The documents most frequently mentioned by those who are interested in the theory of Jewish World Power rather than in the actual operation of that power in the world today, are those 24 documents known as “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.”
The Protocols have attracted much attention in Europe, having become the center of an important storm of opinion in England only recently, but discussion of them in the United States has been limited. These are the documents concerning which the Department of Justice was making inquiries more than a year ago, and which were given publication in London by Eyre and Spottiswoode, the official printers to the British Government.
Who it was that first entitled these documents with the name of the “Elders of Zion” is not known. It would be possible without serious mutilation of the documents to remove all hint of Jewish authorship, and yet retain all the main points of the most comprehensive program for world subjugation that has ever come to public knowledge.
Yet it must be said that thus to eliminate all hint of Jewish authorship would be to bring out a number of contradictions which do not exist in the Protocols in their present form. The purpose of the plan revealed in the Protocols is to undermine all authority in order that a new authority in the form of autocracy may be set up. Such a plan could not emanate from a ruling class which already possessed authority, although it might emanate from anarchists. But anarchists do not avow autocracy as the ultimate condition they seek. The authors might be conceived as a company of French Subversives such as existed at the time of the French Revolution and had the infamous Duc d’Orleans as their leader, but this would involve a contradiction between the fact that those Subversives have passed away, and the fact that the program announced in these Protocols is being steadily carried out, not only in France, but throughout Europe and very noticeably in the United States.
In their present form which bears evidence of being their original form, there is no contradiction. The allegation of Jewish authorship seems essential to the consistency of the plan.
If these documents were the forgeries which Jewish apologists claim them to be, the forgers would probably have taken pains to make Jewish authorship so clear that their anti-Semitic purpose could easily have been detected. But only twice is the term “Jew” used in them. After one has read much further than the average reader usually cares to go into such matters, one comes upon the plans for the establishment of the World Autocrat, and only then it is made clear of what lineage he is to be.
But all through the documents there is left no doubt as to the people against whom the plan is aimed. It is not aimed against aristocracy as such. It is not aimed against capital as such. It is not aimed against government as such. Very definite provisions are made for the enlistment of aristocracy, capital and government for the execution of the plan. It is aimed against the people of the world who are called “Gentiles.” It is the frequent mention of “Gentiles” that really decides the purpose of the documents. Most of the destructive type of “liberal” plans aim at the enlistment of the people as helpers; this plan aims at the degeneration of the people in order that they may be reduced to confusion of mind and thus manipulated. Popular movements of a “liberal” kind are to be encouraged, all the disruptive philosophies in religion, economics, politics and domestic life are to be sown and watered, for the purpose of so disintegrating social solidarity that a definite plan, herein set forth, may be put through without notice, and the people then molded to it when the fallacy of these philosophies is shown.
The formula of speech is not, “We Jews will do this,” but “The Gentiles will be made to think and do these things.” With the exception of a few instances in the closing Protocols, the only distinctive racial term used is “Gentiles.”
To illustrate: the first indication of this kind comes in the first Protocol in this way:
“The great qualities of the people—honesty and frankness—are essentially vices in politics, because they dethrone more surely and more certainly than does the strongest enemy. These qualities are attributes of Gentile rule; we certainly must not be guided by them.”
And again:
“On the ruins of the hereditary aristocracy of the Gentiles we have set up the aristocracy of our educated class, and over all the aristocracy of money. We have established the basis of this new aristocracy on the basis of riches, which we control, and on the science guided by our wise men.”
Again:
“We will force up wages, which however will be of no benefit to workers, for we at the same time will cause a rise in the prices of prime necessities, pretending that this is due to the decline of agriculture and of cattle raising. We will also artfully and deeply undermine the sources of production by instilling in the workmen ideas of anarchy and encourage them in the use of alcohol, at the same time taking measures to drive all the intellectual forces of the Gentiles from the land.”
(A forger with anti-Semitic malice might have written this any time within the last five years, but these words were in print at least 14 years ago according to British evidence, a copy having been in the British Museum since 1906, and they were circulated in Russia a number of years prior.)
