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THE WORLD'S
FOREMOST PROBLEM
Anyone who essays to discuss the Jewish Question in the
United States or anywhere else must be fully prepared to be
regarded as "anti-Semite," a "Jew-baiter." Nor need
encouragement be looked for from politicians, people or
Press. The people who are awake to the subject at all prefer
to wait and see how it all turns out. There is a vague
feeling that to use the word "Jew" openly, or to expose it
nakedly in print, is somehow improper. Polite evasions like
"Hebrew" and "Semite" (both of which are-subject to the
criticism of inaccuracy) are timidly assayed, and people
pick their way gingerly as if the whole subject were
forbidden, until some courageous thinker comes along with
the word "Jew," and then the constraint is relieved and the
air cleared.
The word "Jew" is not an epithet; it is a name, ancient and
descriptive, with a significance for every period of human
history, past, present and to come.
The chief difficulty in writing about the Jewish Question is
the super-sensitiveness of Jews and non-Jews concerning the
whole matter. There is probably not a newspaper in America,
and certainly none of the advertising mediums which are
called magazines, which would have the temerity even to
breathe seriously the fact that such a Question exists. The
Press in general is open to fulsome editorials in favor of
everything Jewish, while the Jewish Press, which is numerous
in the United States, takes care of the vituperative end.
The idea seems to be fixed in the Jew by inheritance that
any public discussion of the Jewish Question is organized
and inspired by a Jew-hater. That idea is sought to be fixed
in the Gentile by propaganda; that any writing which does
not simply cloy and drip sirrupy sweetness towards things
Jewish is born of prejudice and hatred. It is, therefore,
"full of lies, insult, insinuation, and constitutes an
instigation to massacre." These terms can be found in
current Jewish editorials.
WHAT IS
"ANTI-SEMITISM"?
Anti-Semitism is a term which is bandied about too loosely.
If it continues to be used indiscriminately and
vituperatively about all who attempt to discuss Jewish
characteristics and Jewish world-power, it will, in time,
arrive at the estate of respectability and honor. It may be
a useful clearing of the ground to define what anti-Semitism
is not.
1. It is not a recognition of the Jewish Question. If it
were, then it could be set down that the bulk of the
American people are destined to become anti-Semites, for
they are beginning to recognize the existence of a Jewish
Question and will steadily do so in increasing numbers as
the Question is forced on them from the various practical
angles of their lives. The Question is here. We may be
honestly blind to it. We may be timidly silent about it. We
may even make dishonest denial of it. But it is here and in
time all will have to recognize it. In time the polite
"hush, hush," of over-sensitive or intimidated circles will
not be powerful enough to suppress it.
But to recognize that Question will not mean that we have
gone over to a national campaign of hatred and enmity
against the Jews. It will only mean that a stream of
tendency which has been flowing through our civilization has
at last accumulated bulk and power enough to challenge
attention, to call for some decision with regard to it, to
call for the adoption of a policy which will not repeat the
mistakes of the past and yet forestall any possible menace
of the future.
2. The public discussion of the Jewish Question is not
"anti-Semitism." Publicity is sanitary. But the kind of
publicity given to certain aspects of the Jewish Question in
this country has been very misleading. It has been discussed
more fully in the Jewish Press than elsewhere, but not with
candor or breadth of vision. The two dominant notes --
sounded over and over again with monotonous regularity --
are Gentile unfairness and Christian prejudice. It is
fortunate for the Jews generally that the Jewish Press does
not circulate very widely among Gentiles, for it is probably
the one established agency in the United States which,
without altering its program in the least, could stir up
anti-Jewish sentiment by the very simple expedient of a
general reading among non-Jews. Jewish writers writing for
Jewish readers present unusual material for the study of
race consciousness and its accompaniment of contempt for
other races.
On the side of the daily Press, there has been no serious
discussion at all. When it mentions the Jews, it has stock
complimentary phrases for the purpose. The publicity given
to the Question in this country consists in
misrepresentative criticism of the Gentiles by the Jewish
Press, and misrepresentative praise of the Jews by the
non-Jewish Press. An independent effort to give constructive
publicity cannot, therefore, be laid to anti-Semitism, even
when some of the statements which are made in the course of
it arouse resentment of Jewish readers.
