More on the Money Trust—The American Pilgrims Society

The logo of The Pilgrams Society of Great Britain and its sister society in the United States. Formed in Britain in June 1902 and in the US six months later in January, it was intended to bond the two in a "special relationship."

WITH THE PRO-WAR ELEMENT IN THE U.S. MADE UP ALMOST SOLELY OF ANGLOS, it can be no surprise that our establishment history holds  that the Great War (WWI) was necessary and right, or at least "inevitable". I cannot guarantee that the scenario in the following article happened exactly as the author states, but I am sure that even if some little fiction is involved to make the story more interesting, the main facts and ultimate outcome is exactly right. There is an American Pilgrims Society (which has nothing to do with the Pilgram Fathers of 1620) and these men were its members and did work surreptitiously, against the known wishes of the American people and the re-election promises of President Wilson, for the U.S. to help fund and then to enter the war. Their main reason was to save Britain from bankruptcy and future indebtedness to Germany … and of course, loss of power. And after WE Americans saved Britain's butt, it showed no mercy whatsoever to Germany when forcing her to pay all Britain's debts, nor ending its starvation policy on German people, children and infants with its naval blockade kept up after the armistice to force her to sign an unjust and punishing “peace treaty”. This is patriotism? The only patriotic people involved were Germans and Austrians. The rest were only loyal to money and their financial bottom line.

These articles are vitally important in understanding the real reasons for why this war was such a total lie and disaster from beginning to end, and how the United States ended up fighting in it, absorbing a loss of 116,000 American deaths, almost all in a single year, 1918. -cy

v. 3 no.11   October 20, 1915   Page 3

WHY THE MONEY TRUST WANTS WAR

IX—THE “AMERICAN” PILGRIMS

by Charles A. Collman

ON the night of September 30, 1915, I saw, in a hotel on Fifth Avenue, a Memorial* that will yet thrill the world. I heard the story of titled leaders of a race who had provoked a war, but found that their own people would not fight for them. So these men brought mercenary savages into a white man's country to wage a barbarous warfare.

But these titled men feared the condemnation of the world, so in order to forestall all censure, they selected from amongst them a man who bore a once honored name, and whose words might carry weight abroad. Upon him they urged an infamous task. He shuddered—but obeyed. He made charges** against the enemies of his race, so as to alienate from them the sympathy of the world. But when proofs of his infamy were produced, he concocted other charges***, that the Memorial might not be believed.

[*Foreign Office, Berlin, July 30, 1915. Suppressed by newspapers in New York at request of Wall Street bankers, since it might awaken sympathy for the Germans and thus frustrate the billion dollar loan to the Allies. ** Bryce—Belgium atrocity charges *** Bryce—Armenian atrocity charges ]

The Memorial that I saw that night showed photographs of men staring into vacancy, with surgeons' stitches over sightless orbs. They were wounded men, whose eyes had been cut out by black savages, with special daggers with which their masters has provided them for this purpose, fastened in the sheath of their sidearms.

There are some thoughts that cannot be uttered in words. I confess, I staggered from the room in that hotel, with a groan in my heart at the thought that a race of white men could be so vile.

I descended the stairway, and as I passed along the carpeted hall, there was a faint burst of cheering as one of the side doors opened. The sound affected me unpleasantly. I wondered that men could laugh.

At my questioning glance, an attendant who was passing, said: “It's a banquet, sir. One of the finest we've ever given. Would you like to see it?”

He opened the door through which the cheering had penetrated, and mechanically I followed him. A cloud of hot, smoke-laden air met my face as I entered upon a mezzanine balcony. Below me four hundred men were seated at tables in a great apartment.

The last course had been served. Pale-faced waiters were removing from stained table cloths the wax lights, sparkling beneath their pink silk shades. Wine men, with service chains about their necks, were filling the glasses.

At the guests' table an aged man arose, with a wine glass in his upraised hand. I recognized him as a corporation lawyer, whom I have met in Wall Street for many years. His lips opened, and he spoke. At his words I started back as though I had felt the crack of a whip in my face.

For this Wall Street lawyer said: “I propose three cheers for the King of England.”

