Wikiquote

Will Eisner

American cartoonist, writer and entrepreneur (1917-2005)

William Erwin "Will" Eisner; March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor, and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Born and brought up in New York City and having survived and thrived there, I carry with me a cargo of memories, some painful and some pleasant, which have remained in the hold of my mind. I have an ancient mariner’s need to share my accumulation of experience and observations. Call me, if you will, a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak and the never-ending struggle to prevail…or at least to survive.

Quotes

edit

A Contract With God (2004)

edit
 
My early work in newspaper comics and comic books allowed me to entertain millions of readers weekly, but I always felt there was more to say. I pioneered the use of comics for instructional manuals for American soldiers, covering three major wars, and later used comics to educate grade school children. Both were heady responsibilities that I took very seriously. But I yearned to do still more with the medium. At an age when I could have "retired," I chose instead to create literary comics, than a decidedly oxymoronic term. Acceptance has not always been easy, but I have seen it arrive in my lifetime.
  • Born and brought up in New York City and having survived and thrived there, I carry with me a cargo of memories, some painful and some pleasant, which have remained in the hold of my mind. I have an ancient mariner’s need to share my accumulation of experience and observations. Call me, if you will, a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak and the never-ending struggle to prevail…or at least to survive.
    • XIII, December 2004
  • As the story unfolds it is at 55 Dropsie Avenue where Frimme Hersh deals with God; where the street singer fails to grasp his chance for gory. It is on Dropsie Avenue where a diminutive enemy defeats the super, and Willie comes of age. It is in an alley of Dropsie Avenue where Jacob Shtarkah tries to find the meaning of life. It is also on Dropsie Avenue, finally, where I undertake the biography of the street itself, through the physical evolution of the block, the rise and fall of the tenement building at No.55 and the ethnic and social changes of the stream of occupants.
    • XIV-XV, December 2004
  • The tenement – the name derives from a fifteenth-century legal term for a multiple dwelling – always seemed to me a “ship afloat in concrete.” After all didn’t the building carry passengers on a voyage through life? No. 55 sat at the corner of Dropsie avenue near the elevated train, or the elevated as we called it in those days. It was a treasure house of stories that illustrated tenement life as I remembered it, stories that needed to be told before they faded from memory. Within its “railroad flats,” with rooms strung together train-like lived low-paid city employees or laborers and their turbulent families. Most were recent immigrants, intent on their own survival. They kept busy raising children and dreaming of the better lie they knew existed “uptown.” Hallways were filled with a rich stew of cooking aromas, sounds of arguments and the tinny wail from Victrolas. What community spirit there was stemmed from the common hostility of tenants to the landlord or his surrogate superintendent. Typically, the buildings tenants came and went with regularity, depending on the vagaries of their fortunes. But many remained for a lifetime, imprisoned by poverty or old age. There was no real privacy or anonymity. Everybody knew about everybody. Human dramas, both good and bad, instantly gathered witness like ants swarming around a piece of dropped food. From window to window or on the stoop below, the tenants analyzed, evaluated and critiqued each happening, following an obligatory admission that it was really none of their business.
    • XV-XVI, December 2004
  • To anyone growing up in any large city, the immediate neighborhood becomes the world. The street on which one lives provides a kid with local identification somewhat similar to being branded by national origin. Streets have a status. They grow, get old and change in character. In large coastal cities, immigration has an effect on the profile of a street altering it as each new group enters, stays a while, assimilates and then moves away. Streets seem to have a discernible life. Some start out ostentatiously and gradually descend into slums while others begin as poor the disreputable neighborhoods and rise to ostentation through what city planners call gentrification.
    • XIX, December 2004
  • My early work in newspaper comics and comic books allowed me to entertain millions of readers weekly, but I always felt there was more to say. I pioneered the use of comics for instructional manuals for American soldiers, covering three major wars, and later used comics to educate grade school children. Both were heady responsibilities that I took very seriously. But I yearned to do still more with the medium. At an age when I could have "retired," I chose instead to create literary comics, than a decidedly oxymoronic term. Acceptance has not always been easy, but I have seen it arrive in my lifetime. It has been most gratifying to see the graphic novel and many of its exceptional creators gradually become an accepted part of the book world. I couldn't find a major publisher to take A Contract With God only a quarter century ago, and now graphic novels represent the book industry's fastest growing genre.
    • XIX-XX, December 2004

