdom with which the board exercises its great powers
as to whether we shall be able to secure most of the advantages of a
central bank without any of its dangers....
“In many minor respects also the Federal Reserve Act differs from the
Aldrich Bill; but in the two fundamentals of combined reserves and of a
discount policy, the Federal Reserve Act has frankly accepted the
principles of the Aldrich Bill; _and these principles, as has been
stated, were the creation of Mr. Warburg and of Mr. Warburg alone._
_“... It must not be forgotten that Mr. Warburg had a practical object
in view. In formulating his plans and in advancing slightly varying
suggestions from time to time, it was incumbent on him to remember that
the education of the country must be gradual and that a large part of
the task was to break down prejudices and remove suspicions. His plans
therefore contain all sorts of elaborate suggestions designed to guard
the public against fancied dangers and to persuade the country that the
general scheme was at all practicable. It was the hope of Mr. Warburg
that with the lapse of time it might be possible to eliminate from the
law not a few clauses which were inserted, largely at his suggestion,
for educational purposes._
“As it was my privilege to say to President Wilson when originally
urging the appointment of Mr. Warburg on the Federal Reserve Board, at a
time when the political prejudice against New York bankers ran very
high, England also, three-quarters of a century ago, had a practical
banker who was virtually responsible for the idea contained in Peel’s
Bank Act of 1840. Mr. Samuel Jones Lloyd was honored as a consequence by
the British Government and was made Lord Overstone. The United States
was equally fortunate in having with it a Lord Overstone....
“_The Federal Reserve Act will be associated in history with the name of
Paul M. Warburg...._”—(pp. 387–390, Vol. 4, No. 4, Proceedings of the
Academy of Political Science, Columbia University).
It surely cannot be considered invidious for THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT
thus to introduce to the people of the United States a gentleman whose
influence upon the country is so vital. Just how vital can be understood
only by those who have studied the puzzle of a country filled with the
good things of life, and still unable to use them or to share them
because of a kink in the pipe line called “money.”
But that Mr. Warburg himself is not entirely unaware of his position is
indicated on page 56 of his testimony quoted last week. Mr. Warburg had
just told the Senate Committee that he was making a heavy financial
sacrifice to accept the position on the Federal Reserve Board offered
him by President Wilson, and into the fitness of which appointment the
Senate was carefully inquiring:
Senator Reed—“May I ask what your motive is, or your reason for
making that sacrifice?”
Mr. Warburg—“My motive is that I have, as you know, taken a keen
interest in this monetary reform since I have been in this country.
“_I have had the success which comes to few people, of starting an
idea and starting it so that the whole country has taken it up and
it has taken some tangible form._”
Professor Seligman advises us of the strategy that was used to get the
whole country to take up Mr. Warburg’s idea, and of the fact that some
of the items inserted to appease the public might easily be removed when
the public shall have become accustomed to Mr. Warburg and the Federal
Reserve Board; but Mr. Warburg adds another hint, to the effect that you
can do some things by administration which you cannot do by
organization.
For example: Mr. Warburg wanted _only one central bank_ which should be
the sole arbiter of finance in the United States. The United States
Government would have almost nothing to do save to make the money and
stand back of it; the bankers of the United States, and the people
thereof, would have nothing to do except what they were told; the one
central bank would be the real financial governing authority.
When asked by Senator Bristow to state the fundamental difference
between the Aldrich plan and the present Federal Reserve plan, Mr.
Warburg replied:
“Well, the Aldrich Bill brings the whole system into one unit, while
this deals with 12 units, and unites them again into the Federal
Reserve Board. It is a little bit complicated, which objection,
however, _can be overcome in an administrative way_; and in that
respect I freely criticized the bill before it was passed.”
There is evidently, then, a method of administration for which severe
critics might even use the word “manipulation,” by which the plain
provisions of a banking law, whatever they may be, may be, if not
evaded, then somewhat adapted.
This idea is brought to mind by a more colloquial expression of Mr.
Warburg’s to be found in his address on “bank acceptances” delivered in
1919:
“In this connection I am reminded of a story I once heard concerning
a man belonging to a species now soon to be extinct and to be found
by our children in Webster’s dictionary only, the ‘bartender.’ A man
of this profession, in pre-historic times, was abandoning his
position and was turning over his cash-register to his successor.
‘Please show me how it works,’ said the newcomer. ‘_I will show you
how it works_,’ said the other, ‘_but I won’t show you how to work
it_.’”
The politics of Mr. Warburg and the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company formed
part of the inquiry, and Mr. Warburg made some interesting revelations,
which illustrate the oft-repeated statement that it is part of Jewish
policy—perhaps of large financial firms generally—to attach themselves
to both parties so that certain interests may be the winners regardless
of which party is defeated.
Senator Pomerene—“What are your politics?”
Senator Nelson—“No; we have not raised that before this committee.”
Senator Reed—“It has not been raised here, but I should like to
know.”
Senator Pomerene—“It has been raised before the Senate.”
Senator Reed—“I will say why I should like to know.”
Senator Pomerene—“Well, I have no objection to saying what was in my
own mind.”
The Chairman—“I will say that I do not know what Mr. Warburg’s
politics are.”
Senator Pomerene—“Well, I did not.”
Senator Shafroth—“I do not know and I do not care to know.”
Senator Pomerene—“I heard the statement made that the entire board
was Democratic, and I had understood that Mr. Warburg was a
Republican, or had been, in his affiliations.”
Mr. Warburg—“Well, so I was; and my sympathies were entirely, in the
early campaign, for Mr. Taft against Mr. Roosevelt in the first
fight. When later on Mr. Roosevelt became President Wilson’s
opponent my sympathies went with Mr. Wilson....”
Senator Reed—“Well, you would count yourself a Republican, generally
speaking?”
Mr. Warburg—“I would.”
Senator Bristow—“It has been variously reported in the newspapers
that you and your partners directly and indirectly contributed very
largely to Mr. Wilson’s campaign funds.”
Mr. Warburg—“Well, my partners—there is a very peculiar
condition—no; I do not think any one of them contributed largely at
all; there may have been moderate contributions. My brother, for
instance, contributed to Mr. Taft’s campaign.”
Senator Bristow—“Just what would you consider a moderate
contribution to a presidential campaign?”
Mr. Warburg—“Well, that depends who the man is who contributes; but
I think anything below $10,000 or $5,000 would not be an extravagant
contribution, so far as that should be—”
(Examination resumed another day.)
Senator Bristow—“Now, Mr. Warburg, when we closed Saturday some
Senator asked you in regard to political contributions, and I
understood you to say that you contributed to Mr. Wilson’s
campaign.”
Mr. Warburg—“No; my letter says that I offered to contribute; but it
was too late. I came back to this country only a few days before the
campaign closed.”
Senator Bristow—“So that you did not make any contribution?”
Mr. Warburg—“I did not make any contribution; no.”
Senator Bristow—“Did any members of your firm make contributions to
Mr. Wilson’s campaign?”
Mr. Warburg—“I think that is a matter of record. Mr. Schiff
contributed. I would not otherwise discuss the contributions of my
partners, if it was not a matter of record. I think Mr. Schiff was
the only one who contributed in our firm.”
Senator Bristow—“And you stated that your brother had contributed to
Mr. Taft’s campaign, as I understand it?”
Mr. Warburg—“I did. But again, I do not want to go into a discussion
of my partners’ affairs, and I shall stick to that pretty strictly,
or we will never get through.”
Senator Bristow—“I understood you also to say that no members of
your firm contributed to Mr. Roosevelt’s campaign.”
Mr. Warburg—“I did not say that.”
Senator Bristow—“Oh! Did any members of the firm do that?”
Mr. Warburg—“My answer would please you probably; but I shall not
answer that, but will repeat that I will not discuss my partners’
affairs.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes. I understood you to say Saturday that you were
a Republican, but when Mr. Roosevelt became a candidate, _you then
became a sympathizer with Mr. Wilson and supported him_?”
Mr. Warburg—“_Yes._”
Senator Bristow—“_While your brother was supporting Mr. Taft?_”
Mr. Warburg—“_Yes._”
Senator Bristow—“_And I was interested to know whether any member of
your firm supported Mr. Roosevelt._”
Mr. Warburg—“_It is a matter of record that there are._”
Senator Bristow—“_That there are some of them who did?_”
Mr. Warburg—“_Oh, yes._”
Senator Bristow—“Will you please indicate—or do you care to
indicate—what members of your firm supported Mr. Roosevelt in that
campaign?”
Mr. Warburg—“No, sir; I shall have to go on the principle that I
cannot disclose the business of a member of my firm.”
The result was this: that in a three-cornered fight between three
candidates, Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson, the men who constituted the firm
of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, chief Jewish financial institution of the
United States, distributed their support among all three. Schiff for
Wilson; Felix Warburg for Taft; and an unknown for Roosevelt—was that
unknown Mr. Kahn? In any case, Wilson won, and the above examination
relates to a member of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company receiving an
important appointment which gave him large power over the finances of
the United States.
The point of not discussing the affairs of Kuhn, Loeb & Company was
frequently made by Mr. Warburg.