The above point continues: “That the true situation shall not be noticed by the Gentiles prematurely we will mask it by a pretended effort to serve the working classes and promote great economic principles, for which an active propaganda will be carried on through our economic theories.”
These quotations will illustrate the style of the Protocols in making reference to the parties involved. It is “we” for the writers, and “Gentiles” for those who are being written about. This is brought out very clearly in the Fourteenth Protocol:
“In this divergence between 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.”
This, of course, has been the Jewish method of dividing humanity from the earliest times. The world was only Jew and Gentile; all that was not Jew was Gentile.
The use of the word Jew in the Protocol may be illustrated by this passage in the eighth section:
“For the time being, until it will be safe to give responsible government positions to our brother Jews, we shall entrust them to people whose past and whose characters are such that there is an abyss between them and the people.”
This is the practice known as using “Gentile fronts” which is extensively practiced in the financial world today in order to cover up the evidences of Jewish control. How much progress has been made since these words were written is indicated by the occurrence at the San Francisco convention when the name of Judge Brandeis was proposed for President. It is reasonably to be expected that the public mind will be made more and more familiar with the idea of Jewish occupancy—which will be really a short step from the present degree of influence which the Jews exercise—of the highest office in the government. There is no function of the American Presidency in which the Jews have not already secretly assisted in a very important degree. Actual occupancy of the office is not necessary to enhance their power, but to promote certain things which parallel very closely the plans outlined in the Protocols now before us.
Another point which the reader of the Protocols will notice is that the tone of exhortation is entirely absent from these documents. They are not propaganda. They are not efforts to stimulate the ambitions or activity of those to whom they are addressed. They are as cool as a legal paper and as matter-of-fact as a table of statistics. There is none of the “Let us rise, my brothers” stuff about them. There is no “Down with the Gentiles” hysteria. These Protocols, if indeed they were made by Jews and confided to Jews, or if they do contain certain principles of a Jewish World Program, were certainly not intended for the firebrands but for the carefully prepared and tested initiates of the higher groups.
Jewish apologists have asked, “Is it conceivable that if there were such a world program on the part of the Jews, they would reduce it to writing and publish it?” But there is no evidence that these Protocols were ever uttered otherwise than in spoken words by those who put them forth. The Protocols as we have them are apparently the notes of lectures which were made by someone who heard them. Some of them are lengthy; some of them are brief. The assertion which has always been made in connection with the Protocols since they have become known is that they are the notes of lectures delivered to Jewish students presumably somewhere in France or Switzerland. The attempt to make them appear to be of Russian origin is absolutely forestalled by the point of view, the reference to the times and certain grammatical indications.
The tone certainly fits the supposition that they were originally lectures given to students, for their purpose is clearly not to get a program accepted but to give information concerning a program which is represented as being already in process of fulfillment. There is no invitation to join forces or to offer opinions. Indeed it is specifically announced that neither discussion nor opinions are desired. (“While preaching liberalism to the Gentiles, we shall hold our own people and our own agents in unquestioning obedience.” “The scheme of administration must emanate from a single brain * * * Therefore, we may know the plan of action, but we must not discuss it, lest we destroy its unique character * * * The inspired work of our leader therefore must not be thrown before a crowd to be torn to pieces, or even before a limited group.”)
Moreover, taking the Protocols at their face value, it is evident that the program outlined in these lecture notes was not a new one at the time the lectures were given. There is no evidence of its being of recent arrangement. There is almost the tone of a tradition, or a religion, in it all, as if it had been handed down from generation to generation through the medium of specially trusted and initiated men. There is no note of new discovery or fresh enthusiasm in it, but the certitude and calmness of facts long known and policies long confirmed by experiment.
