I.
From The United Irishman, January 23, 1904. In the early years of Arthur Griffith’s career, he expressed certain anti-Semitic attitudes in his writings, most notably during the 1904 Limerick boycott. He would largely recant these attitudes by 1915.
Protest against an Orange bigot’s bigotry and the welkin rings with the frenzied cry—‘Intolerance.’ Protest against the usuriousness and notoriously dishonest business methods of three-fourths of the Jews of Ireland, and, lo! the flabby Press shrieks likewise—‘Intolerance, Anti-Semitism!’ and some Man of Feeling arises and inflicts a column of rhetoric on the world. The Jew’s religious beliefs are of no concern to the community. The Jew’s business methods are. Nobody in Ireland, or elsewhere for that matter, objects to the Jew worshipping God in the manner he believes proper. But everybody objects to be fleeced and swindled in the name of God. When the Jew seeks to secure immunity for extortion and fraud, by pretending that those who condemn his practises are animated by religious intolerance, he lies. What is known as Anti-Semitism on the Continent had its origin, not in religious intolerance, but in a very natural detestation of business knavery, and a very natural desire to defend the weak against the unscrupulous. There are Jews who desire to live in amity with their fellow-men—there are others who desire to live on them. The latter is the Jew we object to in Ireland—and the latter is the Jew who is objected to on the Continent.
Father Creagh, of Limerick, the other night spoke strongly against the practices of the Jews in that city, and lo! the ‘Bitter Cry of Outraged Israel,’ as the Jewish papers used to term the hubbub raised in Johannesburg whenever the Boer Landdrost sent a Jew criminal to jail, resounds in the land. Those tolerant organs, the Express and Mail, are scandalised that an Irish priest should raise his voice in condemnation of the usurious Jew. The organs of National opinion are not behindhand. Their tears gush for the poor Jew, and Mr. Michael Davitt has rushed into his defence. We have not read any report of Father Creagh’s utterance except what Mr. Davitt quotes in his letter. If it be an accurate report, we believe Father Creagh is wrong in his history and right in his advice. He advised his hearers to have no dealings with men who practised usury—who grow rich on extortion and fraud. What do Mr. Davitt and the Dublin Press see in this advice to object to. Do they hold that because the Jew is of a different creed he should not be condemned when he plays the rascal? ‘It is not wise to add to the religious bitterness with which Limerick is at present cursed,’ remarks one intelligent organ of public opinion. Translated into plain English, this sentence means, ‘It is not wise to call a knave a knave when he is a Jew.’
We do not object to the Jew seeking an honest livelihood in Ireland—we object to his seeking a dishonest one, and howling out that he is being martyred for his faith when the people object to him putting his hand in their pockets. Mr. Davitt is proud—so are we—that Ireland is the one country in Europe where ‘the Jews were never persecuted.’ But that is all the more reason why Jews should not persecute Ireland. No thoughtful Irishman or Irishwomen can view without apprehension the continuous influx of Jews into Ireland and the continuous efflux of the native population. The stalwart men and bright-eyed women of our race pass from our land in a never-ending stream, and in their place we are getting strange people, alien to us in thought, alien to us in sympathy, from Russia, Poland, Germany, and Austria—people who come to live amongst us, but who never become of us. When fifteen hundred of our strong men and good women sail on the liner from the Cove of Cork, we can count on receiving a couple of hundred Jews to fill their places by the next North Wall boat. But has Ireland gained or lost by the exchange? We submit to the intelligent editors of our daily Press and to Mr. Michael Davitt and all Men of Feeling that Ireland has lost. Mr. Davitt’s sympathy for the Jew is creditable to his good heart, but our sympathy—insular, perhaps, it may be—goes wholly to our countryman the artisan whom the Jew deprives of the means of livelihood, to our countryman the trader whom he ruins in business by unscrupulous methods, to our countryman the farmer whom he draws into his usurer’s toils and drives to the workhouse or across the water. In short, our sympathy is so much drained by that dreary weekly procession of our own flesh and blood out of Ireland that we have none left to bestow on the weekly procession of aliens coming in.
