Part 6 (1/2)

But Mr. Hard is not through. ”The man who does more than any other man--the man who does more than any regiment of other men--to keep American labor anti-radical is a Jew--Samuel Gompers.” That is a fact which the reader will place in his list--American labor is led by a Jew.

Well, then, ”the strongest anti-Gompers trade union in the country--The Amalgamated Clothing Workers--and very strong indeed, and very large--is led by a Jew--Sidney Hillman.”

It is the Russian situation over again. Both ends of the movements, and the movement which operate within the movement, are under the leaders.h.i.+p of Jews. This, whatever the construction put upon it, is a fact which Mr. Hard is compelled by the very nature of his task to acknowledge.

And the middle movement, ”the Liberal Middle” as Mr. Hard calls it, which catches all between, produces in this article the names of Mr.

Justice Brandeis, Judge Mack and Felix Frankfurter, gentlemen whose activities since Armistice Day would make a very interesting story.

For good measure, Mr. Hard produces two other names, ”Baron Gunzberg--a Jew” who is ”a faithful official” of the Russian Emba.s.sy of Amba.s.sador Bakhmetev, a repesentative of the modified old regime, while the Russian Information Bureau, whose literary output appears in many of our newspapers is conducted by another Jew, so Mr. Hard calls him, whose name is familiar to newspaper readers, Mr. A. J. Sack.

It is not a complete list by any means, but it is quite impressive. It seems to reflect importance on the doc.u.ments which Mr. Hard endeavors to minimize to a position of ridiculous unimportance. And it leads to the thought that perhaps the doc.u.ments are scrutinized as carefully as they are because the readers of them have observed not only the facts which Mr. Hard admits but other and more astonis.h.i.+ng ones, and have discovered that the doc.u.ments confirm and explain the observations. Other readers who have not had the privilege of learning all that the doc.u.ments contain are ent.i.tled to have satisfaction given to the interest thus aroused.

The doc.u.ments did not create the Jewish Question. If there were nothing but the doc.u.ments, Mr. Hard would not have written nor would the Metropolitan Magazine have printed the article here discussed.

What Mr. Hard has done is to bring confirmation in a most unexpected place that the Question exists and is pressing for discussion. Someone felt the pressure when ”The Great Jewish Conspiracy” was ordered and written.

[Issue of June 26, 1920.]

”What are you prating about? As long as we do not have the Press of the whole world in our hands, everything you may do is vain. We must control or influence the papers of the whole world in order to blind and deceive the people.”

--Baron Montefiore.

VII.

Arthur Brisbane Leaps to the Help of Jewry

Once more the current of this series on the Modern Jewish Question is interrupted to give notice of the appearance of the Question in another quarter, the appearance this time consisting of a more than two-column ”Today” editorial in the Hearst papers of Sunday, June 20, from the pen of Arthur Brisbane. It would be too much to say that Mr. Brisbane is the most influential writer in the country, but perhaps he is among the dozen most widely read. It is, therefore, a confirmation of the statement that the Question is a.s.suming importance in this country, that a writer of Mr. Brisbane's prominence should openly discuss it.

Of course, Mr. Brisbane has not studied the Question. He would probably admit in private conversation--though such an admission would hardly be in harmony with the tone of certainty he publicly adopts--that he really knows nothing about it. He knows, however, as a good newspaper man, how to handle it when the exigencies of the newspaper day throw it up to him for offhand treatment. Every editorial writer knows how to do that.

There is something good in every race, or there have been some notable individuals in it, or it has played a picturesque part in history--that is enough for a very readable editorial upon any cla.s.s of people who may happen to be represented in the community. The Question, whatever it may be, need not be studied at all; a certain group of people may be salved for a few paragraphs, and the job need never be tackled again. Every newspaper man knows that.

And yet, having lived in New York for a long time, having had financial dealings of a large and obligating nature with certain interests in this country, having seen no doubt more or less of the inner workings of the great trust and banking groups, and being constantly surrounded by a.s.sistants and advisors who are members of the Jewish race, Mr. Brisbane must have had his thoughts. It is, however, no part of a newspaper man's business to expose his thoughts about the racial groups of his community, any more than it is a showman's business to express his opinion of the patrons of his show. The kinds of offense a newspaper will give, and the occasions on which it will feel justified in giving it, are very limited.

So, a.s.suming that Mr. Brisbane had to write at all, it could have been told beforehand what he would write. The only wonder is that he felt he had to write. Did he really feel that the Jews are being ”persecuted”

when an attempt is made to uncover the extent and causes of their control in the United States and elsewhere? Did he feel, with good editorial shrewdness, that here was an opportunity to win the attention and regard of the most influential group in New York and the nation?

Or--and this seems within the probabilities--was he inclined simply to pa.s.s it over, until secretarial suggestions reached him for a Sunday editorial, or until some of the bondholders made their wishes known?

This is not at all to impugn Mr. Brisbane's motives, but merely to indicate on what slender strings such an editorial may depend.

But what is more important--does Mr. Brisbane consider that, having disposed of the Sunday editorial, he is through with the Question, or that the Question itself is solved? That is the worst of daily editorializing; having come safely and inoffensively through with one editorial, the matter is at an end as far as that particular writer is concerned--that is, as a usual thing.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Brisbane is not through. He ought not to leave a big question without contributing something to it, and in his Sunday editorial he did not contribute anything. He even made mistakes which he ought to correct by further study. ”What about the Phoenicians?” he asks. He should have looked that up while his mind was opened receptively toward the subject, and he would not have made so miserable a blunder as to connect them so closely with the Jews. He would never find a Jew doing that. It is permissible, however, in Jewish propaganda intended for Gentile consumption. The Phoenicians themselves certainly never thought they were connected in any way with the Jews, and the Jews were equally without light on the subject. If in nothing else, they differed in their att.i.tude toward the sea. The Phoenicians not only built boats but manned them; the Jew would rather risk his investment in a boat than himself. In everything else the differences between the two peoples were deep and distinct. Mr. Brisbane should have turned up the Jewish Encyclopedia at that point in his dictation. It is to be hoped he will resume his study and when he has found something that is not printed in ”simply written” Jewish books will give the world the benefit of it. It is hardly like the question of the rotundity of the earth; this Question is not settled and it will be discussed.

Mr. Brisbane is in a position to pursue some investigations of his own on this subject. He has a large staff, and it is presumed that some of its members are Gentiles of unbiased minds; he has a world-wide organization; since his own modification of speech and views following upon his adventure in the money-making world, he has a ”look-in” upon certain groups of men and certain tendencies of power--why does he not take the Question as a world problem and go after the facts and the solution?

It is a task worthy of any newspaper organization. It will a.s.sist America to make the contribution which she must make if this Question is ever to be turned from the bugbear it has been through all the centuries. All the talk on earth about ”loving our fellow men” will not serve in lieu of an investigation, because it is asking men to love those who are rapidly and insidiously gaining the mastery of them.

”What's wrong with the Jew?” is the first question, and then, ”What's wrong with the Gentile to make it possible?”

As in the case of every Gentile writer who appears as the Jew's good-natured defender, Mr. Brisbane is compelled to state a number of facts which comprise a part of the very Question whose existence is denied.