JEWISH HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES

JEWISH HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES

  The story of the Jews in America begins with Christopher Columbus. On August 2, 1492, more than 300,000 Jews were expelled from Spain and on August 3, the next day, Columbus set sail for the west, taking a group of Jews with him.

  They were not, however, refugees, for the prophetic navigator's plans had aroused the sympathy of influential Jews for a long period previously. Columbus himself tells us that he consorted much with Jews. The first letter he wrote detailing his discoveries was to a Jew. Indeed, the eventful voyage itself which added to men's knowledge and wealth "the other half of the earth" was made possible by Jews. The pleasant story that it was Queen Isabella's jewels which financed the voyage has disappeared under cool research.

  There were three Maranos or "secret Jews" who wielded great influence at the Spanish court: Luis de Santagel, who was an important merchant of Valencia and who was "farmer" of the royal taxes; his relative, Gabriel Sanchez, who was the royal treasurer; and their friend, the royal chamberlain, Juan Cabrero. These worked unceasingly on Queen Isabella's imagination, picturing to her the depletion of the royal treasury and the likelihood of Columbus discovering the fabulous gold of the Indies, until the Queen was ready to offer her jewels in pawn for the funds. But Santagel craved permission to advance the money himself, which he did, 17,000 ducats in all, about 5,000 pounds, perhaps equal to 40,000 pounds today.

  Associated with Columbus in the voyage were at least five Jews: Luis de Torres, interpreter; Marco, the surgeon; Bernal, the physician; Alonzo de la Calle, and Gabriel Sanchez. Luis de Torres was the first man ashore, the first to discover the use of tobacco; he settled in Cuba and may be said to be the father of Jewish control of the tobacco business as it exists today.

  Columbus' old patrons, Luis de Santagel and Gabriel Sanchez, received many privileges for the part they played in the work, but Columbus himself became the victim of a conspiracy fostered by Bernal, the ship's doctor, and suffered injustice and imprisonment as his reward.

  From that beginning, Jews looked more and more to America as a fruitful field, and immigration set in strongly toward South America, principally Brazil. But because of military participation in a disagreement between the Brazilians and the Dutch, the Jews of Brazil found it necessary to emigrate, which they did in the direction of the Dutch colony of what is now New York. Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor, did not entirely approve of their settling among his people and ordered them to leave, but the Jews had evidently taken the precaution to assure their being received if not welcomed, because upon revoking the order of Stuyvesant, the Directors gave as one of the reasons for the Jews being received, "the large amount of capital which they have invested in the shares of the Company."

  Nevertheless they were forbidden to enter public service and to open retail shops, which had the effect of driving them into foreign trade in which they were soon exercising all but a monopoly because of their European connections.

  This is only one of the thousand illustrations which can be given of the resourcefulness of the Jew. Forbid him in one direction he will excel in another. When he was forbidden to deal in new clothes, he sold old clothes - that was the beginning of the organized traffic in secondhand clothing. When he was forbidden to deal in merchandise, he dealt in waste - the Jew is the originator of the waste product business of the world; he was the originator of the salvage system; he found wealth in the debris of civilization. He taught people how to use old rags, how to clean old feathers, how to use gall nuts and rabbit skins. He has always had a taste for the furrier trade, which he now controls, and to him is due the multitude of common skins which now pass under various alluring trade names as furs of high origin.

  Unwittingly, old Peter Stuyvesant compelled the Jews to make New York the principal port of America, and though a majority of New York Jews had fled to Philadelphia at the time of the American Revolution, most of them returned to New York at the earliest opportunity, instinct seeming to make them aware that, in New York was to be their principal paradise of gain. And so it has proved.

  New York is the greatest center of Jewish population in the world. It is the gateway where the bulk of American imports and exports are taxed, and where practical all the business done in America pays tribute to the masters of money. The very land of the city is the holdings of the Jews.

  No wonder that Jewish writers, viewing this unprecedented prosperity, this unchecked growth in wealth and power, exclaim enthusiastically that the United States is the Promised Land foretold by the prophets, and New York the New Jerusalem. Some have gone even further and described the peaks of the Rockies as "the mountains of Zion," and with reason, too, if the mining and coastal wealth of the Jews is considered.

  In the time of George Washington there were about 4,000 Jews in the country, most of them well to do traders. They favored the American side and helped the revolutionary colonies out with loans at critical moments.

  In fifty years the traceable increase in the Jewish population of the United States was more than 3,300,000. What it is today no man can estimate with any hope of accuracy.

  To make a list of the lines of business controlled by the Jews of the United States would be to touch most of the vital industries of the country - those which are really vital, and those which cultivated habit have been made to seem vital. The theatrical business is exclusively Jewish: play-producing, booking, theater operation are all in the hands of Jews. This accounts for the fact that in almost every production today can be detected propaganda, sometimes glaringly commercial advertisement, sometimes direct political instruction.

  The motion picture industry; the sugar industry; the tobacco industry; fifty per cent or more of the meat packing industry; over sixty per cent of the shoemaking industry; most of the musical purveying done in the country; jewelry; grain; cotton; oil; steel; magazine authorship; news distribution; the liquor business; the loan business; these, to name only the industries with national and international sweep, are in control of the Jews of the United States, either alone or in association with Jews overseas.

  The American people would be vastly surprised if they could see a line-up of some of the "American business men' who hold up our commercial prestige overseas. They are mostly Jews. This may throw a sidelight on the regard in which "American business methods" are held in some parts of the world. When many different races of people can carry on business under the name "American," and do it legally, too, it is not surprising that Americans do not recognize some of the descriptions of American methods which appear in the foreign Press. If the reputation of American business has suffered, it is because something other than American methods have been used under the American name.

  Instances of Jewish prosperity in the United States are commonplace, but prosperity, the just reward of foresight and application, is not to be confounded with control. It would be impossible for any Gentile coalition under similar circumstances to attain the control which the Jews have won, for the reason that there is lacking in the Gentile a certain quality of working-togetherness, a certain conspiracy of objective, and the adhesiveness of intense raciality, which characterizes the Jew. It is nothing to a Gentile that another man is a Gentile; it is next to everything to a Jew that the man at his door is another Jew.

  The International Jewish plan to move their money market to the United States was what the American people did rot want. We have the warning of history as to what this means. It has meant in turn that Spain, Venice, Germany or Great Britain received the blame or suspicion of the world for what the Jewish financiers have done. It is a most important consideration that most of the national animosities that exist today arose out of resentment against what Jewish money power did under the camouflage of national names.

  "The British did this," "The Germans did this," when it was the International Jew who did it, the nations being but the marked spaces on his checker board. Today, around the world the blaming word is heard, "The United States did this. If it were not for the United States the world would be in a better shape. The Americans are a sordid, greedy, cruel people."

  Why? Because the Jewish money power is centered here and is making money out of both our immunity and Europe's distress, playing one against the other; and because so many so-called "American business men" abroad today are not Americans at all - they are Jews.

  Citizens wake up with a start to find that even the white nations are hardly allowed to see each other nowadays except through Jewish eyes. Great Britain and France seldom see a special American spokesman who is not a Jew. That may be the reason why they reciprocate by sending Jews to us, thinking perhaps that we prefer them.