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

edit
  • The most extraordinary aspect of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not so much the history of its inception as that of its reception. That this fake was produced by a number of secret services and police of at least three countries, assembled from a collage of different texts, is by now a well-known fact-and Will Eisner tells it in full, taking into account the most recent research.
    In one of my essays I identify other sources that scholars had not taken into account: for example, the Protocols “Jewish plan” for conquering the world follows, almost literally at times, the Jesuit plan as told by Eugene Sue first in Le juif errant, (1844-45) and later in Les myst’eres du people (1849-57)-the similarities are so great that one is tempted to conclude that Maurice Joly himself (the French satirist whose pamphlet Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, published in 1864, is considered to be the direct predecessor of the Protocols, and who is a figure in Eisner’s The Plot) had been inspired by Sue’s novels.
  • This patchwork of largely fictional works makes the Protocols an incoherent text that easily reveals its fabricated origins. It is hardly credible, if not in a roman feuilleton or in a grand opera, that the “bad guys” should express their evil plans in such a frank and unashamed manner, that they should declare, as the Elders of Zion do, that they have “boundless ambition, a ravenous greed, a merciless desire for revenge and an intended hatred.” If at first the Protocols was taken seriously, it is because it was presented as a shocking revelation, and by sources all in all trustworthy. But what seems incredible is how this fake arose from its own ashes each time someone proved that it was, beyond all doubt, a fake. This is when the “novel of the Protocols” truly starts to sound like fiction. Following the article that appeared in 1921 in the Times of London revealing that the Protocols was plagiarized, as well as every other time some authoritative source confirmed the spurious nature of the Protocols, there was someone else who published it again claiming its authenticity. And the story continues unabated on the Internet today. It is as if, after Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, one were to continue publishing textbooks claiming that the sun travels around the earth.
    How can one explain resilience against all evidence, and the perverse appeal that this book continues to exercise? The answer can be found in the works of Nesta Webster, an antisemetic author who spent her life supporting this account of the Jewish plot. In her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, she seems well informed and knows the whole story as Eisner narrates it here, but this is her conclusion:
    The only opinion I have committed myself is that, whether genuine or not, the Protocols represent the programme of a world revolution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordinary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies of the past, they were either the work of some such society or of someone profoundly versed in the lore of secret society who was able to reproduce their ideas and phraseology.
    Her reasoning is flawless: “since the Protocols say what I said in my story, they confirm it,” or: “the Protocols confirm the story that I derived from them, and are therefore authentic.” Better still: “the Protocols could be fake, but they say exactly what the Jews think, and must therefore be considered authentic.” In other words, it is not the Protocols that produce antisemetism, it is people’s profound need to single out an Enemy that leads them to believe in the Protocols.
    I believe that-in spite of this courageous, not comic but tragic book by Will Eisner- the story is hardly over. Yet is is a story very much worth telling, for one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns.
  • Umberto Eco, Milan Italy December 2004 translated by Allesandra Bastagli, p. vi-vii
  • In 1848, driven by a revolution in Paris, King Louis Philippe abdicated and Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) was elected president of France. Four years later, after a coup d’etat, Louis Napoleon styled himself Napoleon II, emperor of France.
    Napoleon III’s first act as emperor was to imprison his political opponents. He was a crafty monarch, and his ambition during his reign was to seek glory through military adventurism while the great mass of French peasants remained ina state of poverty and despair.
    Initially, Napoleon III achieved a short-lived public popularity by trying to “modernize” France and liberalize its economy, but his legacy remains that of a dictator and conniving politician.
    In 1870, fearful that Germany was expanding too fast, Napoleon III declared war against this neighbor. The French were quickly defeated, and Napoleon III became a prisoner of war. Upon release in 1871, he was exiled to England, where he lived until his death in 1873.
    Maurice Joly was mindful of this growing tension between Germany and France. He had been born in 1821 of French parents. He was admitted to the Paris bar as an attorney and was a one-time member of the General Assembly. Joly devoted most of time to writing caustic essays on French politics. He joined many other severe critics of Napoleon III, who regarded him as a ruthless despot.
    In 1864, Joly wrote a book called “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.”…It intended to liken Napoleon III to the infamous Machiavelli, author of “The Prince,” a treatise on the acquisition of power. Holy intended to reveal the French dictator’s dark and evil plans.
  • Will Eisner, pp. 7-8
  • Maurice Joly: In “Caesar” I bluntly accused our emperor of evil offenses…in ‘’’this’’’ book I expose the nature of the man’s mind, how he thinks, y’see!
Alphonse: But, Maurice, this Napoleon has seduced the public with social gifts…libraries and wars to give them national patriotic pride.
Maurice Joly: BAH! That is the kind of pallitative all dictators give their masses! But at what price? I ask you!
Alphonse: So…you show his plan by the dialogue of Machiavelli who is known as a cunning manipulator of political power, eh?
Maurice Joly: Yes, this is the clearest way to show the similarity of Napoleon’s mind to Machiavelli’s!
Alphonse: Hmmm! A clever device I must admit!
  • p.13
  • Maurice Joly: Your honor, I have not written a lampoon here…this book’s delineations are applicable to all governments!
Prosecutor: No, your honor.. this man has written a tract that barely conceals a horrid defamation of our emperor!!
Maurice Joly: No! No! No! This book provides a call to conscience…a perspective for citizens concerned about the harsh realities of the conditions in which they live…
Furthermore, my book shows how the despotism taught by Machiavelli in “The Prince” could, by artifice and evil ways, impose itself on our society.
Prosecutor: No, your honor. It does more than that… for by ‘’’using’’’ the despotism of Machiavelli’’’ asa comparison, Joly seeks to show that Bonaparte, our sovereign, and an evil Italian are ‘’’the same’’’ in thought and deed!
Maurice Joly: If the reader sees a relationship to the infamy of the emperor, am I to blame?
Judge: Maurice Joly,I charge you with the crime of defamation! Of suggesting through shameful means that our sovereign has led the public astray, degraded our nation and corrupted our morals! This is an infamy, sir!!
Judge: Therefore, Maurice Joly, this court sentences you to 15 months imprisonment.
Maurice Joly: This is unfair and an example of this despotic society under Louis Bonaparte!
Balif: Quiet! You’ve had your say!
Judge: The emperor’s police will immediately confiscate all copies of this book they can find!
  • pp.16-19
  • When Nicholas II was crowned tsar of Russia in 1894, the country was seething with unrest. Brought up by private tutors, he had little training in the affairs of state. He was dull, reactionary, and an ineffective ruler who was easily influenced.
    Although revolution was slowly brewing, Russia on the surface remained a prisoner of its feudal past. In order to maintain the appearance of stability, Nicholas II engaged ina policy of suppreission and later on supported pogroms against Jews.
    Such anti-Semitic views were not new. Even before the assassination in 1881 of Alexander II (Nicholas II’s grandfather) the Romanov family had been convinced of p-lots against the tsar.
    During his own reign, Nicholas II was easily swayed by strong opinions. He veered from one plan to another depending on the advice of the most articulate in his council. His most trusted adviser was Sergei Yulievich Witte, a clever but sometimes unpopular councilor who was known to have liberal modernistic views regarded as controversial by conservatives, who dominated the court.
    Witte had two very resentful enemies…Gorymikine and Rachkobsky, who were associated with the secret police.
  • pp. 21-23
  • Gorymikine: Surely, he must be aware that Russia is facing a revolt!
Rachovsky: Perhaps…but let us hope, my dear Gorymikine that the Tsar will stand firm in his governance!
Gorymikine: No, my dear Rachkovsky he’ll follow whatever advice is easiest.
Rachikovsky: Well, I hear that Witte is talking him into “modernizing” Russia with a liberal bias!
Gorymikine: It will bring Russia down providing fuel to the fire. We must stop him at all costs!
  • pp.23-24
  • Rachikovsky: What if there appeared a document proving that modernization was a part of a Jewish plot?
Gorymikine: It would be absolute evidence of a threat the tsar could not ignore.
Rachikovsky: Exactly!
Gorymikine: Exactly Rachikovsky! It will make Witte’s advice suspect!
Rachikovsky: Yes, it will damage Witte’s influence and it will answer his majesty’s worry about who is behind the unrest! He distrusts’’’ Jews…it’ll be easy…
Gorymikine: But where is there such a document? I know of none!
