The Riddle of the Jew's Success

by Theodor Fritsch

  [Page 136]

  Thus it is the women themselves, who help to destroy their own social position when they give their custom to the great “Stores”. * * * Lambrecht thus sums up the result of his investigations: the system of concentration in retail-trade offers no social advantages, which are not far out balanced by other great disadvantages. The latter are leading towards a social condition full of danger, and which must be regarded as less advantageous and desirable when compared with the soundness and many-sidedness of the smaller businesses, each of which confines itself to one special branch of trade.

  Regarded from the social point of view, it is the ethical forces, and not the economic, which must decide the issue. Already all the older civilisations have gone to ruin because they would not recognise this truth about the accumulation of all wealth in a few hands, and the consequent impoverishment of the masses. What leads to decay cannot be called progress.

  For us, however, material self-enrichment must not be carried on to the detriment of morality, and the general welfare must not be sacrificed in order that profiteering shall flourish.

  The mission of the truly moral system of government remains unaltered, viz, to respect and protect the economically-weak man, who, at the same time, can well be the best man when judged from the physical and moral point of view. A particularly valuable social quality of the middle-class is moderation in all its needs and requirements, even in its aspirations after honours and riches; for, only in this case, can there be a fairly good distribution of prosperity, and a cheerful state of well-being be made possible for the community. The entire mechanism of acquisition, which has been placed at the absolute disposal of an unrestrained lust for gain, has not increased either the health, or the safety, or the happiness of human individuals.

  [Page 137] The social consequences of an evolution along these lines are: monotony, degeneration, and a gradual disappearance of the aesthetic sense and taste; degradation of personality and of the individual, and lack of an appropriate field of activity; suppression of the artistic industry. This whole series of appearances are the forerunners and symptoms of the decay of a nation, and of its culture.

  It is almost superfluous to add that the great “ Stores”, in all parts of the world, are almost exclusively in the hands of Hebrews, and that it is in this particular domain that the Jewish business spirit celebrates its questionable triumphs.

  * * * A press, which represents every political party, and is always at the service of the great “Stores” on account of the rich harvest, which it derives from the advertisements of these establishments, has, up till now, helped to present these modern bazaars of rubbish in the most favourable light, and to write all manner of nice things about them. It has, in any case, refrained altogether from exposing the terrible nature of the economic, social and moral damage which is inseparably connected with the management and working of these great emporiums. Thus, for the sake of money, a grave crime is perpetrated against our nation.

  When women, in particular, in the attempt to justify their patronage of these establishments, offer the excuse that it is so convenient to do their shopping at the “Stores”, they should be reminded that convenience is a property or quality, which ultimately can be used to justify any kind of indolence and carelessness, and that it becomes an absolute vice when it is referred to as an excuse for supporting dubious undertakings.

  This much-praised convenience is, however, as all genuine frequenters of the great “Stores” will, without exception, admit, inseparably bound up with an incalculable expenditure of time, and with many other drawbacks as well, so that in reality, double as much inconvenience is experienced as if one had made the purchases in separate shops. The dawdling about in the “Stores” is already recognised as one of the modern feminine vices, which the Hebrew knows so well how to foster.

  [Page 138] If all the facts, which have been portrayed above, were only sufficiently known, the great “Stores” would soon lose their fascinating splendour in the eyes of all thoughtful people.

  Most of all, it is to be hoped that the conscience will awake in our womankind, and will ask itself the question, if it is consonant with decency and morality to support, with their custom, these questionable emporiums of trash, and thus to condemn whole classes of our nation to economic and moral ruin. It is fully time that the customers realised at last their social responsibility. Whoever, for the sake of a paltry and often merely an apparent advantage, supports businesses founded on questionable principles, whoever shows favour to an unwholesome and immoral development, must not be surprised when the consequences of his ill-considered trading finally turn against him; for the morbid principle, spreading always further and further, endangers the social order and moral welfare, and helps to establish conditions, which most seriously menace social and national stability.

  Our cultured ladies have opportunity enough to observe and deplore the growing laxity of public morals; it never seems to occur to them, however, that they themselves have helped to undermine the spirit, which makes for order and morality, by the support, which they give to these questionable business-undertakings, which pander solely to fashion. It is more especially the possessing and cultured classes, who ought to be conscious of their social duties, and who ought not — sometimes out of stinginess, and sometimes out of a lust for spending — to give their custom and support to these dubious trading concerns, and thereby to set a bad example to those below them in the social scale. The principle of the great “Stores” is uneconomic, unsocial and immoral; and out of these great lanterns of modern times, erected to attract and dazzle, issues a spirit, which threatens to poison and demoralise all society from top to bottom: the spirit greedy for gain at any cost, the spirit of vain boastfulness and of pleasure-seeking, the spirit of frivolity, of bodily and spiritual sickness, in fact of megalomania.

  [Page 139] Whoever has regard for our nation and its future, whoever has not already made it a habit to barter his moral consciousness for momentary enjoyment and momentary advantage, ought now to understand clearly, in which direction we are bound, if we continue to give our support to lax morality in business affairs, and other paths of life; for, all offence against good sense and morality, by destroying both state and society, attacks finally both us and our posterity.

