Chapter 15.
The first instinctive answer which the Jew
makes to any criticism of his race coming from a non-Jew is that
of violence, threatened or inflicted. This statement will be
confirmed by hundreds of thousands of citizens of the United
States who have heard the evidence with their own ears, seen it
with their own eyes.
If the candid investigator of the Jewish Question
happens to be in business, the "boycott" is the first
answer of which the Jews seem to think. Whether it be a
newspaper, or a mercantile establishment, or a hotel, or a
dramatic production; or any manufactured article whose maker has
adopted the policy that "my goods are for sale, but not my
principles"- if there is any manner of business connection
with the student of the Jewish Question, the first
"answer" is "boycott."
The technique of this: a "whispering drive"
is first begun. Disquieting rumors begin to fly thick and fast.
"Watch us get him, is the word that is passed along. Jews in
charge of national ticker news services adopt the slogan of
"a rumor a day." All leading news agencies in America
are Jew-controlled. Jews in charge of newspapers adopt the policy
of Bra slurring headline a day." Jews in charge of the
newsboys on the streets (all the street concerns are preempted by
Jewish "padrones" who permit only their own boys to
sell) give orders to emphasize certain news in their street cries
- "a new yell against him every day. " The whole
campaign against the critic of Jewry, whoever he may be, is keyed
to the threat, "Watch us get him."
"The whispering drive," "the
boycott," these are the chief Jewish answers. They
constitute the bone and the sinew of that state of mind in
non-Jews which is known as "the fear of the Jews."
BENNETT'S STRUGGLE
This is the story of a boycott which lasted
over a number of years; it is only one of numerous
stories of the same kind which can be told of
America. There have been even more outstanding cases since this
one, but it dates back to the dawn of Jewish ambitions and power
in the United States, and it is the first of the great battles
which Jewry waged, successfully, to snuff out the independent
Press.
It concerns the long defunct "New
York Herald," one newspaper to remain
independent of Jewish influence in New York. The Herald enjoyed
an existence of 90 years, which was terminated in 1920 by the
inevitable amalgamation. It performed great feats in the world of
news-gathering. It sent Henry M. Stanley to Africa to find
Livingstone. It backed the Jeannette expedition to the Arctic
regions. It was largely instrumental in having the first Atlantic
cables laid. Its reputations among newspaper men was that neither
its news nor its editorial columns could be bought or influenced.
But perhaps its greatest feat was the maintenance during many
years of its journalistic independence against the combined
attack of New York Jewry. Its proprietor, the late James Gordon
Bennett, a great American citizen famed for many helpful
activities, had always maintained a friendly attitude toward the
Jews of his city. He apparently harbored no prejudices against
them. Certainly he never deliberately antagonized them. But he
was resolved upon preserving the honor of independent journalism.
He never bent to the policy that the advertisers had something to
say about the editorial policy of the paper, either as to
influencing it for publication or suppression. In Bennett's time
the American Press was in the majority free. Today it is entirely
Jewish controlled. This control is variously exercised, sometimes
resting only on the owners' sense of expediency. But the control
is there, and for the moment it is absolute. Fifty years ago
there were many more newspapers in New York than there are today,
since then amalgamation has reduced the competition to a select
few who do not compete. This development has been the same in
other countries, particularly Great Britain.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Following the rise of the "popular" syndicated "columnist" since 1920, the word is now "smear," it is specially prominent in political-press affairs.
Bennett's Herald, a
three cent newspaper, enjoyed the highest prestige and was the
most desirable advertising medium due to the class of its
circulation. At that time the Jewish population of New York was
less than one-third of what it is today, but there was much
wealth represented in it.
Now, what every newspaper man knows is this: most
Jewish leaders are always interested either in getting a story
published or getting it suppressed. There is no class of people
who read the public press with so careful an eye to their own
affairs as do the Jews. The Herald simply
adopted the policy from the beginning of this form of harassment
that it was not to be permitted to sway the Herald
from its duty as a public informant. And this policy had a reflex
advantage for the other newspapers in the city.
When a scandal occurred in Jewish circles (and at the
turn of the century growing Jewish influence in America produced
many) influential Jews would swarm into the editorial offices to
arrange for the suppression of the story. But the editors knew
that the Herald would not suppress
anything for anybody. What was the use of one paper suppressing
if the others would not? So editors would say: We would be very
glad to suppress this story, but the Herald
will use it, so we'll have to do the same in self-protection.
However, if you can get the Herald to
suppress it, we will gladly do so, too.
But the Herald never succumbed, neither pressure of
influence nor promise of business nor threats of loss availed. It
printed the news.
There was a certain Jewish banker who periodically
demanded that Bennett discharge the Herald's financial editor.