“I cannot discuss the affairs of the firm nor my partners, nor be asked
to criticize acts of my partners, either to approve them or in any other
way. I would like to say that before we come to the point where I would
feel that I should not answer any question,” said Mr. Warburg.
The principle of this objection was conceded by the Senate Committee,
but that it ought to serve as a blanket injunction against a number of
pertinent inquiries was doubted.
Senator Bristow—“But you are a partner in this firm, and have you
not had something to do with its operations and its management?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes.”
Senator Bristow—“Does that not go to show your general views and
practices as a financier and as a citizen and as a business man?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes; but you have got to take them individually.... I
cannot permit my firm to be drawn into this discussion.”
Senator Bristow—“But how can you divest yourself from your firm when
you have been one of the managers of the firm?”
Mr. Warburg—“I shall divest myself of the firm.”
Senator Bristow—“If the firm has done something that I might think
was improper—to illustrate, being called upon to say whether or not
I approve your nomination to this responsible position—have I not a
right to know what your attitude was in regard to that transaction
which your firm performed?”
Mr. Warburg—“Well, inasmuch as my answer there might be a criticism
of my firm, I would beg to be excused, and I would leave it to the
committee to draw its own conclusions....”
In examining Mr. Warburg about the handling of $100,000,000 Southern
Pacific securities, the same difficulty was experienced; Mr. Warburg
objected, “but we are getting here again into the transactions of my
firm!”
To which Senator Bristow retorted—“Ah! but when you participated in the
profits of the transaction, is it not a part of your business life?”
Mr. Warburg—“Certainly it is a part of my business life, and there
is no reason why I should not be proud of it. But as a matter of
principle I think we should not get into a discussion of the
business of my firm.”
Senator Bristow—“I am discussing your business.”
Mr. Warburg—“No, you are discussing the firm’s business.”
Senator Bristow—“Did you get any of the profits that came from the
handling of this $100,000,000?”
Mr. Warburg—“You may take it that whatever my firm did I got my
profits—my share in the profits.”
Senator Bristow—“Your share in the profits. Now, without being
specific, I take it for granted that this was quite material; that
that was quite a material interest in size; that is, that you are
one of the important members of the firm.”
Mr. Warburg—“I am one of the important members of the firm.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes, I think the testimony and the report here show
that you are the third important member—or the second, which is
it?—of the firm.”
Mr. Warburg—“We are not numbered.”
Senator Bristow—“You are not; all right.”
Mr. Warburg—“There is Mr. Jacob H. Schiff who is the senior.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes.”
Mr. Warburg—“And the others rank very much alike.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes. We may take it for granted, then, that
whatever profits accrued to your firm in the handling of this
business here since you became a member of it, you participated in
the profits as one of the partners?”
Mr. Warburg—“Yes, sir.”
Senator Bristow—“Yes. So I will assume then, of course, that you
participated in the marketing of $113,000,000 of Union Pacific, and
so on.”
The responsibilities of a member of the Federal Reserve Board,
especially such a member as Paul M. Warburg would be (for it was
recognized that because of his purpose and connections he would become a
dominating factor), were very great, especially at the time when the
appointment was being considered. They are as important now, of course,
but in a different way; it is not now a question of military safety.
This thought was evidently in the mind of the senators, as the following
shows:
Senator Hitchcock—“Mr. Warburg, _one of the important functions of the
board is to guard the gold supply of the country_, and it has been
thought that _it is very important to have men on the board who had at
heart only the interests of the United States_, and had no foreign
interests or alliances. You have said that you proposed to divest
yourself altogether of your banking connections in Germany. Have you any
other interests in Europe?”
“No, not to speak of,” said Mr. Warburg. “I may have very unimportant
things, like everybody has; but I could dispose of those; it would not
amount to anything.”
Senator Hitchcock—“Nothing in the line of banking?”
Mr. Warburg—“No.”
A few moments later the chairman, Senator Owen, said—(the date was
August 1, 1914)—“We are on the eve of a great European war, and the
organization of this board is of great national importance.”
At this time, Mr. Warburg was a member of the Hamburg firm. He testified
(p. 7)—“I am going to leave my Hamburg firm, though the law does not
require me to do so.”
A part of the German firm of his father and brothers, a part of the
American firm to which he and his brother were related by marital as
well as financial ties, Mr. Warburg repeatedly said he would break off
all business relationships so that he, like Caesar’s wife (to quote
himself), should be above suspicion.
——
Issue of June 25, 1921.
LIX.
Jewish Idea of Central Bank for America
According to his own statements and the facts, Paul M. Warburg set out
to reform the monetary system of the United States, and did so. He had
the success which comes to few men, of coming an alien to the United
States, connecting himself with the principal Jewish financial firm
here, and immediately floating certain banking ideas which have been
pushed and manipulated and variously adapted until they have eventuated
in what is known as the Federal Reserve System.
When Professor Seligman wrote in the Proceedings of the Academy of
Political Science that “the Federal Reserve Act will be associated in
history with the name of Paul M. Warburg,” a Jewish banker from Germany,
he wrote the truth. But whether that association will be such as to
bring the measure of renown which Professor Seligman implies, the future
will reveal.
What the people of the United States do not understand and never have
understood is that while the Federal Reserve _Act_ was governmental, the
whole Federal Reserve _System_ is private. It is an officially created
private banking system.
Examine the first thousand persons you meet on the street, and 999 will
tell you that the Federal Reserve System is a device whereby the United
States Government went into the banking business for the benefit of the
people. They have an idea that, like the Post Office and the Custom
House, a Federal Reserve Bank is a part of the Government’s official
machinery.
It is natural to feel that this mistaken view has been encouraged by
most of the men who are competent to write for the public on this
question. Take up the standard encyclopedias, and while you will find no
misstatements of fact in them, you will find no direct statement that
the Federal Reserve System is a private banking system; the impression
carried away by the lay reader is that it is a part of the Government.
The Federal Reserve System is a system of private banks, the creation of
a banking aristocracy within an already existing autocracy, whereby a
great proportion of banking independence was lost, and whereby it was
made possible for speculative financiers to centralize great sums of
money for their own purposes, beneficial or not.
That this System was useful in the artificial conditions created by
war—useful, that is, for a Government that cannot manage its own
business and finances and, like a prodigal son, is always wanting money,
and wanting it when it wants it—it has proved, either by reason of its
inherent faults or by mishandling, its inadequacy to the problems of
peace. It has sadly failed of its promise, and is now under serious
question.
Mr. Warburg’s scheme succeeded just in time to take care of war
conditions, he was placed on the Federal Reserve Board in order to
manage his system in practice, and though he was full of ideas then as
to how banking could be assisted, he is disappointingly silent now as to
how the people can be relieved.
However, this is not a discussion of the Federal Reserve System. General
condemnation of it would be stupid. But it is bound to come up for
discussion one day, and the discussion will become much freer when
people understand that it is a system of privately owned banks, to which
have been delegated certain extraordinary privileges, and that it has
created a class system within the banking world which constitutes a new
order.
Mr. Warburg, it will be remembered, wanted only one central bank. But,
because of political considerations, as Professor Seligman tells us,
twelve were decided upon. An examination of Mr. Warburg’s printed
discussions of the subject shows that he at one time considered four,
then eight. Eventually, twelve were established. The reason was that one
central bank, which naturally would be set up in New York, would give a
suspicious country the impression that it was only a new scheme to keep
the nation’s money flowing to New York. As shown by Professor Seligman,
quoted in the last number, Mr. Warburg was not averse to granting
anything that would allay popular suspicion without vitiating the real
plan.
So, while admitting to the Senators who examined him as to his fitness
for membership on the Federal Reserve Board—the Board which fixed the
policies of the banks of the Federal Reserve System and told them what
to do—that he did not like the 12 district banks idea, he said that his
objections to it could “be overcome in an administrative way.” That is,
the 12 banks could be so handled that the effect would be the same as if
there were only one central bank, presumably at New York.
And that is about the way it has resulted, and that will be found to be
one of the reasons for the present situation of the country.
There is no lack of money in New York today. Motion picture ventures are
being financed into the millions. A big grain selling pool, nursed into
existence and counseled by Bernard M. Baruch, has no hesitancy whatever
in planning for a $100,000,000 corporation. Loew, the Jewish theatrical
man, had no difficulty in opening 20 new theaters this year—
_But_ go into the agricultural states, where the real wealth of the
country is in the ground and in the granaries, and you cannot find money
for the farmer.
It is a situation which none can deny and which few can explain, because
the explanation is not to be found along natural lines. Natural
conditions are always easiest to explain. Unnatural conditions wear an
air of mystery. Here is the United States, the richest country in the
world, containing at the present hour the greatest bulk of wealth to be
found anywhere on earth—real, ready, available, usable wealth; and yet
it is tied up tight, and cannot move in its legitimate channels, because
of manipulation which is going on as regards money.
Money is the last mystery for the popular mind to penetrate, and when it
succeeds in getting “on the inside” it will discover that the mystery is
not in money at all, but in its manipulation, the things which are done
“in an administrative way.”