3. Nor is it anti-Semitism to say that the suspicion is
abroad in every capital of civilization, and the certainty
is firmly held by a number of important men, that there is
active in the world a plan to control the world, not by
territorial acquisition, not by military aggression, not by
governmental subjection, not even by economic control in the
scientific sense, but by control of the machinery of
commerce and exchange. It is not anti-Semitism to say that,
nor to present the evidence which supports that, nor to
bring the proof of that. Those who could best disprove it,
if it were not true, are the International Jews themselves,
but they have not disproved it.
WHY DISCUSS THE JEWISH
QUESTION?
Because it is here, and because its emergence into public
thought should contribute to its solution, and not to a
continuance of those bad conditions which surround the
Question in almost every country. The Jewish Question has
existed in the United States for a very long time. Jews
themselves have known it, even if Gentiles have not. There
have been periods in our own country when it has broken
forth with a sullen sort of strength which presaged dark
things to come. Many signs portend that it is approaching an
acute stage.
Not only does the Jewish Question touch those matters that
are common knowledge, such as finance and commercial
control, usurpation of political power, monopoly of
necessities, and autocratic direction of the very news that
the American people read; but it reaches into cultural
regions and so touches the very heart of American life. The
Question reaches down to South America and threatens to
become an important factor in Pan-American relations. It is
interwoven with much of the menace of organized and
calculated disorder which troubles the nations today. It is
not of recent growth, but its roots go deep, and the long
Past of the Problem is counterbalanced by prophetic hopes
and programs which involve a very deliberate and creative
view of the future.
THE ANSWER-TOO MUCH
POWER!!
Their heritage of tolerance has something to do with the
extreme nervousness about public discussion of the Jewish
Question on the part of many Gentiles, but perhaps their
instinctive sense of the difficulty involved has more to do
with it. The Gentile attitude is best expressed by the
desire for silence -- "Why discuss it at all?" Such an
attitude is itself proof that here is a Problem we would
evade if we could. Why discuss it at all? -- the keen
thinker clearly sees in the implications of such a question,
the existence of a Problem whose discussion or suppression
will not always be within the choice of easy -- going minds.
Wherever you read of the Jewish Question being resolutely
approached in the history of countries which have ever
tackled it, wherever you go in the world today -- in any
country where the Jewish Question has come to the forefront
as a vital issue, you will discover that the principal cause
is the outworking of the Jewish genius to achieve the power
of control. Here in the United States is the fact of this
remarkable minority attaining in 50 years a degree of
control that would be impossible to a ten times larger group
of any other race. That creates the Jewish Question here.
No similar minority of any people would occasion comment,
because we would not meet with a representative of them
wherever we went in high places -- in the innermost secrecy
of the councils of the Big Four at Versailles*; in the
United States Supreme Court; in the councils of the White
House; in the vast dispositions of world finance -- wherever
there is power to get or use. We meet the Jew everywhere in
the upper circles, literally everywhere where there is
power. And that is where the Jewish question begins -- in
very simple terms -- How does the Jew so habitually and so
resistlessly gravitate to the highest places? Who puts him
there? Why is he put there? What does he do there? What does
the fact of his being there mean to the world? THAT is the
Jewish Question in its origin. From these points it goes on
to others, and whether the trend becomes pro-Jewish or
anti-Semitic depends on the amount of prejudice brought to
the inquiry, and whether it becomes pro-Humanity depends on
the amount of insight and intelligence.
EDITOR'S NOTE: *The original was published in June, 1920.
The comment is even more applicable to the present United
Nations setup; a more formidable organization because of its
greater power through American membership.
The use of the word Humanity in connection with the word
"Jew" usually throws a side meaning which may not be
intended. In this connection it is usually understood that
humanity ought to be shown toward the Jew. There is just as
great an obligation upon the Jew to show hum humanity toward
the whole human race.
The Jew has been too long accustomed to think himself as
exclusively the claimant on the humanitarianism of society;
society has a large claim against him that he cease his
exclusiveness, that he cease exploiting the world, that he
cease making Jewish groups the end and all of his gains, and
that he begins to fulfill, in a sense his exclusiveness has
never yet enabled him to fulfill, the ancient prophecy he
boasts that through him all the nations of the earth should
be blessed.
The Jew cannot go on forever fulfilling the role of
suppliant for the world's humanitarianism, he must himself
show that quality to a society which seriously suspects his
higher and more powerful groups of exploiting it with a
pitiless rapacity, which in its wide-flung and
long-drawn-out distress may be described as an economic
pogrom against a rather helpless humanity.
WHY THE "
INTERNATIONAL JEW "?
There has been used in this series the term "International
Jew." It is susceptible of two interpretations; one, the Jew
wherever he may be; the other, the Jew who exercises
international control.