Rachikovsky: No problem! We will make one in our secret service, the Okhrana back in France. We have been planting our own propaganda in The French press for years.
Gorymikine: It will take a very cunning forger to write it convincingly!
Rachikovsky: We will have no problem!
Don’t worry Gorymikine…I’ll be back in Moscow very soon with the ”weapon.”
  • pp.29-30
  • Mathieu Golovinski was born in the Simbirsk region of Russia in 1865 during the reign of the Romanov dynasty. His family, a part of the fading Russian aristocracy, provided him with a fragile social standing. He grew up in a leisured environment typical of families of that class.
    His father, Basil Golobinski, died,however, when Mathieu was 10 years old.
  • p.31
  • Classmate 1: Count Dashkov is close to the tsar…a minister at the court no less…
Classmate 2: Ha…that Mathieu Golovinski is a clever one. Meanwile he has a job…working as a clerk for the state police…
Classmate 3: He plays both sides……rumor has it that he organized a street protest last month!
Court clerk: You’re late again Golovinski…the judge is about to give a verdict on the evidence you provided in court!
Judge: The defendant will be brought forward!
Judge: This court convicts you as a rebel plotter!
Defense attorney: As his lawyer I protest…my client is being framed with false evidence!
Judge: These documents were provided by the state police...a responsible source…as his lawyer you were given an opportunity to examine them!
Defense attorney: Yes, I did! And they were clearly faked!. This police clerk creates and provides their evidence!
Judge: Ten years hard labor!
Defense attorney: You Golovinski, you fabricated them…you!
Golivinski: I only work for the police! So accuse them!
Defense attorney: One day you will be exposed!
Everyone knows what you are. The police hire you to fabricate evidence. It will come out’’’sooner or later!
Golovinski: Ha, ha, I’ll not be there long! Count Dashkov will find me another place!
  • pp.36-39
  • Count Dashkov: Ah, Mathieu Golovinski, I hear good things about you…I have need for a young man with your talents!
Golivinski: You flatter me, your honor, thank you! Thank you!
Count Dashkov: There is great concern at the tsar’s court these days..his majesty is quite disturbed by the people’s unrest!
Count Dashkov: I am convinced there is a deep conspiracy afoot in Russia that is poisoning people’s minds.
This evil is a threat to the monarchy itself! But it must be suppressed with powerful weapons!
Golivinski: Weapons?
Count Dashkov: Documentation, my boy…proof of their villainous conspiracy! Proof is the weapon!’’’
And you are skilled at fashioning such weapons, my boy!
So…here, I am recommending you to general of the holy synod.
Golivinski: The synod is a Christian orthodoxy…it’s members are active in proselytizing
Count Dashkov: Exactly! They have been helping the tsar by bringing Christianity to the pagan peasants in the volga…from that office any information will be accepted without question by the public!
So…do you have any question or doubts about getting involved with them?
Golivinski: Oh no!! It matters little to me.
I serve loyally whoever pays me, sir.
  • pp. 40-42
  • Pobedonostev: Aha! You are very well recommended Golivinski. You are just what we need here! Russia’s bureaucracy and its state apparatus have been infiltrated by Jews. Believe me. I’ve been studying the Jewish threat.
    As guardians of Christina Russia we must deal with them… but it will not be easy…they’re more intelligent and smarter than the average Russian. So how?? How??
Golivinski: Jews are clever but it can be done by means of their own methods… by philisophical writings, news items…and such!
Pobedonostev: Precisely!
Golivinski: For example, we could influence the readers of our Russian newspapers by planting anti-jew articles in their columns…written in the paper’s style,’’’ of course!
and we could even publish a fake newspaper that will print news about Jewish activity!
Pobedonostev: Brilliant, my boy…come, I will assign you at once to my press chief, Mikhail Soloviev!
Soloviev, I have a young assistant for you, his name Mathieu Golovinski!
Soloviev: I can use help!
I hope he’s clever. Thank you, Pobedonostev…
Now, Golovinski, to begin with…I hate jews. They are a sly race whop will creep in and destroy the purity of our Russian culture!
So, I want you to write me a piece on this subject…and make sure it makes a clear case!
Golivinski: Excuse me sir!
Soloviev:Back so soon? What is it Golovinski?
Golovinski: Here is the article you asked for
Soloviev: In only one hour? Let em read it.
Where did you get these official statistics?
Golivinski: Oh, I made them up! No one would dare to challenge them.
Soloviev: Good work! From here on you will write for our regular campaign against the new modernization!
Golvinski: Why that?
Soloviev: All liberal, capitalistic, socialistic movements are directed by jews. We must expose them.
They are the anti-christ!
Golivinski: But sir, shouldn’t we keep this political?
Soloviev: In Russia religion and politics are the same!
Our people will believe anything negative about the Jews! Go ahead boy!
  • pp. 42-48
  • Golovinski: What is the meaning of this? Why am I arrested?
Secret police chief: Mathieu Golovinski, you are accused of provocation and being an informer!
Golovinski:I am loyal to the tsar….who dares accuse me? Who?
Secret police chief: We have reliable sources.
You are sentenced to exilein the country of your choice!
Golovinski: I will go to France. I am fluent in the French language.
  • pp. 51-52
  • Rachkovsky: The tsar must have unquestionable’’’ evidence of a threat against the monarchy!
Conspirator 2: If we collect stories we plant in the French press…
Rachkovsky: NO!! Too arguable…I want us to unearth an absolutely believable document!
M. Anton: But Rachkovsky, we are absolutely certain that such a document does not exist.
Rachkovsky: We’ll manufacture one! Just think how explosive the Dreyfus affair is.
A clever loyal writer we can trust perhaps?
M. Anton: Ah, yes…there is one such on our staff!
M. Anton: We have a specialist who plants Russian articles n the press for us. He’s clever!
Conspirator: Yes, he’s been working here! …His name is Golovinski.
Rachkovsky: Bring him to me at once.
M. Anton: Now, Golovinski, what is this?!...A ”news” release from your agency?
Golovinski: But, M. Anton… this is the latest expose, which I give to your paper ‘’’exclusively!’’’
Please read it carefully!
M. Anton: Hmmm!
This is a blatant pro tsarist article! My paper does not publish such material. We have integrity, Golovinski!
Golovinski: But it is subtly written in the style of one of your authors…see?
M. Anton: Er…yes, I see. Very skillfully done…hmm – I don’t know hm m m*
Well…er…ahem. I think we can find space for your article!
Golvinski: Your readers will love it sir.
Conspirator: Ahem…Golovinski, Mr. Rachkovsky wishes to see you at once!
Rachkovsky: Before we begin, Golovinski, you should know that I’m aware of your, ahem, background!
Golovinski: I have always been loyal to our tsar!
Rachkovsky: Yes, yes, I’m sure! …Exiled from Russia and a disbarred lawyer here in Paris. Employed by our Okhrana…
Golovinski: Misunderstandings, sir…
Rachkovsky: Well now, I have a task for you, There is a serious need for a document that will stop our Tsar’s dithering!
A document that will prove to our Tsar that the Jews are behind the impending revolt..it must be an absolute proof!
Golvinski: That will not be easy!
Rachkovsky: Nevertheless I must have it in 30 days! Without fail, you understand?
  • pp.54-57
  • Golovinski: Mr. Rachkovsky, a Zionist congress met last year. I can simply fabricate a manifesto!
Rachkovsky: Not good enough…and that will take too much time!
I have a solution!
Here is an old book by someone named Maurice Joly. It appeared here in France in 1864… and four years ago our journalist Decyon tried to use it to attack Russia’s financial system.
Golovinski: The “Dialogue in hell between Machiavelli and Montesquie”!
Jolly’s book attacks Napoleon III’s government! It can be read as a plan for tyranny!
Rachkovsky: Exactly.
All you have to do is 'change this into a testament that emanates from the Jewish leaders…eh, Golovinski?
Golovinski: Ah, yes. A Jewish conspiracy! Yes, yes.
  • p.59
  • Rachkovsky: That is Sergius Nilus!
Assistant: He’s got a reputation as a mystic! He’s often invited to court. A competitor to Rasputin, he conducts séances.
  • p.61
  • Nilus: This is a program of Jewish world conquest…proof of who is behind this revolution!
Palace official 2: Hmm!
Nilus: It must be shown to the tsar at once. …Rebellion is filled with Jewish influence.
Palace official 1: Where did you get this document Nilus?
Nilus: It was given to me by Sukhotin, who secured it from our Okhrana' in Paris…beyond that I cannot tell you!
Palace official 2: Yes indeed. …This will be of great interest to the tsar.
Nilus: The sanctity of our monarchy is the will of God…Christians must defend it!
Palace official 2: Get him out of here!
  • p.64
  • 1905
    Tsar Nicholas II made inept efforts to mollify his angry people by granting basic liberties and allowing a parliament (Duma), which he kept dissolving. Meanwhile he ruthlessly suppressed the people’s rising. Royal troops fired ona peaceful march of workers in St. Petersburg on January 9, known as Bloody Sunday. Anti-Jewish pogroms were rampant. The Russian edition, published by Dr. Nilus, of the “Protocols of Zion” was widely circulated. Monarchists frequently read it aloud to illiterate peasants.
    1914
    The start of World War I led to Russian military defeats. A failing economy brought about terrible civilian suffering. Loyalists openly spoke about a “Jewish plot”.
    Food riots, strikes, and the tsar’s panicky dissolution of the Fourth Duma exploded into revolution. By November, the Bolsheviks (the revolutionary faction of the former Social Democratic workers’ party) had seized control of the government. Royalist Russians began a civil warand were defeated. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and was executed, along with his family, by Bolsheviks in 1918.