The banker was in the business of disposing of Mexican bonds at a
time when such bonds were least secure. Once when an unusually
large number of bonds were to be unloaded on unsuspecting
Americans, the Herald published the story of an impending Mexican
revolution, which presently ensued. The banker frothed at the
mouth and moved every influence he could to change the Herald's
financial staff, but was not able to effect the change even of an
office boy.
Once when a shocking scandal involved a member of a
prominent family, Bennett refused to suppress it, arguing that if
the episode had occurred in a family of any other race it would
be published regardless of the prominence of the figures
involved. The Jews of Philadelphia secured suppression there, but
because of Bennett's unflinching stand there was no suppression
in New York.
A newspaper is a business proposition. There are some
matters it cannot touch without putting itself in peril of
becoming a defunct concern. This is especially true since
newspapers no longer receive their main support from the public
but from the advertisers. The money the reader gives for the
paper scarcely suffices to pay for the amount of white paper he
receives. In this way, advertisers cannot be disregarded any more
than the paper mills can be. As the most extensive advertisers in
New York were, and are, the department stores, and as most
department stores were, and are, owned by Jews, it comes
logically that Jews often influence the news policies of the
papers with whom they deal.
At this time, it had always been the burning ambition
of the Jews to elect a Jewish Mayor of New York. They selected a
time when the leading parties were disrupted to push forward
their choice. The method they adopted was characteristic. They
reasoned that the newspapers would not dare to refuse the dictum
of the combined department store owners, so they drew up a
"strictly confidential" letter which they sent to the
owners of the New York newspapers, demanding support for the
Jewish mayoralty candidate. The newspaper owners were in a
quandary. For several days they debated how to act. All remained
silent. The editors of the Herald cabled
the news to Bennett who was abroad. Then it was that Bennett
exhibited that boldness and directness of judgment which
characterized him. He cabled back, "Print the
letter." It was printed in the Herald,
the arrogance of the Jewish advertisers was exposed, and
non-Jewish New York breathed easier and applauded the action.
The Herald explained frankly
that it could not support a candidate of private interests,
because it was devoted to the interests of the public. But the
Jewish leaders vowed vengeance against the Herald
and against the man who dared to expose their game.
They had not liked Bennett for a long time, anyway.
The Herald was the real "society paper" of New York,
but Bennett had a rule that only the names of really prominent
families should be printed. The stories of the efforts of
newly-rich Jews to break into the Herald's
society columns are some of the best that are told by old
newspaper men.
The whole "war" culminated in a contention
which arose between Bennett and Nathan Straus, a German-Jew whose
business house was known under the name of "R. H. Macy and
Company," Macy being the Scotsman who built up the business
and from whose heirs Straus obtained it. Straus was something of
a philanthropist in the ghetto, but the story goes that Bennett's
failure to proclaim him as a philanthropist led to ill-feeling. A
long newspaper-war ensued, the subject of which was the
pasteurization of milk, a stupid discussion which no one took
seriously, save Bennett and Straus.
The Jews, of course, took Straus' side. Jewish
speakers made the welkin ring with laudation of Nathan Straus and
maledictions upon James Bennett. Bennett was pictured in the most
vile business of "persecuting" a noble Jew. It went so
far that the Jews were able to put resolutions through the Board
of Aldermen.
Long since, of course, Straus, a very heavy
advertiser, had withdrawn every dollar's worth of his business
from the Herald. And now the combined and
powerful elements of New York Jewry gathered to deal a staggering
blow at Bennett. The Jewish policy of "Dominate or
Destroy" was at stake, and Jewry declared war.
EDITOR'S NOTE: It is significant that, in the long years since this first "food war," the business of "processing" and "substituting" pure foods, messing about with natural food-stuffs, has developed into a world wide business; mostly controlled by Jews.
As one man, the Jewish advertisers withdrew
their advertisements. Their assigned reason was that the Herald
was showing animosity against the Jews. The real purpose of their
action was to crush an American newspaper owner who dared to be
independent of them.
The blow they delivered was a staggering one. It
meant the loss of 600,000 dollars a year. Any other newspaper in
New York would have been put out of business by it. The Jews knew
that and sat back, waiting for the downfall of the man they chose
to consider their enemy.