Twenty years ago we had few Jews in Ireland. To-day we have Jewish magistrates to teach us respect for the glorious constitution under which we exist; Jewish lawyers to look after our affairs, and Jewish moneylenders to accommodate us; Jewish tailors to clothe us; Jewish photographers to take our picture; Jewish brokers to furnish our houses, and Jewish auctioneers to sell us up in the end for the benefit of all our other Jewish benefactors. We are told the Jews are industrious people, and deserve to prosper. We do not object to their prospering by industry. We object to their prospering by usury and fraud. We object to their being giving unfair advantages over the people whom they enter into competition with. We object to the Jews who land on our shores penniless being financed by the Irish banks, and thus enabled to buy out their own homes and other peoples’ homes into the bargain, while these same banks refuse to advance a single penny-piece to the Irish artisan to buy out his own house, or to the struggling Irish trader to put his business on a firm foundation. We object to the money deposited in Irish banks by the Irish people being used to secure for aliens a foothold in the country. We object to these people being enabled to borrow money from our banks at 5 per cent to re-lend to the Irish artisans, traders, and farmers at 60 per cent, whom these same banks refuse to lend to. This is the monstrous state of things that prevails in Ireland, and which Mr. Davitt and less honest men wax indignant about and shriek ‘Intolerance’ if an Irish priest or an Irish layman raises his voice to object to. We are glad Father Creagh has given the advice he did. We trust he will continue to give it. We have no quarrel with the Jews’ religion; but all the howling of journalistic hacks and the balderdash of uninformed sentimentalists will not make us, nor should it make any honest man, cease to expose knavery, because the knavery is carried on by Jews.
II.
From The United Irishman, April 23, 1904.
The Irish Protestant Synod last week adopted a resolution deploring the persecution of Protestants and Jews in Ireland. How the poor Jews of Limerick are being persecuted is amply proven by the fact that they can get a child of fifteen years of age sent to prison for a month in Limerick for throwing a stone—without the option of appealing from the sentence. As to the poor Protestants, the tale of their persecution is more terrifying still. We do not, of course, refer to those Protestants who are Irishmen, but those Protestants who form England’s faithful garrison—it appears that although they are one-fourth of the population, they own less than four-fifths of the soil of Ireland and occupy less than five-sixths of the lucrative positions in the country. Out of eighteen judges of the High Court there are only fifteen Protestants; out of 173 Irish Peers there are only 160 Protestants; out of thirty-seven County Inspectors of Constabulary there are only thirty-three Protestants; and out of 214 District-Inspectors only 155 belong to the persecuted faith. We trust no reader will think for a moment THE UNITED IRISHMAN repines at this. We should rejoice if there were not a single Irish Catholic on the Bench or in the police force in this country—we merely quote the figures to show how the persecution works. It is also a notorious fact that there is one Papist in the employment of the Great Northern Railway Company, who has a salary of nearly £600 a year, and although remonstrances have been occasionally addressed to the Directors on the subject, we learn they have not yet consented to replace him by one of the persecuted. In regards to the Great Southern Railway, and our Irish banks, and great mercantile concerns in the metropolis, it works out even worse, for we believe the proportion of Protestants who hold positions in these institutions worth over £150 per annum is only 85 per cent. Within twenty-four hours of the close of the Synod the unfortunate Protestants of Lisburn were being persecuted in the most barbarous fashion by a number of Belfast Papists who insisted on playing hurley on the Sabbath Day. In this instance, however, the worm turned, and the 5,000 persecuted Protestants of Lisburn, having failed to shoot the thirty-seven hurlers, stoned them to the tune of ‘Kick the Pope,’ and ‘God Save the King,’ as we learn from the Belfast papers. It is rumoured in Dublin that the fearless Protestant Provost of Persecuted Trinity has written to Lisburn sending his sympathy to the persecuted ones, and expressing the conviction that the persecuting hurlers ‘ought to be hung.’
The Jews and their friends are making a determined effort to destroy the Limerick priest who warned the people against being caught in their usurious toils. The London Times, the Dublin Daily Express, and the Dublin Irish Times, publish from day to day letters and articles anent the ‘persecution’ of the Jews in Limerick, and one I. Julain Grande paints each recurring morn in lurid tints the horrible sufferings the afflicted Hebrews are forced to endure. Beyond a few charges of trivial assaults preferred by Jews, we have read nothing in the Limerick papers to sustain the charge that these people are being persecuted. Of course, we read, and we are heartily glad to read, that the effect of the courageous stand made by Father Creagh—‘Redemptorist Priest Creagh’ is how the Jewish Rabbi politely designates him—has been to transfer the custom of the Limerick working-people from the Jews to the Christians. And what greater ‘persecution’ could be inflicted upon the Jew than to prohibit him taking his pound of flesh—with interest, three pounds?
The Jews of Great Britain and Ireland have united, as is their wont, to crush the Christian who dares to block their path or point them out for what they are—nine-tenths of them—usurers and parasites of industry. In this category we do not include the Zionist minority of the Jews, who include those honest and patriotic Jews who desire the re-establishment of the Hebrew nation in Palestine—the last thing on earth the majority desire. Attack a Jew—other than a Zionist Jew—and all Jewry comes to his assistance. Thus, when France condemned a Jew, Captain Dreyfus, to perpetual imprisonment for high treason, all Jewry combined and spent over ten million sterling seeking to ruin France. Thus, when three years ago, the Recorder of Dublin, Sir Frederick Falkiner, denounced in strong terms the extortion which the Jews of Dublin practised on the poor, Jewry combined and was powerful enough to rig the whole daily Press against him, and to influence official quarters to force the Recorder to withdraw. As against this, we can put the example of a magistrate who fought and beat the Jewish Camarilla. He was M. Vandenberg, the Chief Magistrate of Johannesburg. Before Vandenberg one day came a Jew accused of illicit drink-selling—that is, selling a concoction based on vitriol—to the Kaffirs at 5s. a bottle, the cost of production being 3d. A number of witnesses deposed to the man’s guilt, which was a notorious fact, and then one by one appeared the rich Jews of Johannesburg on the witness-table, glibly perjuring themselves in their brother’s favour. Said Vandenberg:
‘I sit here day by day listening to Jews, from the highest to the lowest, swearing false oaths, in order to shield one another. I would believe the word of a Kaffir before I would credit the oath of a Jew.’