    Russian aristocrats fled Russia and dispersed throughout Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East. There they settled as expatriates. Most had little work experience.In order to earn money, they frequently sold valuables. Some of these items provided information on the Russian use of anti-Semitic literature.
  • p.66
  • 1920
    The Times
    London, Saturday, May 8, 1920.
    “The Jewish peril.”
    A disturbing pamphlet
    Call for inquiry.
    (From a correspondent.)
    The Times has not as yet noticed this singular little book. Its diffusion is, however, increasing, and its reading is likely to perturb the thinking public. Never before have a race and a creed been accused of a more sinister conspiracy. We in this country, who live in good fellowship with numerous representatives of Jewry, may well ask that some authoritative criticism should deal with it., and either destroy the ugly “Semitic” body or assign their proper place to the insidious allegations of this kind of literature.
    In spite of the urgency of impartial and exhaustive criticism, the pamphlet has been allowed, so far, to pass almost unchallenged. The Jewish Press announced, it is true, that the anti-semitism of the “Jewish Peril” was going to be exposed. But save for an unsatisfactory article in the March 5 issue of the ‘’Jewish Guardian’’ and for an almost equally unsatisfactory article in the March 5 issue of contribution to the ‘’Nation’’ of March 27, this exposure is yet to come. The article of the ‘’Jewish Guardian’’ is unsatisfactory, because it deals mainly with the personality of the author of the book in which the pamphlet is embodied, with Russian reactionary propaganda, and the Russian secret police. It does not touch the substance of the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” The purely Russian side of the book and its fervid “Orthodoxy.” Is not its most interesting feature. Its author-Professor S. Nilus-who was a minor official in the Department of Foreign Religions at Moscow, had, in all likelihood, opportunities of access to many archives and unpublished documents. On the other hand, the world-wide issue raised by the “Protocols” which he incorporated in his book and are now translated into English as “The Jewish Peril,” cannot fail not only to interest, but to preoccupy. What are the these of the “Protocols” with which, in the absence of public criticism, British readers have to grapple alone and unaided?
  • Have we, by straining every fiber of our national body, escaped a “Pax Germanica” only to fall into a “Pax Judaica”? The “Elders of Zion,” as represented in their “Protocols” are by no means kinder taskmasters than William II. And his henchmen would have been.
    All these questions, which are likely to obtrude themselves on the reader of the “Jewish Peril” cannot be dismissed by a shrug of the shoulders unless one wants to strengthen the hand of the typical anti-Semite and call forth his favourite accusation of the “conspiracy of silence.” An impartial investigation of these would-be documents and of their history is most desirable. That history is by no means clear from the English translation. They would appear, from internal evidence, to have been written by Jews for Jews, or to be cast in the form of lectures, and notes for lectures, by Jews to Jews. If so, in what circumstances were they produced and to cope with what inter-Jewish emergency? Or are we to dismiss the whole matter without inquiry and to let the influence of such a book as this work unchecked?
  • Zionist Aspirations
    Dr. Weizmann on Future of Palestine.
    Dr. Weizmann; the Zionist leader, who had just returned from the Conference at San Remo, in the course of a statement yesterday on the future of Palestine expressed his appreciation, and that of his fellow Zionists for the assistance rendered to their cause by The Times. The Balfour declaration, by being incorporated in the Treat with Turkey, had received international sanction. Dealing with the mandate conferred on Great Britain, he said:-
    There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria.
  • p.67
  • Graves: Quite a lot of attention has been given to this “Protocol” matter in England! An English edition of it, “The Jewish Peril,” appeared last January…and the “Illustrated Sunday Herald” carried a big article on it February 8, 1920
  • International Jews.
    In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia) Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemborg (Germany) and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire.
Graves: This was written by Winston Churchill, a highly regarded M.P. in England…so, I need hardly remind you that it will take strong evidence to prove the “Protocols” ‘’’a fake!’’’
Raslovlev: At an old bookshop I got a copy of “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” by Maurice Joly, 1864.
I examined what I had. It was obvious that the “Protocols of Zion” was copied from it.
Graves: How did you get this?
Raslovlev: I bought this book from a friend, formerly of the Okhrana, our secret agents in France. They ordered the plagiarism!
When the Bolsheviks came in, we left with what we could take out with us.
How much is it worth to you, or your paper, Mr. Graves?
Graves: Hmm…can’t say yet! …Is Geneva really the place of publication??
Raslovlev: I do know that the “Protocols of Zion: was intended to prove to the Tsar that the Revolt in Russia was a Jewish Plot…it was written by an Okhrana agent…a plagiarist, Mathieu Golovinski!
When it was first published in Russia round 1902, its publisher, Dr. Nilus, claimed it to be notes stolen from an 1897 Zionist congress by French agents!
Graves: But that congress was convened by Theodore Herzl to promote a Jewish state. It was not a secret meeting…Dr. Nilus’s claim is a lie!
Raslovlev: Yes, it is indeed! Let me show you…we will compare the “Protocols” with Joly’s Book.
Raslovlev: Set them side by side Graves, and you will see obvious plagiarism of Joly’s “dialogue!”
Graves: I see…be patient while I go through it…yes! Yes! Yes!
  • pp. 70-73
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    First Dialogue
Machiavelli: The evil instinct in man is more powerful than the good. Man leans more toward the evil than the good; fear and power have more control over him than reason….All men seek power, and there is none who would not be an oppressor if he could; all, or nearly all, are ready to sacrifice the rights of others to their own interests.
What restrains these ravenous animals that we call men> In the beginnings of society, it is brute force, without control; later, it is the law, that is, force again, ruled by certain forms. You have consulted all the sources of history; everywhere force appears before justice.
Political liberty is only a relative idea….
Protocols:
Number 1, paras. 3-6
It must be noted that men with and instincts are more in number than the good, and therefore the best results in governing them are attained by violence and terrorization, and not by academic discussions. Every man aims at power, everyone would like to become a dictator if only he could, and rare indeed are the men who would be willing to sacrifice the welfare of all for the sake of securing their own welfare. What has restrained the beasts of prey who are called men? What has served for their guidance hitherto?
In the beginnings of the structure of society they were subjected to brute and blind force afterwards to law, which is the same force, only disguised. I draw the conclusion that by the law of nature right lies in force. Political freedom is an idea but not a fact.
  • p.73
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    First Dialogue
    States, once constituted, have two kinds of enemies: the enemies within and the enemies without. What arms shall they employ in war against the foreigners? Will the two enemy generals communicate to one another their campaign plans in order that each shall be able to defend himself? Will they forbid themselves night attacks, snares, ambuscades, battles in which the number of troops are unequal? Without doubt, they will not. And such fighters would make one laugh. And these snares, these artifices, all this strategy indispensable to warfare, you don’t want them to be employed against the enemies with ink, against the disturbers of peace?... Is it possible to conduct by pure reason violent masses which are moved only by sentiment, passion, and prejudice?
  • Protocols:
    Number 1, paras. 9,10
    If every State has two foes, and if in regard to the external foe it is allowed and not considered immoral to use every manner and art of conflict, as for example to keep the enemy in ignorance of plans of attack and defense, to attack him by night or in superior numbers, then in what way can the same means in regard to a worse foe, the destroyer of the structure of society and the commonweal, be called immoral and not permissible?
    Is it possible for any sound logical mind to hope with any success to guide crowds by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments,, when any objection or contradiction, senseless though it may be, can be made and when such objection may find more favor with the people, whose powers of reasoning are superficial?
Graves: The basic ideas are the same despite word changes like… “two kinds of enemies” versus, “two foes.”
  • p.74
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    First Dialogue
Machiavelli: Has politics anything to do with morals?...
This word “justice” itself, by the way, do you not see that it is infinitely vague?
