group, with often enough a “Gentile front” in the shape of a deluded
professor. _Some of these professors are in the pay of outside Red
organizations._ There are Intercollegiate Socialist Societies, swarming
with Jews and Jewish influences, and toting Jewish professors around the
country, addressing medics and lits and even the Divinity schools, under
the patronage of the best civic and university auspices. Student lecture
courses are fine pasture for this propaganda. Intercollegiate Liberal
Leagues are established everywhere, the purpose evidently being to give
students the thrill of believing that they are taking part in the
beginning of a great new movement, comparable to the winning of
Independence or the Abolition of slavery. As stein parties gradually
cease as a college diversion, Red conferences will come in; it is part
of the effervescence of youth.
The revolutionary forces which head up in Jewry rely very heavily on the
respectability which is given their movement by the adhesion of students
and a few professors. It was so in Russia—everyone knows what the name
“student” eventually came to signify in that country. And as a result,
while Sovietists are glorifying the “success” of the Revolution, men
like Maxim Gorky are sending out appeals for food to prevent the
intelligentsia from starving to death.
The Jewish Chautauqua, which works almost exclusively in colleges and
universities, together with Bolshevism in art, science, religion,
economics and sociology, are driving straight through the Anglo-Saxon
traditions and landmarks of our race of students. And these are ably
assisted by professors and clergymen whose thinking has been dislocated
and poisoned by Jewish subversive influences in theology and sociology.
’
What to do about it? Simply identify the source and nature of the
influence which has overrun our colleges. Let the students know that
their choice is between the Anglo-Saxons and the Tribe of Judah. Let the
students decide, in making up their allegiance, whether they will follow
the Builders or those who seek to tear down.
It is not a case for argument. Radicalism and religious indifferentism
are states of mind. Normal men usually grow out of them in good time.
Others are caught and held to the end. But the treatment is not
argument.
The only absolute antidote to the Jewish influence is to call college
students back to a pride of race. We often speak of the Fathers as if
they were the few who happened to affix their signatures to a great
document which marked a new era of liberty; The Fathers were the men of
the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic race. The men who came across Europe with
civilization in their blood and in their destiny; the men who crossed
the Atlantic and set up civilization on a bleak and rock-bound coast;
the men who drove west to California and north to Alaska; the men who
peopled Australia and seized the gates of the world at Suez, Gibraltar
and Panama; the men who opened the tropics and subdued the
arctics—Anglo-Saxon men, who have given form to every government and a
livelihood to every people and an ideal to every century. They got
neither their God nor their religion from Judah, nor yet their speech
nor their creative genius—they are the Ruling People, Chosen throughout
the centuries to Master the world, by Building it ever better and better
and not by breaking it down.
Into the camp of this race, among the sons of the rulers, comes a people
that has no civilization to point to, no aspiring religion, no universal
speech, no great achievement in any realm but the realm of “get,” cast
out of every land that gave them hospitality, and these people endeavor
to tell the sons of the Saxons what is needed to make the world what it
ought to be.
If our sons in college follow this counsel of dark rebellion and
destruction, it is because they do not know whose sons they are, of what
race they are the scions.
Let there be free speech to the limit in our universities and free
intercourse of ideas, but let Jewish thought be labeled Jewish, and let
our sons know the racial secret.
The warning has already gone out through the colleges. The system of
procedure is already fully known. And how simple it is:
First, you secularize the public schools—“secularize” is the precise
word the Jews use for the process. You prepare the mind of the public
school child by enforcing the rule that no mention shall ever be made to
indicate that culture or patriotism is in any way connected with the
deeper principles of the Anglo-Saxon religion. Keep it out, every sight
and sound of it! Keep out also every word that will aid any child to
identify the Jewish race.
Then, when you have thus prepared the soil, you can go into the
universities and colleges and enter upon the double program of pouring
contempt on all the Christian landmarks, at the same time filling the
void with Jewish revolutionary ideas.
The influence of the common people is driven out of the public schools,
where common people’s influence can go; but Jewish influence is allowed
to run rampant in the higher institutions where the common people’s
influence cannot go.
Secularize the public schools, and you can then Judaize the
universities.
This is the “liberalism” which Jewish spokesmen so much applaud. In
labor unions, in church, in university, it has tinctured the principles
of work, faith and society. This will not be denied, because the proof
of it is too thickly written over Jewish activities and utterances.
Indeed, it is in exerting these very influences that Jewry convinces
itself it is fulfilling its “mission” to the world. The capitalism
attacked is non-Jewish capitalism; the orthodoxy attacked is Christian
orthodoxy; the society attacked is the Anglo-Saxon form of society, all
of which by their destruction would redound to the glory of Judaism.
The list could be extended—the influence of the Jewish idea on
Anglo-Saxon sports and pleasure, on the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic idea of
patriotism, on the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic conception of the learned
professions; the influence of the Jewish idea runs down through every
department of life.
“Well,” one very badly deluded Anglo-Saxon editor, wrapped up in Jewish
advertising contracts, was heard to say, “if the Jews can get away with
it, then they have a right to.” It is a variant of the “answer” of
Jewish origin, which runs thus: “How can a paltry 3,000,000 run the
100,000,000 of the rest of us? Nonsense!”
Yes, let it be agreed; if the Jewish idea is the stronger, if the Jewish
ability is the greater, let them conquer; let Anglo-Saxon principles and
Anglo-Saxon power go down in ruins before the Tribe of Judah. _But first
let the two ideas struggle under their own banners; let it be a fair
struggle._ It is not a fair fight when in the movies, in the public
schools, in the Judaized churches, in the universities, the Anglo-Saxon
idea is kept away from Anglo-Saxons on the plea that it is “sectarian”
or “clannish” or “obsolete” or something else. It is not a fair fight
when Jewish ideas are offered as Anglo-Saxon ideas, because offered
under Anglo-Saxon auspices. Let the heritage of our Anglo-Saxon-Celtic
fathers have free course among their Anglo-Saxon-Celtic sons, and the
Jewish idea can never triumph over it, in university forum or in the
marts of trade. The Jewish idea never triumphs until first the people
over whom it triumphs are denied the nurture of their native culture.
Judah has begun the struggle. Judah has made the invasion. Let it come.
Let no man fear it. But let every man insist that the fight be fair. Let
college students and leaders of thought know that the objective is the
regnancy of the ideas and the race that have built all the civilization
we see and that promise all the civilization of the future; let them
also know that the attacking force is Jewish.
That is all that will be necessary. And it is against this that the Jews
protest. “You must not identify us,” they say, “You must not use the
term ‘Jew.’” Why? Because unless the Jewish idea can creep in under the
assumption of other than Jewish origin, it is doomed. Anglo-Saxon ideas
dare proclaim themselves and their origin. A proper proclamation is all
that is necessary today. Compel every invading idea to run up its flag!
——
Issue of May 21, 1931.
LXVI.
The Jews’ Complaint Against “Americanism”
From the earliest record of the Jews’ contact with other nations, no
long period of years has ever passed without the charge arising that the
Jews constitute “a people within a people, a nation within a nation.”
When this charge is made today it is vehemently denied by men who pose
as the defenders of their people, and the denial is more or less
countenanced by all the Jews of every class.
And yet there is nothing more clearly stated in Jewish teaching, nor
more clearly indicated in Jewish life, than that the charge is true.
_But whether the truth should be used against the Jews_ is quite another
question. If the Jews are a nation, their nationality founded upon the
double ground of race and religion, it is certainly outside the bounds
of reason that they should be asked or expected to de-racialize,
de-nationalize and de-religionize themselves; but neither is it to be
expected that they should bitterly denounce those who state the facts.
It is only upon a basis of facts that a solution of any problem can
come. Where blame attaches is here: that the evident facts are denied,
as if no one but the Jews themselves knew that there are such facts.
If the Jews are to be continuously a nation, as they teach, and if the
condition of “a nation within a nation” becomes more and more
intolerable, then the solution must come through one of two things: a
separation of the “nation” from the rest of the nations, or an
exaltation of the “nation” above the rest of the nations. There is a
mass of evidence in Jewish writings that the leaders expect _both_ of
these conditions to come—a _separate_ nation and a _super-nation_;
indeed the heart of Jewish teaching is, as quite fully illustrated in
the last article, that Jewry is _a separate nation now_, and on the way
to becoming a _super_-nation. It is only those appointed to address the
Gentiles who deny this: the real rabbinate of Israel does not deny.
