importance and it debated upon either side real contrasts of opinion upon those matters. This modern press of ours does none of these things; but precisely because it is so reluctant to express real emotion it does, when the emotion is forced upon it, let it out in a flood. Just as it would not tell the truth when a thing was growing, so when it reaches an extreme it will not exercise restraint. On the contrary, if the "stunt" be an exciting one, it will push it (once it has made up its mind to talk of it at all) in the most extreme form and to the last pitch of violence.
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