The Jew and American Ideals | Page 4

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).
I have briefly summarized only a few of the more important items in
this monstrous program. There is more of the same general type of
fiendishness. Concerning the character of the program itself, there can
be no difference of opinion between honest Americans. It is as
diabolical as it is fantastic. What importance we ought to attach to it,
however, must necessarily depend upon our judgment concerning its
origin. If these protocols, and the program contained in them, are to be
seriously accepted for what they pretend to be--namely, a deliberate
statement of the purposes and aims of the leaders of the Jewish people
throughout the world, with practically the entire Jewish race behind
them--then the matter assumes enormous importance. If, on the other
hand, there is no substantial evidence of this--and such evidence as is
available indicates that the protocols are the product of a single
diseased and depraved mind--the documents cease to possess any great
significance and the terrible injustice and frightfully dangerous
consequences of charging them against the Jewish people are obvious.
We must, therefore, pay critical attention to the origin of the protocols
and the circumstances surrounding their publication, as well as to any
internal evidences of their genuineness or otherwise.

III
THE MYSTERY OF THE PROTOCOLS
First of all, then, what do we actually know about the origin of these

protocols? In the year 1903 a book was published at Solotarevo in
Russia, entitled The Great in Little. The reputed author of the book was
one Prof. Sergei Nilus, concerning whom we have no absolutely
reliable information. Author of a book which has made an enormous
sensation in many lands and become the subject of furious controversy,
he is quite unknown. No responsible person in or out of Russia has ever
positively identified Nilus, so far as I have been able to discover. From
what he says of himself it is practically certain that he was in the
service of the infamous Secret Police Agency of the late Tsar Nicholas
II. For reasons which will presently appear, I am disposed to believe
that the very un-Russian name Nilus is really a pseudonym.
In a second edition of his book, published in 1905, Nilus gives a brief
autobiographical account of himself. He says that he was born in 1862
of Russian parents who held liberal opinions, and that his family was
well known in Moscow, its members being educated people who were
firm in their allegiance to the Tsar and the Greek Church. This is hardly
what a Russian of the period would describe as holding "liberal
opinions," but let that pass. Nilus claims to have been graduated from
Moscow University and to have held a number of civil-service posts,
all of them, so far as his specifications go, connected with the police
and judicial systems. He went to the government of Orel, where he
became a landowner and a sort of petty noble. He entered the
Troitsky-Sergevsky Monastery, near Moscow, or so he says. Although
numerous efforts have been made in Russia to find this Sergei Nilus,
none has succeeded.
It is true that a number of persons have testified to the existence of
Sergei Nilus, but in each case a different person has been referred to,
though Nilus is not a Russian name or commonly found in Russia. The
present writer learned of two men, father and son, each bearing this
very unusual name. First information led to the belief that at last the
mysterious author had been discovered. The father was of about the
right age and was said to be a writer interested in religious subjects.
Further inquiry elicited the information that this man had