Where does it begin, where does it end? When will justice exist, when will it not exist? I take examples. Here is a State: bad organization of public powers, turbulence of democracy, impotence of laws to control discontented disorder, which reins everywhere, will all precipitate it into ruin. A strong man thrusts himself from the ranks of the aristocracy or from the heart of the people; he breaks through all constituted power; he puts his hand on the laws, he alters all the years of peace to his country, Did he have the right to do what he has done?
  • Protocols:
    Number 1, paras. 11,12,13,14
    The political has nothing in common with the moral.
    The word “right is an abstract thought and proved by nothing.
    Where does right begin? Where does it end?
    In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rights over multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism.
  • Raslovlev: The “protocols” written in 1897 states that the elders decreed the expulsion of all non-Jewish secret societies.
Graves: I question that! For in 1851’’’ Napoleon III, Joly’s enemy, banned and imprisoned 26,000 members of secret societies in France…46 years before the “Protocols”!
  • p.75
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    First Dialogue
Machiavelli:…I am less preoccupied by what is good and moral than by what is useful and necessary.
…I will tell you that, as a witness in my homeland of the fickleness and the cowardice of the populace, of its innate taste for slavery, of its incapacity to conceive and to respect the conditions of free life; it is to my eyes a blind force which dissolves itself sooner or later, if it is not in the hands of a single man that it would never be able to administer, nor to judge, nor to make war….
  • Protocols:
    Number 1, paras. 16, 18, and 20
    Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful.
    In order to elaborate satisfactory forms of action it is necessary to have regard to the rascalist, the slackness, the instability of the mob, its lack of capacity to understand and respect the conditions of its own life, or its own welfare. It must be understood that the might of a mob is a blind, senseless and unreasoning force ever the mercy of a suggestion from any side….
    A people left to itself, i.e., to starts from its midst, bring itself ro ruin by party dissensions excited by the pursuit of power and honors and the disorders arising therefrom. Is it possible for the masses of the people calmly and without petty jealousies to form judgement, to deal with the affairs of the country which cannot be mixed up with personal interest? Can they defend themselves from an external foe?
Raslovlev: Do you mean to go through all the 23 protocols, Graves?
Graves: Yes, I do!
  • p.76
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Fourth Dialogue
    There are tremendous populations riveted to labor by poverty, as they were in other times by slavery. What difference, I ask you, do your fictions make to their happiness? Your great political movement has after all only ended in the triumph of a minority privileged by chance as the ancient nobility was by birth. What difference does it make to the proletariat bent over in its labor, weighted down by the heaviness of its destiny, that some orators have the right to speak, that some journalists have the right to write? You have created rights which will be purely academic for the mass of the people, since it cannot make use of them. These rights, of which the law permits him the ideal enjoyment and necessity refuses him the actual exercise, are the people only a bitter irony of defeat.
  • Protocols:
    Number 3, para. 5
    All people are chained to heavy toil by poverty more firmly than ever they were chained by slavery and serfdom; from these, one way and another, they might free themselves, these could be settled with, but from want they will never get away. We have included in the constitution such rights as to the masses appear fictitious and not actual rights. All these so-called “People’s Rights” can exist only in idea, an idea which can never be realized in practical life. What is it to the proletariat laborer, bowed double over his heavy toil, crushed by his lot in life, if talkers get the right to babble, if journalists get the right to scribble nonsense side by side with good stuff, once the proletariat has no other profit out of the constitution save only those pitiful crumbs which we fling them from out table in return for their voting in favor of what we dictate, in favor of the men we place in power, the servants of our agenteur…. Republican Rights for a poor man are no more than a bitter piece of irony.
Graves: Aha!...A very obvious cop, almost word for word and a careful insertion of modern language such as “People’s Rights” and “Republican Rights.”
  • p.77
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Fourth Dialogue
Machiavelli: You do not know the unfathomable cowardice of humanity, servile in the face of force, pitiless in the face of weakness, implacable before blunders, indulgent before crimes, incapable of supporting the contrarities of a liberal regime, and patient to the point of martyrdom before all the violences of bold despotism, upsetting thrones in its moments of anger, and giving itself rulers whom it pardons for actions the least of which would have caused it to decapitate twenty constitutional kings.
  • Protocols:
    Number 3, para. 16
    It is the bottomless rascality of the goyim peoples, who crawl on their bellies to force, but are merciless toward weakness, unsparing to faults, and indulgent to crimes, unwilling to bear the contradictions of a free social system but patient unto martyrdom under the violence of a bold despotism. It is those qualities which are aiding us to independence. From the premier-dictators of the present day the goyim peoples suffer patiently and bear such abuse as for the least of them they would have beheaded twenty kings.
Graves: An obvious ineptitude!...Notice “humanity” in the “dialogue” becomes “goyim” in the “protocols,” a Yiddish word taken from the Hebrew that Jews use for gentiles. Could anyone believe that the elders would be so naïve and careless as to employ a common ethnic word in such a formal tract as the Protocols”?
  • p.78
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Ninth Dialogue
Machiavelli: And where have you ever seen that a constitution, really worthy of the name, really durable, has ever been the result of popular deliberation? A constitution must come forth fully armed from the head of one man alone, or it is nothing but a work condemned to oblivion. Without homogeneity, without linking of parties, without practical strength, it will necessarily bear the imprint of all the weaknesses of sight that have presided at its composition….
Montesquieu: …One would say, to hear you, that you are going to draw a people out of chaos or out of the deep night of their first origins….
Machiavelli: I do not say no: therefore you will see that I need not destroy your institutions from top to bottom to arrive at my goal. It will suffice me to modify the arrangements and to change the methods.
  • Protocols:
    Number 10, paras. 6,7
    A scheme of government should come ready made from one brain, because it will never be clinched firmly if it is allowed to split into fractional parts in the minds of many. It is allowable, therefore, for us to have cognizance of the scheme of action but not to discuss it lest we disturb its artfulness, and interdependence of its component parts, the practical force of the secret meaning of each clause. To discuss and make alteration in a labor of this kind by means of numerous votings is to impress upon it the stamp of all ratiocinations and misunderstandings which have failed to penetrate the depth and nexus of its plottings….
    These schemes will not turn existing institutions upside down just yet, They will only effect changes in their economy and consequently in the whole combined movement of their progress, which will thus be directed along the paths laid down in our schemes.
  • Graves: Here, we can clearly see how an idea is copied!
  • p.79
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Tenth Dialogue
Machiavelli:…Now, once more, what is the Council of State?...It is nothing but a Draughting Committee. When the Council of State makes a law, it is really the sovereign who makes it; when it renders a judgement, it is the sovereign who renders it….
Montesquieu: It is true that if we evaluate the sum of the powers which lie in your hands, you ought to begin to be satisfied.
To sum up
You make the laws: 1. In the form of propositions to the legislative body; 2. In the form of decrees; 3. In the form of senatorial decrees; 4. In the form of general regulations; 5. In the form of resolutions at the Council of State; 6. In the form of ministerial regulations; 7. And finally, in the form of coups d’etat.
  • Protocols:
    Number 11, paras. 1,2
    The state Council has been, as it were, the emphatic expression of the ruler; it will be, as the “show” part of the Legislative Corps what may be called the editorial committee of the alws and decrees of the ruler. Br> This, then, is the program of the new constitution. We shall make Law, Right, and Justice (1) in the guide of proposals to the Legislative Corps, (2) by the decrees of the president under the guise of general regulations, of orders of the Senate and of resolutions of the State Council in the guise of ministerial orders, (3) and in case a suitable occasion should arise, in the form of a revolution in the State.
  • Graves: When copying the “Dialogues”…why would the :Protocols” alter “coups d'etat: to “revolution”?
Raslovlev: Obviously it was to address the Tsar’s concern over a Russian revolution, eh?
  • p.80
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Thirteenth Dialogue
Machiavelli: This is because you do not understand, Montesquieu! How much impotence and even simplicity is found among the majority of men of European demagoguism. These tigers have souls of sheep, heads full of wind. Their dream is the absorption of the individual into a symbolic unity. They demand the complete realization of equality.