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  XI.

  Moral Principles In Trade.

  Many people consider themselves very clever when they impart the advice to the merchant, who complains that he is unable to hold his own against the Jews: do the same as the Jew! In reality, this amounts to the following: do not recognise any religious motives whatever in your mode of doing business, and descend to the level of a low money-grubber and voluptuary. The economic principle of the Jew threatens to trample under foot, in our time, all other higher principles of life. That, however, is no evidence of its superiority, but of the contrary — its moral inferiority; for, the supposition that, if all forces have free play, the better and the nobler must win, is erroneous.

  On the contrary, what Goethe said, remains true for all time: Nobody should complain about what is base, For it remains all-powerful, whatever people may say.

  So far as ordinary, everyday life is concerned, what is low and devoid of scruple wins invariably, if it is allowed free play — just as surely as the manners of the quadruped prevail over those of the civilised man if both are compelled to live in the same room, and to feed out of the same trough.

  The task assigned to anyone, who has a desire to promote real culture, consists in subduing or eradicating what is vile, in order that it may not smother what is noble, before the latter can arrive at full development. Whoever is desirous of rearing choice plants in his garden, must wage incessant warfare against weeds and insect pests. Unfortunately in our time, the morality, belonging to the higher culture, has been neglected and forgotten, namely, the will to control, and the right to control, which is the prerogative of all that is
noble. When one no longer dared to think, and to act like an aristocrat, everything became vulgar and plebeian; and the Hebrew is the leading dancer in the Cancan of vulgarity. He calls this descent into vulgarity “Progress”, and designates, on the other hand, everything of an aristocratic or noble nature, as out-of-date or reactionary.

  [Page 141] Society, in former days, possessed an organic structure; it separated itself, practically automatically, into classes, whose rights and duties were conscientiously defined and graduated.

  Thus, a genuine social and moral order came into being, which secured to each man such prosperity as he was entitled to, and assigned to him his due share of rights, as well as duties. The Hebrew has shattered this ancient moral order to pieces. He has absolutely no perception for a moral structure of this kind; to his eyes it appears merely a jumble of disconnected fragments; he is incapable of understanding the purpose of all this regulated coherence. He regards every restraint as a fetter, and as an interference with his liberty.

  In addition to his greed for gain, the Hebrew is, for this reason, driven by an irresistible impulse, before all other things, to dissolve all oldestablished associations, and to break up all arrangements, which are the outcome of social organisation.

  He calls for “ Freedom” and “Equality”, but whether he does so out of pure calculation, or reacts in response to some dark instinct, it is difficult to say; at any rate, he knows for certain that, on the dissolution of all social bonds, he and his fellow-conspirators will gain the upper hand in the ensuing chaos. Thus, it is that he demands — loudly and incessantly — “Free play for the exercise of every kind of power”, which, in reality, amounts to:

  “Privilege for unscrupulousness, and domination by those, who conspire in secret.” There is no doubt whatever that the phrase “ Freedom and Progress” has provided the Hebrew with a slogan, which he has known how to make his own particular property, certainly not to procure freedom for others but to procure license for himself, and to unsettle and seduce others to desert the firm union of time-honoured organisation, so that, disorganised and isolated, they may, all the more easily, fall into his power.

  In spite of this, it is his constant boast that, by breaking down the old restrictions, he has introduced a desirable and beneficial freedom into the economic life; and, to a superficial observer, this may well appear to be true.

  [Page 142] But, in reality, a ruthless campaign of all against all has been instituted, which has certainly produced, as its first and immediate result, a release of all kinds of forces, and a stimulating and goading of the economic life to an alarming extent, but which must eventually exhaust the most valuable activities in a nation, and end in a complete victory for those, who are most ruthless and dishonest.

  In former times, there was also no lack of stimulating competition; it was, however, of quite a different kind. The competition then, was in the good quality of what was produced; whoever sold the best goods, secured the most custom. The Hebrew, by “cutting” prices, has reversed the nature of the competition; for today, the low value of the goods produced is the principal object of the commercial rivalry of the world. Whoever can manage to offer goods at an exceedingly low price — without any consideration for the quality, or, at any rate, only with the appearance of quality — is assured of success. And, whoever makes use of deception, in addition, can rely upon brilliant results. Unclean competition has usurped the position, once occupied by sound and straightforward commercial rivalry.

  There is no doubt whatever — as has been stated already on page 99 — that the ancient guilds, which the Hebrew invariably abuses as a reactionary system, possessed their good features. They not only required proof of the capability of each craftsman, but they tested also the quality of what was produced. Each master had to answer for the genuineness of the goods, which he produced, and the guild or hallmark furnished the article produced with evidence of its soundness.

  At the time spoken of, there still existed a morality in business, which, at the present day, has dwindled away to such an extent, that only some pitiful traces are still to be found, here and there. That mutual “hunting-down” of customers, which was formerly regarded as dishonourable, is, today, the special boast of the Hebrew.

