Freemasonry and Judaism - Leon de Poncins |
"In Portugal free-thinking, the republic and Freemasonry go hand in hand, but of the three, it is masonry which directs. It is, above all, masonry which defends the liberty of thought and spreads the teachings of free-thinking". —Raphael Rem
At the head of Portuguese masonry was the grand master Magalhaes Lima, a journalist, advocate, politician, free-thinker, republican and revolutionary. He is one of the guiding personalities of universal masonry.
In December 1907 he came to Paris to give in the lodges a series of lectures entitled: Portugal, the overthrow of the monarchy and the need of a republican form of government.
Some weeks later king Carlos and his eldest son were assassinated. King Manuel mounted the throne and as he was considered inoffensive his banishment was considered sufficient.
Freemasons did not take the trouble to hide that they were the authors of the Portuguese revolution. The mason Furnemont grand orator of the grand Orient of Belgium, said at the sitting of 12th February 1911:
"Do you recall the deep feeling of pride which we all felt at the brief announcement of the Portuguese revolution? In a few hours the throne was brought down, the people triumphed and the republic was proclaimed. For those who were not initiated, it was a flash of lightning in a clear sky. But we, my brothers, we understood, we know the marvellous organisation of our Portuguese brothers, their ceaseless zeal, their uninterrupted work. We possessed the secret of that glorious event.
Quoting this passage, Wichtl adds:
"Does one require more proofs? turn to the Bundesblatt, the official organ of the grand Prussian Lodge "zu den drei weltkugeln." This paper speaks of a book by the Portuguese professor Georges Grainha on the history of Freemasonry in Portugal from 1733 to 1912 and quotes the first words of his preface:
"The majority of outstanding men during the religious, political, and literary upheavals of Portugal during the last two centuries belonged to Freemasonry."
And Dr. Grainha adds further on: "All the important leaders of the revolution of 5th October 1910 were masons."
Those who worked for the overthrow of the monarchy belonged to the families of Castros, Costas, Cohen, Pereiros, Fereiras, Texciras, Fonsecos etc which held important posts in Spain, Holland, England, America, and were united by masonry and by l'Alliance Israelite universelle.
In Spain as elsewhere, the first aim of Freemasonry is the destruction of the Monarchy and of Religion. The grand master. Moravia, said so clearly at the international masonic congress of Madrid (July 1891):
"The people have always followed the policy of the king; that time has passed and the republic in Spain is a necessary progress which is not far off".
If Alphonse XIII has not been assassinated it is not for lack of trying. We shall, however only speak of the case of Ferrer which is interesting because it shows the world organization of Freemasonry. The following passage concerning the Ferrer case is borrowed from Mgr. Delassus boook, La conjuration anti-chretienne., p. 93-99.
"On some empty pretext a revolt, broke out at Barcelona. Incendiarism and massacres forced the Spanish government to place the town under martial law. The instigator of the troubles Ferrer was arrested. He was handed over to a military court which condemned him to death. The judgment was ratified. Lying telegrams were sent to the newspapers of every country declaring that Ferrer had not been judged according to the law, that his defending counsel had been arrested, and even that the clergy and the Pope had to do with the case.
The Lanterne wrote: "The bloody hand of the church, a party to the trial, has conducted everything, and the ruffian soldiers of the king of Spain only carry out his will. All the people ought to revolt against this religion of murder and blood." A caricature followed showing a priest with a dagger in his hand. Threats of reprisals, of the assassination of the king and of the Pope rained down upon Madrid and Rome. Petitions circulated in Paris, Rome, Brussels, London and Berlin to protest against the judgment. Ferrer was executed. Immediately manifestations, some of which were bloody, occurred in ihe principal towns of France and of several European countries. The zenith was reached in a sort of triumph to glorify him in the streets of Paris to the singing of the "internationale".
Questions were put to the governments in the different parliaments and protests signed by the councils of departments and of communes. Fifty seven towns of France, decided to give the name of Ferrer to one of their streets.