Now, in any investigation of the Jewish Question, the student is struck
over and over again by the fact that what the Jews most complain of,
they themselves began. They complain of what they call anti-Semitism;
but it must be apparent to the dullest mind that there could never have
been such a thing as anti-Semitism were there not first such a thing as
Semitism. J
And then take the complaint about the Jews having to live in ghettos.
The ghetto is a Jewish invention. In the beginning of the invasion of
European and American cities the Jews always lived by themselves because
they wanted to, because they believed the presence of Gentiles
contaminated them. Jewish writers, writing for Jews, freely admit this;
but in writing for Gentiles, they refer to the ghetto as a surviving
illustration of Gentile cruelty. The idea of contamination originated
with the Jews; it spread by suggestion to the Gentiles.
And so with this fact of the separate “nation”; it was the Jews who
first recognized it, first insisted upon it and have always sought to
realize that separateness both in thought and action.
Nay, more, the true and normal type of Jew today believes that the
influence of Americanism, or of any civilized Gentile state, is harmful
to Judaism.
That is a serious statement and no amount of Gentile assertion will be
sufficient to confirm it. Indeed, it is such a statement as the Gentile
mind could not have evolved, because the trend of Gentile feeling is all
in the opposite direction, namely, that Americanization is a good thing
for the Jew. It is from authoritative Jewish sources that we learn this
fact, that what we call civilizing influences are looked upon as being
at enmity with Judaism.
It is not the Gentile who says that Jewish ideals, as ideals, are
incompatible with life in our country; it is the Jew who says so. It is
he who inveighs against Americanism, not the American who inveighs
against Judaism.
As this article is one with the last, the same method of impassive
presentation of the testimony will be followed. Readers of this study of
the Jewish Question should know that neither rhetoric nor emotion will
contribute a single element to the solution of the Question. We prefer
to leave rhetoric and emotion to the anti-Semites who call names and to
the pro-Semites who are apparently reduced to the same necessitous
level.
Now, the first thing to know is this: that though Americanism is yet
unfinished, Judaism has been complete for centuries; and while no
American would think of pointing to any part of the country or to any
group as representing the true and final type of Americanism, the Jews
quite unhesitatingly point to parts of the world and to certain groups
as representing the true type of Judaism.
Where is the type to be found which Jewish writers recognize as the true
one?
The Jew of the ghetto is held up in Jewish treatises as the norm of
Judaism.
The visitor in New York has perhaps seen on Central Park west the
massive synagogue of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Its famous rabbi
was the Rev. Dr. D. de Sola Pool. He is the author of the following
words:
“In the ghetto the observance of Judaism was natural and almost
inevitable. The regimen of Jewish life was the atmosphere that was
breathed * * * Not only did public opinion make it possible for men to
go bearded, to keep the head covered at all times, to carry the palm
branch in the public street, or to walk the street in stockinged feet on
fast days, but public opinion made it almost impossible for a Jew to
profane the Sabbath or the Passover regulations, or openly to transgress
any of the main observances”—and, as we shall later see, the learned
rabbi considers these conditions more preservative of Judaism than are
American conditions.
Rev. Dr. M. H. Segal expresses the view that Jewry in the more modern
portions of Europe and America was really kept alive by the infusions of
immigrants from Poland and Lithuania. Asserting, in agreement with other
Jewish leaders, that the Jewish center of the world has been, until now,
in Russia and Poland, Dr. Segal says:
“The war has destroyed the last traces of the declining Jewish
society which had dragged out its feeble existence in the
semi-medieval ghettos of Poland and Lithuania. With all their
growing feebleness, these communities were yet the last refuge of
Judaism in the Dispersion. In them there had still survived
something of the old Jewish life, some of the old Jewish
institutions, practices and traditions. _These communities also
supplied such vitality as they could afford to the attenuated and
atrophied Judaism in the communities of the more modern states of
Europe and America._”
The idea is not at all uncommon—that large infusions of “real Jews” from
the Old World ghettos are desirable and necessary in order to keep
Judaism alive in countries like the United States.
Israel Friedlaender, whose name just at present is held in peculiar
honor by the Jews, and justly so, was a man of most enlightened
intellect, and he too recognized the service of the ghetto stream to
Judaism. In his lecture, “The Problem of Judaism in America,” he speaks
about the de-Judaizing tendency of absolute freedom, such as the Jew has
always enjoyed in the United States. This tendency, he says, is
corrected in two ways—by anti-Semitic influences, and “by the large
stream of Jewish emigration, on the other hand, which, proceeding from
the lands of oppression to the lands of freedom, _carries with it, on or
under the surface, the preserving and reviving influences of the
ghetto_.”
The same authority, in an article entitled “The Americanization of the
Jewish Immigrant,” frankly prefers the Jew fresh from the ghetto to the
Jew who has been influenced by American life.
He says that he “prefers the kaftan-clad, old-fashioned Jew, with his
unattractive appearance and ungainly manners, whose whole life is
dominated by the ideals and mandates of an ancient religion and
civilization * * * to that modernized, amphibious creature, the gaudily
attired, slang-using, gum-chewing, movie-visiting, dollar-hunting,
vulgar and uncultured, quasi-Americanized ‘dzentleman.’”
The “kaftan-clad, old-fashioned Jew” of whom Mr. Friedlaender writes, is
the Polish Jew, 250,000 of whom are coming to the United States as “a
preserving and reviving influence” upon Judaism in the United States.
Not to use more space, however, on the identity of the normal type of
Jew as precisely stated by those who have expressed themselves on this
subject, it is possible to preserve the idea and add its logical
complement, by quoting some testimony on the Jewish view of
Americanization.
What now follows is of special interest because it is so generally
stated and received throughout Jewish circles, that the center of Jewry
has shifted to America. That is the form in which Jewish spokesmen make
the statement: they say “America,” not the United States.
A little story—a true one—may be worth while here. It may throw a
sidelight on the use of the word “American” as used in the testimony. A
certain editor of an American newspaper gave a trifling bit of publicity
to this series of articles. Jewish advertising was withdrawn from his
columns 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.
But the reader must himself be the judge as to how far the difference
goes. The testimony which will now be given divided itself into two
parts: first, that relating to the American state in particular; second,
that relating to any Gentile state.
After he had spoken in praise of the old type of Jew, as seen in the
foreign ghettos, Dr. D. de Sola Pool added:
“To a large extent the adult Jewish population of the United States has
been reared in Jewish communities of this type of Jewish inevitableness.
To a large extent the young generation is being reared in an atmosphere
in which this type of Jewishness is unknown, or at least strange and
impossible. _Jewish religious observance in the United States is
becoming increasingly difficult and increasingly rare._”
Describing the antagonism between the American and the Jewish
tendencies, he continues with this reference to the effect of
“Americanism” on Jewish modes of worship:
“On the platform officiate a cantor and a preacher, who turn their backs
to the ark and address themselves to their congregation. The tallith and
similar externals are un-American, and have consequently been
sacrificed. The ‘American’ worships with bare head; therefore the
American of Jewish persuasion must also doff his headgear when at
worship. Hebrew, an Oriental language, is not an American tongue. The
American prays in English, which all understand, and accordingly the
American of Jewish faith has Anglicized his ritual. Such a ritual is not
susceptible of being chanted with traditional Jewish Chazzanuth, and the
music of the temple has therefore been brought up to date by the
introduction of an organ, sacred music borrowed from non-Jewish
neighbors, and mixed choirs in which non-Jewish singers are almost the
rule * * * The Jewish Sabbath is out of keeping with the environment,
and the only way in which it seemed to be possible to save it was by
celebrating it with a Friday evening temple service after supper, and
resting, and sometimes also attending temple on Sunday.”
It is not difficult to detect underneath these words the tone of
criticism for such “Americanization.” It is a criticism which is fully
justified by conditions. And it must be remembered that it was not
uttered by a “kaftan-clad, old-fashioned Jew,” but by a learned rabbi
with a magnificent temple on Central Park west, a man whom our
government has seen fit to honor.
But that is not all that Dr. de Sola Pool objects to. Nor does he mince
words in making his objection known: “If so far, Reform has avoided the
logical end of the process and has stopped short of identifying itself
with Christianity, it has Americanized Judaism by dropping the elements
that are characteristically Jewish and un-American, and has thereby
created an almost non-sectarian Judaism housed in an almost
non-sectarian Temple.”
It will be noticed that the learned doctor uses the word “American” as
one accustomed to quite another atmosphere. A further illustration is
found in this:
“Neglect of the un-American dietary laws is usually the first step that
the Americanizing Jew takes in asserting his Americanism.”