And he convicted the criminal.
Now, the sequel was precisely the same as in the Limerick case. That night the wealthy Jews of Johannesburg met privately and decided to spare no money in the effort to crush out Vandenberg. In twenty-four hours every paper throughout the Republic—save the Dutch papers—rang with denunciation of Magistrate Vandenberg. All the Johannesburg Press, being controlled by the Jews and their English allies, demanded the dismissal of Vandenberg unless he offered an abject apology to outraged Israel. Fiercer and fiercer grew the attack on the upright magistrate—Vandenberg was famed for his justness and fearlessness—and the ‘Bitter Cry of Outraged Israel’ was the standing heading in the daily Press. The great Jew firms—the Beits, the Barnatos, the Joels, and a dozen others—called loudly for his dismissal. So fierce grew the organised clamour that some of his friends urged Vandenberg to qualify his works. Vandenberg’s answer was characteristic of the man—
‘I have spoken the truth—every man in the Republic, Jew and Christian, knows I have spoken the truth.’
‘The Bitter Cry of Outraged Israel’ having failed to intimidate Vandenberg, the Government was directly approached, and the Government declined to dismiss its servant. ‘The Jews,’ remarked President Kruger, ‘do not yet rule the Transvaal.’ After this the ‘bitter cry’ ceased to be publicly heard, and the expenditure of over £100,000 in working up the agitation against the fearless magistrate went for naught. Mr. Vandenberg, if we recollect aright, was afterwards killed at the Modder River fighting for his country.
Precisely the same tactics are being followed in regard to Father Creagh of Limerick as the Jews followed in the case of Chief Magistrate Vandenberg. ‘The Cry of Outraged Israel’ rings in the land. The old women of both sexes are moved to tears at the thought of the Irish workingman of Limerick removing his custom from the persecuted Jew to his countryman the Irish shopkeeper, and the Rev. Mr. Hallowee thinks the Castle is failing in its duty in not locking up those who advocate ‘boycotting the Jews’—that is, supporting the Christian. Surely Giant Humbug is hard to kill. The Jew comes here and lives, in nine cases out of ten, by usury. When he is condemned for his practices, he howls out that he is being persecuted on account of his religion. Certainly no one in Ireland has ever displayed the slightest hostility to the Jew on account of his religious beliefs; nor, for that matter, had the origin of his ‘persecutions’ and of the ‘Judenhetz’ in Continental countries any connection whatever with the Jew’s religion. In all countries and in all Christian ages he has been a usurer and grinder of the poor. The influence he has recently acquired in this country is a matter of the most serious concern to the people. In Dublin, half the labourer population is locked up in his toils. Father Creagh deserves the thanks of the Irish people for preventing the poor of Limerick being placed in a similar predicament. The Jew in Ireland is in every respect an economic evil. He produces no wealth himself—he draws it from others—he is the most successful seller of foreign goods, he is an unfair competitor with the ratepaying Irish shopkeeper, and he remains among us, ever and always an alien. We have spoken pretty freely about the Jew, since we observe that there is not even one of our great Catholic papers to stand up against the Grand Jewish League against the Limerick priest who has had the spirit to denounce his methods of trading. But for the small minority—the Zionist Jews—the patriotic men who desire to reconstruct the Hebrew nation, and who feel bitterly the humiliation of their race through the sordid pursuit of gold by the majority—we have the same esteem we have for all patriotic and lofty-minded men. We observe, by the way, that one of the ‘persecuted Jews’ attempted to assassinate one of the leaders of the Zionist Jews the other day. We suggest to the people of Limerick and all other people on whose ears the ‘Bitter Cry of Outraged Israel’ plaintively rings out to put this question to the poor victims of persecution: ‘Why, since they are ‘persecuted’ in Christian countries, do they not return to their own, which the Sultan of Turkey is willing to cede to them under certain conditions?’ If Ireland were given over to the Irish and the Irish abroad, while refusing to come back to it, insisted that they were being persecuted abroad, the world would very promptly dub them humbugs, but the great Jewish Humbug of Persecution goes merrily and profitably on, since the coward fear of the Jewish moneybags restrains the journalist and the politician from exposing the fraud.