The Jew and American Ideals | Page 9

evidence delivered by him before the British Royal Commission on Alien Immigration, in 1902. If Herzl wrote these documents he adopted the disguise of the style and method of a much inferior mentality.
Unless we are to believe that he deliberately adopted a style of writing and method of reasoning entirely unfamiliar and unlike his publicly acknowledged work, for the express purpose of hiding his authorship of the protocols--which, if we credit the story that they were presented to a secret conference of the leaders of the alleged conspiracy, is an impossible hypothesis--we are warranted in saying that, whoever wrote them, it was not Theodor Herzl. It would be as reasonable to ascribe a Walt Whitman chant to Emerson, or a Bernard Shaw satire to Jonathan Edwards, as to ascribe these crude, meandering pages to the crystalline intellect of Theodor Herzl. I do not find in them any suggestion of the trained mind of a scholar and writer of Herzl's attainments; rather, they seem to me to belong in about the same intellectual category as the ordinary propaganda literature of the numerous sects, ancient and modern, based upon peculiar interpretations of Biblical prophecies. Since the outbreak of the World War in 1914, and throughout the whole chapter of revolutionary events following thereupon, there has been a steady flood of such literature. Even the much-discussed forecast of Bolshevism does not in any material respect differ from many similar "prophecies" that have appeared in recent years.
It cannot be denied that Bolshevism actually conforms in a notable degree to the specifications contained in the protocols, which I have already summarized in the preceding chapter. Shall we, then, conclude that the charge is proven and declare the case closed, or is it necessary to examine the evidence further and more critically? I think that a very brief period of honest reflection will convince any fair-minded and intelligent person of the injustice of the rendering of a verdict holding the Jews responsible for Bolshevism upon the basis of such evidence. Let me direct the attention of my readers to a coincidence of dates which once more directs suspicion against Prof. Sergei Nilus and against the alleged stolen protocols. I have already pointed out that in 1903, in the first edition of his book, Nilus did not use the alleged protocols, though he claims that they had been in his possession for two years prior to that time. That this is a suspicious circumstance will, I think, be readily conceded by the open-minded. In 1903 the Russian Social Democratic party was split into two factions, and the word "Bolshevism" came into use as the designation of the policy of one of these factions. In 1905 the first Russian revolution took place. In the period between the split in the Social Democratic party in 1903 and the outbreak of the revolution in 1905 the leaders of the Bolsheviki had been active in formulating and propagating their theoretical and political views. During the revolution a sharp conflict occurred between the Bolsheviki and other factions of the Russian Socialist movement, and the Socialist press gave much space to the controversy.
It will be seen from this brief historical sketch that when Nilus published a second edition of his book, late in 1905, he could find in the Russian Socialist press all the materials for such a general description of Bolshevism as that contained in the protocols. Of course, if we believe that the documents are genuine, that they are authentic translations of documents actually stolen in 1896, delivered to Nilus in 1901, and by him first made public in 1905, we have simply a coincidence of dates. I submit, however, that there is not a shred of credible evidence that the documents were so obtained by Nilus, or that they existed in 1896, 1901, 1903, or at any date earlier than 1905, the year of their first publication. I submit, furthermore, that it is highly probable that the passages in the alleged protocols which are now hailed as conclusive evidence that the Bolshevist policy had been formulated as early as 1896, were in reality written after 1903 and in the light of already published accounts of Bolshevist theories and tactics. There is not a thing that we know about these documents and their history which does not point directly to the conclusion that they are forgeries.
When I was in London in October, 1920, an English journalist of distinction, well known and influential on both sides of the Atlantic, with great earnestness and evident conviction sought to impress me with the serious importance of these alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He was quite convinced that the documents were genuine, and that they proved beyond reasonable doubt the existence of a world-wide Jewish conspiracy. With great solemnity and manifest sincerity he