The “un-American dietary laws” are, of course, the Jewish dietary laws.
But if any Gentile writer had so referred to them, he would have been
abused as a hostile witness.
It is very curious indeed to read the long list of complaints against
modern conditions in their power to bring about the “decay of Judaism.”
The ghetto, which makes for separateness, is frequently heralded as the
true safeguard of Judaism. Intercourse with the world is dangerous.
“Americanizing” influences are distrusted.
No doubt many and many a Gentile parent in New York, Boston, Louisville,
Dallas and other American cities has witnessed the spectacle of Jewish
teachers and “welfare workers” instructing Gentile children in the
principles of Americanism, but did anyone ever see a Gentile teacher
instructing Jewish children in Americanism?
Recently when the American Legion asked permission of the government to
establish Americanization classes at Ellis Island, where tens of
thousands of Polish Jews gain entry into the United States, the reply
was a refusal, and the reason was that all the space for charitable
institutions was already taken. What charitable institutions? How many
of them were Jewish?
“The beginning of this decay,” says Israel Friedlaender, referring to
the effect of modern life on Judaism, “is obviously coincident with the
beginning of Jewish emancipation, that is to say, with _the moment when
the Jews left the ghetto to join the life and culture of the nations
around them_.”
Mr. Friedlaender even went so far as to say that pogroms against the
Jews were “fortunate” in that they drove the Jews back to their
Judaism—“_Fortunately_, however, Russian Jewry was halted on its
downward rush toward national self-annihilation. The process of
assimilation was cut short by the pogroms, and ever since then the Jews
of Russia have stood firmly their ground * * *”
That may be the reason why some Jewish spokesmen of the Jews in America
are trying to make this series of articles appear as a “pogrom.” There
is plenty of evidence to indicate that Jewish leaders have regarded
“pogroms,” in modern times at least, as very useful in preserving the
solidarity of Jewry. However, those who are responsible for the present
series of articles, much as they hope to benefit the general situation
of the humbler Jews by showing the use which the leading Jews are making
of them, must decline to be counted among those who justify “pogroms” on
any ground whatsoever.
Justice Brandeis, of the United States Supreme Court, is also an
exponent of the idea that, released from ghetto influences, the Jew
becomes less of a Jew. He says:
“We must protect America and ourselves from _demoralisation_, which has
to some extent _already set in among American Jews_. The _cause of this
demoralisation is clear_. It results, in large part, from the fact that
_in our land of liberty all the restraints by which the Jews were
protected in their ghettos were removed_ and a new generation left
without necessary moral and spiritual support.”
Justice Brandeis is a Zionist on these very grounds. He wants the land
of Palestine because there the Jews, as he says, “may live together and
_lead a Jewish life_.”
Not the United States, but Palestine, is Justice Brandeis’ hope for the
Jews; he says of Palestine that “_there only can Jewish life be fully
protected from the forces of disintegration_.”
Arguing the same question, the Rev. Mr. S. Levy says: “I shall probably
be told that the re-establishment of Jews as a nation would mean the
recreation of the ghetto. I am frankly prepared to admit the force of
the criticism, but with an important qualification dependent on the
interpretation of the word ‘ghetto.’
“In so far as the national center will insure the existence of this
Jewish environment, Jewish atmosphere, and Jewish culture, there _will_
be a recreation of the ghetto.” (The italics are Mr. Levy’s.)
“The continuance of Judaism, then, is dependent on the existence of an
area with an aggregation of Jews living in a Jewish environment,
breathing a Jewish atmosphere and fostering a Jewish culture, and these
factors must predominate over all other influences.”
It is therefore plain that, however startling and improbable the
statement may seem when made by a Gentile, the Jews themselves regard
the influences of modern lands as inimical to Judaism.
But there is still a further consideration, which is distinctly set
forth in Jewish writings, namely, that the trend of the modern State is
harmful to all that Judaism holds to be essential to its moral and
spiritual welfare.
The modern State is changing, and Jewish observers sense the fact more
readily than do the rest of the people, because Jews see in the change
both an opportunity and a menace. If the State continues to change
according to the trend of the general mind of the world, Jewish ideas of
supremacy will find less and less opportunity to be realized—that is the
menace. If the change, or the spirit of change, can be seized and
twisted to Jewish purposes, as was done in Russia, and a Jewish type of
State erected on the ruins of the old—that is the opportunity. Readers
of these articles know that stimulation of “the spirit of change” is one
of the clearest planks in the World Program.
As Cyril M. Picciotto points out in his “Conceptions of the State and
the Jewish Question,” there is a tendency to “increase the control of
the State over the individual.” This, of course, has nowhere been done
so thoroughly as in Russia under the Jewish Bolshevik régime, but it is
not of this that Mr. Picciotto speaks, it is of the tendency observed in
the Gentile states; and he asks: “In the face of such a tendency in
political development (which it is not rash to assume will be more
pronounced in the future than in the past) _how does the Jew stand_?”
He adds: “The time is not far distant when the development of the State
will continue on organic and collectivist lines. The central authority
will embrace an ever wider area, and will make such a penetration into
the recesses of individual freedom as would have been thought
inconceivable thirty or forty years ago. Compulsory military service,
compulsory education, compulsory insurance are but milestones on the
road which logically leads to the adoption of a State morality, a State
creed, and of a common way of life. To say this is merely to indicate
the probable trend, not to approve it.”
“How, then, is the State of the future going to deal with a people in
its midst which largely preserves its separateness of blood, which in
its fasts, its festivals, its day of rest, its dietary laws, its
marriage ceremony, suggests a distinct historic entity?”
The question is a disturbing one to Jews, as is shown by Rabbi Segal’s
words in “The Future of Judaism.” He even says that “the medieval State,
with all its tyranny and obscurantism” was more favorable to the Jews
than the modern type of State. “Its defective organization permitted
both individuals and whole classes to live their life in their own way.
Hence the medieval State enabled the Jews to organize themselves on
semi-national lines, and, as far as circumstances permitted, to create
afresh in their dispersion the national institutions and practices of
their ancient commonwealth.”
They did this, of course, by establishing the ghetto.
“But this has become _an absolute impossibility in the modern State_,”
continues the rabbi. “The rise of democracy and the transference of the
ultimate power of government from the oligarchy to the majority involves
the practical suppression of weak minorities. The identification of the
State with the culture and aspiration of a particular nationality leads
inevitably to the crippling of and gradual extinction of those classes
_who do not share that particular culture and those aspirations_. The
State, moreover, enforces a system of education which is purposely
designed to fashion and to mold all the inhabitants * * * It also
maintains a thorough-going organization which embraces all the
departments of the public and private life of all its inhabitants,
irrespective of class, race or tradition. _There is thus no room in the
modern State for Jewish_ culture, for Jewish national life, or for a
specifically Jewish society, with its own specific institutions, customs
and practices * * *
“Therefore, Judaism can live and work only with a specifically Jewish
society and within a Jewish national organization. The medieval ghetto,
with all its narrowness, with all the unhealthy and abnormal conditions
of its existence, yet contained such a semi-national society; therefore,
_Judaism flourished in the medieval ghetto. The modern State, on the
other hand, has broken up that specifically Jewish society_ * * *”
Now, there are the reactions of leading Jewish minds to conditions in
America particularly, and to conditions in the modern Gentile State
generally. The statement of the antagonism which exists between the two
is clear and complete. The Gentiles do not notice that antagonism, but
the Jews are always and everywhere keenly aware of it. This throws a
light, a very strong light, on all the revolutionary programs to break
up the present control of society, by sowing dissensions between capital
and labor so-called, by cheapening the dignity of government through
corrupt politics, by trivializing the mind of the people through
theaters and movies and similar agencies, and by weakening the appeal of
distinctively Christian religion. A breakdown of Gentile seriousness is
the opportunity of the Jew. A colossal war is also his opportunity, as
witness his seizure of the United States Government during the recent
war. Judaism says that Americanism and Gentile nationalism generally,
are harmful to it. Judaism has therefore the alternative of changing and
controlling Gentile nationalism, or of constructing a nationalism of its
own in Palestine. It is trying both.
This all harks back to what Lord Eustace Percy is quoted in the Jewish
press as saying: that the Jew participates in revolutions “not because
the Jew cares for the positive side of radical philosophy, not because
he desires to be a partaker in Gentile nationalism or Gentile democracy,
but _because no existing Gentile system of government is ever anything
but distasteful to him_.”
