“The Italian shook his head, but accepted the extended hand. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I want to act alone. There is a force which, if properly directed, is not weaker than gold. That force is poverty and her companion, labor. I shall call them out and lead them into battle. Proud Israel! Beware! I shall put against you the _Artel_ (union) and Labor.’ “‘And I,’ said the scholar, with animation, ‘all that is lofty and noble,—science, idealism, faith—I shall lead these against this materialism.’ “His comrade laughed: “‘Your ideals will crumble as clay striking against metal. Only the forces of poverty and hunger can be the fighters that will defeat the golden calf. Our ways part here; you will go one way, and I another. My promise is fulfilled; but remember your vow—be silent as to all that you have heard and seen here!’” This is the weird, fantastic “thriller” from which sprang the Protocols. It is the first stage. According to this story not only were there present at a secret meeting in the Prague Cemetery, the representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel, ten of which totally disappeared nearly twenty-five centuries ago, but also the son of “the accursed one,” the Devil, was there, making side-remarks from time to time. His assigned function was that of spreading the decisions of the Wise Men of Zion among the Jews in order that they conquer the world. Dr. Herman L. Strack, professor of theology at the University of Berlin, one of the foremost Christian authorities on theological and religious literature, commenting on this Goedsche-Retcliffe concoction, says that this tale of the ghostly convocation in the Jewish cemetery at Prague, discloses no real knowledge of Judaism, that the reference to mixed marriages indicates gross ignorance of actual Jewish thought, and that the Hebrew words supposed to have been employed by the spokesmen for the various tribes appear to have been borrowed from a dictionary. He also points to Goedsche-Retcliffe’s story and the “Rabbi’s Speech” about to be mentioned as the sources of the Protocols. CHAPTER THREE FICTION FORGED INTO “FACT” The Lie in its Second Stage—The Tale Becomes “Fact”—The “Rabbi’s” Speech—Its Authenticity Vouched for by “Retcliffe”—An Illuminating Footnote—A Dedication to the Russian “Black Hundreds”—The Imaginary “Speech” Bears Witness to Authenticity of “Protocols,” Themselves Based on “Speech”—Three Stages of the Lie.