destroy all religions other than Judaism. This, it is alleged, is the concrete form in which the Jews visualize their destiny as the Chosen People. In order to attain this grandiose ideal, every means to weaken the non-Jewish elements and institutions in civilization is encouraged by the invisible Jewish government, the leaders of this vast conspiracy.

If we are to place credence in these documents, the principal agency through which the Jewish conspirators have worked is Freemasonry. The Masonic orders throughout the world have been the blind dupes and tools of this superimperialism of the Jews, if the statements made in these protocols are true. Indeed, there can hardly be any question at all that if the truth of these documents can be established, there is, to say the least, quite as much reason for suppressing Masonic lodges, and making them illegal, as there is for suppressing Bolshevist or other conspiratory organizations. I should just as little expect to find sympathy for Bolshevism in a Masonic lodge as in the College of Cardinals, or in the Union League Club, let us say. When we enter into the mysteries of this "Jewish conspiracy" we encounter many surprises.

According to the statements made in these protocols, practically all the revolutionary movements of modern times have been instigated and directed by Jews. They have caused the assassination of rulers and heads of states, so that behind the murderous fanaticism of individuals there has generally been the cold calculation of the most cunning and unscrupulous intellects of the human race. According to the same evidence, the wars which have drenched the world with blood and rent it with passion, including racial wars in Asia and Africa, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Russo-Japanese War, and the recent World War, were all brought about deliberately by Jewish cunning, for the purpose of weakening the fabric of non-Jewish states and providing the Jews with new sources of strength and power to be used to establish their universal dominion.

All this is terrible enough. But there is even worse to follow. We must remember that these documents were first published in Russia in 1905, and they purport to be the procès-verbaux of a conference held eight or nine years prior to that time. It is rather startling, therefore, to find outlined therein a program of revolutionary action, to be initiated in Russia and developed throughout the civilized world, remarkably like the Bolshevist program, not merely in the precise measures contained in the program, but also, and especially, in the general conception of policy underlying it. We find in this alleged Jewish program the same negation of all the accepted principles of law and honor and morality that the Bolshevist policy has so conspicuously manifested. It is brazenly stated that bribery, deceit, and treachery are to be used (Protocol I). A vast army of spies and secret agents abundantly supplied with funds is to be relied on to promote revolt and dissension in all the principal countries (Protocol 2). "Ferments, discords, and hostility" are to be deliberately created and fostered throughout Europe and, through the international relations of the European countries, to the other continents also (Protocol 7). Efforts are to be made to compromise the honor and besmirch the reputations of the most influential statesmen and to use blackmail in order to make these statesmen serve the purposes of the conspirators (Protocol 10). Revolutionary movements, anarchistic, communistic, and socialistic, are to be fostered for the purpose of destroying non-Jewish civilization (Protocol 3). In the event of unfavorable action by any power or group of powers, it is to be met by resistance in the form of universal war (Protocol 7). Disorganization of the economic life of the world through the debasement and ruin of the credit and currency systems, of the principal nations, and the creation of "a universal economic crisis" are also to be used to the same end (Protocol 3).

I have briefly summarized only a few of the more important items in this monstrous program. There is more of the same general type of fiendishness. Concerning the character of the program itself, there can be no difference of opinion between honest Americans. It is as diabolical as it is fantastic. What importance we ought to attach to it, however, must necessarily depend upon our judgment concerning its origin. If these protocols, and the program contained in them, are to be seriously accepted for what they pretend to be—namely, a deliberate statement of the purposes and aims of the leaders of the Jewish people throughout the world, with practically the entire Jewish race behind them—then the matter assumes enormous importance. If, on the other hand, there is no substantial evidence of this—and such evidence as is available indicates that the protocols are the product of a single diseased and depraved mind—the documents cease to possess any great significance and the terrible injustice and frightfully dangerous consequences of charging them against the Jewish people are obvious. We must, therefore, pay critical attention to the origin of the protocols and the circumstances surrounding their publication, as well as to any internal evidences of their genuineness or otherwise.

IIIToC

THE MYSTERY OF THE PROTOCOLS

First of all, then, what do we actually know about the origin of these protocols? In the year 1903 a book was published at Solotarevo in Russia, entitled The Great in Little. The reputed author of the book was one Prof. Sergei Nilus, concerning whom we have no absolutely reliable information. Author of a book which has made an enormous sensation in many lands and become the subject of furious controversy, he is quite unknown. No responsible person in or out of Russia has ever positively identified Nilus, so far as I have been able to discover. From what he says of himself it is practically certain that he was in the service of the infamous Secret Police Agency of the late Tsar Nicholas II. For reasons which will presently appear, I am disposed to believe that the very un-Russian name Nilus is really a pseudonym.

In a second edition of his book, published in 1905, Nilus gives a brief autobiographical account of himself. He says that he was born in 1862 of Russian parents who held liberal opinions, and that his family was well known in Moscow, its members being educated people who were firm in their allegiance to the Tsar and the Greek Church. This is hardly what a Russian of the period would describe as holding "liberal opinions," but let that pass. Nilus claims to have been graduated from Moscow University and to have held a number of civil-service posts, all of them, so far as his specifications go, connected with the police and judicial systems. He went to the government of Orel, where he became a landowner and a sort of petty noble. He entered the Troitsky-Sergevsky Monastery, near Moscow, or so he says. Although numerous efforts have been made in Russia to find this Sergei Nilus, none has succeeded.

It is true that a number of persons have testified to the existence of Sergei Nilus, but in each case a different person has been referred to, though Nilus is not a Russian name or commonly