A.N. FIELD
The Truth About the Slump
Of very great significance and importance in and review of the present world-control by high finance is the story of Mr. Henry Ford’s seven-year campaign against various undesirable influences declared by him to be Jewish in origin. This ended in the middle of 1927 with an abject apology by Mr. Ford as part of the terms of settlement out of court of a million dollar libel action brought against him.
As is well known Mr. Ford in 1916 embarked on his famous "Peace Ship," in which he sailed with a party of peace missionaries on a voyage to Europe. The ship proceeded to Stockholm, Mr. Ford himself leaving her at Christiania. Up to this date Mr. Ford seems to have blamed the German militarists for the war, but during his tour abroad he was given information which led to the conviction that German-Jewish international financiers were responsible for the disaster of the Great War and the millions of lives sacrificed in it.
In 1920 Mr. Ford began in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, the publication of articles criticising German-Jew financiers for their part in the war, and for their activities in many other directions deemed by him to be injurious. As Mr. Ford subsequently disclaimed knowledge or approval of the articles in the Dearborn Independent, perhaps it would be more accurate to say the articles dealt with such activities as were deemed by the directors of the paper to be injurious.
These articles appear to have covered a wide field. The writer has not had access to a file of the Dearborn Independent, and his knowledge of the articles is derived from excerpts published in other journals from time to time. Among other things the Ford journal dwelt particularly on the Jewish control of the motion picture industry, on Jewish control of the American magazines, and the great predominance of Jew magazine writers, on Jewish control of the stage. In Chapter VI has been quoted a lengthy extract from the London National Review of a passage from a Dearborn Independent article on the German central banking system and the connection of the Warburg brothers therewith.
Mr. Ford was far from being alone in attaching a sinister significance to Jewish activity. At the date at which his campaign was begun there was widespread concern at the fact that the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia were mainly Jews. Many newspaper articles and various books were appearing in which the matter was dealt with at length.
In the middle of 1920 the London Morning Post, for example, published a series of articles in which it was asserted that Jewish revolutionary activity constituted a world peril. These articles were later republished in book form (The Cause of World Unrest, Grant Richards, London, 1920). In this book the belief was expressed that a great conspiracy existed the purpose of which was the destruction of the British Empire. The Morning Post, as is well known, is a highly Conservative journal much read by Britain’s aristocracy.
In reviewing this book the London Spectator in its issue of October 16, 1920, said it was of opinion that a case for full enquiry had been fully established by the Morning Post, and it hoped that some body in the nature of a Royal Commission might be set up to investigate the whole matter. The Spectator even went so far as to suggest that Lord Sumner, one of the law lords, would make an admirable chairman for such a commission. As to the terms of reference the Spectator suggested that the Commission should be called upon to report:
(1) Whether a world-wide conspiracy exists, or has existed, in recent years.
(2) Whether, if its existence is proved, its objects are merely vaguely subversive and, however mistaken, inspired by the general desire to free and benefit mankind, or whether they are destructive, anti-democratical and tyrannical.
(3) Whether it is true, as alleged, that the leaders of this world-wide conspiracy are as a rule Jews.
(4) Whether the object of those Jews who join the conspiracy is the destruction of the Christian religion as well as political revolution.
(5) Whether the mass of the Jews--i.e., those who maintain their racial and religious exclusiveness--sympathise with and protect the Jewish conspirators, and do so not so much because they agree with them as because they are Jews.
The Spectator pointed out that it was an undoubted fact that most of the revolutions in Continental Europe in the nineteenth century had been led by Jews, and it is, of course, well known that Karl Marx, the socialist preacher of the war of the proletariat, and his backer Engels were both German-Jews.
In its article this influential British periodical declared that the way to fight conspiracy was not by counter-conspiracy, but by turning the searchlight of publicity on to the doings of the conspirators. What happened ? The Spectator carried on its campaign of publicity for a while, but within a year or two its control passed into other hands, and so far as the writer can discover it thereafter lost interest in the subject. The Morning Post also changed hands, and since seems to have paid no attention to alleged Jewish conspiracies against the British Empire.
One journal alone, the London National Review, has pegged away unceasingly at the present domination in high finance. Some time ago its editor and proprietor, Mr. Leo J. Maxse, announced that special steps had been taken in the incorporation of the proprietary to ensure continuity of policy.
