is rampant in Eastern Europe is a fact. That its propaganda in France, England, and America is growing is a fact also. Do we want, and can we afford to add exacerbated race-hatred to all our political, social, and economic troubles? If not, the question of the “Jewish Peril” should be taken up and dealt with. It is far too interesting, the hypothesis it presents is far too ingenious, attractive, and sensational not to attract the attention of our none too happy and none too contented public. The average man thinks that there is something very fundamentally wrong with the world he lives in. He will eagerly grasp at a plausible “working hypothesis.”
What are these “Protocols”? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans, and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in parts fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfilment? Have we been struggling these tragic years to blow up and extirpate the secret organization of German world dominion only to find beneath it another more dangerous because more secret? Have we, by straining every fibre of our national body, escaped a “Pax Germanica” only to fall into a “Pax Judaeica”? The “Elders of Zion,” as represented in their “Protocols,” are by no means kinder taskmasters than William II and his henchmen would have been.
All these questions, which are likely to obtrude themselves on the reader of the “Jewish Peril,” cannot be dismissed by a shrug of the shoulders unless one wants to strengthen the hand of the typical anti-Semite and call forth his favourite accusation of the “conspiracy of silence.” An impartial investigation of these would-be documents and of their history is most desirable. That