Power and Aims of International Jewry Part 5

PART 4 - THE POWER AND AIMS OF INTERNATIONAL JEWRY

It is true that there have been local outbreaks against the Jews, for special reasons, due to upset conditions, and tales about Jewish profiteering, particularly from Russian Bolshevik Jews, who are trying to upset the Polish nationalist spirit. **** I remark with wonder that the leaders of America’s greatest Jewish societies are lending themselves to this movement, for all this agitation in America is only helping Germany and Bolshevik Russia. *** Whenever one Jew has been hurt in Poland, Jews say ten were killed and Germans say a thousand. If a Jew is killed in conflict, like the Jews in Vilna who fought with the Bolsheviki, the German press immediately spreads a tale of a Polish pogrom in Vilna."

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(b) Have the Jewish Zionists as a part of a definite propaganda to get for the Jews of Poland minority rights, deliberately exaggerated the stories of pogroms in Poland ?

The BILL OF RIGHTS adopted at the American-Jewish Congress at Philadelphia on December 19, 1918, requested the Peace Conference to grant to the Jews in new or enlarged states to be created by the Conference, autonomous management of all Jewish communal institutions and insisted that such autonomy be a condition precedent to the creation of any such state. Poland being the largest and most important new state thus to be formed, it was natural that the Jews should center their efforts on establishing this principle there.

To quote from one of their own number, (Israel Cohen, in the WASHINGTON POST, May 30, 1919):

"MINORITY RIGHTS"

There is only one way in which the civil equality of the Jews can be preserved and that is by their being given the rights of a national minority. The Jews should be given autonomy as far as the administration of their religious, cultural, social and charitable affairs are concerned, but they should also be constituted a separate electoral college with the right to proportional representation in the Polish Parliament. And in order to establish a good working understanding between them and the government, it is advisable that there should be a ministry of Jewish affairs, the head of which should be responsible to a representative council of the organized Jewish communities."

The Polish protest against the published demands of the Jews was followed by a publicity campaign to create a sentiment hostile to Poland, principally in the United States, for use at the Peace Conference in support of the Jewish claims.

In the United States the propaganda adopted by the Jews took two forms: (1) Newspaper attacks, and (2) organized protest meetings, parades and similar demonstrations.

(1) A careful reading of the prominent articles concerning alleged atrocities against the Jews in Poland which began appearing simultaneously in the leading American papers about the middle of May, shows a striking similarity in form, in substance and in

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headlines, a similarity so striking as to have no other reasonable explanation than that of a thoroughly planned propaganda. Information has come to us at second-hand that Reuben Fink, Washington representative of the Zionists, supervised the dissemination of this newspaper material. Confidential despatches from Copenhagen describe a German inspired organization abroad to supply news of pogroms for publication in the American-Jewish press.

Many of the first stories published in May were based on a report of Israel Cohen published in the LONDON TIMES of February 14, 1919. For example, on May 28, 1919 the NEW YORK HERALD and the WASHINGTON POST ran front page accounts by Herman Bernstein of Cohen’s report, but the phrasing was such as to lead the readers to believe that they described Pogroms which were still going on, whereas, Cohen was actually reporting as to events in November, December and January when, as is well known, during the chaos attendant on the triangular struggle with the Germans’ retreating and attempting to turn the country over to the Bolsheviki, and the Poles asserting their National Independence against both groups, there were, of course, many Jews, Poles, Germans and Bolshevists killed. Moreover, Cohen only recited the killing of 161 people during the entire three months covered by his report.

Contrast with this the statement of Rabbi Tittlebaum (State Department I. B. 861.4016/245 [decipherment may not be accurate]) concerning the persecution of the Jews in Southern Russia, in which he tells of the killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands, 5000 being killed in the town of Proscorof alone. There has been little publicity about this in the United States, probably because it would defeat the purpose of the Zionist propaganda as showing that the outbreaks against the Jews in Poland were more restrained and accompanied by much less loss of life that those in other places where chaotic conditions prevailed, such as Southern Russia.

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A further illustration of the way false stories of atrocities were used is shown by the articles about Vilna. The Department received word in May that the Zionist Bureau at Berlin reported 200 Jews killed at Vilna. On June 8, 1919 the WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORK TIMES and others carried a story from Paris under a large headline saying: "1600 Jews killed at Vilna." From Gibson’s reports (telegram June 17, 1919), it appears that 64 Jews were shot and at least ten of them were admitted by the Jewish representatives to have been killed in the house-to-house fighting by which the Poles took the city from the Bolsheviki.

