The Jew and American Ideals | Page 9

stands among the
foremost of the intellectual Jews of modern times. All his known work
is characterized by clear, clean-cut reasoning and direct and forceful
statement. All his known writings are characterized by these qualities.
Whatever we may think about Zionism, it must be admitted that the

great Austrian journalist and critic never lacked the courage of his
convictions, as may be seen by anybody who will take the trouble to
read his writings or the 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