This point of the age of the program is touched upon at least twice in the Protocols themselves. In the First Protocol this paragraph occurs:
“Already in ancient times we were the first to shout the words, ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ among the people. These words have been repeated many times by unconscious poll-parrots, flocking from all sides to this bait, with which they have ruined the prosperity of the world and true personal freedom * * * The presumably clever and intellectual Gentiles did not understand the symbolism of the uttered words; did not observe their contradiction in meaning; did not notice that in nature there is no equality * * *”
The other reference to the program’s finality is found in the Thirteenth Protocol:
“Questions of policy, however, are permitted to no one except those who have originated the policy and have directed it for many centuries.”
Can this be a reference to a secret Jewish Sanhedrin, self-perpetuating within a certain Jewish caste from generation to generation?
Again, it must be said that the originators and directors here referred to cannot be at present any ruling caste, for all that the program contemplates is directly opposed to the interests of such a caste. It cannot refer to any national aristocratic group, like the Junkers of Germany, for the methods which are proposed are the very ones which would render powerless such a group. It cannot refer to any but a people who have no government, who have everything to gain and nothing to lose, and who can keep themselves intact amid a crumbling world. There is only one group that answers that description.
Again, a reading of the Protocols makes it clear that the speaker himself was not seeking for honor. There is a complete absence of personal ambition throughout the document. All plans and purposes and expectations are merged in the future of Israel, which future, it would seem, can only be secured by the subtle breaking down of certain world ideas held by the Gentiles. The Protocols speak of what has been done, what was being done at the time these words were given, and what remained to be done. Nothing like them in completeness of detail, in breadth of plan and in deep grasp of the hidden springs of human action has ever been known. They are verily terrible in their mastery of the secrets of life, equally terrible in their consciousness of that mastery. Truly they would merit the opinion which Jews have recently cast upon them, that they were the work of an inspired madman, were it not that what is written in the Protocols in words is also written upon the life of today in deeds and tendencies.
The criticisms which these Protocols pass upon the Gentiles for their stupidity are just. It is impossible to disagree with a single item in the Protocols’ description of Gentile mentality and veniality. Even the most astute of the Gentile thinkers have been fooled into receiving as the motions of progress what has only been insinuated into the common human mind by the most insidious systems of propaganda.
It is true that here and there a thinker has arisen to say that science so-called was not science at all. It is true that here and there a thinker has arisen to say that the so-called economic laws both of conservatives and radicals were not laws at all, but artificial inventions. It is true that occasionally a keen observer has asserted that the recent debauch of luxury and extravagance was not due to the natural impulses of the people at all, but was systematically stimulated, foisted upon them by design. It is true that a few have discerned that more than half of what passes for “public opinion” is mere hired applause and booing and has never impressed the public mind.
But even with these clues here and there, for the most part disregarded, there has never been enough continuity and collaboration between those who were awake, to follow all the clues to their source. The chief explanation of the hold which the Protocols have had on many of the leading statesmen of the world for several decades is that they explain whence all these false influences come and what their purpose is. They give a clue to the modern maze. It is now time for the people to know. And whether the Protocols are judged as proving anything concerning the Jews or not, they constitute an education in the way the masses are turned about like sheep by influences which they do not understand. It is almost certain that once the principles of the Protocols are known widely and understood by the people, the criticism which they now rightly make of the Gentile mind will no longer hold good.
It is the purpose of future articles in this series to study these documents and to answer out of their contents all the questions that may arise concerning them.
Before that work is begun, one question should be answered—“Is there likelihood of the program of the Protocols being carried through to success?” The program is successful already. In many of its most important phases it is already a reality. But this need not cause alarm, for the chief weapon to be used against such a program, both in its completed and uncompleted parts, is clear publicity. Let the people know. Arousing the people, alarming the people, appealing to the passions of the people is the method of the plan outlined in the Protocols. The antidote is merely enlightening the people.
That is the only purpose of these articles. Enlightenment dispels prejudice. It is as desirable to dispel the prejudice of the Jew as of the Gentile. Jewish writers too frequently assume that the prejudice is all on one side. The Protocols themselves ought to have the widest circulation among the Jewish people, in order that they may check those things which are bringing suspicion upon their name.
[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 24 July 1920]