But Bennett was a fighter. Besides, he knew the
Jewish psychology probably better than any other non-Jew in New
York. He turned the tables on his opponents in a startling and
unexpected fashion. The coveted positions in his papers had
always been used by the Jews. These he immediately turned over to
non-Jewish merchants under exclusive contracts. Merchants who had
formerly been crowded into the back pages and obscure corners by
the more opulent Jews, now blossomed forth full page in the most
popular spaces. One of the non-Jewish merchants who took
advantage of the new situation was John Wanamaker, whose large
advertisements from that time forward were conspicuous in the
Bennett newspapers. The Bennett papers came out with undiminished
circulation and full advertising pages. The well-planned
catastrophe did not, then occur. Instead, there was a rather
comical surprise. Here were the non-Jewish merchants of America
enjoying the choicest service of a valuable advertising medium,
while the Jewish merchants were unrepresented. Unable to stand
the spectacle of trade being diverted to non-Jewish merchants,
the Jews came back to Bennett, requesting the use of his columns
for advertising. The "boycott" had been hardest on the
boycotters. Bennett received all who came, displaying no rancor.
They wanted their old positions back, but Bennett said, No. They
argued, but Bennett said, No. They offered more money, but
Bennett said, No. The choice positions had been forfeited.
Bennett triumphed, but it proved a costly victory.
All the time Bennett was resisting them, the Jews were growing
more powerful in New York, and they were obsessed by the idea
that to control journalism in New York meant to control the
thought of the whole country.
The number of newspapers gradually diminished through
combinations of publications. Adolph S. Ochs, a Philadelphia Jew,
acquired the "New York Times."
He soon made it into a great newspaper, but one whose bias is to
serve the Jews. It is the quality of the Times
as a newspaper that makes it so weighty as a Jewish organ. In
this paper the Jews are persistently lauded, eulogized and
defended, no such tenderness is granted other races.
Then Hearst came into the field, a dangerous agitator
because he not only agitates the wrong things, but because he
agitates the wrong class of people. He surrounded himself with a
coterie of Jews, pandered to them, worked hand in glove with
them, but never told the truth about them, never gave them away.
The trend toward Jewish control of the press set in
strongly, and has continued that way ever since. The old names,
made great by great editors and American policies, slowly dimmed.
A newspaper is founded either on a great editorial
mind, in which event it becomes the expression of a powerful
personality, or it becomes institutionalized as to policy and
becomes a commercial establishment. In the latter event, its
chances for continuing life beyond the lifetime of its founder
are much stronger.
The Herald was Bennett, and
with his passing it was inevitable that a certain force and
virtue should depart out of it. Bennett, advancing in age,
dreaded lest his newspaper, on his death should fall into the
hands of the Jews. He knew that they regarded it with longing. He
knew that they had pulled down, seized, and afterward built up
many an agency that had dared to speak the truth about them, and
boasted about it as a conquest for Jewry.
Bennett loved the Herald as a
man loves a child. He so arranged his will that the Herald
should not fall into individual ownership, but that its revenues
should flow into a fund for the benefit of the men who had worked
to make the Herald what it was. He died in
May, 1919. The Jewish enemies of the Herald,
eagerly watchful, once more withdrew their advertising to force,
if possible, the sale of the newspaper. They knew that if the Herald
became a losing proposition, the trustees would have no course
but to sell, notwithstanding Bennett's will.
But there were also interests in New York who were
beginning to realize the peril of a Jewish press. These interests
provided a sum of money for the Herald's
purchase by Frank A. Munsey.
Then, to general astonishment, Munsey discontinued
the gallant old paper, and bestowed its name as part of the name
of the "New York Sun."
The newspaper managed by Bennett is extinct. The men
who worked on it were scattered abroad in the newspaper field
and, in the main, retired or dead.
Even though the Jews had not gained actual possession
of the Herald, they at least succeeded in
driving another non-Jewish newspaper from the field. They set
about obtaining control of several newspapers, their victory is
now complete. But the victory was a financial victory over a dead
man. The moral victory, as well as the financial victory,
remained with Bennett while he lived; the moral victory still
remains with the Herald. It demonstrated
what could be done by fearless, independent minds, supported by
men who knew their work and loved it for its own sake. It
demonstrated what could have been achieved had these men received
the support of wide-awake, active, non-Jewish Americans. The Herald
is immortalized as the last bulwark against Jewry in New York, in
America. Today the Jews are more completely masters of the
journalistic field in New York than they are in any capital in
Europe. Indeed, in Europe there frequently emerges a newspaper
that gives the real news of the Jews. There is none in New York.
And thus the situation will remain until Americans
shake themselves from their long sleep, and look with steady eyes
at the national situation. That look will be enough to show them
all, and their very eyes will quail the oriental usurpers.
"Our triumph has been rendered easier by
the fact that in our relations with the men whom we wanted we
have always worked upon the most sensitive chords of the hymn
mind, upon the cash account, upon the cupidity, upon the
insatiability for material needs of man; and each one Of these
human weaknesses, taken alone, is sufficient to paralyze
initiative, for it hands over the will of men to the disposition
of him who has bought their activities."
- The First Protocol.