The wonderful spontaneity and uniformity of these manifestations for a cause foreign to the interests of the various countries, indicate an organization which, reaches all nations and is able to act even in minor localities . . .
The council ef the order of the Grand Orient de Paris sent to all the masonic powers of the world a manifesto protesting against the execution of Ferrer. It claims him as one of his adherents:
"Ferrer was one of us; he felt that in the masonic work the highest ideal was expressed which man could have to realize. He affirmed our principles until the end. What they wished to strike at in him was the masonic ideal. In the way of the advance towards the limitless progress of humanity an arresting force has appeared of which the principles and the action aim at throwing us back into the night of the middle-ages."
Freemasonry has then declared by words and deeds that it considered and defended Ferrer as the incarnation of its ideal. We can then through Ferrer know something of this ideal. Here is the summary found in a letter addressed to a friend:
"In order not to scare people and give the government a pretext for closing down my establishments, I call them modern schools and not schools for anarchists. For the aim of my propaganda is, I frankly admit it, to form in my schools convinced anarchists. My wish is to bring the revolution. For the time being one must however be content to implant the idea of a violent upheaval in the minds of the young. They must learn that against the police and the clergy there is only one means of action — bombs and poison."
The inquiry of the trial led to the discovery, at the villa Germinal, where Ferrer lived, of documents hidden in an underground room. These documents prove that he had been the leading spirit of the revolutionary movements which had taken place in Spain since 1877.
That is the man whom masonry has presented to the world as professing its ideal.
A few days after the execution of Ferrer, the cabinet in Madrid was obliged to resign, for the heads of the liberal and democratic parties, probably following the influence of the lodges, notified senor Maura, the prime minister, that they would make absolute opposition to every measure and every proposal which he might bring forward. He was obliged to retire and that delighted all the free-thinkers of Europe. The Acacia wrote:
"Is there not a great duel taking place throughout the world between Religion and Free-thought, between autocracy and democracy, between absolutism and revolution? Has the church frontiers and the Vatican a native country? Is not the drama of humanity being played by the international forces of the convent and the school? The fall of the Maura cabinet, also the execution of Ferrer will only have been episodes in this great and ceaseless drama."
"The revolutionary attempts which have occurred since 1821 in Italy were the work of Freemasonry" said the mason Chiossone at a meeting which was held in 1907 at the Parisian lodge "Solidarity".
It was about that period that Mazzini began his revolutionary activity of which the principal aims were the liberation, the unity and the republicanization of Italy, the suppression of the temporal power of the Pope, the destruction of Austria and the establishment of republics everywhere.
"He was in contact with the revolutionaries of the whole world such as Kossuth, the Polish revolutionary Stanislas Vorcell, and the Russian Jew Alexander Herzen who were all three masons. It was not then without reason that twenty two years after his death the Rivista della Massoncria Italiana said of him and his assistants: "Mazzini, Garibaldi and Kossuth shine with unsurpassed glory which make crowned heads turn pale" . . .
Was Mazzini a Freemason? He sometimes used hard words in his writings about the hollow symbolism of Freemasonry and about the lack of unity in its political programme.
However there is not the least doubt that Mazzini, like Garibaldi, was a mason, although in his political undertakings he relied above all on the secret societies founded by himself and on the Carbonari associations. During his whole life, he maintained the closest intercourse with the best known heads of Freemasonry such as Aurelio Saffi, the publisher of his works, and the Jew Adriano Lemni who was later to restore Italian masonry and turn it in the political direction desired by Mazzini.
Mazzini, and with him Garibaldi, are highly esteemed in masonic papers which praise them both in an exaggerated manner; the chief organ of the lodges calls them "the greatest stars of Italian masonry". He was grand master from 1871 to 1872 the year of his death. After that his most faithful pupils assumed the direction. It was then that the first council of the order of Italian free-masons was appointed with 33 members. Under the guidance of the grand master Adriano Lemni, a personal friend of Mazzini, Italian masonry strengthened its position in 1887. The year 1872 saw the foundation of the unity of Italian masonry, and since then it is guided by the spirit of Mazzini . . .