The United States has never had a President who gave evidence of
understanding this matter at all. Our Presidents have always had to take
their views from financiers. Money is the most public quantity in the
country; it is the most federalized and governmentalized thing in the
country; and yet, in the present situation, the United States Government
has hardly anything to do with it, except to use various means to get
it, just as the people have to get it, from those who control it.
The Money Question, properly solved, is the end of the Jewish Question
and every other question of a mundane nature.
Mr. Warburg is of the opinion that different rates of interest ought to
obtain in different parts of the country. That they have always obtained
in different parts of the same state we have always known, but the
reason for it has not been discovered. The city grocer can get money
from his bank at a lower rate than the farmer in the next county can get
it from his bank. Why the agricultural rate of interest has been higher
than any other (when money is obtainable; it is not obtainable now) is a
question to which no literary nor oratorical financier has ever publicly
addressed himself. It is like the fact of the private business nature of
the Federal Reserve System—very important, but no authority thinks it
worth while to state. The agricultural rate of interest is of great
importance, but to discuss it would involve first an admission, and that
apparently is not desirable.
In comparing the present Federal Reserve Law with the proposed Aldrich
Bill, Mr. Warburg said:
Mr. Warburg—“... I think that this present law has the advantage of
dealing with the entire country and giving them different rates of
discount, whereas, as Senator Aldrich’s bill was drawn, it would
have been very difficult to do that, as it provided for one uniform
rate for the whole country, which I thought was rather a mistake.”
Senator Bristow—“That is, you can charge a higher rate of interest
in one section of the country under the present law, than you charge
in another section, while under the Aldrich plan it would have been
a uniform rate.”
Mr. Warburg—“That is correct.”
That is a point worth clearing up. If Mr. Warburg, having educated the
bankers, will now turn his attention to the people, and make it clear
why one class in the country can get money for business that is not
productive of real wealth, while another class engaged in the production
of real wealth is treated as outside the interest of banking altogether;
if he can make it clear also why money is sold to one class or one
section of the country at one price, while to another class and in
another section it is sold at a different price, he will be adding to
the people’s grasp of these matters.
This suggestion is seriously intended. Mr. Warburg has the style, the
pedagogical patience, the grasp of the subject which would make him an
admirable public teacher of these matters.
What he has already done was planned from the point of view of the
interest of the professional financier. It is readily granted that Mr.
Warburg desired to organize American finances into a more pliable
system. Doubtless in some respects he has wrought important
improvements. But he had always the banking house in mind, and he dealt
with paper. Now, if taking up a position outside those special
interests, he would address himself to the wider interests of the
people—not assuming that those interests always run through a banking
house—he would do still more than he has yet done to justify his feeling
that he really had a mission in coming to this country.
Mr. Warburg is not at all shocked by the idea that the Federal Reserve
System is really a new kind of private banking control, because in his
European experience he saw that all the central banks were private
affairs.
In his essay on “American and European Banking Methods and Bank
Legislation Compared,” Mr. Warburg says: (the italics are ours)
“It may also be interesting to note that, _contrary to a widespread
idea, the central banks of Europe are, as a rule, not owned by the
governments_. As a matter of fact, neither the English, French, nor
German Government owns any stock in the central bank of its country.
_The Bank of England is run entirely as a private corporation_, the
stockholders electing the board of directors, who rotate in holding the
presidency. In France the government appoints the governor and some of
the directors. In Germany the government appoints the president and a
supervisory board of five members, while the stockholders elect the
board of directors.”
And again, in his discussion of the Owen-Glass Bill, Mr. Warburg says:
“The Monetary Commission’s plan proceeded on the theory of the Bank of
England, _which leaves the management entirely in the hands of business
men without giving the government any part in the management or
control_. The strong argument in favor of this theory is that central
banking, like any other banking, is based on ‘sound credit,’ that the
judging of credits is a matter of business which should be left in the
hands of business men, _and that the government should be kept out of
business_.... The Owen-Glass Bill proceeds, in this respect, more on the
lines of the Banque de France and the German Reichsbank, the presidents
and boards of which are to a certain extent appointed by the government.
_These central banks, while legally private corporations_, are
semi-governmental organs inasmuch as _they are permitted to issue the
notes of the nation_—particularly where there are elastic note issues,
as in almost all countries except England—and inasmuch as _they are the
custodians of practically the entire metallic reserves of the country
and the keepers of the government funds_. Moreover in questions of
national policy _the government must rely on the willing and loyal
co-operation of these central organs_.”
That is a very illuminating passage. It will be well worth the reader’s
time, especially the reader who has always been puzzled by financial
matters, to turn over in his mind the facts here given by a great Jewish
financial expert about the central bank idea. Observe the phrases:
(a) “without giving the government any part in the management or
control.”
(b) “these central banks, while legally private corporations ... are
permitted to issue the notes of the nation.”
(c) “they are custodians of practically the entire metallic reserves of
the nation and the keepers of the government funds.”
(d) “in questions of national policy, the government must rely on the
willing and loyal co-operation of these central organs.”
It is not now a question whether these things are right or wrong; it is
merely a question of understanding that they constitute the fact.
It is specially notable that in paragraph (d) it is a fair deduction
that in questions of national policy, the government will simply have to
depend not only on the patriotism but also to an extent on the
permission and counsel of the financial organizations. That is a fair
interpretation: questions of national policy are, by this method,
rendered dependent upon the financial corporations.
Let that point be clear, quite regardless of the question whether or not
this is the way national policies should be determined.
Mr. Warburg said that he believed in a certain amount of government
control—but not too much. He said: “In strengthening the government
control, the Owen-Glass Bill therefore moved in the right direction; but
it went too far and fell into the other and even more dangerous
extreme.”
The “more dangerous extreme” was, of course, the larger measure of
government supervision provided for, and the establishment of a number
of Federal Reserve Banks out in the country.
Mr. Warburg had referred to this before; he had agreed to the larger
number only because it seemed to be an unavoidable political concession.
It has already been shown, by Professor Seligman, that Mr. Warburg was
alive to the necessity of veiling a little here and there, and “putting
on” a little yonder, for the sake of conciliating a suspicious public.
There was also the story of the bartender and the cash-register.
Mr. Warburg thinks he understands the psychology of America. In this
respect he reminds one of the reports of Mr. von Bernstorff and Captain
Boy-Ed of what the Americans were likely to do or not to do. In the
Political Science Quarterly of December, 1920, Mr. Warburg tells how, on
a then recent visit to Europe, he was asked by men of all countries what
the United States was going to do. He assured them that America was a
little tired just then, but that she would come round all right. And
then, harking back to his efforts of placing his monetary system on the
Americans, he said:
“I asked them to be patient with us until after the election, and _I
cited to them our experiences with monetary reform_. I reminded them how
the Aldrich plan had failed because, at that time, a Republican
President had lost control of a Congress ruled by a Democratic majority;
how the Democrats in their platform damned this plan and any central
banking system; and how, _once in full power, the National Reserve
Association was evolved, not to say camouflaged, by them into the
Federal Reserve System_.”
Remembering this play before the public, and the play behind the scenes,
this “camouflaging,” as Mr. Warburg says, of one thing into another, he
undertook to assure his friends in Europe that regardless of what the
political platforms said, the United States would do substantially what
Europe hoped it would. Mr. Warburg’s basis for that belief was, as he
said, his experience with the way the central bank idea went through in
spite of the advertised objection of all parties. He believes that with
Americans it is possible to get what you want if you just play the game
skillfully. His experience with monetary reform seems to have fathered
that belief in him.
Politicians may be necessary pawns to play in the game, but as members
of the government Mr. Warburg does not want them in banking. They are
not bankers, he says; they don’t understand; banking is nothing for a
government man to meddle with. He may be good enough for the Government
of the United States; he is not good enough for banking.
“In our country,” says Mr. Warburg, referring to the United States,
“with every untrained amateur a candidate for any office, _where
friendship or help in a presidential campaign, financial or political,
has always given a claim for political preferment_, where the bids for
votes and public favor are ever present in the politician’s mind, ... _a
direct government management, that is to say, a political management,
would prove fatal_.... There can be no doubt but that, as drawn at
present (1913), with two cabinet officers members of the Federal Reserve
Board, and with the vast powers vested in the latter, the Owen-Glass
Bill would bring about direct government management.”
And that, of course, in Mr. Warburg’s mind, is not only “dangerous,” but
“fatal.”
Mr. Warburg had almost his whole will in the matter. And what is the
result?
Turn to the testimony of Bernard M. Baruch, when he was examined with
reference to the charge that certain men close to President Wilson had
profited to the extent of $60,000,000 on stock market operations which
they entered into on the strength of advance information of what the
President was to say in his next war note—the famous “leak”
investigation, as it was called; one of the several investigations in
which Mr. Baruch was closely questioned.
In that investigation Mr. Baruch was laboring to show that he had not
been in telephone communication with Washington, especially with certain
men who were supposed to have shared the profits of the deals. The time
was December, 1916. Mr. Warburg was then safely settled on the Federal
Reserve Board, which he had kept quite safe from Government intrusion.
The Chairman—“Of course the records of the telephone company here,
the slips, will show the persons with whom you talked.”
Mr. Baruch—“Do you wish me to say, sir? I will state who they are.”