And the same author—“In a world of completely organized territorial
sovereignties, he (the Jew) has only two possible cities of refuge: _he
must either pull down the pillars of the whole national state system or
he must create a territorial sovereignty of his own_. In this perhaps
lies _the explanation both of Jewish Bolshevism and of Zionism_, for at
this moment Eastern Jewry seems to hover uncertainly between the two.”
——
Issue of October 23, 1920.
LXVII.
The Jewish Associates of Benedict Arnold
As the Jewish propagandists in the United States cannot be trusted to
give the people all the facts—even though these propagandists have the
facts in their possession—it devolves upon some impartial agency to do
so. The Jewish propagandists are accorded the utmost freedom of the
newspapers of the United States—by reason of Jewish advertising being
more than 75 per cent of all the advertising done in this country—and
thus a wide web of false impressions is constantly being woven around
the Jewish Question. The most recent is the widespread publication of a
new “exposure” of the origin of the Protocols. This makes the sixth
“final” and “complete” exposure that the Jews have put forth for public
consumption. The Jews have still time to repent and tell the truth.
Suppose they make the seventh the whole truth with a true repudiation of
the Protocols.
It is THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT’S purpose to open up from time to time
new angles of the Jewish Question, so that the candid reader who would
be informed of the extensive character of Jewish influence may obtain a
general view of it.
The part taken by Jews in the wars of the United States has been a
subject of considerable boasting by Jewish publicists. It is a most
interesting subject. It deserves the fullest possible treatment. It is
not THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT’S present purpose to challenge the Jewish
boast; it is, however, our purpose to fill in the omitted parts of the
story, and supply the missing links in several of the most interesting
episodes in American history. This will be done on the basis of
unquestioned historical authority, mostly of a Jewish character, and
solely in the interests of a complete understanding of a matter which
Jewish leaders have brought to the front.
The first subject which will be treated in this series is _the part of
Jews in the treason of Benedict Arnold_.
Benedict Arnold, the most conspicuous traitor in American history, has
been the subject of considerable comment of late. Among the commentators
have been American Jews who have failed to make known to the American
public the information which may be found in Jewish archives concerning
Benedict Arnold and his associates.
To begin with, the propensity of the Jews to engage in the business of
supplying the needs of armies and to avail themselves as far as possible
of war contracts, is of long standing and notice.
An authority on this matter, Werner Sombart, says in his “Jews and
Modern Capitalism” (pp. 50–53):
“The Jews throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
were most influential as army-purveyors and as the moneyed men to whom
the princes looked for financial backing ... we cannot attempt to
mention every possible example. We can only point the way; it will be
for subsequent research to follow.
“Although there are numerous cases on record of Jews acting in the
capacity of army-contractors in Spain previous to 1492, I shall not
refer to this period, because it lies outside the scope of our present
considerations. We shall confine ourselves to the centuries that
followed, and begin with England.
“In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Jews had already
achieved renown as army-purveyors. Under the Commonwealth the most
famous army-contractor was Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, ‘the great Jew,’
who came to London some time between 1630 and 1635, and was very soon
accounted among the most prominent traders in the land. In 1649 he was
one of the five London merchants intrusted by the council of state with
the army contract for corn. It is said that he annually imported into
England silver to the value of £100,000. In the period that ensued,
especially in the wars of William III, Sir Solomon Medina (‘the Jew
Medina’) was ‘the great contractor,’ and for his services he was
knighted, being the first professing Jew to receive that honor.
“It was the same in the wars of the Spanish Succession; here, too, Jews
were the principal army-contractors. In 1716 the Jews of Strassburg
recall the services they rendered the armies of Louis XIV by furnishing
information and supplying provisions. Indeed, Louis XIV’s
army-contractor-in-chief was a Jew, Jacob Worms by name; and in the
eighteenth century Jews gradually took a more and more prominent part in
this work. In 1727 the Jews of Metz brought into the city in the space
of six weeks, 2,000 horses for food and more than 5,000 for remounts.
Field Marshal Maurice, of Saxony, the victor of Fontenoy, expressed the
opinion that his armies were never better served with supplies than when
the Jews were the contractors. One of the best known of the
army-contractors in the time of the last two Louises was Cerf Beer, in
whose patent of naturalization it is recorded that ‘... in the wars
which raged in Alsace in 1770 and 1771 he found the opportunity of
proving his zeal in our service and in that of the state.’
“Similarly the house of Gradis, of Bordeaux, was an establishment of
international repute in the eighteenth century. Abraham Gradis set up
large store-houses in Quebec to supply the needs of the French troops
there. Under the Revolutionary Government, under the Directory, in the
Napoleonic wars it was always the Jews who acted as purveyors. In this
connection a public notice displayed in the streets of Paris is
significant. There was a famine in the city and the Jews were called
upon to show their gratitude for the rights bestowed upon them by the
Revolution by bringing in corn. ‘They alone,’ says the author of the
notice, ‘can successfully accomplish this enterprise, thanks to their
business relations, of which their fellow citizens ought to have full
benefit.’ A parallel story comes from Dresden. In 1720 the Court Jew,
Jonas Meyer, saved the town from starvation by supplying it with large
quantities of corn. (The Chronicler mentions 40,000 bushels.)
“All over Germany, the Jews from an early date were found in the ranks
of the army-contractors. Let us enumerate a few of them. There was Isaac
Meyer in the sixteenth century, who, when admitted by Cardinal Albrecht
as a resident of Halberstadt in 1537, was enjoined by him, in view of
the dangerous times, ‘to supply our monastery with good weapons and
armour.’ There was Joselman von Rosheim, who in 1548 received an
imperial letter of protection because he had supplied both money and
provisions for the army. In 1546 there is a record of Bohemian Jews who
provided great-coats and blankets for the army. In the next century
another Bohemian Jew, Lazarus by name, received an official declaration
that he ‘obtained either in person or at his own expense, valuable
information for the imperial troops, and that he made it his business to
see that the army had a good supply of ammunition and clothing.’ The
Great Elector also had recourse to Jews for his military needs. Leimann
Gompertz and Solomon Elias were his contractors for cannon, powder and
so forth. There were numerous others: Samuel Julius, remount contractor
under the Elector Frederick Augustus of Saxony; the Model family,
court-purveyors and army-contractors in the Duchy of Aensbach in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are well known in history. In
short, as one writer of the time pithily expresses it, ‘all the
contractors are Jews and all the Jews are contractors.’
“Austria does not differ in this respect from Germany, France and
England. The wealthy Jews, who in the reign of the Emperor Leopold
received permission to resettle in Vienna (1670)—the Oppenheimers,
Wertheimers, Mayer Herschel and the rest—were all army-contractors. And
we find the same thing in all the countries under the Austrian Crown.
“Lastly, we must mention the Jewish army-contractors who provisioned the
American troops in the Revolutionary and Civil wars.”
Sombart’s record ceases there. He does not go on to mention “the Jewish
contractors who provisioned the American troops in the Revolutionary and
Civil wars.” That task shall be THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT’S from time to
time in the future.
It is in the study of Jewish money-making out of war that the clues are
found to most of the great abuses of which Jews have been guilty. In the
present instance, it was in the matter of profiteering in war goods,
that the Jewish connections of Benedict Arnold were discovered.
“Wars are the Jews’ harvests” is an ancient saying. Their predilection
for the quartermaster’s department has been observed anciently and
modernly. Their interest being mostly in profits and not in national
issues; their traditional loyalty being to the Jewish nation, rather
than to any other nation; it is only natural that they should be found
to be the merchants of goods and information in times of war—that is,
the war profiteers and the spies. As the unbroken program is traced
through the Revolutionary War, through the American Civil War, and
through the Great War of recent occurrence, the only change observable
is the increasing power and profit of the Jews.
Although the number of Jews resident in the American colonies was very
small, there were enough to make a mark on the Revolutionary War; and
while there was no wholesale legislation against Jews as there was in
the Civil War, there were actions against individuals for the same
causes which in 1861–5 obtained more extensively.
The Journals of the Continental Congress contain numerous entries of
payments made to Jews, as well as the records of various dealings with
them on other scores. For drums, for blankets, for rifles, for
provisions, for clothing—these are the usual entries. Most of the Jewish
commissars were Indian traders (the extent to which the Jews dealt with
the American Indians has not as yet been made a subject of research it
deserves). The Gratz family of Pennsylvania carried on a very extensive
Indian trade and amassed a vast fortune out of it. A most curious lot of
information concerning the dealings of the Colonies with the Jews is
obtainable by a search through the old records.
