This, however, is one instance where publicity does not count, because it represents a business favor oftener than it does an editorial conviction. The knowl¬ edge of the Jewish Question which newspaper men possess is quite complete, and a confidential council of the best informed editors of the United States would include all that the government or the people would need to know for a complete handling of the Jewish Question. The publicity demanded and received by the organized Jews has proved a roorback; it has served the cause of truth more than the cause they desired, which was suppression.
Gratifying as these proofs are to the producers of the facts, there is a^ very decided element of disap¬ pointment in the Jewish answers. Either Jewry is feinting, or is defenseless; certainly the present status of the defense must be humiliating to those who have any conception of the importance of the matter.
The answer signed by the Jews themselves—a list of signatures which showed as in panorama the closelocked corporational solidarity of the Jewish race in this country—was devoid of a single fact which threw light. In this, the Jewish answer was almost a confes¬ sion of “no defense.”
But aside from its ineptitude was its utter lack of frankness. It refuses to face the question. It will not meet a single statement, either in the substance of the Protocols or in the substance of this series. It veers off whenever it approaches a concrete theme, and loses itself in a vapor of denials. If a statement is wrong, it is provably wrong, especially a statement which deals with matters now actual in daily life.
The official Jewish answer, signed by a few, not all, of the Jewish leaders, is at least decent in its language, and that is more than can be said for most of the other Jewish answers. But it is indecent in its attempt to create the-impression that anti-Semitism is abroad in the country.