The Chairman—“Yes, I think you might.”
Mr. Baruch—“I called up two persons; one, Mr. Warburg, whom I did
not get, and one, Secretary McAdoo, whom I did get—both in reference
to the same matter. Would you like to know the matter?”
The Chairman—“Yes, I think it is fair that you should state it.”
Mr. Baruch—“I called up the Secretary, because someone suggested to
me—_asked me to suggest an officer for the Federal Reserve Bank_,
and I called him up in reference to that, and discussed the matter
with him, I think, _two or three times_, but it was suggested to me
that I make the suggestion, and I did so.” (pp. 570–571)
Mr. Campbell—“Mr. Baruch, who asked you for a suggestion for an
appointee for the Federal Reserve Bank here?”
Mr. Baruch—“Mr. E. M. House.”
Mr. Campbell—“Did Mr. House tell you to call Mr. McAdoo up and make
the recommendation?”
Mr. Baruch—“I will tell you exactly how it occurred: _Mr. House
called me up_ and said that there was a vacancy on the Federal
Reserve Board, and he said, ‘I don’t know anything about those
fellows down there, and I would like you to make a suggestion.’ _And
I suggested the name_, which he thought was a very good one, and he
said to me, ‘I wish you would call up the Secretary and tell him.’ I
said, ‘I do not see the necessity; I will tell you.’ ‘No,’ he said,
‘I would prefer you to call him up.’” (p. 575)
There we have an example of the Federal Reserve “kept out of politics,”
kept away from government management which would not only be
“dangerous,” but “fatal.”
Barney Baruch, the New York stock plunger, who never owned a bank in his
life, was called up by Colonel E. M. House, the arch-politician of the
Wilson Administration, and thus the great Federal Reserve Board was
supplied another member.
A telephone call kept within a narrow Jewish circle and settled by a
word from one Jewish stock dealer—that, in practical operation, was Mr.
Warburg’s great monetary reform. Mr. Baruch calling up Mr. Warburg to
give the name of the next appointee of the Federal Reserve Board, and
calling up Mr. McAdoo, secretary of the United States Treasury, and set
in motion to do it by Colonel E. M. House—is it any wonder the Jewish
mystery in the American war government grows more and more amazing?
But, as Mr. Warburg has written—“friendship or help in _a presidential
campaign_, financial or political, has always given a claim to political
preferment.” And, as Mr. Warburg urges, this is a country “with every
untrained amateur a candidate for office,” and naturally, with such men
comprising the government, they must be kept at a safe distance from
monetary affairs.
As if to illustrate the ignorance thus charged, along comes Mr. Baruch,
who quotes Colonel House as saying, “I don’t know anything about those
fellows down there and I would like you to make a suggestion.” It is
permissible to doubt that Mr. Baruch correctly quotes Colonel House. It
is permissible to doubt that all that Colonel House confessed was his
ignorance about “those fellows.” There was a good understanding between
these two men, too good an understanding for the alleged telephone
conversation to be taken strictly at its face value. It is possibly
quite true that Mr. House is not a financier. Certainly, Mr. Wilson was
not. In the long roll of Presidents only a handful have been, and those
who have been have been regarded as most drastic in their proposals.
But this whole matter of ignorance, as charged by Mr. Warburg, sounds
like an echo of the Protocols:
“The administrators chosen by us from the masses _will not be
persons trained for government_, and consequently they will easily
become pawns in our game, played by _our learned and talented
counsellors, specialists educated from early childhood to administer
world affairs_.”
In the Twentieth Protocol, wherein the great financial plan of world
subversion and control is disclosed, there is another mention of the
rulers’ ignorance of financial problems.
It is a coincidence that, while he does not use the term “ignorance,”
Mr. Warburg is quite outspoken concerning the benighted state in which
he found this country, and he is also outspoken about the “untrained
amateurs” who are candidates for every office. These, he says, are not
fitted to take part in the control of monetary affairs. But Mr. Warburg
is. He says so. He admits that it was his ambition from the moment he
came here an alien Jewish-German banker, to change our financial affairs
more to his liking. More than that, he has succeeded; he has succeeded,
he himself says, more than most men do in a lifetime; he has succeeded,
Professor Seligman says, to such an extent that throughout history the
name of Paul M. Warburg and that of the Federal Reserve System shall be
united.
——
Issue of July 2, 1921.
LX.
How Jewish International Finance Functions
“_Such has been the development of international bankers that they can
no longer be regarded in their professional capacity as the nationals of
any country, entitled to do business under their own government’s
supervision exclusively. They are really world citizens, with world-wide
interests, and as such ought to be made amenable to some form of
supernational control._”—George Pattullo, in _Saturday Evening Post_.
Not only did the Jewish financial firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company use
far-sighted prudence in splitting its political support—one Warburg
supporting Wilson, another Warburg supporting Taft and an unnamed member
of the firm supporting Roosevelt, all at one time, as Paul M. Warburg
testified—but it split its activities in several other ways also.
The international interests of the Jews comprising this firm are worthy
of note. The influence which forced the United States to repudiate a
commercial treaty with Russia while Russia was a friendly country
(1911), and thus to compel all business between the United States and
Russia to pass through German-Jewish hands, was generated by Jacob H.
Schiff. Russia seems to have been the country on which he chose to focus
his activities. The full story is told in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT of
January 15, 1921, under the title, “Taft Once Tried to Resist the
Jews—and Failed,” and is reprinted in Volume II of the booklet
containing this series.
Mr. Schiff’s activity consisted in forcing the Congress of the United
States to do a thing that was repugnant to the reason and conscience of
President Taft, and which he personally refused to do or to recommend.
Mr. Schiff left the White House in great anger with the threat, “This
means war.” It did not mean as much war as it might have, for President
Taft acquiesced gracefully in the Jewish victory and has since been
extremely laudatory of them on the public platform.
Mr. Schiff’s firm also helped finance the Japanese war against Russia,
and in return desired Japan as a Jewish ally. The wily Japs, however,
saw the game and kept their relations with Mr. Schiff to purely business
matters. Which fact is well worth bearing in mind when reading the
widespread propaganda for war with Japan. If you will give particular
attention, you will observe that the same interests which are just now
engaged in most loudly “defending” the Jew, are most active in spreading
anti-Japanese sentiments in this country.
The Japanese war with Russia, however, enabled Mr. Schiff to advance his
plan to undermine the Russian Empire, as it has now been accomplished by
Jewish Bolshevism. With funds provided by him, the basic principles of
what is now known as Bolshevism, were sown among the Russian prisoners
of war in Japan, who were sent back as apostles of destruction. Then
followed the horrible murder of Nicholas Romanoff, Czar of Russia, with
his wife, his crippled son, and his young daughters, the full tale of
which has now been told by the Jew who managed the crime.
For the part he played in destroying Russia, Mr. Schiff was wildly
hailed in New York the night the news came that the Emperor had
abdicated.
Meanwhile, the Jew who was “to take the Czar’s job” (as the common New
York ghetto phrase ran, weeks before the event) had left New York to be
in waiting.
This Jew was passed out of the United States at the request of a very
high American personage whose subservience to the Jews was one of the
marvels of the past seven years. Halted by the British, this Jew was
released from their toils at the request of a very high American
personage. And thus, the Jewish Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the
program of which was made in America, was set in operation without a
hitch.
This whole firm is German Jewish, its members having originated in
Germany. It had German connections. How far it maintained those
connections through all subsequent events is a separate question.
Mr. Otto Kahn’s allotted portion of the world seems to be Great Britain
and France. Mr. Kahn is of German origin, like the rest of the firm, but
he has not publicly shown such concern for Germany as have the other
members. Mr. Schiff was once very active for the settlement of a peace
on the basis of a victorious Germany. Mr. Paul M. Warburg also had
interests, discussion of which is postponed for the present. But Mr.
Kahn succeeded, through the connivance of American authority and the
excessive repression of the newspapers, in conveying the impression that
by some species of occult separatism he was not “German-minded.”
Therefore Mr. Kahn flits lightly everywhere—except Germany. He is
sufficiently French to be able to tell in the first column on the first
page of _Le Matin_ on what terms America will do business with Europe,
and he speaks as one having authority. He is sufficiently British to
have thought of standing for the British Parliament, when an unfortunate
event made it necessary for him to remain in the United States. Mr. Kahn
sometimes flits farther East into the more Jewish portions of Europe,
and his comings and goings are marked by certain changes with which his
name remains most ostentatiously disconnected.
Mr. Kahn has very recently been telling France on what terms the United
States will help her. There apparently being no other spokesman, Mr.
Kahn’s word is accepted as authority. France is one of the most Judaized
countries in the world, the haunt of International Jewish Financiers who
exercise their power (thus saving France the trouble of passing laws) to
keep the emigrant Jew out of France; so that France presents the
spectacle of being Judaized by Jewish finance and not by immigrant
Semitic hordes, and is thus a fit platform from which Mr. Otto Herman
Kahn may utter his pronouncements.
In his last declaration to France, Mr. Kahn prepares her to expect
little by stating that “America is a country of immense resources; but
the actual money which the people have at their disposal is
comparatively limited.” True enough. It was a member of Mr. Kahn’s firm
who invented a monetary system which was promised to keep _money_ in
more equal relation to _wealth_.
