Henry Ford

“ William Howard Taft is an amiable gentleman. There is so much to agree with in the world that he seldom finds it possible to disagree with anything. It is a very comfortable attitude for one to assume, but it doesn’t push the world along. Real harmony is wrung out of discord by laboring against disagreeable facts ”

“ Now, when the United States appeared as “the new Jerusalem,” its Jewish citizens conceived the idea of using the American Government to achieve for the Jews what other means had failed to achieve. Russian and German Jews would come to the United States, become naturalized as quickly as possible, and go back to Russia as “Americans” to engage in trade. Russia knew them as Jews and held them to be subject to the laws relating to Jews. ”

“ The Jews wanted just two things from William Howard Taft: the abrogation of the Russian treaty and the veto of what Congress had repeatedly tried to do, namely, put a literacy test on immigrants. Jewish immigration into the United States being so important an element of Jewish plans, American Jews never cared what kind of human riffraff filled the country as long as the Jewish flood was not hindered. ”

“ He ended with a plea for the Jewish ambassadors there present to consider the plight which denunciation of the treaty might involve Russian Jews, and ended with the words—“That is the way it has struck me, gentlemen. That is the conclusion I have reached.”
The Jewish group was plainly taken aback. Simon Wolf, who was always on guard at Washington, said, “Please, Mr. President, do not give to the Press such conclusions,” but Jacob Schiff broke in with a voice vibrant with anger—“I want it published. I want the whole world to know the President’s attitude.” ”

“ Russia devoted to the Jews a large part of the most favored section of the land, and was always so lax in those laws which prohibited Jews from settling in other parts of the country that the Jew was able to create an underground system throughout the whole of Russia which controlled the grain trade, controlled public opinion and utterly baffled the czar’s government. ”

“ Perhaps as many people have been inclined toward agreement with the articles by the attitude of the Jews themselves as by the statements made in the articles. Jewish defense has been made with great formality and show of authority, but without the hoped-for effect. The Jews of the United States, evidently finding that their own statements have failed to carry, are making a wholesale conscription of Gentiles for the purposes of defense. As in Russia, the Gentiles are being pushed into the firing lines. ”

“ Taft, if you found a written program setting forth the steps to be taken to fasten a certain control on society, and if on looking about you observed a definite set of tendencies which seemed to parallel the program at every point, would it appear to you significant? ”

“ Taft is against religious prejudice. So is everybody else. Mr. Taft is against racial prejudice. So is everybody else. Mr. Taft wants concord and good will. So does everybody else. But what have these to do with the facts which comprise the Jewish Question?
The real story of Mr. Taft and the Jews begins back in the time when Mr. Taft lived in the White House. The Jews maintain a lobby in Washington whose business it is to know every President and every prospective President, and, of course, Mr. ”

“ His guests had come prepared to talk, to “tell” him, as some of the same men lately “told” an eastern publisher, pounding the table and uttering threats. The President was to be overwhelmed, his good nature carried with a rush. ”