The Jews of Colonial New York were both loyalists and rebels, as the
tide turned. They profited under loyalism by the contracts which they
secured, and by buying in the confiscated property of those who were
loyal to the American cause. It is interesting to note that some of the
purchasers of the extensive Delancey properties were Jews. Delancey was
a patriot whom New York City afterward honored by giving his name to an
important thoroughfare. That same New York has recently by official
action separated the name of Delancey from that thoroughfare, and
substituted the name of Jacob H. Schiff, a Jew, native of
Frankfort-on-the-Main.
We enter immediately into the limits of the Benedict Arnold narrative by
making mention of the Franks family of Philadelphia, of which family
several members will claim our attention.
The Franks were Jews from England who settled in America, retaining
their English connections. They were in the business of public
contracts, principally army contracts. They were holders of the British
army contracts for the French and Indian wars, and for the succeeding
Revolutionary War.
To get the picture, conceive it thus, as it is taken from Jewish
sources:
_Moses Franks_ lived in England, doing business with the British
Government direct. He had the contract for supplying all the British
forces in America before military trouble between the Colonies and the
Home Government was thought of. He was the principal purveyor of the
British Army in Quebec, Montreal, Massachusetts, New York and in the
country of the Illinois Indians. It was all British territory then.
_Jacob Franks_ lived in New York. He was American representative of
Moses Franks of England. He was the American agent of the Franks Army
Purveyors Syndicate—for that is what it was.
In Philadelphia was _David Franks_, son of Jacob, of New York. David was
the Franks’ agent for the state or colony of Pennsylvania. He was at the
seat of the colonial government, the center of American politics. He was
hand in glove with many of the fathers of the American Government. He
was an immensely rich man (although but an agent) and carried a high
hand at Philadelphia.
At Montreal was another Franks—_David Solesbury Franks_—also in the
business of army-contractor. He was a gay young man, described as “a
blooded buck,” who knew all the arts of turning an honest penny out of
the needs of armies and the distress of nations. This young man was a
grandson or grand nephew of the Moses Franks of England, as he was a
nephew of the David Franks of Philadelphia.
Here and there were other Franks, all intent on business with the
non-Jewish government, but the four here mentioned carry along the main
parts of the tale.
A moment’s digression will give us at once a view of the looseness of
the liberalism of some of the Fathers of the Country, and a view of the
equanimity with which David Franks, of Philadelphia, could pass from one
role to another—a facility which cost him dearly when war came on.
John Trumbull, an artist of considerable note at the time, whose
paintings still adorn the National Capitol, was invited to dine at
Thomas Jefferson’s home, among the guests being Senator Giles, from
Virginia. Trumbull tells the story:
“I was scarcely seated when Giles began to rally me on the Puritanical
ancestry and character of New England. I saw there was no other person
from New England present, and, therefore, although conscious that I was
in no degree qualified to manage a religious discussion, I felt myself
bound to defend my country on this delicate point as well as I could.
Whether it had been prearranged that a debate on the Christian religion,
in which it should be powerfully ridiculed on the one side and weakly
defended on the other, was to be brought forward as promising amusement
to a rather free-thinking dinner party, I will not presume to say, but
it had that appearance, and Mr. Giles pushed his raillery, to my no
small annoyance, if not to my discomfiture, until dinner was announced.
“That I hoped would relieve me by giving a new turn to the conversation,
but the company was hardly seated at table when he renewed the assault
with increased asperity, and proceeded so far at last as to ridicule the
character, conduct and doctrines of the Divine Founder of our religion;
Mr. Jefferson in the meantime smiling and nodding approval on Mr. Giles,
while the rest of the company silently left me and my defense to our
fate, until at length my friend David Franks took up the argument on my
side. Thinking this a fair opportunity for avoiding further conversation
on the subject, I turned to Mr. Jefferson and said, ‘Sir, this is a
strange situation in which I find myself; in a country professing
Christianity and at a table with Christians, as I supposed, I find my
religion and myself attacked with severe and almost irresistible wit and
raillery, and not a person to aid in my defense but my friend Mr.
Franks, who is himself a Jew.’”
This episode throws a curious light on the character of Thomas
Jefferson’s “philosophical unbelief,” the unlovely fashion of that day;
it also illustrates a certain facility in David Franks.
Relations between the Colonies and the Mother Country became strained.
Political feelings ran high. The lines of division between “American”
and “British” began to appear for the first time. At first there was a
degree of agreement among all the population, except the government
officials, that a protest against governmental abuses was justified and
that strong representations should be made in behalf of the Colonists.
Even loyalists and imperialists agreed with that. It was a question of
domestic politics. But when presently the idea of protest began to
develop into the idea of rebellion and independence, a cleavage came. It
was one thing to correct the Empire, another thing to desert it. Here is
where the people of the Colonies split.
Mr. Jacob Franks in royalist and loyalist New York, was, of course,
royalist and loyalist. As army-contractor for the British Government, he
had no choice.
Mr. David Franks, down in Philadelphia, was a little nearer the heart of
the new American sentiment, and could not be so royal and loyal as was
his kinsman north. In fact, David Franks tried to do what is modernly
called “the straddle,” attempting to side with the Empire and with the
Colonies, too.
It was natural. His business was in Philadelphia. He may also have
wished to remain as long as possible in the position of a spy, and send
information of the state of public feeling to the royalists. Moreover,
he was received in good society and his reputation for wealth and
shrewdness won him attentions he could not otherwise have commanded.
So, in 1765 we find him joining the merchants of Philadelphia in the
pact not to import articles from England while the hated Stamp Act was
in force. In 1775 he favors the continuance of the colonial currency.
He was enjoying his accustomed life in the city—and his acquaintance
with the Shippen family into which the dashing young Benedict Arnold
married.
There is a strange intermingling of all the tragic figures of the play:
Benedict Arnold marries the girl for whom Major André wrote a parlor
play. Major André, during his period of captivity as an American
prisoner of war and before his exchange, was often at the home of David
Franks. And David Solesbury Franks, at his post as agent of the Franks
syndicate at Montreal, is placed by a strange turn of the wheel of
destiny in the military family of Benedict Arnold for a considerable
period preceding and including the great treason.
So, for the moment let us leave the Jewish family of Franks—all of them
still stationed as we first described them: Moses in England, Jacob at
New York, David at Philadelphia, David S. at Montreal—and let us
scrutinize the young American officer, Benedict Arnold.
These facts would most of them be lost, had they not been preserved in
the Jewish archives, by the American Jewish Historical Society. You will
read any history of Benedict Arnold without perceiving the Jews around
him. The authors of the accepted histories were blind.
The principal defect in Benedict Arnold’s character was his love of
money. All of the trouble which led up to the situation in which he
found himself with reference to the American Government and Army, was
due to the suspicion which hung like a cloud over many of his business
transactions. There have been attempts to paint Arnold as a dashing
martyr, as one who was discouraged by the unmerited slights of the
Continental Congress, as a victim of the jealousy of lesser men, as one
from whom confidence was unjustly withheld. Nothing could be further
from the fact. He was a man to whom men were instinctively drawn to be
generous, but so general was the knowledge of his looseness in money
matters that, while admiring him, his brother officers acted upon the
protective instinct and held aloof from him. He was tainted by a low
form of dishonesty before he was tainted with treason, and the chief
explanation of his treason was in the hard bargain he drove as to the
amount of money he was to receive for his guilty act.
Arnold’s own record makes this clear. Let us then take up his career at
a certain point and see how the Franks strand and the money strand weave
themselves through it like colored threads.
Extraordinary efforts have been made in recent years to extenuate
Arnold’s treason by the recital of his daring services. These services
need not be minimized. Indeed, it was his great achievement of the
winter march to Montreal and Quebec in 1775–6 that seems to begin the
chapter of his troubles. To rehearse this feat of courage and endurance
would be to tell a tale that has thrilled the American schoolboy.
It was at Montreal that Benedict Arnold came into contact with the young
Jew, David Solesbury Franks, the Canadian agent of the Franks
army-purveying syndicate. And the next thing known about young Franks is
that he returns to the American Colonies in the train of Benedict Arnold
as an officer of the American Army.
How this change was effected is not explained in any of the records.
There is a moment of darkness, as it were, in which the “quick change”
was made, which transformed the young Montreal Jew from an
army-contractor for the British into an officer of Benedict Arnold’s
staff.
But as it is impossible for every fact to be suppressed, there are here
and there indications of what might have been, what indeed most probably
was, the basis of the attraction and relation between the two. It was
very probably—almost certainly—the opportunities for graft which could
be capitalized by a combination of General Arnold’s authority and young
Franks’ ability in the handling of goods.