During the war Mr. J. Foster Fraser had published a volume, The Conquering Jew (1915), merely emphasising the great importance of the Jews despite their small numbers. In 1917 Mr. Arnold White wrote The Hidden Hand. That there was a hidden hand directing affairs Mr. White had no doubt, and of its nature he said:
"Two theories exist as to the identity of the Hidden Hand. The highest authority, Dr. Ellis Powell, editor of the Financial News, to whom I dedicate this book, favours the belief founded on evidence that the Hidden Hand today belongs to an individual of supreme ability, working through astute agents, to many of whom his identity is unknown. The other theory is that the Hidden Hand is adroitly directed by various agents of the German Government."
In 1920 there was also published by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode a reprint of a remarkable pamphlet issued in Russia in 1905 containing the alleged "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." With this extraordinary document we shall deal in the next chapter.
In 1921 appeared Mrs. Nesta Webster’s World Revolution: The Plot Against Civilisation, a book which Mrs. Webster followed up with her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, published in 1924.
The next year saw the publication of Mr. Hilaire Belloc’s book, The Jews. In this book Mr. Belloc declared that the South African war "was openly and undeniably provoked and promoted by Jewish interests in South Africa." Of the Panama scandal in France in the nineties in which millions put up by the French public to build the Panama canal disappeared in bribery and corruption, and of the Marconi scandal in Britain ten years later in which British Cabinet Ministers were found to have been dabbling in Marconi Company shares prior to an increase in their value by a Government contract, Mr. Belloc said:
"They might have passed as isolated things a generation before. They were now connected, often unjustly, with an uneasy sense of a general financial conspiracy. They were at any rate connected with an atmosphere distinctly Jewish."
Of the ever-growing fields in which the Jews held a monopoly, Mr. Belloc wrote:
"It is an exceedingly dangerous point in the present situation. I do not think that the Jews have a sufficient appreciation of the risks they are running by its develop ment. There is already something like a Jewish monopoly in high finance. There is a growing tendency to Jewish monopoly over the stage, for instance, the fruit trade in London, and to a great extent the tobacco trade. There is the same element of Jewish monopoly in the silver trade, and in the control of various other metals, notably lead, nickel, quicksilver. What is most disquieting of all, this tendency to monopoly is spreading like a disease. One province after another falls under it, and it acts as a most powerful irritant. It will perhaps prove the immediate cause of that explosion against the Jews which we all dread, and which the best of us, I hope, are trying to avert."It applies, of course, to a tiny fraction of the Jewish race as a whole. One could put the Jews who control lead, nickel, mercury and the rest into one small room: nor would that room contain very pleasant specimens of their race. You could get the great Jewish bankers who control international finance round one large dinner table, and I know dinner tables which have seen nearly all of them at one time or another."
In another striking passage Mr. Belloc wrote:
"The Great War brought thousands upon thousands of educated men (who took up public duties as temporary officials) up against the staggering secret they had never suspected--the complete control exercised over things absolutely necessary to the nation’s survival by half a dozen Jews who were completely indifferent as to whether we or the enemy should emerge alive from the struggle."
Throughout the war there had been a widespread belief that mysterious subterranean influences had somehow militated against Britain putting forth her full effort in the struggle. This belief in a "hidden hand" had been fanned up as a result of the extraordinary allegations made in course of the libel action which Miss Maud Allan, the dancer, had brought in 1918 against Mr. Pemberton Billing, M.P. Mr. Billing in his paper, the Vigilant, had alleged that Germany had carried on a systematic campaign of blackmail of influential persons in Britain, and two witnesses during the libel action swore that they had seen a copy of what was called "The Black Book," an alleged German Secret Service document in which were set out detailed instructions how to entice people into conduct facilitating blackmail. In another section of this book was said to be a long list of prominent British persons, including numbers in the front rank in public affairs, who were listed as approachable, and against each name was a biographical note and suggestions as to possible methods of getting at each individual. The basis of the action was an allegation that the performance of "Salome" (financed by a German-Jew) would attract influential, but morbid, persons suitable for Black Book operations. The book itself could not be produced, but one witness swore that it had been shown to him by Prince William of Wied in Albania, from whose cabinet he subsequently abstracted it. No evidence was adduced that anyone had been so approached or had yielded to pressure of such a nature, and this despite the fact that the names of eminent persons alleged to be listed in the book were screamed across the Court in this disorderly trial. The wide publicity of these proceedings greatly heightened the fever of suspicion existing at the time, and which later centred on the Jewish influences in the Bolshevik revolution on these becoming recognised.
