Our New York Letter

Chicago Chronicle, April 18, 1924.

Welcome the Swastika!

It has crossed the ocean and has been permitted to land at Ellis Island without any difficulties. Was it admitted in the quota? In excess of the quota? Or, perhaps, above the quota? Do not ask. It is a real Nordic [saga], and has hurried its arrival in expectation of a generous welcome present in the form of the 1890 census. It has even gained considerable publicity for itself. In Europe it is quite famous, but, perhaps, you do not know what the Swastika looks like, and what it stands for? Its pedigree, therefore, must be given to the best of our knowledge.

Scholars are in doubt whether the cross as a religious symbol originated on the Golgotha. Some claim its origin was in Persia; others that it was in India. Whichever claim is correct, Jewish history has grown accustomed, since the time of the Gregories and the Crusades, up to the present time of modern “Christian Socialists,” to see all kinds of anti-Semitic movements find shelter under the sign of the cross. It has been, indeed, the tragic-comism [sic] of Jewish, as well as of Christian history, that all anti-Semitic movements should be directed under a sign upon which a Jew was supposed to have suffered and died.

However, the blonde nature of Nordic races, which for generations have “suffered” under the yoke of Jewish moral teachings – although diluted and modified – has broken out in revolt. A primal revolution is taking place and attempts are being made to dejudaize the New Testament. At this time when in the churches the cry of “Down with Jesus the Jew” can be heard, the German anti-Semites have found conditions ripe to make their radical change.

They have taken from the prehistoric archives the old Pagan – not exactly Nordic – sign of the Swastika, two hooks crossing each other, and have made it the emblem of the anti-Semitic movement.

The first to introduce the Swastika was the Fascist army of Hitler and Ludendorff. This sign was to be used as the symbol of those who had taken upon their shoulders the task of saving Germany from the Jewish influence. In a short time the Swastika became so popular that it began to be used as a new kind of jewelry. Monarchists, aristocratic ladies and anti-Semites wore, as adornment, gold, silver and bejeweled Swastikas, demonstrating that they were really Nordics and absolutely free from anything Jewish. The Swastika became the “bogeyman” for Jews and Republicans alike. At the houses of Republicans and Jews in Central Europe, where formerly the old-time cross could be discovered as a warning and threatening sign, can now be found the new symbol of terror – the Swastika.

With the sign of the Swastika on its cover, there has appeared a twenty-page booklet, many thousand copies of which have been circulated. The booklet contains a plan “to make peace prevail in the world.” The author, Ernst Goerner, probably, an American-German, submitted this plan to the Bok Peace Award Committee with full expectation of receiving its prize of $100,000. The Bok Committee did not consider this plan the best, however, and the disgruntled author now raves at the Committee, claiming that it is no more than a Jewish contrivance to win America for the League of Nations idea, in order that the “Jewish Treaty of Versailles” may be maintained. You, probably, would think that this [person] is a crank. You would misjudge. He has a well-known program – the program of the Swastika.

“The cause for the world’s unrest is the fact that during the time of the war Russia, Germany, Austria, England, France and America were represented, not by Aryans and Nordics, but by Jews. The trouble with the Versailles Treaty is the same: the nations and states were not represented, but misrepresented by the Jews, especially [in] America, which was misrepresented by Colonel House, the evil spirit of President Wilson, ‘The all-powerful Jew at Versailles.’ He was not the representative of the United States, but of world Jewry. It is possible to make peace prevail in the world only when the nations will understand and consent:

“That men of another race have grown fat, rich and enormously powerful through this war, have taken the places and enriched themselves at the expense of those who were honestly fighting – that those men of another race have usurped the governmental power of the nations of the Aryan people and in the fact have enslaved and tyrannized them and enforced a most brutal policy of starvation.

“That each and every nation participating in the discussion shall consent, promise and bind itself, to have in all their affairs, internal and external, only men of their own kind, only men of the Aryan race, and to withdraw and eliminate, without exception, all men of non-Aryan races and all those who have even a minimum of non-Aryan blood. Also all those of the Aryan race who have intermarried with non-Aryan blood and those who are economically or socially under non-Aryan influence shall be called non-Aryan.

“That where a country is dominated by non-Aryan influences as is the case in Germany and Russia, then Aryan representatives shall be approached instead of non-Aryan official government.

“The ‘Plan’ having been either approved by the U.S. Senate or the Aryan public of this country, shall be submitted to the different governments or ‘TRUE REPRESENTATIVES’ of the several nations.”

Together with the new symbol of the Swastika, America has been granted a new name, Usania (U.S. ania). The booklet is being circulated by an organization which calls itself the Nordic-Aryan Federation of Usania, and its headquarters are in Portland, Ore., and Milwaukee, Wis. An investigation has revealed that this Nordic-Aryan Federation of America is a German-American organization which publishes also a monthly German journal, under the same name in Portland.

Who has imported the Swastika into America? How great is the danger, if any? Is there going to be a putsch made in its name? Who is backing this movement – supporting it?

Concerning the author, Ernst Goerner, we are in a position to say as much as he himself has been willing to tell. During the war he was persona non grata with the Wilson Administration, on account of his pro-German propaganda. The government even started proceedings to annul his citizenship.

When we read over his program for the approaching presidential elections, giving twelve reasons why the future president must be a “man racially conscious,” a “successful businessman,” and one “who would not sell himself for money and to the Jews,” it becomes evident that, if in the ancient and medieval times all roads used to lead to Rome, they lead now, under the sign of the Nordic Swastika, to Detroit.