THE WORLDS 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 worlds 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.

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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.

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  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 coordination 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?

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  "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."

-The Fourteenth Protocol.