From the day they met in Montreal until the hour when General Arnold
fled, a traitor, from the fort on the Hudson, young David Solesbury
Franks was his companion.
In one of the numerous court-martials which tried General Arnold for
questionable dealings in matters pertaining to army supplies, Franks,
who was aid-de-camp to Arnold, and by rank of major, testified thus:
“I had, by being in the army, injured my private affairs very
considerably, and meant to leave it, if a proper opportunity of entering
into business should happen. I had several conversations on the subject
with General Arnold, who promised me all the assistance in his power;
_he was to participate in the profits of the business I was to enter
in_.”
This testimony was given by Major Franks in 1779; the two men had met in
the winter of 1775–1776, but, as the records will show, Major Franks was
always General Arnold’s reliance on getting out of scrapes caused by
questionable business methods in which Arnold’s military authority was
used quite freely. Major Franks admits that he was to enter business and
General Arnold was to share the profits. On what basis this arrangement
could exist, is another point not known. Arnold had no capital. He had
no credit. He was a spendthrift, a borrower, notorious for his constant
need of money. The only credible inducement for Franks to accept a
partnership with him was on the understanding that Arnold should use his
military authority to throw business to Franks. Or, to state it more
bluntly, the “profits” which Benedict Arnold was to receive were
payments for his misuse of authority for his own gain.
A complete opening of the records will show this to be the most
reasonable view of the case.
It was at Montreal that Benedict Arnold’s name first became attainted
with rumors of shady dealing in private and public property. General
George Washington had laid down the most explicit instructions on these
matters, with a view to having the Canadians treated as fellow-Americans
and not as enemies. General Washington had cashiered officers, and
whipped soldiers who had previously disobeyed the order against looting
and theft.
General Arnold had seized large quantities of goods at Montreal and had
hurried them away without making proper account of them. This he admits
in his letter to General Schuyler: “Our hurry and confusion was so great
when the goods were received, it was impossible to take a particular
account of them.” This means only that Arnold seized the goods without
giving the Canadian citizens proper receipts for them, so that he had in
his hands a large amount of wealth for which he was under no compulsion
to account to anybody. This mass of goods he sent to a Colonel Hazen at
Chambley, and Colonel Hazen, evidently aware of the conditions under
which the goods were taken, refused to receive them. This disobedience
of Colonel Hazen to his superior officer, especially in a question
relating to goods, made it necessary for Arnold to take some
self-protective action, which he did in his letter to General Schuyler.
Meantime, a very ugly rumor ran through the American Army that General
Benedict Arnold had tried to pull a scurvy trick of graft, but had been
held up by the strict conduct of Colonel Hazen. Moreover, it was rumored
(and the fact was admitted by Arnold in his letter) that in the transfer
the goods were well sorted over so that when they finally arrived a
great part of them was missing. All the principal facts were admitted by
Arnold, who used them, however, to throw blame on Colonel Hazen. He even
went so far as to prefer charges against Colonel Hazen, forcing the
matter into a court-martial. The court was called and refused to hear
the witnesses chosen by General Arnold in his behalf, on the ground that
the witnesses were not entitled to credibility. Whereupon General Arnold
flouted the court, who ordered him arrested. General Gates, to preserve
the useful services of Arnold to the United States Army, dissolved the
court-martial, to that extent condoning the conduct of Arnold. Before
the court-martial dissolved, however, it informally acquitted Colonel
Hazen with honor.
Here, then, almost immediately, as it would seem, upon his new
connection with David Solesbury Franks, Benedict Arnold is involved in a
bad tangle concerning property which had come into his possession
irregularly and which disappeared soon after. His attempt to throw the
blame on an officer whose disobedience was the factor that disclosed the
true state of affairs, failed. It was his bold scheme to forestall an
exposure which must inevitably have come.
While it is true that on this Montreal case, no verdict stands recorded
against Benedict Arnold, for the theft of goods, it is also true that
the American Army became suspicious of him from that day.
Had Benedict Arnold been innocent then and had he kept his hands clean
thereafter, the Montreal episode would have been forgotten. But as a
matter of fact such affairs came with increasing frequency thereafter,
all of them, strangely enough, involving also the Jew whom he associated
with himself at the time of that first exposure.
The story of this Jew’s relations with Benedict Arnold all through the
period ending with the great treason, may now be taken up with greater
consecutiveness, for now their formerly separate courses run together.
In another article this relationship and all that it meant will be
illustrated from the government records.
——
Issue of October 8, 1921.
LXVIII.
Benedict Arnold and Jewish Aid in Shady Deal
While Benedict Arnold was in Canada and David Solesbury Franks, the Jew
of Montreal and a British subject, was serving as quartermaster to the
American troops, David Franks, of Philadelphia, a member of the same
Jewish family and of the same Jewish syndicate of army-contractors, was
also engaged in an interesting business.
It has already been shown that this David Franks, the Philadelphia Jew,
had gone part way with the colonists in their protests against British
colonial rule. That this was not sincerity on his part, his subsequent
actions proved. He first comes into the purview of this narrative in
1775, the year in which Benedict Arnold performed the remarkable feat of
marching into Canada, whence he was sending back into the colonies
numerous Canadian prisoners. These prisoners were kept in the New
England colonies for a time, but were later collected into Pennsylvania,
some of them being quartered in the city of Philadelphia.
How inspired it is impossible now to tell, but presently a committee of
the Continental Congress proposes that Mr. David Franks be commissioned
to feed and otherwise care for these British prisoners, and be allowed
to sell his bills for as much money as may be necessary for the purpose.
Of course, in accepting this proposal, Franks was only pursuing the
course for which he and his numerous relatives had come to America. He
was really doing business with and for Moses Franks, the head of the
family syndicate in London. Shortly afterward we read of David under the
mouth-filling title of “Agent to the Contractors for Victualing the
Troops of the King of Great Britain,” and to check him up, a British
officer was allowed to pass the lines once a month and spend a few hours
with David. That this was a dangerous practice may be deduced from his
further story.
In the records of the Continental Congress is a request from Franks that
he be permitted to go to New York, then the British headquarters; and
such was the power of the man that his request was granted on condition
that he pledged his word “not to give any intelligence to the enemy” and
to return to Philadelphia.
In January, 1778, six months before Benedict Arnold took command of
Philadelphia, David Franks got himself into trouble. A letter of his was
intercepted on its way to England. The letter was intended for Moses
Franks, of London, and was concealed under cover of a letter to a
captain in a regiment commanded by a British general who had married
Franks’ sister. It appears on the record of the American Congress “that
the contents of the letter manifest a disposition and intentions
inimical to the safety and liberty of the United States.”
Whereupon it was “Resolved, that Major General Arnold be directed to
cause the said David Franks forthwith to be arrested, and conveyed to
the new gaol in this city (Philadelphia), there to be confined until the
further order of Congress.”
Thus Benedict Arnold comes into contact with another member of the
Franks family, whose name was to be so closely associated with the great
treason.
And now begins a serpentine course of twistings and turnings which are
so delightfully Jewish as to be worth restating if only to show how true
the race remains to its character through the centuries. It is in
October, about the eleventh day of the month. Franks is imprisoned and
remains a week. Then by strange reasoning it is discovered that the
United States has no jurisdiction over the charge of treason against the
United States (!) and that the prisoner should be handed over to the
Supreme Executive Council of the state of Pennsylvania. It follows that
the state of Pennsylvania has nothing to do with the crime of treason
against the United States either, and in spite of the contents of the
letters and the findings of the Congressional Committee thereon, David
Franks smiles pleasantly and goes free! It was a time, of course, when
much money was lent by Jews to public officials. The Jew, Haym Salomon,
was credited with having most of the “fathers” on his books, but he did
not charge them interest nor principal. He grew immensely wealthy,
however, and was the recipient, in lieu of interest and repayment, of
many official favors. David Franks, likewise a wealthy man, charged with
treason, has his case transferred and finally dismissed. It is a trick
not unknown today.
The Jewish records give much credit to Mr. Franks for not being daunted
by this experience. Whether he is entitled to particular credit for his
courage when he was master of so much influence, is a matter for the
reader to decide, but that he was undaunted his subsequent actions show.
He is very soon on the records again with an appeal for permission for
his secretary to go again to New York within the British lines. He
appeals to the Council of Pennsylvania. The Council refers him to
Congress. Congress says it has no objection, if the secretary will be
governed by General George Washington’s orders in the matter.
Washington’s aid-de-camp gives permission, and the secretary gives
sufficient bonds and sets out for New York.