But as he goes on telling what America will and will not do (the
American people knowing nothing about it meanwhile) Mr. Kahn discovers
with great enthusiasm a place where he thinks American capital can be
placed, namely, “_in the development of the vast and immensely rich
colonial empire of France_.”
And pray where is that? Any Frenchman would tell you now, “_In Syria._”
Syria—ah!—that part of the East where the natives are loudly complaining
that the Jews are driving them out contrary to every written and moral
law. The Jewish powers have already succeeded in getting French troops
over there; bad blood has been caused between France and Great Britain;
the Jews on both sides are playing for the middle; and here is Mr. Otto
Kahn himself pledging American capital to the development of the French
colonial empire! Talk to any Syrian who knows his country’s present
status, and he will interpret Mr. Kahn’s words very vividly.
One of the nicest bits of work Mr. Kahn has done is to denounce
“pro-German propaganda” which he says has exasperated Americans in favor
of France. Next to committing the United States to an undying admiration
for Briand, this is really his finest bit. Especially, with Partner Paul
playing the German sympathy string! It is a great international
orchestra, this Jewish financial firm; it can play The Star Spangled
Banner, Die Wacht am Rhein, the Marseillaise, and God Save the King in
one harmonious rendering, paying obsequious attention to the prejudices
of each.
Next come the Warburgs. Their interest is, of course, in Germany. Paul
stated in his testimony given at the beginning of the World War that he
had interests in Hamburg and would dispose of them. The war came on. The
Jewish government in the United States was augmented. Mr. Warburg was no
mean figure, as previous articles have shown.
The Warburgs are three in number. Felix M. is the other one in America.
He appears but slightly in public affairs although he is a member of the
American Jewish Committee and of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company. His
retiring habit, however, does not argue lack of consequence. He was of
sufficient consequence, Jewishly, to have bestowed upon him a sort of
honorary rabbinical degree of “Haber” which entitles him to be known as
“Haber Rabbi Baruch Ben Moshe.” He is the only Jew in America upon whom
the title has ever been conferred.
Max Warburg represents the family in its native land. Max Warburg had as
much to do with the German war government as his family and financial
colleagues in America had to do with the United States war government.
As has been recounted in the press the world over, the brother from
America and the brother from Germany both met at Paris as government
representatives in determining the peace. There were so many Jews in the
German delegation that it was known by the term “kosher,” also as “the
Warburg delegation,” and there were so many Jews in the American
delegation that the delegates from the minor countries of Europe looked
upon the United States as a Jewish country which through unheard-of
generosity had elected a non-Jew as its President.
Max Warburg is an interesting character also as regards the
establishment of Bolshevism in Russia. The Jews had several objectives
in the war, and one of them was “get Russia.” To this end the German
Jews worked very assiduously. Because Russia was a member of the Allies,
the work of German Jews was made the easier. But the fact that Russia
was an ally made no difference with the Jews who were resident in Allied
countries. Win or lose, Russia must be destroyed. It is the testimony of
history that it was not so much the German military prowess as the
Jewish intrigue that accomplished the downfall of that empire.
In this work Max Warburg was a factor. His bank is noted in a dispatch
published by the United States Government as being one whence funds were
forwarded to Trotzky for use in destroying Russia. Always against
Russia, not for German reasons, but for Jewish reasons, which in this
particular instance coincided. Warburg and Trotzky—against Russia!
Poor John Spargo, who ought to know better, denies all this—while every
American who comes back from Russia, even those who went over there pro-
Bolshevik, yes, and returned Jews themselves, proclaim it.
The crushing fact is that Bolshevism is not only Jewish in Russia, and
in America, but it is Jewish in the higher regions of Jewry where better
things ought to exist. Take Walter Rathenau, a German Jew on the plane
of the Warburgs. Rathenau was the inventor of the Bolshevik system of
centralization of industry, material and money. The Soviet Government
asked Rathenau directly for the plans, and received them directly from
him. Max Warburg’s bank held the money; Walter Rathenau’s mind held the
plans—which makes it a pertinent question: If Bolshevism can be so
Jewish outside of Russia, what hinders it being Jewish inside Russia?
It is a most significant fact that, as in Washington, the most constant
and privileged visitors to the White House were Jews, so in Berlin the
only private telephone wire to the Kaiser was owned by Walter Rathenau.
Not even the Crown Prince could reach the Kaiser except through the
ordinary telephone connections. It was the same in London. It was the
same in Paris. It was the same in Petrograd—in Russia which so
“persecuted” the race that controlled it then and controls it now.
Now, this sketchy outline of the internationalism of the firm of Kuhn,
Loeb & Company is not offered as the result of keen research, for the
facts are found on the very surface of the matter, for anyone to see.
What is revealed by research is this: whether Mr. Schiff’s interest in
Russia had underground features which affected the welfare of the
nations; whether Mr. Kahn’s flitting missions here and there, which he
made with great freedom daring the war, were wholly taken up with the
business announced in the public notices; and whether Mr. Warburg, whose
interest in Germany has not abated, to judge from his recent utterances,
was able to retain complete neutrality of mind during the war. These are
questions of value. Obviously, they are not easy to answer. But they can
be answered.
It was a family enterprise, this international campaign. Jacob Schiff
swore to destroy Russia. Paul M. Warburg was his brother-in-law; Felix
Warburg was his son-in-law. Max Warburg, of Hamburg, banker of the
Bolsheviks, was thus brother-in-law to Jacob Schiff’s wife and daughter.
Speaking of the far-sighted manner in which the house of Kuhn, Loeb &
Company disposes itself over world affairs, there is also the curious
fact that in this Jewish firm is one who goes to a Christian church—a
most heinous thing for a Jew to do. Split three ways in American
politics and as many ways as international matters require, we find this
firm split two ways with regard to religion. Mr. Kahn professes—at least
he attends—a Christian church and is accounted an adherent of it. Yet he
is not ostracized. His name is not taboo. The Jews do not curse him. He
is not denounced as a renegade. The Jews have not buried him out of
mind, as they do others who desert the faith.
This presents a strange situation when it is considered. Not to recount
again the horror and reprehension and active antagonism with which Jews
view such a desertion, suffice it to say that there is no greater marvel
than that of Jacob H. Schiff retaining in the firm of Kuhn, Loeb &
Company a “renegade” Jew. He could not have done it; every fiber of his
intensely Jewish nature would have rebelled against it. Yet there it is!
Without going further into this ingenious system of covering all vital
points from one center, enough has been said to show one busy Jewish
financial firm with which political matters, national and international,
is almost a profession. The family of Warburg high in the controlling
group of two countries, and enemy countries at that. The family of
Warburg high in the negotiations of world peace and the discussions of a
League of Nations. The family of Warburg now advising the world from
both sides of the earth, what to do next. It was probably with more
reason than the general public surmised that a New York paper printed
during the Peace Conference an article headed, “Watch the Warburgs!”
The fact seems to be that, as Mr. Pattullo is quoted as saying at the
head of this article, the international financiers have been so
engrossed in world money that the sense of national responsibility
sometimes becomes blurred in their minds. They desire everything—war,
negotiations and peace—to be conducted in such a way as to react
favorably on the money market. For that is their market: money is what
they buy and sell: and because money has no fixed price, it is a market
which offers the widest opportunity for the trickster and swindler. One
cannot play such tricks with stone or corn or metals, but with money as
the commodity everything is possible.
Mr. Warburg is already very much interested about the treatment to be
accorded foreign securities in the next war. Readers of the daily
newspapers may recall that recently a demand was made for the gold in
the Reichsbank, which was resisted on the ground that the Reichsbank,
although the central bank of Germany, was really a private concern—just
as Paul Warburg said it was and just as he has insisted that our own
Federal Reserve System should be, and which it is. There is far-sighted
wisdom in that, with a view to possible defeat in war.
Mr. Warburg is apparently quite disapproving of the treatment accorded
alien enemy property “by some countries.” He quotes a French banker
throughout—nationality not stated—and drives home his point. The French
banker used as an illustration a possible war between England and France
(this was only last year) and said that the bankers in each country
would proceed to withdraw their mutual balances and securities, for fear
of confiscation, and that such a course would precipitate a panic.
To which Mr. Warburg adds: “I think that our bankers ought carefully to
study this very serious question. We have nothing to gain and much to
lose by joining in a policy of disregarding the rights of private
property. We shall probably, in the course of time, become the largest
owners of foreign securities and properties, which would become
endangered in case we were drawn into war. To me, however, it is of
greater interest that nothing be done that might stand in the way of
making the United States the gold reserve country of the world....”
Such talk passes with too little scrutiny. It bears a strong reflection
of recent events which should not be overlooked. Moreover, it presents a
grandiose vision which is supposed to command instant agreement because
of its appeal to superficial national pride and selfish ambition.
If what Mr. Warburg says is an intimation that the International Jews
are planning to move their money market to the United States, it is safe
to say that the United States does not want it. We have the warning of
history as to what this would mean. It has meant that in turn Spain,
Venice, Great Britain or Germany received the blame and suspicion of the
world for what the Jewish financiers have done. It is a most important
consideration that most of the national animosities that exist today
arose out of resentment against what the Jewish money power did under
the camouflage of national names. “The British did this,” “the Germans
did this,” when it was the International Jew who did it, the nations
being but the marked spaces on his checker board.
