We can all of us remember the day when the supporters of women's suffrage in England were a very small group of faddists indeed: we know what has happened there!
The forces driving men towards the Anti-Semitic camp are far stronger than the forces acting upon these old hobbies of women's suffrage, of prohibition and the rest. They are personal, intimate forces arising from the strongest racial instincts and the most bitter individual memories of financial loss, subjection, national dishonour.
For instance, any German to-day to whom you may talk of his great disaster will answer by telling you that it is due to the Jews: that the Jews are preying upon the fallen body of the State; that the Jews are "rats in the Reich." For one man that blames the old military authorities for the misfortunes following the war, twenty blame the Jews, though these were the architects of the former German prosperity, and among them were found a larger proportion of opponents of the war than in any other section of the Emperor's subjects. That is but one example; you will find it repeated in one form or another in almost every other polity of the modern world.
The Anti-Semite has become a strong political figure. It is a great and dangerous error at this moment to think his policy is futile. It is a policy of action, and a policy which may proceed from plan to execution before we know it.
There used to be quoted years ago—and I have myself quoted it with approval—a famous question put by a close and reasonable observer of public affairs upon the Continent, to the most prominent of Continental Anti-Semites in that day. The question was this: "If you had