  • Protocols:
    Number 15, para. 6
    You cannot imagine to what extent the wisest of the goyim can be brought to a state of unconscious naivete in the presence of this condition of high conceit of themselves, and at the same time how easy it is to take the heart out of them…. These tigers in appearance have the souls of sheep and the wind blows freely through their heads. We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorbtion of individuality by the symbolic unit of Collectivism….
  • Graves: “…Tigers with the souls of sheep and heads full of wind…” A CLEVER METAPHOR…NO WONDER THE “PROTOCOLS” COPIES IT!
  • p.81
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Seventeenth Dialogue
Montesquieu:… Now I understand the apologue the god Vishnu; you have a hundred arms like the Hindu idol and each one of your fingers touches a spring. In the same way that you touch everything, are you also able to see everything?
Machiavelli: Yes, for I shall make of the police an institution so vast that in the heart of my kingdom half of the people shall see the other half…
…If, as I scarcely doubt, I succeed in attaining this result, here are some of the forms by which my police would manifest themselves abroad: men of pleasure and good company in the foreign courts, to keep an eye on the intrigues of the princes and of the exiled pretenders…the establishment of political newspapers in the great capitals, printers and book stores places in the same conditions and secretly subsidized.
  • Protocols:
    Number 17, paras. 7,8
    Our kingdom will be an apologia of the divinity Vishnu, in whom is found its personification – in our hundred hands will be, one in each, the springs of the machinery of social life. We shall see everything without the aid of official police…. In our programs one-third of our subjects will keep the rest under observation….
    Our agents will be taken from the higher as well as the lower raniks of society, from among the administrative class who spend their time in amusements, editors, printers, and publishers, booksellers, clerks, and salesmen, workmen, coachmen, lackeys, et cetera….
  • Graves: Now, why on earth would the Elders of Zion have their kingdom be an apologia for Vishnu, a Hindu God?
  • p.82
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Twentieth Dialogue
Montesquieu: After all, the expenditures must be in proportion to the revenues….
Machiavelli: Now, this is how things work out: the general at the beginning of the year, comes to a total amount of, let us say, 800 millions. When half of the year is gone, the financial facts already no longer correspond to the first estimates; so what is called a rectifying budget is presented in the Chambers, and this budget adds 100 millions, 150 millions to the original figure. Then comes the supplementary budget: it adds 50 or 60 millions;
  • Protocols
    Number 20, paras. 26-32
    The budgets of income and expenditure will be carried out side by side that they may not be obscured by distance one to another.
    …The first irregularity, as we shall point out, consists in their beginning with drawing up a single budget which year after year grows owing to the following cause: this budget is dragged out to half the year, ten they demand a
Graves: Clearly, the “Protocols” author adapts the text of “Dialogues” so carelessly in his hasty attempt to Prove a Jewish conspiracy!
  • p.83
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    finally comes the liquidation which adds 15, 20, or 30 millions. In short, in the general reckoning, the total of the unforeseen expenses forms one-third of the estimated expenditures. It is upon this last figure that the legislative vote of the Chambers falls as a form of confirmation. In this way, at the end of ten years the budget can be doubles and even tripled….
Monsesquieu:… It is certain that there are few governments who are not obliged to have recourse to borrowing; but it is also certain that they are obliged to make use of them sparingly; they could not, without immorality and danger, encumber future generations with exorbitant burdens, out of all proportion to
  • Protocols:
    supplementary budget, and all this ends up in accordance with the sum of the total addition, the annual departure from the normal reaches up as much as 50 percent in a year, and so the annual budget is trebled in ten years….
    Every kind of loan proves infirmity in the State and a want of understanding of the rights of the State. Loans hang like a sword of Damocles over the heads of rulers, who, instead of taking from their subjects by a temporary tax, come begging with outstretched palm of our bankers…the Goy states go on in persisting in putting more on to themselves to that they must inevitably perish, drained by voluntary blood-letting.
Graves: Their interest calculations are the same to support the financial dangers of loans!
  • p.84
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    probable resources. How are loans made? By the issue of bonds containing an obligation on the part of the government to pay a yearly interest proportionate to the capital which has been depleted. If the loan is at 5 percent, for instance, the state, at the end of twenty years, has paid a sum equal to the capital borrowed; at the end of forty years, a double amount; at the end of sixty years, a triple amount, and yet it always remains debtor for the total of the same capital. The modern states wished to put a necessary
  • Protocols: What also indeed is, in substance, a loan, especially a foreign loan? A loan is an issue of government bills of exchange containing a percentage obligation commensurate to the sum of the loan capital. If the loan bears a charge of 5 percent, then in twenty years the State vainly pays away in interest a sum equal to the loan borrowed, in forty years it is paying a double sum, in sixty treble and all the while the debt remains an unpaid debt.
    from this calculation it is obvious that with any form of taxation per head the State is bailing out the last coppers of the poor taxpayers in order to settle accounts…;instead of collecting
Graves: These two books were written 40 years apart from each other…why is the same interest rate employed by the “Protocols”? Surely they must have changed during all that time.
Raslovlev: Very revealing…eh?
  • p.85
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    limitation to the increase of taxes. So they conceived a scheme truly admirable for its simplicity…. A special fund was created, the capitalized resources of which are meant to be a permanent redemption of the public debt by successive fractions; so that every time the state borrows, it must endow the sinking fund with a certain capital for the purpose of liquidating the new debt at a given time….
    Our system of accounting, fruit of long experience, is distinguished by the clarity and the certitude of its procedures. It obstructs abuses and gives to no one, from the smallest official to the chief of state himself, the means of diverting the least sum from its original purpose, or of making irregular use of it.
  • Protocols:
    these coppers for its own need without additional interest.
    So long as loans were internal the Goyim only shuffled their money from the pockets of the poor to those of the rich, but when we brought up the necessary person in order to transfer the loans into the external sphere, all the wealth of States flowed into out cash boxes….
    We shall so hedge about our system of accounting that neither the ruler nor the most insignificant public servant will be in a position to divery even the smallest sum from its destination without detection or to direct it in another direction except that which will be once fixed in a definite plan of action.
  • Graves: Now…why would the elders of Zion in their protocols of world domination devote so much time to the ‘’’mundane’’’ details of financial management??
  • p.86
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Twenty-First Dialogue
Machiavelli: I am afraid that you are somewhat prejudiced against loans;… modern economists today expressly recognize that, far from impoverishing the state, public debts enrich it. Will you allow me to explain how?
Montesquieu:….I should first of all like to know from whom you will ask so much capital, and for what reason you will ask it.
Machiavelli: For that, foreign wars are a great help. In the great states, they permit the borrowing of five or six hundred millions; one manages so as to spend only half or two-thirds, and the rest finds its place in the treasury for domestic expenditures.
  • Protocols
    Number 21, paras 1, 11
    To what I reported to you at the last meeting I shall say nothing more, because they have fed us with national moneys opf the Goyim….
    We have taken advantage of the venality of administrators and slackness of rulers to get our moneys twice,thrice, and more times over, by lending to Goy governments moneys which were not.
  • Graves:…unless, of course, this was not written by the elders at all…as we suspect!
  • p.87
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    Twenty-third through twenty-fifth dialogues
Machiavelli: The cult of the prince is a sort of religion and, like all possible religions, this cult prescribes contradictions and mysteries beyond reason.
…I wish my aims to be impenetrable, even to those who are closest to me. I would only communicate my projects when I gave the command for execution….
His counselors ask one another secretly what he will think of next. He personifies in their eyes the Providence whose ways are
  • Protocols:
    Number 24, paras. 3-15
    Certain members of the sneed of David will prepare the kings and their heirs inducting them into the most secret mysteries of the political, into schemes of government, but providing always that none may come to knowledge of the secrets….