An outburst of cheering succeeded. Men grew mad. They pounded on the tables. Bottles and chairs were overturned.

The Wall Street lawyer motioned for silence. Again he began to speak: “I am an old bencher of the Middle Temple, London. You all know Lord Bryce, for no man ever lived in America who made himself more honored. Some of us would have preferred to have something more said in this war, something more done, a protest when the invasion of Belgium occurred. You have read his reports of the acts against those men, and you have read his recent appeal. Putting these two reports of his together, with the two nations whom he indicted, they are exactly alike. If you scratch one of them, you find the blood of the other underneath. There is no possibility of distinguishing them in character or conduct. Constantly, daily and nightly, I am sympathizing with the Allies.”

Another wild outburst of applause ensued.

These words affected me strangely. I marvelled that they had been uttered on American soil. For you see, on the floor above, I had just seen the dreadful indictment of the English race—that they had filled a line in Europe, from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier, with Gurkhas, Sikhs, Sepoys, Turcos, Goums, Moroccans and Senegalese, who under the eyes of the highest commanders of England, had committed atrocities which set at defiance all the usages of civilization and humanity.

Leaning over the balcony railing, I eyed the speaker intently. I noticed that he had grown very old. There was a touch of senility about the lips of this bencher of the Middle Temple.

Silence again ensued. Again the corporation lawyer spoke. This time his subject was the $500,000,000 loan that had just been made to the Allies by Morgan, in forcing the use of the public's money in the banks and insurance companies of the country, which are all under his control.

The lawyer said: “Fourteen months the war has been waged, and I now hope that every man, woman and child of the United States who has got a hundred dollars will invest it in this loan, and, what's more, I hope that this is only the first installment. It's a great thing for us to have the opportunity to keep, and I think that the people here are grateful for it.

“Lord Reading is going back with $500,000,000 in his pocket. He has dealt splendidly with the American people.”

An uproar of mad enthusiasm succeeded, with wild cheers for England's King.

But the words just uttered made me ponder. For this bencher of London's Middle Temple had once been, I knew, a man of high intelligence. I felt assured that he knew at least as many facts as I about the loan. That Russia had lost sixteen of her governments to the Germans, the most productive and profitable sections of her Empire, thus destroying the chief resources of her revenue. That she had defaulted on her vast obligations to France and England, threatening impending bankruptcy to both countries. That, since the end of August, the Bank of England's gold had shrunk $35,900,000, while there was a rapidly increasing expansion of paper war currency issued through her joint stock banks.* [*New York Evening Post, October 7]

Was it possible that a man of repute should urge the men, women and children of this country to imperil their hard-earned savings in a loan to bankrupt foreign nations? Morgan and his private banking friends, of course, did not wish to hold the bag for the $500,000,000 credit they had advanced to foreigners, and they were working to unload upon the public the bonds whose flotation so far had been a failure. But could even a corporation lawyer of Wall Street thus urge ruin upon the people of the country in which he had made his fortune?

Involuntarily there occurred to my mind the words of President Wilson, when he issued his neutrality proclamation on August 7, 1914: “And I do further declare and proclaim that the statutes and treaties of the United States and the law of nations alike require that no person within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, shall take part, directly or indirectly, in the said war, but shall remain at peace with all the said belligerents.”

And I asked myself, Who are these men, so strong that they may with impunity defy the power of the President of our country, and the wishes of its people? I turned to the attendant on the mezzanine balcony and asked him: “Who are these men?”

Owing to the din below, his lips came close to my ear. He whispered: “It's a society they call the American Pilgrims.”

Who are these Pilgrims? I have since made a study of them. Their organization is one of immense power, and just now they seem to hold our country in the hollow of their hands.

In the “Rules” of the handbook of the Society, which I obtained, I found the following given as the purposes of the organization: “The object of the Society shall be the promotion of the sentiment of brotherhood between the two nations.”

