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Although the war had the effect of decreasing Jewish power in Wall Street by temporarily hindering, but perhaps not altogether breaking off, the communication between Jewish financial houses in the United States and their associates overseas, it also had the effect of greatly increasing Jewish wealth in this country. It is stated upon the authority of a well-informed Jewish source that in New York City alone fully 73 per cent of the “war millionaires” are Jews.
The mistake should not be made of assuming that because of the temporary setback in Wall Street, the war meant a total setback for the Jewish program. It did not. Jewry emerged from the war more strongly entrenched in power, even in the United States, than it was before. And in the world at large the ascendency of the Jew, even where he was in control before, is very marked.
A Jew is now President of the League of Nations.
A Zionist is President of the Council of the League of Nations.
A Jew is President of France.
A Jew was President of the committee to investigate the responsibility for the war, and one incident of his service was the disappearance of vital documents.
In France, Germany and England, the financial power of the Jews, as well as the filtration of their dangerous ideas of social disorder, have greatly increased.
It is a most remarkable fact that in those countries which can justly be called anti-Semitic, the rule of the Jew is stronger than anywhere else. The more they are opposed, the more they show their power. Germany is today an anti-Semitic nation. Yet, in spite of all the German people have done to rid themselves of the visible show of Jewish power, it has entrenched itself more firmly than before, above and beyond the reach of the German popular will. France becomes increasingly anti-Semitic, and as the anti-Jewish wave rises, a Jewish President appears. Russia itself is anti-Semitic to the core, and the Jew is Russia’s new tyrant. And at a moment when, as all Jewish spokesmen inform us, there is a world wave of anti-Semitism—which is their name for a new awakening of the nations to what has been going on—what should occur but that at the head of the League of Nations, in a position which but for the absence of the United States would constitute the Chief Magistracy of the World, a Jew appears. Nobody seems to know why. Nobody can explain it. Neither previous fitness nor public demand pointed him out—yet there he is!
In our own country we have just had a four-year term of Jewish rule, almost as absolute as that which exists in Russia. This appears to be a very strong statement, but it is somewhat milder than the facts warrant. And the facts themselves are not of hearsay origin, nor the product of a biased point of view; they are the fruits of an inquiry by the lawful officials of the United States who were set aside in favor of a ready-made Jewish Government, and they are forever spread upon the official records of the United States.
The Jews have proved for all time that the control of Wall Street is not necessary to the control of the American people, and the person by whom they proved this was a Wall Street Jew.
This man has been called “the pro-consul of Judah in America.”
It is said that once, referring to himself, he exclaimed: “Behold the Disraeli of the United States!”
To a select committee of the Congress of the United States he said:
“I probably had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war; doubtless that is true.”
And in saying so he did not overstate the case. He did have more power. It was not all legal power, this much he admitted. It reached into every home and store and factory and bank and railway and mine. It touched armies and governments. It touched the recruiting boards. It made and unmade men without a word. It was power without responsibility and without limit. It was such a power as compelled the Gentile population to lay bare every secret before this man and his Jewish associates, giving them a knowledge and an advantage that billions of gold could not buy.
Doubtless not one in every 50,000 of the readers of this paper ever heard of this man before 1917, and doubtless the same number have clear knowledge of him now. He glided out of a certain obscurity unlighted by public service of fame, into the high rulership of the nation at war. The constituted government had little to do with him save vote the money and do his bidding. He said that men could have appealed over his head to the President of the United States, but, knowing the situation, men never did.
Who is this figure, colossal in his way, and most instructive of the readiness of Judah to take the rule whenever he desires?
His name is Bernard M. Baruch. He was born in South Carolina 50 years ago, the son of Dr. Simon Baruch, who was a medical man of some consequence. “I went to college with the idea of becoming a doctor, but I did not become a doctor,” he told the Congressional Committee. He was graduated at the College of the City of New York when he was just under 19 years of age. This college is one of the favorite educational institutions with the Jews, its president being Dr. S. E. Mezes, a brother-in-law of Colonel E. M. House, the colonel whose influence and disfavor at the White House has for a long time been a favorite subject of wondering speculation on the part of the American people, though it scarcely need be so any longer.
Apparently young Baruch knew exactly what he wanted to do, and set out to do it. He says he spent “many years” after his graduation in certain studies, “particularly economics” as related to railroads and industrial propositions. “I tried to make Poor’s Manual and the financial supplement of the Financial Chronicle my bible for a number of years.”