  [Page 143]

  In those days there was a maxim: “ No one must force his way into the business of another, or push his own business to such an extent that another citizen is ruined thereby.”

  This amount of morality, this amount of regard for one’s neighbour, this amount of social sense are unknown in the business-life of today. The announcement that one would accept lower prices than one’s competitors, was regarded, in olden times, as the lowest degree of commercial impropriety. The Hebrew, with mental machinery of an entirely different kind, has no sympathy with such dignity and propriety. These appear to him merely as irksome restrictions, which make it more difficult to earn money; for this reason he rejects them. An inevitable sequel to these modern business maxims and views is the relaxation of all morality, and of all social ties throughout the community. One looks around and asks one’s self, if humanity indeed has made any moral or social advance since those olden days.

  Whilst the merchant of former times knew how to preserve the dignity of the independent man, and in the course of trading, never sacrificed his self-respect in order to obtain business, the Hebrew, on the contrary, has degraded the entire domain of commerce, and has cast honour and shame to the winds, simply to create business. He has introduced into the economic life that degrading hurry and scurry, which wears the soles off the boots in order to steal a march on a competitor, and sacrifices self-respect and decency sooner than allow any business to go elsewhere.

  Only the grossest form of self-deception could enable anyone to imagine that this kind of mutual “hunting-down” is of the slightest value from an economic point of view. In reality this excessive activity is accompanied by a crazy waste of energy. Formerly, as now, the merchant found his customers, but the whole process was carried on, and completed itself, in a peaceful and dignified fashion. The merchant could wait until the customer came; and the customer came, surely enough, for there was nobody interested in alienating him.

  Thus all business traffic pursued the even tenor of its way, without haste and without excitement, and a man could obtain a decent subsistence without infringement of his self respect.

  [Page 144] At the present day, business people harry one another to death, for each has the feeling that a potential robber is lurking in ambush, in his preserve, ready to waylay his customers and to take their money if he does not come up quickly to prevent it.

  This hurry and nervousness, peculiar to present-day business, first made their appearance when the Jewish traders assumed the ascendancy. Sombart says:

  “ The world, well-arranged as it used to be, with all its ancient soundness and solidity was simply taken by storm by the Jews, and we behold this people, stride by stride, thrusting back the former economic order and economic mode of thinking.”

  Actually, this assault by the Hebrews on our Aryan world is not only an attack on our economic arrangements, but is simultaneously an attempt to undermine the very foundations of our moral system. Sombart certainly gives it as his opinion, that transgressions against the precepts of rectitude and morality are part and parcel of human nature. We protest against such a conception. Certainly there have always been individuals, who have not known how to remain within the limits, appointed by rectitude and morality, but they were invariably denounced as bunglers and disturbers, and regarded accordingly. Respect for the restraints of law and sound morality must be set down as a fundamental and marked feature of the Aryan or Nordic mode of living and thought; and if, at the present day, we are scarcely aware of the possession of this quality, we at any rate know, that it was bad example and dire necessity, which compelled us to cast it from us. He, who wishes to compete on equal terms with the Hebrew, must descend to the moral level of the latter.

  This
dire necessity has forced itself upon the German merchant, at an earlier date, than upon his brother traders in other countries, as Germany, on account of its political disruption, has fallen an easier prey to the Jew than any other of the ancient lands of culture. Two hundred years ago, the German name already laboured under the misfortune of being used as a cloak by the Jews.

  [Page 145] When the Jewish business people began to come into prominence, an English writer (1745) expressed his indignation, that there were certain people, who publicly announced their readiness to sell their goods at lower prices than their fellow-traders. He stigmatized this unseemly “cutting” of prices, as shameless. In England, “Dutchmen”, that is to say, taken literally, “Germans”, were regarded as being the instigators of this practice. It was really the inhabitants of Holland, however, who were meant, and who, up till the year 1648, belonged politically to the German Empire, and were then, as now, called “Dutchmen.” It is these people i.e., the Dutch Jews, whom we Germans have to thank for the unpleasant fact that, even now, the English and Americans refer contemptuously to the Germans as “Dutchmen.”

  The Dutch Hebrews, who arrived in England at that time, were the real originators of under-bidding, and of the traffic in shoddy merchandise. The Jews also, who were hunted out of Spain, and fled, for the most part, to Holland, made their sinister influence felt upon the destinies of us Germans. Soon after 1700, they had already begun a system of predatory culture in a recovering Germany; the book-trade serves as an instance, upon which particular business they conferred the questionable benefit of sales, on a gigantic scale, at book-auctions, a practice, which they had introduced in Holland, because the profit by the old-fashioned method of selling volume by volume was acquired too slowly to suit their taste.

  In modern times also, it is much to be regretted that the German merchant has accustomed himself to, and definitely accepted, all kinds of unseemly practices, which were formerly the monopoly of the Hebrews. Sombart allows that Jewish ethics differ from those of mankind in general, and that those offences on the part of Jews against public morality cannot be laid to the account of any individual in particular, but arise rather from those general ideas regarding life and business morality, which are implanted in the Jewish nature. He asks (page 153):