Today, around the world the blaming word is heard, “The United States
did this. If it were not for the United States the world would be in
better shape. The Americans are a sordid, greedy, cruel people.” Why?
Because the Jewish money power is largely centered here and is making
money out of both our immunity and Europe’s distress, playing one
against the other; and because so many of the so-called “American
business men” abroad today are not Americans at all—they are Jews, and
in many cases as misrepresentative of their own race as they are of the
Americans.
The United States does not want the transfer of All-Judaan to this soil.
We do not desire to stand as a gold god above the nations. We would
serve the nations, and we would protect them, but we would do both in
the basis of real values, not in the name or under the sign of gold.
On the one hand Mr. Warburg recites pitiful facts about Germany in order
to raise sympathy for her, and on the other hand he stimulates the gold
lust of the United States. The plight of Germany is entirely due to the
forces from which the United States has only narrowly escaped; and to
harken to international Jewish plans for the rehabilitation of Germany
is to be in danger of approving plans which will fasten Jewish
domination more strongly on that unhappy country than it is now. Germany
has paid dearly for her Jews. The Warburg voice that speaks for her
would seem indeed to be the voice of Jacob, but the hand that proposes
financial dealings is that of Esau.
The internationalism of the Warburgs is no longer in doubt, and cannot
be denied. Felix Warburg hung on to the Hamburg connection longer than
did Paul, but the breakage of either was probably perfunctory. At the
time that Felix left the Hamburg firm of his brother, Max, a Mr. Stern
also left the Frankfort firm of Stern, and both became very active on
the Allies side, taking sides against the German nation as lustily as
anyone could. “Impossible!” say those who fancy that a German Jew is a
German. Not at all impossible; the Jew’s loyalty is to the Jewish
nation; what the Jew himself refers to as his “cover nationality” may
count or not as he himself elects.
This statement is always met with frothing wrath by the Jews’ “gentile
fronts” in the purchased pro-Jewish press. But here is an example: Do
you remember “The Beast of Berlin,” that lurid piece of war propaganda?
You did not, perhaps, know that its producer was a German Jew, Carl
Laemmle. His German birth did not prevent him making money out of his
film, and his film does not prevent him annually going back in state to
his birthplace. This year he goes accompanied by Abe Stern, his
treasurer; Lee Kohlmar, his director; and Harry Reichenbach—a list of
names duplicable in any movie group.
Messrs. Stern and “Warburg, of Frankfort and Hamburg, respectively, and
away from home perhaps only temporarily, were not concerned about the
fate of the “Huns,” but they were immensely concerned about the fate of
Jewish money power in Germany.
To indicate how blind the public has been to the inter-allied Jewish
character of much of the world’s important international financial
activity, note this from the _Living Age_ earlier in the year:
“According to the _Svensk Handelstidning_, the recent American loan
of $5,000,000 to Norway was really the outcome of an agreement
between the Hamburg firm of Warburg & Company and the New York
bankers, Kuhn and Loeb. It is regarded as a significant sign of the
times that a German firm should be responsible for an American loan
to a neutral country. The conditions subject to which this money was
borrowed, are not regarded as very favorable to Norway, and no
marked effect on the rate of exchange between the two countries has
followed.”
Note, in the light of all the statements made about Kuhn, Loeb &
Company, and the Warburgs in particular, the assumption in the above
quotation that the transaction was really between a German and an
American firm. It was principally an arrangement between the Warburgs
themselves in family counsel. But the loan will pass in Norway as “_an
American loan_,” and the fact that the terms of the loan “_are not
regarded as very favorable to Norway_” will react upon Scandinavian
opinion of this country. It goes without saying that “_no marked effect
on the rate of exchange between the two countries has followed_,” for
that would not be the object of such a loan. The dislocation of exchange
is not unprofitable.
It would be most interesting to know in how far Kuhn, Loeb & Company has
endeavored to readjust the rate of exchange.
During the war, Kuhn, Loeb & Company made a loan to the city of Paris.
Considerable German comment was occasioned by this—naturally. And it is
very well worthy of record that in the city of Hamburg, where Max
Warburg does business, the chief of police issued this order:
“Further mention in the press of loans made by the firm of Kuhn,
Loeb & Company to the city of Paris, and unfavorable comments
thereon, are forbidden.”
The following story is vouched for as reliable, and if in one or two
minor details it does not represent the exact fact, it is a trustworthy
illustration of how certain things were done:
“A Jewish international banking corporation bought up the mining and
other similar concessions of Jugo-Slavia, and consequently the
policy pushed at the Peace Conference was that which was most
convenient for that group. An understanding on the Fiume question
was in progress between Wilson and Nitti. Certain concessions had
been agreed upon and Wilson was willing to negotiate, when Oscar
Straus and one of the Warburgs appeared on the scene. Wilson changed
his attitude over night and afterward insisted on the Jugo-Slavia
solution of the problem. The way in which concessions had been
bought through that territory was a disgrace, and observers expected
that it would play an important part at the Peace Conference.”
The financiers are not the only International Jews in the world. The
revolutionary Jews, of all countries and none, are international also.
They have seized upon the idea of Christian internationalism, which
means amity between nations, and have used it as a weapon with which to
weaken nationality. They know as well as anyone that there can be no
internationalism except on the basis of strong nationalism, but they
count on “cover words” to advance their plan.
Enough transpired between the lower and higher Jewish groups of every
large center during the war to render it imperative that Jewry confess,
repent and repudiate the madness that has ruled it, or else boldly
assert and espouse it before the world.
Certainly enough has transpired to render it desirable that the American
people look again into the purposes of those Jews who were instrumental
in reorganizing our financial system at a most critical time in the
world’s history.
Max Warburg was apparently strong enough to suppress German discussion
of his brothers’ activity in America. The Warburgs at present resident
in America must suffer it, therefore, that American comment be made as
full as need be.
——
Issue of July 9, 1921.
LXI.
Jewish Power and America’s Money Famine
The international Jewish banker who has no country but plays them all
against one another, and the International Jewish proletariat that roams
from land to land in search of a peculiar type of economic opportunity,
are not figments of the imagination except to the non-Jew who prefers a
lazy laxity of mind.
Of these classes of Jews, one or both are at the heart of the problems
that disturb the world today. The immigration problem is Jewish. The
money question is Jewish. The tie-up of world politics is Jewish. The
terms of the Peace Treaty are Jewish. The diplomacy of the world is
Jewish. The moral question in movies and theaters is Jewish. The mystery
of the illicit liquor business is Jewish.
These facts are unfortunate as well as unpleasant for the Jew, and it is
squarely up to him to deal with the facts, and not waste time in trying
to destroy those who define the facts. These facts are interpreted by
the Jew and the anti-Semite with strange extremes of blindness. The Jew
never gets the world’s point of view at all; he always gets the
anti-Semite’s point of view; and the anti-Semite is equally at fault in
always getting the Jew’s point of view. What both need is to get
society’s point of view, which is the one being set forth in this
present series of articles.
To say that the immigration problem is Jewish does not mean that Jews
must be prohibited entry to any country; it means that they must become
rooted to a country in loyal citizenship, as no doubt some are, and as
no doubt most are not. To say that the money question is Jewish does not
mean that Jews must get out of finance; it means that they must rid
finance of the Jewish idea which has always been to use money to get a
strangle-hold on men and business concerns, instead of using finance to
help general business. To say that the tie-up of world politics is
Jewish does not mean that Jews, as human beings, are to be denied a
voice in affairs; it means that they must give up trying to make the
world revolve around the Jewish nation as its axis. To describe the
influence of the Jew on the theater is not to demand that he leave the
theater, but it is to demand that he rid the theater of his idea that
sensualism is entertaining.
The Jewish Question is first for the Jews to solve; if not, the world
will have to solve it for them. They may stay in business, say the
theater, for example, if they will cease spoiling the theater; if they
do not cease, the theater will be taken away from them just as certainly
as that day follows night. The world has been patient and the world will
be fair, but the world knows the limit of imposition.
It is not the true Jewishness of the Jew, nor yet the nationalism of the
Jew that is on trial, but his anti-national internationalism. A true
Mosaic Jew—not a Talmud Jew—would be a good citizen. A nationalist Jew
would at least be logical. But an international Jew has proved an
abomination, because his internationalism is focused on his own racial
nationalism which in turn is founded on his ingrained belief that the
rest of humanity is inferior to him and by right his prey. Jewish
leaders may indulge in all the platitudes they possess, the fact which
they cannot deny is that the Jew has for centuries regarded the “goyim”
as beneath him and legitimately his spoil.
The internationalism of the Jew is confessed everywhere by him. Listen
to a German banker: imagine the slow, oily voice in which he said:
“We are international bankers. Germany lost the war?—what of it?—that is
an affair of the army. We are international bankers.”