He could not have spent very “many years” in these pursuits, for after going down to Wall Street as a clerk and a runner, and when he was “about 26 or 27” he became a member of the firm of A. A. Housman & Company. “In about 1900 or 1902” he left the firm, but he had meanwhile gained a seat on the Stock Exchange.
He then went into business for himself, a statement which must be taken literally in view of his testimony that he “did not do any business for anybody but himself. I made a study of the corporations engaged in the production and manufacture of different things, and a study of the men engaged in them.”
In answer to questions intended to disclose the exact nature of his operations before he suddenly appeared as the man who “had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war,” he stood off from any intimations that he perhaps engaged in mere buying and selling of stock. “My business then became the organization of various enterprises,” he said, “and in connection with that, I, of course, did buy and sell stocks * * * If I organized any concern, I naturally took a large interest in it, or I would not organize it if I did not believe in it, and I stayed with the development of that concern; and then if I cared later on to sell it, I would sell it.”
Pressed by the examiners for a still more detailed account of his activities in business, he said:
“Well, I was instrumental in the purchase of the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company; in the purchase of Selby Smelter, Tacoma Smelter, and various copper, tungsten, rubber—I was instrumental in building up one of the great industries in rubber in Mexico, which was the establishment of the source of supply of rubber, and developed a large concern there for the production of raw material, which is still going on * * *
“I became interested in the new process of concentration of low-grade ores in the Mesaba Range, but the interest I had particularly in steel was in the study of the present-day organization, in order to get myself posted so that I could intelligently buy or sell their securities * * *”
It is an important point, one not made very clear in the testimony, what interests Mr. Baruch held at the beginning of the war. His previous activities in various fields, principally perhaps in the field of metals, had been important and numerous. In any case, as a young man, he is found to be master of large sums of money, and there is no indication that he inherited it. He is very wealthy. What change the war made in his wealth, if it made any change at all, is a matter on which nothing may be said now. Certainly many of his friends and closest associates reaped great quantities of money from their activities during the war.
Now, as to the point of his business connections just prior to the war, this testimony appears:
Mr. Graham—“You continued in the operation of these various businesses, in the formation of companies and the flotation of their stocks, and in your business in the Stock Exchange and elsewhere up until the time of the beginning of the war?”
Mr. Baruch—“I was gradually getting myself away from business, because I had made up my mind to retire, and I had been getting less active with that end in view, and I was not very much in sympathy with the organization of companies. I am not criticizing other men who engage in business that resulted in profits even before we had gotten into war. I had made up my mind to leave and do some other things that I hope to be able to do now; but that process was interrupted by my appointment as member of the advisory commission without any suggestion or without any knowledge or idea it was coming.”
Does he mean that the process of getting out of business was interrupted by his appointment on the advisory commission, which appointment led straight to his complete rulership of the United States at war?
Mr. Jefferis—“Had any of the members of the advisory commission been engaged in the production of raw materials or in manufactured products, or not?”
Mr. Baruch—“I had.”
Mr. Jefferis—“In what way?”
Mr. Baruch—“I had made a rather deep study of the production and the distribution and manufacture of many of these raw materials. I had to make an intensive study of these things in order to do the things I was engaged in.”
Mr. Jefferis—“You were not running any raw material production?”
Mr. Baruch—“I was interested in concerns—I was interested in the study and production of a great many of these things, because I developed and organized concerns which did it.”
Does he mean that he was interested in concerns at the time of his appointment? This would be an interesting point to clear up.
Another matter which would be not only of interest, but of great usefulness in explaining the gathering of a Jewish government around the President during the war, is the question of Bernard M. Baruch’s acquaintance with Woodrow Wilson. When did it begin? What circumstances or what persons brought them together? There are stories, of course, and one of them may be true, but the story ought not to be told unless accompanied by the fullest confirmation. Why should it occur that a Jew should be the one man ready and selected for a position of greatest power during the war?
Mr. Baruch, in his testimony, sheds no light on this question. He had opportunity to do so, had he wished.
Mr. Graham—“I assume that you were personally acquainted with the President prior to the outbreak of the war?”
Mr. Baruch—“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Graham—“Up to the time that you were appointed as a member of the advisory commission, had you ever had any personal conferences with the President about these matters?”