Italian masonry has never been else than revolutionary. It exacted from the Italian Government the occupation of Rome and the abolition of the temporal power of the Pope.
Very many masons were also among the Irredentists who were openly supported by the lodges and the masonic papers.
Mazzini and Garibaldi remained until their death revolutionaries and republicans. Their revolutionary programme has been relentlessly applied by Italian Freemasons who awaited the favourable moment to execute the last item: the ruin of the Austrian Catholic monarchy.
In 1900 the Grand Orient of France began to turn its attention to Turkey. The young Turks, who were for the most part composed of Jews, Greeks and Armenians were making no progress in their political efforts. They found help in masonry and thereafter advanced rapidly.
"A Secret Young Turk council was formed and the whole movement was directed from Salonica. Salonica was the most Jewish town in Europe — 70,000 Jews out of a population of 100,000 — was specially suitable for the purpose. It already contained moreover several lodges in which the revolutionaries could work without being disturbed. These lodges are under the protection of European diplomacy and as the Sultan was without weapons against them his fall was inevitable".
This extract from the Acacia (October 1908) explains everything. At Salonica [Thesselonica] there were at that time two lodges which were connected with the Grand Orient of Italy. The lodge "Macedonia", whose venerable was the Italian Jew Emmanuel Carasso, and the lodge "Labor el Lux". There were also the lodge "Veritas" which was connected with the Grand Orient of France, the Spanish lodge "Perseveranza" and the Greek lodge "Philippos", this last one pursuing an exclusively national policy.
The young Turks entered these lodges and met there in order to organize and prepare the revolution. Moreover a great number of the numbers of the lodges strengthened the secret young Turk "Committee of Union and Progress", in which they carried out valuable work. The Turkish government, which could not long remain in ignorance of this constant and mysterious work, became alarmed but its police were unable to get to the bottom of the plot. As a precaution, the lodges turned to the Grand Orient of Italy which let them foresee the protection of the Italian embassy in case of need. Thus little by little the young Turk party came to be almost entirely composed of Freemasons, among whom Jews occupied the most influential posts.
The revolution having succeeded as we know, Freemasonry knew how to utilize its victory. On the 1st May 1909 the representatives of forty-five Turkish lodges met in Constantinople and founded the "Grand Orient Ottoman". Mahmoud orphi Pasha was nominated grand master. Among the other dignitaries were the following "Turks": David Cohen, Raphaelo Ricci, Nicolas Forte, Marchione, Jacques Souhami, Georges Sursock.
A short time after a "Supreme council of the ancient and accepted Scottish Rite" was also formed and recognized by the French and Italian masonic authorities.
It would take too long to relate the part played by Freemasonry in the modern revolutions of Serbia, Greece, Germany and elsewhere. We shall only speak of its action in Hungary, a very interesting country from this point of view because, following upon the Bolshevist revolution of Bela Kun, the government seized and published the masonic archives, thus exposing their flagrant connection with the revolutionary movement.
On the 29th of April 1918 the grand Master of Hungarian masonry, Dr. Arpad Hokay, made a very patriotic speech in Vienna.
"The enemies of Hungary are also the enemies of Austria; those who are in league to destroy Austria wish to do the same for Hungary; it is the monarchy which, in the tempest of the world war, has protected the peoples of Austria-Hungary in the most efficacious manner, etc."
In November of the same year the imperial government was overthrown, and on the first page of the first Number of its bulletin which was now able to appear without hindrance, Viennese masonry thus hailed this event:
"The new state of things came as a surprise. All at once we had become free republicans, masters of ourselves. We were no longer the slaves and martyrs of a bureaucratic government that without critic or resistance served militarism and self-domination."
For his part Dr. Arpad Bokay, grand Master of Hungarian Masonry made a significant speech on the 2nd November 1918 of which the following extracts have been copied in the Wiener Freimaurer Zeitung (the revolutionary government of Karolyi had just been formed).