(2) In all the principal cities of the United States mass meetings were held, preceded by parades for which the Jewish workmen obtained a half holiday. The principal meeting was held at Madison Square Garden, New York on May 21, 1919 following a series of parades and other thoroughly organized demonstrations in which a large number of the Jews of the East Side participated. The most important addresses were made by Charles E. Hughes and Jacob Schiff. Mr. Hughes in defending himself against the charge by the Poles that he was playing politics, and had no facts upon which to base his protest, stated that "a careful investigation should speedily be had, but in the meantime the report which have come in - vouched for by such men as Judge Mack and Louis Marshall, men of recognized standing, ability and probity, - justify in my opinion, the most earnest protest."

In determining whether Mr. Hughes was warranted in accepting this ex parte statement, it should be noted that both Judge Mack and Mr. Marshall, as well as Jacob Schiff, are all members of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Kehillah in New York, which Committee has as its Chairman Rabbi Judah L. Magnus who, at one time, was very pro-German and is now an open and avowed advocate of Bolshevism both in Russia and in the United States. As to the Kehillah itself, while it is ostensibly interested solely in Jewish Community work, some question has been raised to its alleged pro-German and subsequent pro-

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Bolshevik tendencies. Furthermore, Mr. Marshall’s partner, Samuel Untermeyer, received considerable notoriety at the Senate hearing on German propaganda because of his pro-German activity. Mr. Untermeyer has now appeared as chief counsel for the Rand School and the American Socialist Society in defending their charter.

In the NEW YORK TIMES of May 24, 1919, Felix M. Warburg is quoted as saying:

"It is to be regretted that the protest meetings of the Jews against the Pogroms which have taken place, in the desire to prevent further ones, appear in the papers as an attempt by the Jews to prejudice Americans against the new Polish Government."

"Naturally the Jews are deeply interested in the welfare of their co-religionists, of whom about 5,000,000 are not living in the new Poland. What these protests mean is simply an earnest pleading that every possible step, official and unofficial, be taken by the new Polish Government to prevent outbreaks by an excited populace which, feeling its new strength and old prejudices may, if not held in check, break loose when not watched. That is all we hope for."

As a commentary on this interview the following extracts from an article entitled "PEACE WITHOUT HONOR” by G. K. Chesterton, appearing in THE NEW WITNESS, an English anti-Semitic paper, of April 18, 1919, page 494, seems in point:

"What concerns us in the crisis of Europe is the facts, and when we know we are dealing with the facts of hatred, we connot be confused or even delayed by the fiction of hypocrisy. ***** and the fact is not that the Jews wish well to the new State, but that the Jews are at this moment using all their keen intellectual activity and their deep racial loyalty, working all over the world at high pressure, to prevent the new Polish State coming into existance at all."

******** We know that if they lose their port (Danzig) it will not be by any act of English public opinion or any public opinion, but by the most secret of all secret diplomacy; that it will not even be given up by the English to the Germans, but by the Germans Jews to other German Jews."

As a further comment in the attitude of the Polish Jews themselves toward the new Polish State may be quoted the following from Colonel Mason’s report:

"Poland has recently put into effect a universal draft law, and the army is being mobilized under it. The men

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are collected at training stations and are receiving training under the general supervision of a French General, the actual instructors being Poles who have had military training or experience in either the German, Austrian or Russian armies. The army is very largely composed of Poles. Upon the passage of the draft law, 90% of the Jews of the country called for what is known as the blue ticket, which is an exemption certificate given to those who are aliens. Incidentally this has an important political bearing as being an official announcement by 90% of the Polish Jews that they consider themselves not Poles but Jews per se."

As a result of the publicity given these Jewish and German inspired anti-Polish protests, both in this country and abroad, the Poles were defeated and "The Combined Jewish Committees of the World” headed by Mr. Louis Marshall were able to secure (1) the special provisions set out in Articles 8 to 12, inclusive, of the Polish Treaty and, (2) the general acquiescence in these provisions on the part of the American Press. The American Poles, however, are more bitter than ever in their denouncement of these articles as undemocratic and un-American. Because of this attitude on their part it seems in point to analyze the articles in question.

Article 8 - provides that racial, religious and linguistic minorities shall have the right to establish, manage and control, at their own expense, charitable, religious and social institution and schools, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein.

Article 9 - provides (Paragraph 1) that in public schools where there is a considerable proportion of Polish nationals of other than Polish speech the children shall be taught in their own language.

Article 9 - (Paragraph 2) Racial, religious and linguistic minorities shall be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application of the sums which may be provided out of public funds ***** for educational, religious or charitable purposes. (This paragraph would appear to supercede in a large measure Article 8 above.)