And that was the attitude of every international Jewish banker during
the war. The nations were in strife? What of it? It was like a
Dempsey-Carpentier bout in New Jersey, or a baseball game in Chicago—an
affair of the fighters—“we are international bankers.”
A nation is being hamstrung by artificial exchange rates; another by the
sucking of money out of its channels of trade; what of it to the
international banker?—he has his own game to play. Hard times bring more
plums tumbling off the tree into the baskets of the international
bankers than does any other kind of times. Wars and panics are the
Jewish international bankers’ harvests.
Citizens wake up with a start to find that even the white nations are
hardly allowed to see each other nowadays except through Jewish eyes.
When the United States supposedly speaks to France, through whom does
she speak? All that France sees is Otto H. Kahn! Why must a Jew
represent the United States of America to France? When France supposedly
speaks to the United States, through whom is it done? Through Viviani,
Jewish in every thought and method. Now they are talking of sending
Millerand over, another Jew. Britain sends Lord Reading. Germany sent
Dr. Dernberg. And to other countries the United States sent Morgenthau,
Strauss, Warburg, and lesser Jewlings.
It comes with something of a shock to learn that Foch is coming to the
United States. We have not seen a Frenchman since Joffre visited us. It
is good to see men of the white race come across the sea as if to
reassure us that white men still live in those countries. The business
of the Peace Conference was done by Jews—has it come to a point where
international diplomacy is to become a Jewish monopoly also? Must the
special conversations between France, Britain and the United States be
held through Jewish interpreters, while Anglo-Saxons and true Frenchmen
do the routine embassy work—or shall it be possible for the non-Jewish
nations to see one another occasionally through non-Jewish
representatives?
Internationalism is not a Jewish conviction, but a Jewish business
device. It is most profitable. In diplomacy and at the immigrant
station, internationalism pays. Jews interpret nation to nation in the
high rites of special conversations between governments; Jewish
interpreters swarm at the ports of every country also, where the poor
swarm in. It was stated in the House of Lords the other day that most of
the trouble in Palestine was caused by Jewish interpreters. It was
charged that the Jewish administration added an extra language to the
official list in order to make Jewish interpreters indispensable.
Go through the government of the United States, where the income tax
secrets are kept, where the Federal Reserve secrets are kept, where the
State Department secrets are kept—and you will find Jews sitting at the
very spot where International Jewry desires them to sit, and where
nothing is kept from their knowledge.
Go abroad and come back to your country a Jew will open the gate to let
you in, or close it to keep you out—as he chooses.
“Will you be going to Detroit while you are here?” asked a Jewish
government agent of a gentleman entering the country on a visit a few
weeks ago.
“I may go to Detroit,” was the reply.
“Well, you go to the damned DEARBORN INDEPENDENT and tell them a Jew let
you into this country,” said the government agent.
What the visitor replied is known, but had better not be quoted. The
American Jewish Committee might shriek that the people were being
incited to pogroms.
The incident, however, is but a sample of what is occurring every day.
The truth about the Jewish Question in the United States is perhaps the
one form of truth that cannot be indiscriminately told.
The international Jewish bankers regard themselves as in similar fashion
“letting” the nations do this or that, regarding the nations not as
fatherlands but as customers—and as customers in the Jewish sense. If an
army wins or loses, if a government succeeds or fails, what of it?—that
is their affair—“we are international bankers,” and we win, whoever
loses.
For international Jewish bankers, the war is not over. The period of
actual hostilities and the emergencies of the nations were but the
opening of the trade. The ready cash was skimmed in then—all the cash
the world had. True, some of it had to be distributed among the people
as war wages and bonuses, in order to keep the struggle going, but this
was soon recovered through the means of high prices, artificial
scarcities and the orgy of extravagance deliberately organized and
stimulated among the people. That phase over, and money disappeared.
Is there any more tragic joke than that diligently disseminated in this
country—“The United States has more gold than any other country in the
world”? Where is it? How long since you have seen a piece of gold? Where
is all this gold—is it locked up in the Treasury of the United States
Government? Why, that government is in debt, desperately trying to
economize, cannot pay a soldier bonus because the finances of the
country cannot stand it! Where is that gold? It may be _in_ the United
States, but it does not belong _to_ the United States.
The American farmer, and those American industries which were not “wise”
to the tricks of international Jewish bankers, and who were nipped by
small loans, are wondering where all this money is. Furthermore, Europe,
suffering from every possible lack, is looking to us and wondering where
the money is.
This dispatch in a London paper may throw light on the matter: (italics
are ours)
“It is learned today that new gold shipments aggregating $2,800,000
are consigned to Kuhn, Loeb & Company, New York, making nearly
$129,000,000 imported by that firm since the movement started. In
responsible banking circles the belief is expressed that some of the
_German_ coin recently imported by the firm is _from_ _Russia,
instead of Germany_, as generally supposed.”
This dispatch, coupled with one printed in a former article which showed
Warburg & Company of Germany arranging with Kuhn, Loeb & Company of New
York for a $5,000,000 loan to Norway, is not devoid of light on the
question—_Where is the money?_
The Jewish international banking system may be easily described. First,
there is the international Jewish headquarters. This was in Germany. It
had ramifications in Russia, Italy, France, Great Britain and the South
American states. (South American Jewry is very menacing.) Germany and
Russia were the two countries scheduled for punishment by the
International Jewish bankers because these two countries were most aware
of the Jew. They have been punished; that job is done.
Jewish political headquarters, as related to the internal affairs of the
Jews, was also located in Germany, but the headquarters dealing with the
“goyim” was in France. Statements have been made that the political
center of Jewry has been transplanted to the United States. But these
statements have been made by American Jews whose wish may have been
father to the thought. During the Wilson Administration it was possible
for a Jew to think and to hope this, but affairs have slightly changed.
The ousting of American Jews from the Zionist movement at the behest of
Eastern Jews indicates that if the political center of world Jewry has
shifted to the United States, the _power_ is still in the hands of
_aliens_ resident here. The center is still in Jewry; the United States
is merely a square on Jewry’s world checker board.
But, wherever the financial and political world centers may be, each
country is separately handled. In every country—the United States,
Mexico and the republics of South America; in France, England, Italy,
Germany, Austria—yes, and in Japan—there is an international Jewish
banking firm which stands at the head of the group for that country.
Thus, the chief Jewish firm in the United States is Kuhn, Loeb &
Company, of which one of the members is Paul M. Warburg, brother of M.
Warburg & Company, of Hamburg; and another member of which is Otto H.
Kahn, resident successively of Germany, Great Britain and the United
States, and self-appointed financial spokesman for the United States to
France and Great Britain. Great Britain and France seldom see a special
American spokesman who is not a Jew. That may be the reason why they
reciprocate by sending Jews to us, thinking perhaps that we prefer them.
Paul M. Warburg was the inventor, perfector and director of the Federal
Reserve System of the United States. He is not the only Jew in the
Federal Reserve System, but he was the chief Jew there. His mind counted
for a great deal. There were others in the war government, of course;
Bernard M. Baruch; Eugene Meyer, Jr.; Hoover’s regiment of Jews; Felix
Frankfurter; Julius Rosenwald—hundreds of them, and everywhere; but the
financial group alone is receiving our attention just now, and they are
not so notably successful in getting the country out of financial
difficulty as they were in other lines of effort.
The Federal Reserve System may not be a bad system, in spite of the fact
that it yields government monetary functions to private financial
corporations, but there are all sorts of testimony that it has been
badly manipulated. Mr. Warburg, the reader will remember, spoke about
certain things being “overcome in an administrative way,” showing that
there was a certain amount of “play” or loose motion in the system which
could be manipulated either way. The fact remains that the country went
swimmingly through the war by reason of the assistance of the System,
and is coming very lamely through the Peace, as the result, monetary
experts say, of the hindrance of the same System. Mr. Warburg, whose
name was so prominently connected with the advertisement of the glory of
the System, must also stand being mentioned in connection with the
criticism.
Whatever money we are said to have as the per capita in the United
States, it is a false statement. The money _per capita_ should always be
figured on the basis of the money _in circulation_. The statistical “per
capita” is not always in circulation. Less than half of it, as a rule.
The rest is being juggled.
Whatever the _gold_ in the country, the _wealth_ is still greater. There
is more wealth in the United States than there is gold in the world. One
year’s products of the farms of the United States exceeds in money value
all the gold in the world.
Yet, under our present system, the burgeoning bulk of the country’s
_wealth_ must _pass through the narrow neck of Money_. And the _Money_
must pass through the _still narrower neck of Gold_. And the controller
of the Gold, under our present system, controls the world. There is more
wealth than there is money; there is more money than there is gold;
money exists at the pleasure of gold; wealth moves at the pleasure of
money. Whoever sits at the neck of money, opening or closing as he will,
controls the movement of the world’s wealth. And the world’s prosperity
depends on the movement of that wealth. When wealth stands still and
does not pass from hand to hand, the world’s circulation has stopped;
the world becomes economically sick.
The scarcity of cash in hand has led to Credit. Credit is a form of
barter. It is a form of dealing by which many transactions are carried
on, only the final one being cleared in money. It is a device which has
its dangers, in spite of the efforts of apologists to exploit its
advantages. But one thing the system of Credit indubitably does—it
allows the money masters to hang on to the _Cash_. When the world is
caught, _it is caught with paper_, not with Cash. The Cash is always in
the hands of those who extol the advantage of the Credit System. Who
holds money holds power, and will hold it, until real barter or _real
money_ comes in fashion again.