"The masonic programme (which he had just described) is also the programme of the national Hungarian council and of the popular government which has just been formed.
Our way is thus made clear to us.
We are marching shoulder to shoulder with them, we are working with them, we are helping them in their great and heavy, but also thankful task, so that ancient Hungary may without perturbation enter the beloved land of new Hungary which is the most ardent wish of every good patriot.
Our beloved and highly esteemed brothers are working today in the first rank, and that entirely reassures us, for we know them and we know that they will carry out in a masonic spirit the work which they have undertaken."
[Note of the W. F. Z.: Six Freemasons belonged to the first Hungarian republican government in the capacity of ministers, secretaries of state and under secretaries.]
With the arrival in power of Bela Kim, Freemasonry had to face certain difficulties; by the irony of fate it was then considered as being too bourgeois and was distrusted. After the fail of bolshevism the government dissolved the lodges and published their archives. In their distress the Hungarian masons called upon their brothers all over the world. The masonic newspaper Latomia of Leipzig published in March 1922 the following interesting article on these events:
"We are able to give the following details concerning the sad fate of Freemasons in Hungary from information supplied by one of our Hungarian brothers residing in Nurnberg.
The Freemasons, after having again during the war sent an address of welcome to the emperor Francis-Joseph, threw themselves after the catastrophe into the socialist republican idea with the noble persuasion that now the time of accomplishment of the masonic ideal had arrived.
In their writings they made active propaganda in its favour and most of the leaders were masons.
When, after that, Hungary was submerged by the bolshevist wave the men in power soon began to oppress masonry as being a bourgeois institution.
The reaction which, thanks to foreign help, shortly afterwards came back to power was inspired by clerical leadership and also prohibited the lodges, occupied our premises, seized the subscription money and everything found there . . .
In their distress our Hungarian brothers turned to the North American grand lodges. The result was that, as Hungary was then negotiating a loan in America, the reply was made that this loan could not be considered so long as authorized institutions were not re-established in Hungary; a clear allusion to prohibition of Freemasonry.
Thereupon the Hungarian government saw itself obliged to enter into relations with the ex-grand master. The free resumption of masonic work was proposed to him, on condition that non-masons should have the right of access to the sittings of the lodges. This was naturally refused by the grand master and the loan miscarried."
It is unnecessary to stress the importance of this article for in a few lines it shows us the part played in the Hungarian revolution by Freemasonry and by the American government. In this case the latter acted as agent of the American Masonry. That is a serious matter. Where in all this is the famous distinction between Continental and Anglo-Saxon masonry? And we must remember that it is a masonic newspaper which gives us this information and I that it is consequently indisputable.
The 1922 September number of the Wiener Freimaurer Zeitung announced from Italy that the grand master Torrigiani promised to intervene at the Geneva conference with the governments of various masonic powers so that they should apply pressure to the Hungarian government. France acted energetically in the same direction. It will remain to the honour of the Hungarian government that it did not yield and faced all these difficulties.
The following is the open letter of the deputy Julius Gumbos addressed on this subject to the Hungarian premier count Paul Teleki:
"The royal government of Hungary has, as everyone knows, dissolved Hungarian Freemasonry because some of the members of this organisation participated in the preparation of the October revolution and in the work of systematic destruction which took place against the interests of the people and the state of Hungary.
"There were among these members, according to the declarations of those who inquired into the matter, men who were amongst us the representatives or agents of the aims of the Jews towards universal domination, and who dreamt in silence to lull to sleep the national sentiment in order to secure the triumph of an anti-national doctrine which is foreign to us, but which is dear to them.
"We also know that it was the lodges which undertook the struggle against what is called clericalism, because the strength of the Christian idea and the organisation of Christianity were an obstacle to the realization of their aims.