The real contention of the world is with the latter and his
satellites, whether Jew or Gentile. This International type
of Jew, this grasper after world-control, this actual
possessor and wielder of world-control is a very unfortunate
connection for his race to have. And the significance of
this is that this type does not grow anywhere else than on a
Jewish stem. There is no other racial or national type which
puts forth this kind of person.
It is not merely that there are a few Jews among
international financial controllers; it is that these
world-controllers are exclusively Jews. Since world-control
is an ambition which has only been achieved by Jews, and not
by any of the methods usually adopted by would-be
world-conquerors, it becomes inevitable that the question
should center in that race.
It is not the point to insist that in any list of rich men
there are often more Gentiles than Jews; we are not talking
about merely rich men who have, many of them, gained their
riches by serving a System, we are talking about those who
control -- and it is perfectly apparent that merely to be
rich is not to control. The world-controlling Jew has
riches, but he also has something much more powerful than
that.
The International Jew rules not because he is rich, but
because in a most marked degree he possesses the commercial
and masterful genius of his race, and avails himself of a
racial loyalty and solidarity the like of which exists in no
other human group. He rules, at the top of affairs in every
country worth while, by virtue of certain qualities which
are inherent in the Jewish nature. Every Jew has these
qualities even if not in the supreme sense, just as every
Englishman has Shakespeare's tongue but not in Shakespeare's
degree. And thus it is impracticable, if not impossible, to
consider the International Jew without laying the
foundations broadly upon Jewish character and psychology.
We may discount at once the too common accusation that this
greater form of Jewish success is built upon dishonesty. It
is impossible to indict the whole Jewish people or any other
on a wholesale charge. No one knows better than the Jew how
widespread is the belief that Jewish methods of business are
all unscrupulous. There is no doubt a possibility of a great
deal of unscrupulousness existing without actual legal
dishonesty, but it is altogether possible that the
reputation the Jewish people have long borne in this respect
may have had other sources than actual and persistent
dishonesty. To indicate one of these possible sources: The
Jew at trade is naturally quicker than most other men. It is
said that there are other races which are as nimble at a
trade as is the Jew, but the Jew does not live much among
them. Now, it is human nature for the man with slower,
easy-going traditions to believe that the quicker man is too
deft by far, and to become suspicious of his deftness. The
slower mind is likely to conceive that the man who sees so
many legitimate twists and turns to a trade, may also see
and use a convenient number of illegitimate twists and
turns. The Jews, as the records show for centuries, were a
keen people in trade. The nimble eagerness of the Jew for
trade bustled into the midst of trade traditions, he broke
them all wherever he went. He went after trade, the old
leisurely tradition was to make trade come to the trader.
Everyone suspects the "sharp" fellow even though his
sharpness may be entirely honest. A man who would break
trade traditions would stop at nothing ! The Jew was anxious
to sell. If he could not sell one article to a customer, he
had another on hand to offer him. The old tradition was that
it was strictly unethical and unbusiness-like to handle more
than one line of goods, or to deal in more than one "trade";
that it was contemptible and underhand to go out and get a
brother tradesman's customers away from him. It is as easy
as child's play to connect this energy with dishonesty. The
Jew went after trade, pursued it, persuaded it. He was the
originator of "quick turnover and quick profit." He
originated the installment plan. The Jew's shops became
bazaars, forerunners of our modern department stores, and
the old custom of one shop for one line of goods was broken
up . . . the Jew was not playing the game, the staid
old-fashioned merchant thought. As a matter of fact he was
playing the game, the game to get it all into his own
hands-which he has practically done.
The Jew has shown that same ability ever since his entry
into trade in the various countries he has established
himself down the centuries. His power of analyzing the money
currents amounts to an instinct. His establishment in one
country represented another base from which the members of
his race could operate. Whether by the natural outworkings
of innate gifts or the deliberate plan of race unity and
loyalty, all the Jewish trading communities and relations,
and as these trading communities increased in wealth,
prestige and power, as they formed relations with
governments and great interest in the countries where they
operated, they simply put more power into the central
community wherever it might be located, now in Spain, now in
Holland, now in England.
Whether by intention or not, they became more closely allied
than the branches of one business could be, because of the
cement of racial unity; the bond of racial brotherhood
cannot in the very nature of things exist among the s
Gentiles as it exists among the Jews.
