We have seen that plainly enough in the monstrous expressions of foreign
policy during the last ten years, and we have seen it in the abominable
hounding of individuals to which that same press has lent itself.
Now in the matter of Anti-Semitic feeling we shall have, I think,
exactly the same phenomenon repeated. That feeling is now ubiquitous. It
is spreading with an alarming rapidity, and the increase of its
intensity is even more remarkable than the increase in the numbers of
its adherents. Sooner or later--and fairly soon, I imagine--the press
will give it voice. When it _does_, it will give it voice, we may be
certain, in the most extreme, the most passionate, the most irrational
form; and when that happens, in a field where passion is already so
wild, God help its victims!
The Anti-Semitic passion, largely based though it is on imaginary
things, has adopted one method of action highly practical. It is a
method of action closely in touch with reality, and productive of
formidable results. I mean _its compiling of documents_. It has here
noted, all over Europe and America, with exactitude, and continues to
put upon record, everything which can be said to the detriment of its
victims.
It discovered at its origin, presented as a barrier against it, the
Jewish weapon of secrecy. The folly of the Jews in using such a weapon
was never better shown, for of all defences it is the easiest to break
down. The Anti-Semites countered at once by making every inquiry, by
collecting their information, by finding out and exposing the true names
hidden under the mask of false ones, by detecting and registering the
relationships between men who pretended ignorance one of the other; it
ferreted all through the ramifications of anonymous finance and
invariably caught the Jew who was behind the great industrial insurance
schemes, the Jew who was behind such and such a metal monopoly, the Jew
who was behind such and such a news agency, the Jew who financed such
and such a politician. That formidable library of exposure spreads
daily, and when the opportunity for general publication is given there
will be no answer to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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