Mr. Baruch—“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Graham—“Had he called you in consultation or had he talked to you about these matters and about the matter of your appointment before you were appointed?”
Mr. Baruch—“Never suggested anything about the appointment, because I would have told him that I would prefer not to be appointed.”
Mr. Graham—“Do you now recall, Mr. Baruch, how long before you were actually appointed as a member of that advisory commission you had your last conference with the President?”
Mr. Baruch—“No * * *”
That is not all of Mr. Baruch’s answer, but it is his reply to the question. Having said “No,” Mr. Baruch became very communicative on another matter. His complete reply is—
“No; but I can tell you something that may be of interest, and that is probably what you want to know. I had been very much disturbed by the unprepared condition of this country, so much so that I was one of the first men to support General Wood in the Plattsburg encampment, and I think he will admit I gave him the first money and told him whatever he did I would guarantee to stand behind that movement, which happily only took a few thousand dollars so far as I was concerned, having caught the public approval and it went ahead, and in that relation naturally one had to think about the mobilization of the industries of the country, because people do not fight alone with their hands; they have got to fight with things.”
It is thus shown that Mr. Baruch was a forehanded gentleman. It was only the year 1915. The European war had then not become more than an amazing spectacle to the mass of the American people. But still Mr. Baruch was convinced we were going to have war, and he spent money on his guess. The government which was then “keeping us out of war” was also consulting with Mr. Baruch who was already ahead of the government in creating the atmosphere of war in this country. If the reader, by a mental effort, can reconstruct the year of 1915, and then put into his picture of that year the element of which he was not then possessed, namely, the activity of Mr. Bernard M. Baruch and other Jews, he will see that he did not know much about what was going on, even if he did read the newspapers with attention!
To proceed with the examination, following the place where Mr. Baruch made his interesting disclosure of his part in the Plattsburg experiment:
Mr. Graham—“That was about 1915, was it not?”
Mr. Baruch—“Yes, 1915; and I had been thinking about it very seriously, and I thought we would be drawn into the war. I went off on a long trip, and it was while on this trip that I felt there ought to be some mobilization of the industries, and I was thinking about the scheme that practically was put into effect and was working when I was chairman of the board. When I came back from that trip I asked for an interview with the President. It was the first time I had seen the President since his election, so far as I can remember now.”
Mr. Graham—“You mean his first election?”
Mr. Baruch—“His first election, yes.”
So it is probable that Mr. Baruch, if any stress may be placed on the manner of his words, had known the President before. Ordinary men, who meet the President seldom, usually have a very clear recollection of those meetings. The fact probably is that Mr. Baruch saw the President so frequently that he found it difficult to distinguish the meetings in his memory. He describes the visit referred to:
“I explained to him as earnestly as I could that I was very deeply concerned about the necessity of the mobilization of the industries of the country. The President listened very attentively and graciously, as he always does * * * and the next thing I heard—some months afterward * * * my attention was brought to this Council of National Defense. Secretary Baker brought it to my attention. This was the first time I had met the Secretary of War. He asked me what I thought of it.”
Mr. Graham—“That was before the bill was passed; before it became a law?”
Mr. Baruch—“I think it was. I am not certain about that. I said I would like to have something different.”
This is rather important. A council is a council. Mr. Baruch wanted something different. Eventually he did get something different. He got the President so to change matters as to make Mr. Baruch the most powerful man in the war. The Council of National Defense eventually became the merest side show. It was not a council of Americans that ran the war, it was an autocracy headed by a Jew, with Jews at every strategic point down the line. What Mr. Baruch did was very masterly, but it was not in the American manner. He did what he set out to do, but it is seriously to be questioned whether any man ought to have done what he did, and probably no one but a member of his race would have wanted to do it.
Mr. Graham—“Did the President express any opinion about the advisability of adopting the scheme you proposed?”
Mr. Baruch—“I think I did most of the talking. I do not remember what the President said on that subject, but I think it can be best seen as expressed in the bill.”
Mr. Graham—“Did you impress him with your belief that we were going to get into the war?”
Mr. Baruch—“I probably did. I would like to tell you exactly, but I do not want to guess at it.”
Mr. Graham—“That was your opinion at the time?”
Mr. Baruch—“Yes; I thought we were going to get into the war. I thought a war was coming long before it did.”