    The king’s plan of action for the current moment, and all the more so for the future, will be unknown, even to those who are called his closest counselors. <br? Only the king and the three who stood sponsor for him will know what is coming.
    In the person of the king who with unbending will is master.
  • Graves: An obvious adaptation! Where the “Dialogue” uses ‘’’prince’’’, the “Protocols” uses ‘’’king.’’’
  • p.88
  • Dialogue in Hell:
    inscrutable…They never know if some enterprise already prepared will not descend on them from one day to the other.
    A Prince whose power is founded upon a democratic base, must speak carefully, albeit popularly. If necessary he must not fear to speak like a demagogue, for after all he is the people, and he must have its passions...
    You asked me a moment ago if I knew self-denial, if I would sacrifice myself for my people, relinquish the throne if necessary; now you have my answer, I can relinquish it as a martyr.
  • Protocols:
    of himself and of humanity all will discern as it were fate with its mysterious ways. None will know what the king wishes to attain by his dispositions, and therefore none will dare to stand across an unknown path….
    That the people may know and love their king, it is indispensable for him to converse in the market-places with his people. This ensures the necessary clinching of two forces which are now divided one from another by us by the terror.
    The prop of humanity in the person of the supreme lord of all the world of the holy seed of David must sacrifice to his people all personal inclinations.
  • p.89
  • ”Jewish Peril” exposed.
    Historic “Fake.”
    Details of the forgery.
    More parallels.
    We published yesterday an article from our Constantinople Correspondent, which showed that the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – one of the mysteries of politics since 1905 – were a clumsy forgery, the text being based on a book published in French in 1865. The book, without title page, was obtained by our correspondent from a Russian source, and we were able to identify it with a complete copy in the British Museum.
    The disclosure, which naturally aroused the greatest interest among those familiar with Jewish questions, finally disposes of the “Protocols” as credible evidence of a Jewish plot against civilization.
    We publish below a second article, which gives further close parallels between the language of the Protocols and that attributed to Machiavelli and Montesquieu in the volume dated from Geneva.
    Plagiarism at Work.
    (From our Constantinople Correspondent.)
    While the Geneva Dialogue open with an exchange of compliments between Monsequieu and Machiavelli, which covers seven pages, the author of the Protocols plunges at once in medias res.
    One can imagine him hastily turning over those first seven pages of the book which he has been ordered to paraphrase against time, and angrily ejaculating, “Nothing here.” But on page 8 of the Dialogues he finds what he wants.
Publisher: Good work Graves…we finally paid your émigré £ 300 for it…now if we can find Golovinski and get his confession…
Graves: He joined the Bolsheviks.
Golovinski became a party ‘’’activist’’’ and rose to be an adviser to Trotsky. But he ‘’’died’’’ last year!
Publisher: Well, that’s that!
Publisher: Oh but Graves, “The Times” is influential… after our expose we’ll probably hear no more of this fraud!
Graves: I’m not sure!
Anti-Bolsheviks, White Russians, published thousands of copies! Here’s a page from Nilus’ “The Great in the Small.”
Publisher: Astonishing…mystical symbols…eh?
The “Protocols” quickly began to circulate around the world.
A French edition this year…and in America Henry Ford, the auto magnate, has been serializing it in his paper, the “Dearborn independent”!
Publisher: When did it first appear in Europe?
Graves: The German edition…dated 1919, was the first!
This is an evil book…a fake designed to malign a whole group of people.
Publisher: I know, I know! …Ugly stuff, Graves.
Graves: Well, what are we to do about it?
Publisher: Your report exposed it as a foul fraud!
Publisher: Y’forget the power of the press, graves! “The Times” has tremendous worldwide influence.
This fraud will soon be well known everywhere…so, my boy, ‘’’what harm can the “protocols” possibly do now?
  • pp. 91-94
  • 1921 Germany
Hitler: Inflation is another word for hunger…part of the Jews’ strategy to undermine nations!
Also this comes from the peace treaty of Versailles, which the allies imposed upon our Germany in 1919. It is the work of Woodrow Wilson, the American stooge and his 117 jew bankers.
Reporter: …It sounds like tat young upstart has taken this right out of the “Protocols of Zion”!
Nazi: why not? Hitler has often said we should strike at Jews with their own tactics.
Reporter: Are you aware that “The Times” of London has just exposed the “Protocols” as a fraud?
Nazi: So what!? We know that.
Nazi 2: The Jews are’’’ what the book reveals!...Sly, and dangerous.
Reporter: but don’t you think the world will…
Nazi: The English press is dominated by Jews, what are you trying to do here? <br? He’s a reporter trying to provoke us. He must be a communist jew!!
The “Protocols of Zion” will be our bible. You can report that Jew!
  • 1923 Germany
Nazi 3: Have you seen Gottfried Zur Beek’s “Protocols”? …It’s a success! And general Ludendorf’s article last year has clearly “Identified our enemy” with the public.
Nazi 4: We need this now. Our country is suffering from the worst inflation..we’re in rins. This is ‘’’splendid propaganda!’’’
I see, Beek uses the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to show the jewish plot to control the world!
Nazi 3: Make sure that Hitler gets a copy at once…he will want to study it.
  • Adolf Hitler, while spending three years in jail for the Beer Hall Putsch, writes his famous book “Mein Kampf.”
  • Hitler: To what extend the whole existence of his [Jewish] people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION.
  • pp. 94-98
  • 1934 Bern, Switzerland The Trial
  • Reporter: Ha! Ha! Ha!
Reporter 2: What’s so funny?
Reporter: The judge asked both parties to produce an expert on the contents of the protocols!
Reporter 2: So?
Reporter: The Jewish committee produced a dozen! The Nazis could not produce any…
So…the Nazis simply submitted the name of a clergyman nobody could find.
Reporter 2: So?
Reporter: Anyhow, the judge postponed the trial to next April!
  • p.101
  • April 1935
  • Reporter: The “Protocols” trial is on today. I’ve been assigned to report on it for my paper.
Reporter 2: What’s your hurry Carl? The Jewish community’s lawyer is trying to show the damage done by the “Protocols of Zion” book.
Lawyer: Your honor, we have demonstrated that the “Protocols” is ‘’’smut…’’’ I would conclude by exhibiting evidence of its influence on public opinion as a fraud.
Judge: You may proceed!
Lawyer: Since its first publication in Russia by Dr. Nilus in 1905, four printings have been distributed there!
In 1919, type script copies were distributed to delegated at the Versailles peace conference by white Russians.
In England Victor Marsden translated the “protocols” into English in 1922.
In 1920, the first polish language edition was brought into the United States and South America by Polish immigrants.
In 1921, the first Arabic and the first Italian copies appeared!
In 1921, “The Times” of London published its famous expose of this false document!
And because of his fame, Henry Ford’s work deserves recounting.
Lawyer: In 1920, Henry ford the American auto magnate, bought a small newspaper, the “Dearborn Independent.” He began a series, “The International Jew,” made up of borrowings from the “Protocols of the Elders on Zion.”
Later, in 1922, it was published in sxteen language for a world-wide distribution. It sold over a ‘’’half million’’’ copies in America alone!
Reporter: Actually, Ford recanted in 1926 when he was threatened with a libel suit.
Reporter 2: Really?
Reporter 3: What did he say?
Reporter: He said in part, “…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
HE WENT ON TO SAY, “…I am…mortified that this Journal…is giving currency to ‘The Protocols of the wise men of Zion,’ which I learn to be gross forgeries…I deem it my duty…to make amends for the wrong done to the Jews as fellow men and brothers by asking their forgiveness.
HE GOES ON BY RECITING SOME OF THE MORE “evil ingredients” in the “Protocols” AND HE REFERS TO IT AS AN “infamous forgery.”
Reporter 3: DID HIS APOLOGY CHANGE ANYTHING?? HENRY FORD WAS FAMOUS the world over…his apology must have had influence!
Reporter: Not very much. In fact publication increased all over the globe.
Reporter 3: Look! Here I have two French translations of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” that were published in ‘’’France,’’’ dated 1934. Later they had many printings!
Judge: …I hope to see the day when nobody will be able to understand why otherwise sane and reasonable men should torment their brains for fourteen days over the authenticity or fabrication of the “Protocols of Zion”’’’…I regard the “protocols” as ridiculous nonsense!
Reporter: Good news! …judge Meyer found against the Nazis and imposed a fine on them…
Publisher: We will publish the judge’s decision!
Reporter: This should put an end to the “Protocols” at last!
  • pp. 102-107
  • 1945
    As the Allies rummages through documents in the wreckage of defeated Germany, evidence of the influence of the “Protocols” was found by American Intelligence.
Allied soldier: Hey, Sarge whatcha got there?
Sarge: Wow!! Joseph Goebbels’ private diaries! Look at this…volume 13…here’s a translation.
I have devoted exhaustive study to the Protocols of Zion. In the past objection was always made that they were not suited to present day propaganda. In reading them now I find that we can use them very well. The Protocols of Zion are as modern today as they were when published the first time! At noon I mentioned this to the Fuhrer. He believed the protocols to be absolutely genuine!
  • p.110
 