I shall now enumerate the members of this great Society. But before I do so, I wish to utter an appeal to my fellow-countrymen in the South, in the Middle West and in the West, where American principles and the belief in democracy still live. I wish to tell them that here in the East a powerful and unscrupulous aristocratic plutocracy has seized upon the strength and resources of our nation. Great English bankers have been plotting here for years to seize the reins of government. So far, these men have succeeded. They control the banks of the country, all the institutions in which the people have placed their savings; they at last control the press, and can sway public sentiment by means of their corrupt news services, from one end of the country to the other. They are determined to throw the financial resources of the United States into England's lap and to force this country into war on the side of that land they love better than the country of their professed adoption.

Pictured: Left, Sir Harry Brittain; Center top, Bryan Mahon; Center bottom, The Hon Charles Rolls; Right General Joseph Wheeler established The Pilgrims of Great Britain on 16 July 1902.

Who so doubts my words, let him look upon this list. It is taken from the official handbook of the Society.

The Society of Pilgrims

Sir Cecil Spring-Rice—Britain's Ambassador; J. Pierpont Morgan—Britain's war agent; Andrew Carnegie—British born; making his income from the Steel Trust's war contracts; Col. Robert M. Thompson—President of the Navy League, indicted and fined for violating the Federal laws; Lord Murray, Master of Elibank—English Whip, who lost his party's funds by speculating in stocks; Henry P. Davison—Partner of Morgan, Britain's war agent; Thomas W. Lamont—Partner of Morgan, Britain's war agent; John Revelstoke Rathom—British born, editor of the Providence Journal, mouthpiece of the British Ambassador; Adolph S. Ochs—Owner New York Times, conducting English propaganda; Ogden Mills Reid—President Tribune Association, conducting English propaganda; George Gray Ward—Born in Hertfordshire, England; Bradley Martin—Educated Oxford, England; [James M. Beck, John W. Griggs, Joseph H. Choate, Alton B. Parker, Francis Lynda Stetson, Frederic R. Coudert—All six Wall Street Corporation Lawyers]; George T. Wilson—Vice-President Equitable Life Assurance Society; [Pliny Fisk, Francis L. Hine, Albert H. Wiggin, Frank A. Vanderlip, Alvin W. Krech, A. Barton Hepburn—All six Underwriters of the $500,000,000 loan.]

Let us now analyze the acts of these sham Americans, and see how they have made sport during the last year of the American people.

Sir Cecil Spring-Rice certainly is a typical American Pilgrim. He has been plotting for the last fourteen months with his English secret service men to discredit his fellow Ambassadors from belligerent countries. And in this he has used Lansing [American Amb to Britain] as his little woolly lamb.

We see that J. Pierpont Morgan, the English banker, founder or controller of the New York Peace Society, the American Peace and Arbitration League, the Navy League and the National Security League, now also, with his partners, has full swing in the Society of the Pilgrims of the United States. Just as his two peace societies are shams, since they do not work for peace, and as his defense societies are shams, since they are working only to put $500,000,000 in his capacious pockets, so the Society of Pilgrms, ostensibly founded to “promote brotherhood among the nations,” is, as is plainly evident from the aged Choate's address, operating to promote hatred, if not war, between this country and the Central Powers of Europe.

And what are we to think of the patriotism of Colonel Robert M. Thompson, President of the Navy League? He demands that the Federal Government expend $5000,000,000 on armament, so that the munitions plants of himself and his friends in Wall Street may prosper. Yet this man violated the laws of the Federal Government when he cornered cotton, in the endeavor to make this necessary commodity more expensive to every man, woman and child in this country. Will the Federal Government listen to this lawbreaker now? Do the members of the Navy League believe that he is a patriotic leader for them to follow?

Then we come to the English propagandists. It is an interesting subject. Here we find three American Pilgrims, one of whom is John Revelstoke Rathom, born in Britain, but who, like so many of his countrymen today, finds it safer to fight Germans on this side of the water than to go to the front. This man Rathom is the mouthpiece of the British Ambassador. What the spies of Spring-Rice learned in their campaign of persecution against the British Ambassador's colleagues in Washington, by the theft of letters and the like, they turned over to this editor of the Providence Journal. In turn, Rathom delivered his “news” to his two fellow Pilgrims, Adolph S. Ochs, of the New York Times and Ogden Mills Reid, of the New York Tribune. And how these three “American” Pilgrims have had the laugh on the American public for the last fourteen months. While they were prosecuting their English propaganda under the direction of Rathom, the English editor, their columns were filled with animadversions against the dreadful “German propaganda.” They well might say, as I have heard they said: “Englishmen are so clever, you know, while the Americans are so very dull.”

