The Jew and American Ideals

Name: The Jew and American Ideals
Author: John Spargo

by John Spargo

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Language: en2,488 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Protocols of the wise men of Zion Dearborn independent. International Jew Jews -- United States

In: History - American·Sociology

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #21835.

About this book

The work is a polemical tract that frames itself as a personal rebuttal to Henry Ford’s anti‑Jewish campaign, linking the industrialist’s newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, to a broader wave of anti‑Semitic propaganda in Europe and the United States. It opens with the author’s refusal to join a “expedition” and proceeds to a detailed justification for criticizing Ford, citing his peace‑making reputation, his political ambitions, and the alleged use of his influence to spread hateful material. The narrative then expands into a survey of post‑war Europe, describing both the fading of wartime animosities and the resurgence of racial hatred, before turning to a scathing indictment of the “Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion” and the supposed Jewish conspiracy that the author claims underlies many revolutionary movements.

Written in a dense, argumentative style characteristic of early‑20th‑century political pamphlets, the voice is earnest, confrontational, and steeped in the rhetoric of its era. Readers with an interest in the history of American nativism, the origins of modern anti‑Semitic literature, or the cultural controversies surrounding Henry Ford’s publications will find this text a revealing, if unsettling, primary source. It appeals to scholars of propaganda, historians of the interwar period, and anyone seeking to understand the mindset that produced such conspiratorial narratives.

Who appears in The Jew and American Ideals

Mr. FordMiddle‑aged man in 1920s suit, trimmed mustache, slicked hair, dignified expression

The opening · free to read

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

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

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

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

I found in England great nation-wide organizations, obviously financed, devoted to the sinister purpose of creating anti-Jewish feeling and sentiment. I found special articles in influential newspapers devoted to the same evil purpose. I found at least one journal, obviously well financed again, exclusively devoted to the fostering of suspicion, fear, and hatred against the Jew. Nothing that the Black Hundreds of Russia under the tsars said of the Jews, in order to inflame the ignorant masses and inspire them to savage attacks upon the Jewish population, could have been worse than much of this propaganda. It appealed to every passion, charged the Jews as a race with every crime calculated to rouse the frenzied anger of the non-Jewish population. And in the bookstores I discovered a whole library of books devoted to the same end. One of the greatest living statesmen of England, who is not a Jew, told me that in his judgment this systematically propagated anti-Semitism is likely to bring greater difficulty and shame to England than the Irish question, even.

And now, returning to the United States, I find America confronted by the same peril and shame. Here, too, I find anti-Jewish meetings being held. To my great astonishment and regret, I find that the personal influence and the vast fortune of the erstwhile pacifist-philanthropist are apparently enlisted in the same cruel and vicious propaganda. The Dearborn Independent, which is the personal organ of Mr. Henry Ford, maintained for the promulgation of his personal political and sociological views, has been devoting a large amount of its space to the creation of anti-Jewish feeling and sentiment. One of the first pieces of accumulated mail to claim my attention on my return was a pamphlet, sent to me by some unknown correspondent, obviously a Jew hater in view of the coarse and brutal comments written upon the margins. This pamphlet contains a reprint of nine articles which originally appeared in the Dearborn Independent. It is, therefore, apparently impossible for Mr. Ford to disclaim personal and direct responsibility for the contents of the pamphlet. If I am wrong in any of these particulars I shall be very glad to be corrected and to apologize for the error. To find any American engaged in such a propaganda seems to me such a pity and such an outrage against our national ideals that I should welcome proof that my information and inferences are all wrong and unfounded so far as Mr. Ford is concerned.

In this discussion of the anti-Semitic propaganda, and of the share of the Dearborn Independent in that propaganda, I have not the slightest intention of attacking Mr. Ford personally. While I find myself deeply interested in the psychology of the transformation of an extremely idealistic pacifist into an aggressive propagandist of race hatred, with that I am not here and now concerned.

The Alleged "great Jewish Conspiracy"

Just as in the case of the British anti-Semitic press, the Jew-baiting campaign in the Dearborn Independent and other newspapers makes much of the so-called "protocols" of the Wise Men of Zion, first published in Russia in 1905, but lately translated into English and published in England and the United States. In a sense it is not my business to expose the dubious origin and history of these documents. That is a Jewish task, to which various Jewish scholars have devoted their attention. In the London Spectator Mr. Lucien Wolff has performed it with distinction. I am not a Jew, racially or otherwise, and can lay no claim to any special ability or knowledge which would impose such a task upon me. There are, however, some things which must be said concerning the above-mentioned protocols, things which do not require specialized scholarship, and which even the non-Jew can say with confidence.

These protocols are offered as evidence of the existence of a world-wide conspiracy far more serious and extensive than anything else of the kind recorded in history. By comparison, the greatest conspiracy hitherto revealed seems like a kindergarten game. It is charged, and these documents are submitted as evidence in support of the charge, that there, exists, and has existed for centuries, a Jewish imperialistic program; that Jews in all lands have been and are united in a highly organized and subtly directed secret movement to bring about the overthrow of all non-Jewish governments, to substitute therefor a Jewish world government, to obliterate all national boundaries, and to destroy all religions other than Judaism. This, it is alleged, is the concrete form in which the Jews visualize their destiny as the Chosen People. In order to attain this grandiose ideal, every means to weaken the non-Jewish elements and institutions in civilization is encouraged by the invisible Jewish government, the leaders of this vast conspiracy.

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

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

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

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