Arrived in New York, the secretary discovers that Mr. Franks’ presence
is necessary and has made all arrangements for his master to go to New
York, having even secured British permission to pass the lines. It was
made very easy for Congress, it had only to say yes. But this time
Congress said “no.” The former escape of Franks made people aware of an
un-American influence at work. After his first arrest he was regarded as
dangerous to the American cause. He apparently succeeds in living well
in Philadelphia in spite of his difficulties, living even gayly with the
society of the city.
Up to this time, David Franks had come into contact with the two
principal figures in Arnold’s treason. As purveyor to the captured
troops, Franks had met and entertained, in 1776, the young and engaging
Major André, who in 1780 was to become the tragic victim of Arnold’s
perfidy. And in 1778 Franks had been the subject of an order of arrest
given to General Benedict Arnold. Jacob Mordecai “mentions that it was
at Mr. Franks’ house that he met Major André, then a paroled prisoner,
who was passing his idle hours and exercising his talents in the most
agreeable ways by taking a miniature likeness of the beautiful Miss
Franks.” (American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 6, page 41.)
In the meantime, Benedict Arnold was pursuing his career, a career
strangely checkered with brilliant bravery and subtle knavery, a career
sustained by the confidence of noble friends who believed in Arnold even
against himself. Except for this strange power of holding friends in
spite of what they knew of him, Arnold’s career would have terminated
before it did. That psychic gift of his, and the desperate need of the
Continental cause for military leaders, held him on until his moral
turpitude matured for the final collapse. As before stated, there is no
intention to minimize Arnold’s services to his country, but there is a
determination to show what were his associations during the period of
his moral decline, and thus fill in the gaps of history and account for
the distrust with which the American Congress regarded the young
general.
David Solesbury Franks, the Montreal Jew, who was an agent of the Franks
army-contractor syndicate in Canada, came south to the American colonies
with Arnold when the American Army retreated. In his own account of
himself, written in 1789—eight years after the treason—he makes so
little of his association with Arnold that were it not for the reports
of certain courts-martial it would be impossible to determine how close
the two men had been. In his record of himself, as preserved in the
tenth volume of the American Jewish Historical Society’s publications,
he admits leaving Canada with the Americans in 1776 and remaining
attached to the American Army until the surrender of Burgoyne, which
occurred late in 1777. He then lightly passes over an important period
which saw the command of Philadelphia bestowed on General Arnold. He
mentions simply that he was “in Arnold’s military family at West Point
until his desertion,” which was in 1780. Reference to the first
court-martial of Arnold, in which Colonel David Solesbury Franks was
Arnold’s chief witness, will show, however, that Franks and Arnold were
more closely associated than the former would care to admit after
Arnold’s name had become anathema. Indeed, as the Jewish Historical
Society’s note correctly observes, the account of this court-martial “is
of much interest, as it bears directly upon the relations of General
Arnold and his aid, Major David S. Franks, before the traitor’s final
flight in September, 1780.”
There were in all eight charges preferred against Arnold, the second one
being—“In having shut up the shops and stores on his arrival in the city
(Philadelphia), so as even to prevent officers of the army from
purchasing, while he privately made considerable purchases for his own
benefit, as is alleged and believed.”
Follows a supporting affidavit, printed in the style of the original,
with emphatic italics added:
“On the seventh day of May, A. D. 1779, before me, Plunket Fleeson,
Esq., one of the justices, etc., for the city of Philadelphia, comes
colonel John Fitzgerald, late aid-de-camp to his excellency general
Washington, and being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith:
That on the evening of the day on which the British forces left
Philadelphia, he and Major David S. Franks, aid-de-camp to major Arnold,
went to the house of miss Brackenberry, and lodged there that night; and
_the next morning, major Franks having gone down stairs, the deponent
going into the front room of the said house_, to view colonel Jackson’s
regiment then marching into the city, _saw lying in the window two open
papers_; that on casting his eye on one of them, he was surprised _it
contained instructions to the said major Franks to purchase European and
East Indian goods in the city of Philadelphia, to any amount, for the
payment of which the writer would furnish major Franks with the money,
and the same paper contained also a strict charge to the said Franks not
to make known to his most intimate acquaintance that the writer was
concerned in the proposed purchase_; that _these instructions were not
signed_, but appeared to the deponent to be in the handwriting of major
general Arnold, whether or not there was a date to it the deponent doth
not recollect; that the other paper contained instructions signed by
major general Arnold, directing major Franks to purchase for the said
general Arnold some necessaries for the use of his table; that _the
deponent compared the writing of the two papers and verily believes that
they were both written by major general Arnold’s own hand; and soon
afterward major Franks came into the room and took the papers away_, as
the deponent supposes. And further the deponent saith not.
“Sworn, etc. John Fitzgerald.”
That such a charge involved as much the trial of Major Franks as General
Arnold, will at once appear. The statements in the charge argue close
association between Arnold and Franks. Yet in Franks’ written record of
himself in 1789 he passes over this Philadelphia period thus lightly:
“In 1778, after the evacuation of Philadelphia by the British Army & on
the arrival of Count D’Estaing I procured Letters of recommendation from
the Board of War ... and joined him off Sandy Hook, I continued with
that Admiral until he arrived at Rhode Island, where on the failure of
the Expedition I returned to Philadelphia where my military duty called
me.”
No reference here, nor anywhere in his record, to a closeness of bond
between the two which his testimony, now offered from the records, amply
proves to have existed.
“The judge-advocate produced major Franks, aid-de-camp to major
General Arnold, who was sworn.
“Q. On General Arnold’s arrival in Philadelphia, do you know whether
himself or any person on his account, made any considerable
purchases of goods?
“A. I do not.
“Q. At or before general Arnold’s arrival in Philadelphia did you
receive orders from general Arnold to purchase goods, or do you know
of general Arnold’s having given orders to any other person to make
purchases of goods?
“A. _I did receive from general Arnold that paper which colonel
Fitzgerald has mentioned in his deposition_. There are circumstances
leading to it which I must explain. I had, by being in the army,
injured my private affairs very considerably, and meant to leave it,
if a proper opportunity to _enter into business_ should happen. _I
had several conversations on the subject with General Arnold_, who
promised me all the assistance in his power; _he was to participate
in the profits of the business I was to enter into_. At that time,
_previous to our going to Philadelphia, I had several particular
conversations with him, and thought that the period in which I might
leave the army with honor and enter into business_ (_had come_). _I
received at that time, or about that time, I think several days
before the enemy evacuated the city, the paper mentioned in colonel
Fitzgerald’s deposition that was not signed, as well as the other_.
Upon our coming into town we had a variety of military business to
do. I did not purchase any goods, neither did I leave the army. That
paper was entirely neglected, neither did I think anything
concerning it until I heard of colonel Fitzgerald’s deposition.
General Arnold has told me since, which is since I came from
Carolina some time in August last, that the reason for his not
supporting me in business was, supposing that I had left the army,
it was incompatible with his excellency’s instructions and the
resolution of Congress.”
This testimony, seemingly straightforward in form, is rather damning to
the characters of both the men involved. Arnold, upon taking command of
Philadelphia, ordered the stores and shops to be closed and no goods
sold. He stopped business outright. It was a most unpopular order,
because it prevented the merchants profiting by the new order of things,
the return of the Americans.
The very first day the closing law is in force, Arnold writes an order
to Franks to make large purchases of European and East Indian goods “to
any amount” and to keep the transaction secret from his most intimate
acquaintance. That is, Benedict Arnold and the Jewish major on his
staff, have an understanding that under cover of the military closing,
they will loot the city of its most profitable goods at the enforced low
selling prices—for the obvious purpose of selling at higher prices when
the military order was rescinded.
These are the undisputed facts. Colonel Fitzgerald saw the papers and
knew the unsigned one to be in Arnold’s handwriting, even as the signed
one was. They were both addressed to the Jewish Major Franks. In his
testimony, Major Franks admits the existence of the unsigned order as
Colonel Fitzgerald saw it, and admits also its character.
Even Benedict Arnold admitted the order, but he endeavored to show that
having exhibited General Washington’s orders to him (Arnold) to command
Philadelphia, that fact would be a sufficient countermand to the order
given to Franks to load up on valuable goods.
“General Arnold to Major Franks. Did you not suppose my showing you
the instructions from general Washington to me, previous to your
going into the city, a sufficient countermand of the order I had
given you to purchase goods?
“Major Franks. I did not form any supposition on the subject.”