We see among these Pilgrims, who cheered so frantically for the King of England and the $500,000,000 war loan, an alarming number of Wall Street corporation lawyers. Most of them have taken an active part in the English propaganda. Many of them are directly interested in the war munitions companies, and corporations associated with them. But what is still more alarming is that a great number of them are trustees of the great life insurance companies of the country. There is Mr. Choate, who, as we have seen, says that the $500,000,000 loan is only the “first installment,” and who gloats over the fact that Lord Reading is going back with $500,000,000 in his pocket. Yet this aged lawyer, who was educated at Oxford, is trustee of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. There is James M. Beck, who has made of himself the apologist, if not the press agent, for England, trustee of the Mutual Life Insurance Company. There is Alton B. Parker, also trustee of the Equitable. And among those Pilgrims on that shameful night was even the vice-president of the Equitable Life, Mr. George T. Wilson.

It is certainly a matter of great moment to Americans that men who avowedly would sacrifice the best interest of their country for a foreign land, should have control of those great corporations in which are invested the savings of the American people. There is no assurance or guaranty that the funds of those institutions are not being surreptitiously used in the hazardous loan to warring countries, whose credit has waned and who may repudiate their obligations.

We find also among these Pilgrims a long list of bankers, the heads of financial institutions that are the underwriters of the loan. Since they applauded Choate, we must be led to believe that they also regard this loan as a “first installment,” and that they will try to force further use of the money of their depositors in advancing another billion to the Allies.

A serious feature of the situation is the truculent attitude these bankers have suddenly assumed, under the tutelage of Morgan, to those who are opposed to the loan. They bitterly term such persons who disagree with their views, “hyphens,” “German-Americans,” “Teutons.” In their blind worship of England, they do not hesitate to strike at their own countrymen. I shall instance some of the recent actions of these bankers in New York City. One bank president, when questioned by his depositors whether he was using their funds for the purposes of the loan, angrily instructed them to remove their accounts from his bank. Another incident I shall quote bodily from the Times of October 7^th:

“One instance was reported in which the committee of 100 called on a large savings bank to serve notice that if that bank deposited any part of its funds in institutions helping in the flotation of the loan, all German-American depositors would be asked to close out their accounts. The President of the savings bank said that it was true that he had funds in some of the State and national banks known to be in sympathy with the loan. 'Also,' he is reported to have told the committee, 'we hold mortgages on about 5000 homes of German-Americans, and if you want to make a test of the matter, we shall begin insisting on the payment of all of these mortgages as they come due.'”

Here we see an English banker deliberately coercing his depositors into the commission of an un-neutral act, and threatening them, if they disobey him, with foreclosing the mortgages on their homes. This is undeniably the most scandalous story ever recorded in the banking history of New York State. This man says to his depositors: “I shall use your money as I see fit. If you dare to object I shall drive you from your homes.” And this he said in spite of the warning of the Pujo Committee, that bankers and financiers must not use the money of public institution in their operations as though it were their own.

Further comment is needless. Does not this prove clearly how we have become subjects of a pro-British group of plutocrats, who sneer at the wishes of the public, and force it to do their will?

The end is not yet to the shameful history of the Allies' loan. To date the immense flotation has been a failure, in spite of heavy advertising, the puffing of Wall Street newspapers and the great campaign of publicity inaugurated by Morgan, who is desperately anxious to unload upon the people the bonds which he and his private bankers underwrote. False stories of “victories” for the Allies were brazenly published in order to hurry the completion of the loan. But consternation struck the banking group when the news came that Bulgaria had joined the Central Powers. The collapse of Russia has evidently swung the Balkan states into line with Germany. Is it the beginning of the end?

