Henry Ford - The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem (Volume 4)

The International Jew Volume 4: Aspects of Jewish Power in the United States

Henry Ford

Exported from Wikisource on 02/07/20

This is the fourth volume of reprinted studies in the Jewish Question as they appeared in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT. The articles follow the same general line as the previous volume in showing the various angles of Jewish influence and achievement in the affairs of the people of the United States, but they do not by any means exhaust either the number of the angles nor the depth of the significance in the angles traced.

Deliberate public opinion has shown many signs of a new alertness to the movement which was proceeding deftly and unnoticed in the midst of America, and many checks have been put in operation. The work of THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT was undertaken at a disadvantage because of the tremendous emphasis of the American mind on racial peace and because of the ease with which racial propagandists can make a purely economic and political matter assume the aspects of a religious controversy. THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT opened the Question to public gaze, and was therefore assumed to be the attacker. In this country our sense of fairness always leaves the advantage with the attacked, and false accusations quickly fall. The country has seen, however, the truth of the statements and has observed the mild and unprejudiced manner in which they were made, so that it may now be said that truth has made its way.

Most gratifying are the signs which Jews themselves have given that certain abuses must be quickly stopped. A Jewish leader has appealed for the removal of the exemption which nullifies the Constitution of the United States in favor of the Jew with reference to the use of liquor. Other Jewish leaders have sought to compel Jewish theatrical controllers to observe elementary decency in their productions.

These articles have always held that the cleansing must come from within Judah itself. It is recognized that racial pride might prevent many improvements being attempted under fire, but American Jews cannot afford to be ruled by a false pride in this respect. These are days of judgment for all the corruptive forces of society and the Jews cannot expect to escape responsibility for their part in these things.

May, 1922.

To those who have been surprised and confounded by the widespread evidence, which even the newspapers have been unable to suppress, that the bulk of the organized bootlegging which is being carried on in this country is in the hands of Jews, it would have been less of a surprise had they known the liquor history of this country.

The claim made for the Jews, that they are a sober people, is undoubtedly true, but that has not prevented two facts concerning them, namely, that they usually constitute the liquor dealers of the countries where they live in numbers, and that in the United States they are the only people exempted from the operations of the Prohibition law.

Here as elsewhere the principle holds true that the Jew is the key. The demoralization which struck the liquor business, causing its downfall, and the demoralization which has struck Prohibition enforcement for a time, cannot be understood without a study of the racial elements which contributed to both phenomena. If in what follows the Jews find objectionable elements, they should remember that their own people put them there. It is impossible to doubt that if the organized Jews of the United States were to make one-thousandth of the protest against the illegal liquor activities of their own people that they make against the perfectly legal and morally justifiable exposures being made in THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT, the result would be not only favorable but immediate.

There was a time when the term whisky had a much more respectable connotation than it has today. There was a time when to use whisky and even to make it, were customs sanctioned by the better class of public opinion.

It is a common explanation of the difference between then and now, that people of the latter period became more sensitive morally than their forbears, that whereas the previous generation guzzled its whisky, innocently oblivious of the evil in it, the latter generation developed a stronger discrimination and banned the custom.

The truth is this: the people did not become better; the whisky became worse. When the entire story of the peoples justifiable indignation is written, the competent historian will trace along with the peoples rising disgust, the whiskys decreasing quality.

Attention to this matter will materially assist an understanding of the fact that Jews and bootlegging are so continuously and prominently connected in the public prints these days.

Readers of the old romances know how proud the master was of his wines. Vintages ripened under certain skies, on certain hills, where certain waters flowed, with cellarage in certain soils, had a faculty of aging gracefully, mellowing to a smoothness and purity and desirableness that made for cheer and health without the alloy of sordid inebriety. The bouquet of wine, the perfected essence of the grape subjected to the further courses of nature, has been a theme of praise for centuries. If it were uttered today the source of the utterance would be suspected, and very probably with good reason, of being in pay of the wets. For the vile stuff which civilization threw out is not at all the wine of popular custom and century-long esteem.

Nevertheless, it is not difficult for even a modern to grasp the fact that there was an art in making wine and strong drink, in which art men took pride. That art required time, experience, a love of good quality.

It is a little difficult to speak of this art in connection with whiskywine being a more poetic wordyet it is a matter of knowledge that three places in the world have devoted to the production of whisky the same spirit which France and Portugal devoted to their wines. These three districts are Glenlivet in Scotland, the region of Dublin in Ireland, and the Blue-Grass region of Kentucky. Why in these three regions? First, because there were mennon-Jews, of coursewho were willing to wait ten years to produce a good article. Second, the waters of these regions are of a quality which is beautifully adapted to the making of pure goods. Pure whisky, it should be remembered, is a vegetable product matured by natural forces and no other. Grain, water, and timenot even artificial heat added, nor any other thingcompletes the best whisky product.

In older times in America there were men who were as choice of their whiskies as of their horses or books. There was then such a thing as quality. But there was no such thing as delirium tremens. That came later, with the disappearance of pure whisky. A distiller seldom grew richhe was too engrossed in maintaining the quality of his product; and it consumed much time.

There were certain brands known nationally because of their mildness and puritypurest wine of the choicest grapes, aged in the best adapted cellars, was not more mild or pure. There are names that remain until this dayPepper, Crow, Taylor, and othersthe names of men who took time and pains, whose names became brands which guaranteed quality and purity. These men were distillers in the true sense, not manufacturers nor compounders, but distillers in a time when distilling was both a science and an art, and not a mere name to conceal a gigantic fraud on the public.

In time to come, when the peoples justifiable moral indignation will permit a study of the steps by which the reputation of whisky came to its present low degree, they will see how much better it would have been, how much more efficacious and clarifying, if the attack on whisky had included an exposure of the men who had driven whisky out of the country and were selling rank poison as a substitute. The saloon, the brewer, the man who used strong drink were all of them made the target for attack; the Jews who demoralized the whole business went on collecting their enormous and illegitimate profits without so much as their identity being revealed.