This admission that he wrote the order, and the fact that no large
purchases of goods could be shown, constituted Arnold’s defense. It
requires no keen legal mind to show its weakness. If the order was
countermanded several days before they entered the city, what was it
doing in Miss Brackenberry’s house in Philadelphia on the first morning
of Arnold’s command and the first morning of the operation of his order
to close the stores? And why did Franks come in search of it? Discarded
orders are not thus carried around and preserved.
Probably no purchases were made. Probably the order was not carried out.
When Colonel Fitzgerald walked into the room early in the morning and
saw the papers, and when soon thereafter Major Franks walked into the
room and saw both Colonel Fitzgerald and the papers, there was nothing
else to do than to call the plan off. It had become _known_. Colonel
Fitzgerald waited in the room to see what became of the papers. He saw
the Jew Franks come and get them. He saw him go out with them. He knew
what those papers directed the Jew to do, and he knew that the directing
hand was Benedict Arnold’s. Doubtless with this clue he kept his eyes
open in Philadelphia during the operation of the closing order. And
doubtless Franks lost no time in transmitting to General Arnold the fact
that he found Colonel Fitzgerald in the room where the papers had been
left. The inadvertent visit of Colonel Fitzgerald is the key-fact in
that phase of the matter.
But the Jewish major becomes talkative in his effort to explain the
situation. “There are circumstances which I must explain,” he says. And
then, in words that were frequently in the mouth of Arnold, he
represents that his service in the army was injuring his private affairs
very seriously, and that he was contemplating retiring from the army and
going into business.
It is worth noting at this point that numerous opportunities were given
Franks to retire, both before and after the Arnold treason, but he
developed into a persistent clamorer after official jobs. In spite of
his testimony, he could not be shaken loose from public employment.
And then Franks revealed the whole secret of his relations with Arnold.
They were in close association in profiteering matters. “I had several
conversations on the subject with general Arnold ... he was to
participate in the profits of the business I was to enter into.” Arnold
was to remain a general in the army; his aide was to get out of the army
and work with him privately, sharing the profits.
But what had all this to do with the orders to close the stores at
Philadelphia? What had this to do with the papers found by Colonel
Fitzgerald? For after all, this was the “circumstance” which Major
Franks had set out to explain. At last he reaches it: “At that time,
previous to our going into Philadelphia, I had several particular
conversations with him ... I received at that time, or about that time,
the paper mentioned in Colonel Fitzgerald’s deposition which was not
signed, as well as the other.”
The paper authorized him to get the most merchantable goods out of the
closed stores. It followed upon “several particular conversations” about
the business of which Arnold was to “participate in the profits.” But,
apparently, the deal did not go through. Colonel Fitzgerald’s untimely
appearance, and the carelessness of some one in leaving the papers
about, were most unfavorable to the Arnold-Franks project.
There can be no question of the intimacy of the relations between the
Jew and Arnold and the use that both made of their relationship. There
can be no question, either, that these relationships must have been the
result of continuous acquaintance and testing.
Merely to show that a Jew once crossed the path of Benedict Arnold and
was implicated with him in a discreditable scheme that probably did not
fully mature, means nothing. But that this Jew was involved in Arnold’s
fortunes from the time the two first met in Canada until the day that
Arnold betrayed his country, may mean something. And that is the case.
From the time of their first meeting, their lines run along
together—Franks always being relied upon by Arnold as the credible
witness who extricates him from his scrapes, and Franks usually doing it
with a sort of clumsy success, as in the instance just cited.
The reader may refer now to the reference made above to Franks’ record
of himself in which he mentions having joined Count d’Estaing, the
French admiral, at Sandy Hook. This was just a month after Arnold took
command at Philadelphia, just a month after the events on which the
above charge was based. Evidently Franks got out of town for a little
while. He would notice the coolness of his fellow officers among whom
reports of Colonel Fitzgerald’s discovery must have circulated. There
would be no prejudice against him because he was a Jew, it would be
solely due to the suspicions concerning him. Indeed, readers of the
ordinary history will never learn that Arnold had Jews around him. There
were David Franks, moneyed man and merchant in the city, and David
Solesbury Franks on Arnold’s staff—both outstanding figures, yet wholly
passed over by the historians, with one or two exceptions, and even
these have never caught the Jewish clue. In that day there was no
prejudice against Jews as Jews, even as there is none now.
Franks, then, easily gains letters which permit him to join the French
fleet of d’Estaing, within a month after the Philadelphia business. And
strange to relate, at precisely the same time, Benedict Arnold conceived
the notion that he too should go into the navy, and a month after his
appointment to Philadelphia he writes to General Washington suggesting
nothing less than that he be given command of the American Navy!—at
precisely the time Major Franks takes to the water.
“... being obliged entirely to neglect my private affairs since I have
been in the service,” Arnold writes to General Washington, “has induced
me to wish to retire from public business, unless an offer, _which my
friends have, mentioned_, should be made to me of the command of the
navy.... I must beg leave to request your sentiments respecting a
command in the navy.”
So far as the historians have been able to discover, no one ever
proposed such a thing as making Arnold the admiral of the American Navy.
But, then, the historians did not know David S. Franks. He, a landsman,
had gone for a few weeks with the French ships. Perhaps he was the
friend who “mentioned” the matter. At any rate, when Franks came off the
ships again, it was to serve as witness once more for Benedict Arnold.
The charges against Arnold were such as these: Permitting an enemy ship
to land, and buying a share in her cargo; imposing menial service on
soldiers (a charge brought about by an action of Major Franks); issuing
passes unlawfully—the case in point being that of a Jewess, named Levy;
the use of army wagons for his private affairs, and so forth.
This is Major Franks’ testimony concerning Arnold’s permitting “The
Charming Nancy” to land at a United States port, contrary to law:
“Q. (by the court) Do you know whether general Arnold purchased any part
of the Charming Nancy or her cargo?
“A. I do not know of my own knowledge, but I have heard general Arnold
say he did, and I have also heard Mr. Seagrove say he did.
“Q. Was it previous or subsequent to general Arnold’s granting the pass?
“A. It was subsequent.”
Here is a complete admission of all the facts, but the defense consisted
in laboriously showing, by means of quite leading questions addressed to
Franks, that the owners of “The Charming Nancy” were indeed good
Americans, though residing and doing business in enemy territory. Franks
was rather useful in this part of the business, and the court,
overlooking the other elements, simply found that the permission which
Arnold gave to “The Charming Nancy” was illegal. The fact that a major
general of the United States Army speculated in the cargo of the ship
which had come into port in violation of law and on his military
permission, was not considered at all. Neither was the fact, stated in
the charge, that he gave his permission while he was in camp with
General Washington at Valley Forge, whom he did not consult in any way.
But here again the fact is established that Major Franks was privy to
the whole matter, and was the chief witness for Arnold’s defense.
If it had occurred but once, as at Montreal, that Arnold had been
charged with irregularities involving profitable goods; or if it had
occurred but once, as at Philadelphia, that Major Franks happened to be
the chief available witness, no serious notice could be taken of it.
But time and again Arnold is caught in shady acts involving profitable
goods, and time and again the Jewish Major Franks is his accomplice and
chief witness. And this partnership in shady transactions, extending
from the time Arnold first met Franks till the time Arnold betrayed his
country, is significant, at least as a contribution to history, and
possibly as a side light on the gradual degeneration of Benedict Arnold.
Arnold could no longer wholly escape. But still the good fortune that
seemed patiently to accompany him, as if waiting for his better nature
to recover from some dark spell, remained with him; the court could not
exonerate him entirely, but neither could they punish him as he
deserved; and so it was given as a verdict that General Arnold should be
reprimanded by General Washington, his best friend.
Washington’s reprimand is one of the finest utterances in human record.
It would have saved a man in whom a shred of moral determination
remained:
“Our profession is the chastest of all; even the shadow of a fault
tarnishes the luster of our finest achievements. The least
inadvertence may rob us of the public favor, so hard to be acquired.
I reprimand you for having forgotten that in proportion as you have
rendered yourself formidable to our enemies, you should have been
guarded and temperate in your deportment toward your fellow
citizens. Exhibit anew those noble qualities which have placed you
on the list of our most valued commanders. I will myself furnish
you, as far as it may be in my power, with opportunities of
regaining the esteem of your country.”
It was a bad day for Benedict Arnold when he got into touch with the
Jewish syndicate of army-contractors. There was hope for him even yet,
if he would cast off the evil spell. But time pressed; events were
culminating; the alien, having gripped him, was about to make the best
of the baleful opportunity. The closing chapter was about to be written
in glory or in shame.
——