Many books and much periodical literature appeared about this date on the menace of the money power, without as a rule identifying that power as predominantly Jewish. In the flood of post-war memoirs there were not a few references to the Jewish question by distinguished persons. Mr. H. Wickham Steed, editor of the London Times under the Northcliffe regime and for many years correspondent of the Times in various foreign capitals, published two volumes entitled Through Thirty Years (Heinemann, 1924). Mr. Steed’s narrative dealt mainly with the course of European affairs. In his concluding chapter he ranked international Jewry as the most potent force in the world today, declaring that "those who hold that Jewry is always guided by material considerations are apt to be woefully wrong." Mr. Steed also remarked that he had been puzzled why it was that the Jews who are worse treated in Germany than in Austria, France and Britain should have become more and more pan-German.
The foregoing excerpts are sufficient to show that the campaign conducted in the Ford newspaper with such vigour was but an American expression of views widely shared in numerous influential quarters in Britain. With the details of the allegations made in the Dearborn Independent the writer is not familiar. The attack was wide in its scope and specific in its charges, and it ended in July, 1927, by apology and retraction as part of the terms of settlement of a million dollar libel action brought by Mr. Aaron Sapiro on account of criticism of a Jewish co-operative organisation.
In his books Mr. Ford has written strongly against banker-controlled industry. For example, in My Life and Work (1922), Mr. Ford says:
"Bankers play far too great a part in the conduct of industry. Most business men will privately admit that fact. They will seldom publicly admit it because they are afraid of their bankers. It requires less skill to make a fortune dealing in money than dealing in production. The average successful banker is by no means so intelligent and resourceful a man as is the average successful business man. Yet the banker through his control of credit practically controls the average business man. There has been a great reaching out by bankers in the last fifteen or twenty years--and especially since the war--and the Federal Reserve System for a time put into their hands an almost limitless supply of credit."
In the chapter from which the above is taken--headed "Money: Master or Servant"--Mr. Ford tells how during the slump of 1920-21 his company was pressed for cash and how "an officer of a New York bank called on me with a financial plan which included a large loan, and in which was also an arrangement by which a representative of the bankers would act as treasurer and take charge of the finances of the company."
Of the energetic and successful steps which he took to escape this bank domination Mr. Ford tells in detail -- how he turned everything possible into cash and in three months produced a third more than was needed to meet the then heavy indebtedness of the company.
In May, 1927, the Ford Company went out of production to change over the plant from the old model Ford to the present model. This operation took double the time that was expected, and was not completed until December of that year. It was during this period that Mr. Ford settled the million dollar Sapiro libel action by apology. In that apology, as printed in the Literary Digest at the time, Mr. Ford referred to the Dearborn Independent and said:
"I am deeply mortified that this journal, which is intended to be constructive, not destructive, has been made the medium for resurrecting exploded fictions, for giving currency to the so-called Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion which have been demonstrated, as I learn, to be gross forgeries; and for contending that the Jews have been engaged in a conspiracy to control the capital and industries of the world; besides laying at their door many offences against decency, public order, and good morals.
"Had I appreciated even the general nature, to say nothing of the details, of these utterances, I would have forbidden their circulation without a moment’s hesitation."
According to the Literary Digest Mr. Ford’s retraction proceeded with an explanation that "the multitude of his activities made it impossible for him to keep informed as to the contents of the Dearborn Independent and the pamphlets entitled The International Jew."
The New York World Almanack for 1930 has an entry in its chronology of the year recording how Mr. Henry Ford attended a Jewish gathering and delivered a eulogy of the Jewish race which by special arrangement was broadcasted all over the United States. In our chapter "The German Side of the Story" we have quoted a long extract showing what the Ford newspaper was saying of the Warburg group in November, 1924. In the chapter immediately preceding this we have noted how Mr. Ludwell Denny in America Conquers Britain has recorded that Mr. Edsel Ford and Mr. Paul Warburg in 1929 became co-directors of the American I.G. Corporation, a huge combine co-operating with the German chemical trust, of which trust the Ford Company of Germany is stated by Mr. Denny to have become a subsidiary.