In 1919–1920, according to one of the best monetary authorities in the
United States, the total shrinkage in values of the products of our
fields, mines, factories, mills and forests represented a sum greater
than the total gold supply of the world. It runs as high as the total
amount of Liberty Bonds outstanding.
People say, “Well, the prices were too high.” Certainly they were too
high, but who and what made them too high? It was the generosity with
which money was supplied by the private Federal Reserve System. There
was plenty of money. People say, “Well, the shrinkage is only in paper
values; the real value of the product is still there.” Certainly, but
when you live under a system in which “real” value and “money” value are
so intimately intertwined that it affects your bread and butter, the
tenure of your farm, and the steadiness of your job, it is pretty hard
to separate the two. Moreover, when your prosperity was due to the
readiness of a group of men to let out money, and your adversity is due
to the unwillingness of the same group, and your own welfare and your
country’s welfare is thus see-sawed up and down without any reference to
natural law but solely upon determinations taken in committee rooms, you
naturally inquire, “Who is doing this? Where is all the money gone? Who
is holding it? Here is the wealth of the country; here is the need of
the country; where is the money to transfer the wealth to the need?
Every condition remains as it was, except money.”
We have a Federal Reserve System which still is benefiting by the
assistance of its perfector and director, Paul M. Warburg. And what is
the condition in the United States?
Some of the biggest industrial institutions in the country now in the
hands of creditors’ committees.
Farmers being sold out by the hundreds, their horses bringing about $3
each.
Cotton and wool enough to clothe the nation, spoiling in the hands of
the men who raised it and cannot dispose of it.
Every line of business, railroading, newspaper publishing,
store-keeping, manufacturing, agriculture, building, in depression. Why?
For lack of money.
Where is the money? This is the country that is supposed to be the
financial center of the world—_where is the money?_
It is in New York. The Federal Reserve System, which Mr. Warburg desired
to head up in one central bank, has just about turned out that way. _The
money is in New York._ Here is the charge made to the governor of the
Federal Reserve Board by a responsible public official who knows:
While there is a scarcity of money for the producing sections of the
West and Northwest, the South and Southwest, “we find that individual
banks in New York City are borrowing from the Reserve System, in a
number of cases, more than $100,000,000 each; and sometimes as much as
$145,000,000 is loaned there to a single bank—_twice as much_ as some of
the Reserve Banks have been lending recently to _all_ the member banks
in their districts.”
One bank in New York borrowed $134,000,000, _or $20,000,000 more_ than
the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was advancing to 1,091 member
banks in that Reserve District which covers the states of Kansas,
Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and parts of Missouri, Oklahoma and New
Mexico.
At the same time, another New York bank was borrowing from the Federal
Reserve Bank about $40,000,000, which was _more than the aggregate loans
which the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis was lending to its 1,000
member banks in the_ great states of Minnesota, North and South Dakota,
Montana and part of Wisconsin.
Another New York bank borrowed from the Federal Reserve Bank a sum which
was _greater by $30,000,000 than the Federal Reserve Bank at Dallas was
lending to all the banks in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma_.
Still another New York bank got a loan which _equaled the total loans
allowed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to the 569 member
banks_ of that very important district, which includes the whole state
of Arkansas, parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and
Mississippi, and the larger part of Missouri.
Take the Fifth Federal Reserve District, served by the Federal Reserve
Bank at Richmond, Virginia: one New York bank was able to borrow from
the New York Reserve Bank _more_ than the Richmond Reserve Bank would
lend to all its member banks in Maryland, Virginia, North and South
Carolina and the larger part of West Virginia.
That is the situation. The twelve regional banks, which were supposed to
make money serve all parts of the country equally, have apparently been
“overcome in an administrative way” to such an extent that the New York
Federal Reserve Bank is to all intents and purposes the Central Bank of
the United States, and serves the speculative part of the country with
millions, while the productive part of the country is permitted to wilt
with paltry thousands.
When it can occur that four New York banks can borrow from the New York
Federal Reserve Bank as much money as the banks of 21 states were able
to borrow from the five Federal Reserve Banks of St. Louis, Kansas City,
Minneapolis, Dallas and Richmond—there would seem to be need of
explanation somewhere.
Where did this money loaned in New York come from? It came from those
parts of the country where money was scarcest. In May, 1920, the word
went out over telephones—“The tie-up will come on the 15th.” And it
came. Credit was stopped. Payment was pressed. A stream of money,
literally squeezed out of the producing sections of the country, began
to roll toward New York. Otherwise those giant loans just recorded would
have been impossible. It was pressure, Federal Reserve pressure,
politely known as deflation, and that is the way it worked. The banks of
the West were squeezed dry that the banks of New York might overflow.
“_The money was withdrawn from legitimate business in various parts of
the country to be loaned at fancy rates in Wall Street_,” says the
official referred to above.
The speculative banks, it has been discovered, were able to borrow money
at six per cent, which money they loaned at as high as 20, 25 and 30 per
cent.
Federal Reserve deflation created a scarcity which speculative banks
utilized. The Federal Reserve policy took the money out; New York banks
borrowed the money thus taken out, and loaned it at tremendous
rates—rates which people paid to stave off the ruin caused by the
moneyless condition which the ill-measured deflation process brought on.
And all this time the Federal Reserve System was in the best financial
condition of its whole career. In December, 1920, it had 45 per cent of
its reserves, which was a higher reserve than it had in December, 1919.
But at this writing (July, 1921) the reserve has reached 60 per cent.
The money is in New York. Go out through the agricultural states, and
you will not find it. Go into the districts of silent factories and you
will not find it. It is in New York. The Warburg Federal Reserve has
deflated the country. A System that was intended to equalize the ups and
downs of financial weather has been used “in an administrative” way to
deplete the country of money.
The Federal Reserve Idea was doubtless right; if it had not been, it
could not have been established. But it has been manipulated. It has not
been a “federal” reserve; it has been a private reserve. It has been
operated in the interest of bankers and not of everyone in general.
Capable of being used to carry the country gradually back to a natural
flow of business and to a natural level of prices, it was used to
bludgeon business at a critical time and to bludgeon it in such a way
that money-lenders profited when producers suffered.
If that is the fact, there is no American banker but will say that the
method was wrong; economically wrong, logically wrong, commercially
wrong, if not criminally wrong.
Today the Federal Reserve boasts of its own reserve as if that were a
sign of national economic health. With the country struggling to live,
the Federal Reserve ought to be low, not high. The height which the
reserve has reached is a measure of the depth of the country’s
depression.
If the Federal Reserve would let out a part of that flood of money—a
high financial authority suggests that less than 10 per cent would do
it—it would be like an infusion of blood into the nation’s veins.
Kuhn, Loeb & Company, the Speyers and the other Jewish money-lenders
have money for Mexico, Norway, Germany, and all sorts of commercial
companies being organized to do business overseas, and it is American
money. The Warburg Federal Reserve System has been badly misused, badly
manipulated, and the country is suffering from it.
Still, the people know not what to do. Money is still a mystery. Banking
is still sacrosanct. What would be perfectly apparent if done in
ordinary business intercourse with a $5 bill, is exceedingly complicated
when the sum is five millions and the parties are (1) country banks, (2)
Federal Reserve banks and (3) Wall Street speculative institutions. Yet
they are only Tom, Dick and Harry with a $5 bill, after all.
“The matter is somewhat affected by the gags that are placed on many men
competent to criticize. High officials are more or less tied up, by
campaign contributions in which all financial concerns have an interest.
Legislative officials are, too many of them, indebted to these same
interests. A schedule of the private debts of some of the men who have
aspired to the Presidency in the last eight years would be very
illuminating—almost as illuminating as a schedule of the names of Jews
at whose homes they stayed while on journeys through the country. Men
who are thus tied up with the present financial system cannot say what
in their minds they know.
It is all illustrated in the testimony of T. Cushing Daniel before a
committee of Congress. It shows to what an extent the power of this
private corporation called the central bank can reach:
“When going through the Bank of England I presented a letter which I
had from Secretary Hay, and the official of the bank was very
polite. He took me through the bank and when we got back to the
reception room I asked him if he would allow me to put a few leading
questions to him. He said he would, and I asked him if he would give
me a statement of the Bank of England. ‘We do not issue statements.’
‘Does not the House of Parliament sometimes call on you for some
statement as to the condition of the bank?’ ‘No, sir; they do not
call on us.’ ... ‘How is it that some of these revolutionists,
so-called, do not get up in the House of Commons and raise the devil
to know something about what is going on down here? That would be
the condition in our country.’ ‘_Oh, most of them are large
borrowers from the bank, and we have no difficulty with them._’
(laughter.)”
——
Issue of July 16, 1921.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.Project Gutenberg
Jewish influences in American life : $b volume III of the International Jew, the world's foremost problem : being a reprint of a third selection from articles appearing in the Dearborn Independent
Cameron, William John & Ford, Henry
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