The examination then reverted to Mr. Baruch’s conference with the Secretary of War, in which the former had said he “would like to have something different.”
Mr. Graham—“Mr. Baker said he thought that was the best that could be gotten at that time?”
Mr. Baruch—“I got that impression. Whether he said so or not, I do not know, but I got that impression that that was the best that could be gotten at that time.”
If the event had not turned out exactly as Mr. Baruch planned it, a great deal of his testimony might be discounted on the principle of the natural boastfulness of the Jew after a scheme has succeeded; but there is no discounting anything that he says. The President did exactly what Baruch wanted in a thousand matters, and what Baruch apparently wanted most of all was a ruling hand upon productive America. And that he got. He got it in a larger measure than even Lenin ever got in Russia; for here in the United States the people saw nothing but the patriotic element; they did not see the Jewish Government looming above them. Yet it was there.
The Council of National Defense, as originally constituted—“the best that could be gotten at that time,” though Mr. Baruch “would like something different”—was headed by six secretaries of the Cabinet, the secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce and Labor. Beneath this official group was an advisory commission, of seven men, three of whom were Jews; one of these Jews was Mr. Baruch. Beneath this advisory commission were scores and hundreds of men, and many committees. One of the groups subordinate to the two groups just mentioned was the War Industries Board, of which Mr. Baruch was originally merely a member, Daniel Willard being the chairman.
Now, it was this War Industries Board which become the “whole thing” later on, and it was Mr. Baruch who became the “whole thing” in that board. The place where he was put became the corner stone; he became the chief pillar of the war administration. The records show it; he himself admits it.
What influence reached into this Council of hundreds of Americans and chose a single Jew to be their undoubted lord and master for the duration of the war? Was it Baruch’s brains that elevated him? Or was it the suggestion of Jewish finance already well forward in its work of mobilization?
There is no desire to minimize the Baruch brain. Brains and money are the Jews’ two greatest weapons. No Jew is picked for a key place who has not brains. Baruch has brains. He is a ceaseless wonder among men who know him. He can do six things at once and control the most colossal operations without fuss or fever. He has both brains and money.
But there is something for Jewry to learn: brains and money are not enough. There is another element which even brains cannot cope with, and which renders money cheap. The chess-playing expert may mystify and compel admiration; but the chess-player does not rule the world.
So, Baruch did things. But Trotsky also has done things. The point is this: Are people to be carried away by an appeal deliberately made to their imagination, or are they to scrutinize what has been done, and weigh its consequences?
The Jews could do greater things in the United States than even Barauch has done, if the opportunity offered, acts of superb ease and mastery—but what would it signify? The ideal of a dictator of the United States has never been absent from the group in which Baruch is found—witness the work, “Philip Dru, Administrator,” commonly attributed to Colonel E. M. House, and never denied by him.
As a matter of fact, Baruch could probably do a better job than Trotsky did. Certainly, the recent experience which he had in governing the country during the war was a very valuable education in the art of autocracy. Not that it is by any means Mr. Baruch’s possession alone; it is also the possession of scores of Jewish leaders who flitted about from department to department, from field to field, receiving a post-graduate course in the art of autocracy, not to mention other things.
Before Mr. Bernard M. Baruch got through, he was the head and center of a system of control such as the United States Government itself never possessed and never will possess until it changes its character as a free government.
Mr. Jefferis—“In other words, you determined what everybody could have?”
Mr. Baruch—“Exactly; there is no question about that. I assumed that responsibility, sir, and that final determination rested within me.”
Mr. Jefferis—“What?”
Mr. Baruch—“That final determination, as the President said, rested within me; the determination of whether the Army or Navy should have it rested with me; the determination of whether the Railroad Administration could have it, or the Allies, or whether General Allenby should have locomotives, or whether they should be used in Russia, or used in France.”
Mr. Jefferis—“You had considerable power?”
Mr. Baruch—“Indeed I did, sir. * * *”
Mr. Jefferis—“And all those different lines, really, ultimately, centered in you, so far as power was concerned?”
Mr. Baruch—“Yes, sir, it did. I probably had more power than perhaps any other man did in the war; doubtless that is true.”
What preceded Mr. Baruch’s attainment of this power, how far his power reached and how it was used will be our next inquiry.
[THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, issue of 27 November 1920]