Mr. Ford’s retraction apparently extends only to the matter published in the Dearborn Independent, matter which had only appeared in consequence of his other activities not permitting him time to keep in touch with what those directing his paper were inserting in it. That was the ground of the Ford apology. It is not a ground that can be applied to personal statements made by Mr. Ford himself. It cannot apply to the statement which Captain Cazalet, M.P., in the National Review for December, 1926, reports Mr. Ford as having made to him at Detroit at the end of October in that year, and recorded by Captain Cazalet as follows:
"Like other remarkable men Ford has one bugbear, i.e., international Jewish financiers. We asked him who they were. He said: ‘I have several books which will tell you who they are. They were responsible for the last war, and will in the future always be capable of creating a war when they feel their pockets need one.’ "
In its issue of October 18, 1926, the London Times quoted from the New York American a passage from an interview with Mr. Ford in which he attacked international financiers in very similar language.
Nor can the retraction of 1927 be applied to what Mr. Ford says of certain Jewish influences in his book My Life and Work, published in 1922. If there has been a withdrawal of this passage we have failed to discover it although we have searched in reliable quarters for all references to Mr. Ford and the Jews. It is true that on the title page under the announcement that the book is "by Henry Ford" is in smaller type the addition "in collaboration with Samuel Crowther," but it is reasonable to assume that even the busiest of mankind would keep himself in touch with the contents of a book broadcasted to the world as his autobiography, even though a third party may have been employed in its literary presentation. It is thus unlikely that Mr. Ford should not have been aware of the following taken from pages 250-53 of the second Australian edition of his book:
"The work which we describe as Studies in the Jewish Question, and which is variously described by antagonists as ‘the Jewish campaign,’ ‘the attack on the Jews,’ ‘the anti-Semitic pogrom,’ and so forth, needs no explanation to those who have followed it. Its motive and purposes must be judged by the work itself. It is offered as a contribution to a question which deeply affects this country, a question which is racial at its source, and which concerns influences and ideals rather than persons. Our statements must be judged by candid readers who are intelligent enough to lay our words alongside life as they are able to observe it. If our word and their observation agree, the case is made. It is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. The first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. And that is precisely the item which our critics choose to evade.
"Readers of our articles will see at once that we are not actuated by any kind of prejudice, except it may be a prejudice in favour of the principles which have made our civilisation. There have been observed in this country certain streams of influence which have been causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time soundness; a general letting down of standards was felt everywhere. It was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy of Shakespeare’s characters, but a nasty Orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression--and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with, not by us only, but by the intelligent people of the race in question. It is entirely creditable to them that steps have been taken to remove their protection from the more flagrant violators of American hospitality, but there is still room to discard out-worn ideas of racial superiority maintained by economic or intellectually subversive warfare upon Christian society.
"Our work does not pretend to say the last word on the Jew in America. It says only the word which describes his present impress on the country. When that impress is changed the report of it can be changed. For the present, then, the question is wholly in the Jews’ hands. If they are as wise as they claim to be, they will labour to make the Jews American, instead of labouring to make America Jewish. The genius of the United States of America is Christian in the broadest sense, and its destiny is to remain Christian. This carries no sectarian meaning with it, but relates to a basic principle which differs from other principles in that it provides for liberty- and morality, and pledges society to a code of relations based on fundamental Christian conceptions or human rights and duties.
"As for prejudice or hatred against persons, that is neither American nor Christian. Our opposition is only to ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people. These ideas proceed from easily identifiable sources, they are promulgated by easily discoverable methods; and they are controlled by mere exposure. We have simply used the method of exposure. When people learn to identify the source and nature of the influence swirling around them, it is sufficient. Let the American people once understand that it is not natural degeneracy, but calculated subversion that afflicts us, and they are safe. The explanation is the cure.
"This work is taken up without personal motives. When it reached a stage where we believed the American people could grasp the key, we let it rest for a time. Our enemies say that we began it for revenge and that we laid it down in fear. Time will show that our critics are merely dealing in evasion because they dare not cackle the main question. Time will also show that we are better friends to the Jews’ best interests than are those who praise them to their faces and criticize them behind their backs."
This Ford campaign has now ceased, and Mr. Ford has declared it mistaken, and its inception a matter of regret. It is none the less an episode of significance.