by the chairman of the Anti-Defamation Committee of the local Lodge of B’nai B’rith, which chairman was also an advertising agent who handled all the Jewish advertising in that city. The editor, not being a wise man, yielded to the bulldozing methods used upon him, and in a half-hearted bit of editorial praise for the Jews used the word “Americanism.” The advertising agent toyed with the word in the manner of one who, having a weak Gentile in his power, would make the best of it.
“Why did you say, ‘Americanism’? Why did you not say ‘civilization’?” he asked.
The editor to this day thinks it was a bit of captiousness. It was not. There is meaning in it.
To “Americanize” means, in our ordinary speech, to bring into sympathy with the traditions and institutions of the United States, but the Jews do not mean only the United States when they say “America.” They mean also South and Central America—where so many revolutions have occurred. There are large numbers of Jews in Argentina, and many are found in other countries. The next place to be extensively colonized will be Mexico. If the people of the United States see a Jewish ambassador sent to represent them in Mexico, they must know that the invasion of that country is about to begin. If the ambassador is not himself a Jew, it will be well to scrutinize his connections; there may be reasons which will make it necessary to employ a “Gentile front” for a time.
Now, it would probably give a wrong twist to the fact to say that the Jewish leaders are anti-American, but it is true that they are against the “Americanization” of the Jewish immigrant stream. That is, the trend of “Americanism” is so different from the trend of “Judaism” that the two are in conflict. This does not indicate treason toward American nationalism, perhaps, so much as it indicates loyalty toward Jewish nationalism.