Secret Societies and Subversive Movements | Page 4

the Continent the importance of secret
societies is taken as a matter of course and the libraries of foreign
capitals teem with books on the question, people in this country really
imagine that secret societies are things of the past--articles to this effect
appeared quite recently in two leading London newspapers--whilst
practically nothing of any value has been written about them in our
language during the last hundred years. Hence ideas that are
commonplaces on the Continent here appear sensational and
extravagant. The mind of the Englishman does not readily accept
anything he cannot see or even sometimes anything he can see which is
unprecedented in his experience, so that like the West American farmer,
confronted for the first time by the sight of a giraffe, his impulse is to
cry out angrily: "I don't believe it!"
But whilst making all allowance for honest ignorance and incredulity, it
is impossible not to recognize a certain method in the manner in which
the cry of "obsession" or "bogey" is raised. For it will be noticed that
people who specialize on other subjects are not described as
"obsessed." We did not hear, for example, that the late Professor
Einstein had Relativity "on the brain" because he wrote and lectured
exclusively on this question, nor do we hear it suggested that Mr.
Howard Carter is obsessed with the idea of Tutankhamen and that it
would be well if he were to set out for the South Pole by way of a
change. Again, all those who warn the world concerning eventualities
they conceive to be a danger are not accused of creating bogeys. Thus
although Lord Roberts was denounced as a scaremonger for urging the
country to prepare for defence against a design openly avowed by
Germany both in speech and print, and in 1921 the Duke of
Northumberland was declared the victim of a delusion for believing in

the existence of a plot against the British Empire which had been
proclaimed in a thousand revolutionary harangues and pamphlets.
People who, without bothering to produce a shred of documentary
evidence, had sounded the alarm on the menace of "French
Imperialism" and asserted that our former Allies were engaged in
building a vast fleet of aeroplanes in order to attack our coasts. They
were not held to be either scaremongers or insane. On the contrary,
although some of these same people were proved by events to have
been completely wrong in their prognostications at the beginning of the
Great War, they are still regarded as oracles and sometimes even
described as "thinking for half Europe."
Another instance of this kind may be cited in the case of Mr. John
Spargo, author of a small book entitled The Jew and American Ideals.
On page 37 of this work Mr. Spargo in refuting the accusations brought
against the Jews observes:
Belief in widespread conspiracies directed against individuals or the
state is probably the commonest form assumed by the human mind
when it loses its balance and its sense of proportion.
Yet on page 6 Mr. Spargo declares that when visiting this country in
September and October 1920:
I found in England great nation-wide organizations, obviously well
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 at least one journal,
obviously well financed again, exclusively devoted to the fostering of
suspicion, fear, and hatred against the Jew ... and in the bookstores I
discovered a whole library of books devoted to the same end.
It will be seen then that a belief in widespread conspiracies is not
always to be regarded as a sign of loss of mental balance, even when
these conspiracies remain completely invisible to the general public.
For those of us who were in London during the period of Mr. Spargo's
visit saw nothing of the things he here describes. Where, we ask, were
these "great nation-wide organizations" striving to create anti-Jewish

sentiments? What were their names? By whom were they led? It is true,
however, that there were nation-wide organizations in existence here at
this date instituted for the purpose of combating Bolshevism. Is
anti-Bolshevism then synonymous with "anti-Semitism"?[10] This is
the conclusion to which one is inevitably led. For it will be noticed that
anyone who attempts to expose the secret forces behind the
revolutionary movement, whether he mentions Jews in this connexion
or even if he goes out of his way to exonerate them, will incur the
hostility of the Jews and their friends and will still be described as
"anti-Semite." The realization of this fact has led me particularly to
include the Jews in the study of secret societies.
The object of the present book is therefore to carry further the enquiry I