This episode, however, was fatal for Morgan. He betrayed the frightened state of his feelings on October 8^th, when he hastily summoned 800 bond salesmen from Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Pittsburgh. He gathered these men in the Waldorf-Astoria, and in a personal appeal, he besought them to make a determined campaign in hawking the bonds among their acquaintances, to unload them as quickly as possible. And Morgan even told them what arguments to use, in convincing the American people that England and France would not dare to repudiate the obligations, since, to use his own words: “They may need to come to us again.”

I think that enough has been shown here to demonstrate the great peril to our country of this sinister organization, the Pilgrims of the United States. And again I address myself to my fellow-countrymen in the South, the Middle West and the West to caution them and to warn them of the dreadful consequences that will undoubtedly ensue if this English banking group of Wall Street, under the guidance of its unscrupulous corporation lawyers, is permitted to continue in power. Their coordinated operations are of so menacing a character, their combined power is so vast, their control of public funds so immeasurable, that if we do not combine against this association of foreigners, a catastrophe will certainly come upon our country that has no parallel in history.

___________________________

Opinion    Oct. 20     page 10

WHERE DOES WILSON STAND?

IN his much-discussed speech before the Daughters of the American Revolution, Woodrow Wilson divides the citizens of the United States into two classes: those who place America first, and those who place the interests of a foreign land above the interests of the United States. [Well, clearly English-Americans would see that 2^nd class as German-Americans rather than themselves, unless it were stated otherwise. -cy]

The President's speech is a stern rebuke to Messrs. Morgan, Choate and Company, who are attempting to surrender the sovereignty of the United States to Great Britain. We congratulate the President on his courage in taking a stand, unassailable in its logic, unimpeachable in its patriotism. [Was Wilson really clear or is the writer reading his own hopes into it?]

However, words alone will not suffice.

There was a time when the doctrine “America for the Americans” was a fundamental plank of authentic Americanism. Today, unfortunately, there are those who, like Mr. Wilson's English-ruled and English-led Ambassador in London, subscribe to the doctrine, “America for the English.”

There are many among us who doubt where the President of the United States would stand if heads were counted: whether he would stand with the Anglo-American hyphenates, who would turn the vast financial and munition resources of the United States entirely over to the British Allies, or with the American people.

Mr. Wilson's pronunciamento would be more convincing to them if he had dispatched his note protesting against the throttling of American commerce to Great Britain.

MR. ROOSEVELT AND THE HYPHENATES

MR. ROOSEVELT at present is engaged in lecturing on the danger of hyphenated Americans. He forgets that he himself has adopted many racial hues.

Theodore Roosevelt, like Caesar, is all things to all men. When he appeals to the German-American vote, he will remind his hearers that one of his forefathers was among the founders of Germantown. On the East side of New York, his friends will explain to Americans of Jewish descent that Roosevelt's name was originally Rosenfeld. He is a French-American, a Dutch-American, a Belgo-American, or whatever may suit his political plans. Today Mr. Roosevelt is our most strenuous “hyphenate.” He is an Anglo-American of the violent profession. No doubt he will absorb other nationalities shortly. For Mr. Roosevelt's only consistency is his touching devotion to the house of J.P. Morgan. From the time when, as President of the United States, he turned the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company over to the Morgan interests “that have been so friendly to us,” to his campaign for social justice financed by one of Mr. Morgan's erstwhile partners, Mr. Perkins of the Harvester Trust, his loyalty to those interests has been unwavering. The father of the present house of Morgan was at one time a friend of the Kaiser; in those days Mr. Roosevelt was also a friend of the Kaiser. Today, Mr. Morgan is the chief munition agent of Great Britain in her war against Germany; today Mr. Roosevelt is also a friend of Great Britain and an enemy of the Germans.

There may be no connection between these facts: WE MERELY POINT OUT AS A MATTER OF PUBLIC INTEREST THAT MR. ROOSEVELT HAS BEEN AT ALL TIMES AN ENTHUSIASTIC MORGAN-AMERICAN.

A Joke circulating at the time

Editor of THE FATHERLAND:

HERE is something that may interest your readers: Mr. Wilson, it seems, mailed by mistake a love letter to Sir Edward Grey and the English note to Mrs. Galt. Both threw what they got into the waste basket, and the situation remains unchanged.

Sincerely yours, JULIUS MEYER