ous
with Christian civilization. He was quite astonished when I directed
his attention to the fact that a well-known French writer, Louis
Martin, had published, as far back as 1895, a book in which he
attempted to prove the existence of such a world-wide Jewish
conspiracy. My friend honestly believed that the existence of this
conspiracy had never been known or suspected prior to the publication
of the work of the mysterious Sergei Nilus. He was still more
surprised when I told him that in his book, _L'Anglais Est-Il un
Juif?_, Martin had attempted to prove that the English people are part
of the Jewish race, and that the British government is the principal
directing power of the conspiracy; so that the world-wide Jewish
conspiracy must, according to Martin, be understood as a secret
compact between the British government, as a Jewish organization, and
the leaders of Jewry in all other lands. Thus is the theory of a
world-wide Jewish conspiracy reduced to absurdity. I confess that at
that time I was not aware that in the original Russian of the 1905
edition of the work of Nilus this absurd theory of Martin had been
reproduced, but carefully omitted from every English translation
published in this country and in England. The reason for the omission
is obvious; had the passage been given it would have made a
laughing-stock of the protocols. I submit, however, that the omission
of such an important passage from the text of Nilus without any
reference to or explanation of the liberty taken with the text, places
those responsible for the several translations in a very unfavorable
light.

In closing this chapter it is perhaps well that some record should be
made of the sinister use which was made of these alleged protocols
during the World War. Not long after the United States had begun
active participation in the war against Germany, it came to my
attention that typewritten manuscripts purporting to prove that the
war was part of a great conspiracy of international Jews were being
circulated. On at least three different occasions, early in 1918, I
was asked about this charge. I was told then that the British and
American governments were in a special sense the agents of this Jewish
conspiracy. In July, 1918, in Paris, a fuller account of the documents
was given to me by a loyal Socialist, to whom they had been shown.
There was not then, as there is not now, the slightest doubt in my
mind that the pro-German propagandists r