Research desk: Haw! Good luck! You’re dealing with an old vampire that will not die in spite of all the absolute proof of fraudulence.
  • 1993 California
    Los Angeles Times November 28, 1993
    “In what observers called an historic ruling, a Russian court has pronounced the infamous Protocols of Zion an anti-semitic forgery…[It is] the first such verdict in the land where the fraud originated 90 years ago. ‘Up to now, every country has disengaged itself from this shameful book except Russia where it was concocted,’ Tancred Golenpolsky, the publisher of the Moscow Jewish newspaper that won the ruling, said Saturday. The court cast arose 10 months after Golenpolsky’s Jewish Gazette accused the radical nationalist Group Pamyat (Memory) of printing anti-Semitic sentiments…Fostering ethnic conflict is punishable under Russian law.”
Graphic novelist: I’m writing a graphic book that will reveal the true origin of the infamous “Protocols of Zion.” I hope it will alert those who are ignorant of its falsehood!!
Research desk: Haw! Good luck! You’re dealing with an old vampire that will not die in spite of all the absolute proof of fraudulence.
  • p.113
  • Research desk: Despite the Russian court’s condemnation and the Dodd Keating congressional report in 1964, the world wide use and publication of the “Protocols” has continued.
    Not only did the Ku Klux Klan continue to distribute the book in America.. but in 1968, in Beiruit, the Islamic institute there published 300,000 copies in French, Italian, Spanish, and Arabic.
Graphic novelist: Then why? Why? When everyone knows that the “protocols” is a fake… why are they still publishing it?
Research desk: Because it is a weapon of mass deception!
  • p.114
  • Researcher: In almost every country there are people trying to seize political power! What is the easy way?
Graphic novelist: Well…I guess by identifying a felt threat to the people and leading a defense!
So you pick a group of people who are vulnerable and could seem to be a threat!
Research desk: Well how about aminority with a history of rejection. The trick is to discover a document that proves their guilt.
Graphic novelist: But suppose that document is shown to be a fake?
Research desk: No matter people will buy it anyway!
Graphic novelist: Why?
Researcher: Because they need to justify the conduct they may alter be ashamed of!
Graphic novelist: And of course, their reaction to social change!
  • p.115
  • Research desk: In 1930, a Spanish edition of the “Protocols” appeared. And in 1972 another edition was published there and used to explain certain Vatican reforms by the Catholic Church!
    It Italy in 1930 the neo-fascist group Ordino Nuovo circulated a new edition of the “Protocols”!
    And also in 1930 the neo-facist group ordino nuovo circulated a new edition of the “Protocols”!
    And also in 1930 in Argentina “Los Protocols De Los Savios De Sion Y La Subversion Mundial” appeared. It was supposed to predict a plot to found a Jewish state by Zionists in Argentina.
  • p.116
  • Research desk: In 1972, an edition of the “Protocols of Zion” was published in Egypt!
    In 1974 an edition of the “Protocols” was published in Bombay, India, entitled “International Conspiracy Against Indians.”
    In 1972, the USSR embassy in Paris released an anti-Israel paper that contained passages from the “Protocols of Zion.'
    In 1977, in America, a national states’ rights party published three editions of the “protocols”…in English!
    In 1978, this book appeared in shops around England!
  • p.117
  • Research desk: In 1987 a Japanese language edition of the “Protocols” appeared in Japan!
    In 1988 the Palestinian activist group Hamaas published the “Protocols” to denounce Zionists.
    And in 1990 this appeared in Damascus
  • p.118
  • Research desk: In 1992, a Mexican edition of the “Protocols"’’’ was listed in a few Catholic schools as required reading!
    And that same year in     Turkey, a newspaper carried a 40-page insert that linked Freemasonry to Jewish world power headed by 70 elders!
    Again in     1992 a Russian edition of the “Protocols of Zion” appeared.
    Well, that’s the     whole story, sir.
Graphic novelist: Thank you! But this is only one element of the whole story!
  • p.119
  • 1999
Speaker: I’m pleased to report that after much research a respected historian, Mikhail Lepekhin, has thanks to files kept by the former Soviet Union, proved that Mathieu Golovinski was the forger of the “Protocols of Zion.” An important French news magazine has at last identified the original author!
  • Audience member: At last we have an unquestionable disclosure that erases any claim to legitimacy of the “protocols of the Elders of Zion”!
Graphic novelist: Yes, at last!
But will that stop the use of the “protocols”?
  • p.121
  • 2000
    Louisiana, U.S.A.
Graphic novelist: Down here I discover that “The Christian Defense League” is distributing copies of “The International Jew,” which Henry Ford published years ago!
Man smoking pipe: Not only here!! Recently in Lebanon, the brother of the late president of Egypt, Nasser, published a Lebanese edition of the “Protocols”!
  • 2001
    San Diego, U.S.A.
Graphic novelist: Excuse me where did you get this pamphlet?
Student: Why?
Graphic novelist: Well, it urges the reading of the “Protocos of Zion” for the truth about the jews.
Student: Oh! That is part of a demonstration this week here at the university by an ethnic’’’ student association!
  • p.122
  • Graphic novelist: Excuse me…you’ve got a copy of the “Protocols of Zion” there! …Why?
Student 2: It reveals the jews’ plan to rule us!
Student 3: Yeah!
Student 4: There’s a jew' in every major government postof the western world, see?
Student 5: Jews are behind all the bad things that are happening today!
Student 2: Yeah, their plan is clearly laid out in the “Protocols,” see?
Graphic novelist: Wait a minute!…what if it has been proven that the book is a fake?
It is the invention of a forger working for the old Russian secret service in 1898 to defame Jews
The protocols never existed never!
  • p.123
  • Graphic novelist: Don’t you feel foolish accepting that lie?
Student 3: Well…well…ah, maybe the jews used this book to make their plans!
Student 4: Yeah.
Even if it is a fake! People should read the book because it reveals the jews!!
Graphic novelist: That doesn’t make sense, it…
  • p.124
  • 2002
Graphic novelist: Finally! Here’s my report and the manuscript that narrates the history of the origin of this fraud!!
Publisher: Well, not yet!...In November of this year, a number of arab television channels have been broad casting a TV serial, “Knight Without a Horse,” based on the “Protocols of Zion”!
It is sponsored by the Egyptian state television among others…and on November 17, 2001, the Egyptian weekly “Roz-al-Youssuf” praised the series for revealing that the “Protocols of Zion” is the central line that dominates Israel’s policy!
Graphic novelist: Oh, my!
  • p.125
  • Publisher: But the good news is….the U.S. state department called on Egypt to stop it…and the intellectual community of Egypt helped to prevent its broadcast. And recently the Russian government appointed a group of independent experts who examined and certified that the “protocols of Zion” is a fraud!
Graphic novelist: At last, at last!
Publisher: So, we can finally say that this is the end of the “Protocols of Zion,” eh?
Finally, finally!!
  • p.126
  • 2004 The Protocols of Zion is still sold in bookstores around the world
  • p.128

Quotes about Will Eisner

edit
 
It’s mythic New York. And that’s what Will drew. He and I really did share two profound loves: One was for New York, and the other was for beautiful women. ~ Frank Miller
edit
 
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Will_Eisner&oldid=3583075"