The heading of this article presents difficulties. The correct use of the term “Gentile” is in question. It is a name that has been given us, not by ourselves, but by Jews, and it is by no means certain that it is accurately given. A very great chance exists that it is not. That, however, is a matter which “gentiles” do not bother to understand; they think, of course, that if one is not a Jew one must be a gentile This is only another instance of the Jewish view being “put over” without the “gentile” understanding or even questioning it.
There is another difficulty: how shall one address “gentiles” collectively? When one addresses Jews he knows that the Jew is always a Jew; that every Jew acknowledges every other Jew; that Jews understand each other and are loyal to each other as against “outsiders”; that they think together and act together; that they stand together for Jewish defense, no matter how just the charge brought against them. When you address Jews you address a unit, and when you discuss Jews you get a united reaction from them.
This cannot be said of gentiles. They are of many races, many nationalities, many religions, many tongues. They never think of themselves as being united under the name “gentiles.” They are not race or class conscious; certainly they do not think of themselves as a unit with reference to the Jews as an opposite unit. “Gentiles” cannot be organized into one group nationally, let alone internationally, as Jews can. Jews of every shade of opinion, of every degree of religion and of unreligion, can unite all round the world, and do unite, having their own news service, their own telegraph service, their own “foreign department” (as they themselves describe it), by which they keep themselves united and informed for mass action. There is nothing even remotely approaching that among “gentiles.”
Not that this fact can be urged against the “gentiles” as a fault. There are reasons why the “gentiles” never can be united. And one reason is that among the so-called “gentiles” there is a regnant superior strain that is not “gentile” at all; no more is it Jewish. There are racial and moral strains among the non-Jewish section of the world which never can be brought into agreement. And, outside this superior strain, among the gentiles proper, the very basis for enduring union is lacking.
So that the only union that can be expected is a union of the superior strain, which physically and morally is unconquerable, and whose task it is to liberate the lesser peoples who easily fall victims to subversion and have no reactive power to rescue themselves.
It is to this human Gulf Stream that flows through the ocean of humanity, blessing it, that this address is offered. As to the identity of this section of humanity—“He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” The others will not, because they cannot. There are many genuine gentiles mixed up in our common population, but it is not to them that these words are offered.
The Jewish Question has existed for a long time, as the Jew knows and admits, and is a consequence of certain un-Jewish, or rather un-Israelitish ideas held by Jewish persons of power. The disability under which the Jew labors is that he is not a Jew, properly speaking, and does not desire to be. Just at that point is the soil and the root of the Jewish Question.
Tackling the Jewish Question is not congenial work. The Race which this article now addresses has always shrunk from tackling it. Our Race has little disposition to chastise any portion of humanity, to arouse feeling or resist it. We have little taste for this surgical work which becomes absolutely necessary when certain corrupt influences deeply dislocate and seriously injure the common life. Nothing but a clear vision of the danger, nothing but an imperative sense of duty would impel any one of us to embark on a course which is subject to misunderstanding and which must, in the nature of things, wait long for its complete justification. Our Race is too fair, and has always been too fair, to enter hastily into judgement—and upon this fairness and long-suffering the offending groups have often seriously trespassed.