Gentiles never think of themselves as Gentiles, and never
feel that they owe anything to another Gentile gas such;
wherein lies their vulnerability. Thus they have been
convenient agents of Jewish schemes at times and in places
when it was not expedient that the Jewish controllers should
be publicly known; but they have never been successful
competitors of the Jew in the field of world-control.
From these separated Jewish communities went power to the
central community where the master bankers and the master
analysts of conditions lived. And back from the central
community flowed information of an invaluable character and
assistance wherever needed. It is not difficult to
understand how, in such conditions, the nation that did not
deal kindly with the Jews was made to suffer, and the nation
that yielded to them their fullest desire was favored by
them. They have made many nations feel the power of their
displeasure and this system exists in greater power today.
The co-ordination of Jewish activity has been a harmful
thing for the world. This is the element which is bringing
the Jewish Question to the bar of public opinion. May the
International Jew go on as he has gone, or does his duty to
the world require another use of his success?
POWER FOLLOWS THE
INTERNATIONAL JEW
It is an important fact to be noted in connection with the
"persecution" and consequent wanderings of the Jews about
Europe that wherever they wandered the center of business
seemed to go with them!
When the Jews were free in Spain, there was the world's gold
center. When Spain drove out the Jews, Spain lost her
financial leadership and has never regained it.
Students of the economic history of Europe have always been
puzzled to discover why the center of trade should have
shifted from Spain, Portugal and Italy, up to the northern
countries of Holland, Germany and England They have sought
for the cause in many things, but none seemed to be
completely explanatory. When it is shown that the change was
coincident with the expulsion of the Jews from the South and
their flight to the North, when it is known that upon the
Jews' arrival the northern countries began a commercial life
which has flourished to our day, the explanation does not
seem difficult. Time and again it has been proved to be the
fact that when the Jews were forced to move, the center of
the world's precious metals moved with them.
It is also to be noted that the era of greatest national
spiritual culture is shown during the period when the Jews
were expelled from England and Spain. These two great
countries have given much to the world, the best of it they
gave during their freedom from contact with Jewish ideas.
"WHEN AMERICA
AWAKES!"
It is clearly proved that in the world today there is a
central force which is playing a vast and closely organized
game, with the world as its table and universal control for
its stakes. Civilized people have long ago lost confidence
in the argument that "economic conditions" are responsible
for all the changes that occur. Under the camouflage of
"economic law" a great many phenomena have been accounted
for which were not due to any "law" whatever, except the law
of the selfish human will as operated by the men who have
the purpose and the power to use the nation as their
vassals.
"Economic" reason no longer explains the condition in which
the world finds itself today. Neither does the ordinary
explanation of "the heartlessness of Capital." "Capital" has
endeavored as never before to meet the demands of "Labor,"
and labor has gone to extremes in leading capital to new
concessions-but what has it advantaged either of them?
"Labor" has heretofore thought that "Capital" was the sky
over it, and it made the sky yield. But behold, there was
yet another higher sky which neither capital nor labor had
seen in their struggles with one another. That sky is so far
unyielding.
There is a super-capitalism which is supported wholly by the
fiction that gold is wealth. There is a super-government
which is allied to no government, which is free from them
all, and yet which has its hands in them all. There is a
race, a part of humanity, which has never yet been received
as a welcome part, and which has succeeded in raising itself
to a power that the proudest Gentile race has never claimed.
The "labor question," the wage question, the land question,
cannot be settled, no question that confronts the peoples of
the world can be settled, until first of all this matter of
an international super-capitalistic government is settled.
"To the victor belongs the spoils" is an old saying. In a
sense it is true that if all this power of control has been
gained and held by a few men of a long-despised race, then
either they are super-men whom it is powerless to resist or
they are ordinary men whom the rest of the world has
permitted to obtain an undue and unsafe degree of power
Unless the Jews are super-men, the Gentiles will have
themselves to blame for what has transpired, and they can
look for rectification in a new scrutiny of the situation
and a candid examination of the experiences of other
countries When tracing all the anti-social and colossally
harmful methods of world-control to their source, it is
found that the responsible parties all have a common
characteristic. Is it any wonder that the warning which
comes across, the sea -- "Wait until America becomes awoke
to the Jew!" has a new meaning?
The Fourteenth
Protocol --
"In this divergence between
the Gentiles and ourselves in ability to think and reason is
to be seen clearly the seal of our election as the chosen
people, as higher human beings, in contrast with the
Gentiles who have merely instinctive and animal minds. They
observe, but they do not foresee, and they invent nothing
(except perhaps material things). It is clear from this that
nature herself predestined us to rule and guide the world."
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