"At the time, the Move and, with it, I believe, the greater part of Hungarian Christian society welcomed with joy the ordinance of the government for the suppression of Freemasonry, and it is with even greater joy that we have entered the mysteriously arranged apartments of the grand symbolic lodge. We have not the least intention of giving them up again for we should recognize such a relinquishment to be the destruction of our present work for national security.
"Considering the past activities of Hungarian masonic organs and their different conception of humanity, neither we, nor I believe the government, can do otherwise than maintain our point of view as to interdiction.
"Although the decision regarding the fate of Hungarian Freemasonry is a question of internal politics, in my opinion, your Excellency would render a great service to the country by enlightening foreign countries on this question and another which is joined to it, the Jewish question, in order that other countries should not acquire mistaken ideas about the measures which have been taken in view of the protection of religion, of the moral health of the people and of the nation.
The following is a summary of the secret papers found in the lodges of Buda-Pesth, published in France by Mgr. Jouin, Le Peril Judeo-maconnique.
"The book on Freemasonry in Hungary which the union of Christian and National councils has just published in Hungary is divided into three parts. The first entitled: The Crimes of Freemasonry, by Adorjan Barcsay, contains a great quantity of documents seized when the lodges were dissolved in 1920. The second part written by Joseph Palatums, is entitled: The Secrets of a Provincial Lodge, and exposes like the first the secret masonic work of destruction which led Hungary to the revolution of October 1918 and to communism in 1919. The last part contains the list of the members of the masonic lodges of Hungary, which proves that 90% of the Hungarian Freemasons were Jews.
"The three first chapters briefly summarize the general history of the masonic movement. Chapters IV to VIII analyse the working methods of Hungarian Freemasons: their struggle against the church and religious teaching in schools, their campaign in favour of universal suffrage, their policy regarding nationalities and their international tendencies. Finally, the last chapters, which attract more specially our attention, show how the Jews, grouped in the lodges, systematically prepared defeat and then the destruction which followed upon the end of the war. Chapter XI shows us by means of numerous documents, that in Hungary, Freemasonry is eminently a Jewish work; thus, for example, the book containing the constitution of the grand symbolic Lodge of Hungary, printed at Buda Pesth in 1905, bears the date of the Jewish era 5885. The text of the vows taken by members is in Hebrew. The secret passwords are in the same language. The list published at the end of the book shows us that 90% of the members were Jews with names such as Abel, Bloch, Berger, Fuchs, Herz, Levy, Pollack, Rosenthal, Schoen, etc. Or Magyarized Jewish names like Hun and Haber. The author of the book quotes on this subject a very characteristic preface which appeared in the work of professor Pierre Agoston (one of the people commissars who shared the power with Bela Kun and who was condemned to death by the Hungarian tribunals last December) a work entitled: The Path of the Jews. Among other things one finds the statement that in order to write the history of the Jews in Hungary it is also necessary to write that of Hungarian Freemasonry.
"Chapter X furnishes the proof that public charity has never been the principal object of Hungarian Freemasons as they liked to have people believe. Although they only obtained the recognition of their lodges by the minister of the interior in 1886 at the express condition that they should not deal in politics, charity was for them only a sign-board behind which were hidden the secret intentions of Jewish Freemasons for the gradual monopolizing of all political power.
In a report of 24th February 1911 signed Paul Szende, venerable of the lodge "Martinovics", we find passages such as the following:
"We readily recognize that charity such as we now practise does not correspond with our ideas. We must concentrate our attention on the necessity of achieving radical changes in the actual society". In 1916 Charles Szalay, grand master of the lodge Comenius, in a speech made to a full assembly acknowledged that: the spirit which animates all true Freemasons has always been revolutionary. Works of public charity are not their principal objects, but simply a means towards attaining their final aim.
"As regards their part in the communist revolution in Hungary, this work shows that the Freemasons worked above all by the press. By patient and tenacious labour they succeeded in gaining power over the majority of the press organs by means of which they sought to destroy the Magyar national sentiment. The daily newspaper Vilag was specially responsible for the weakening of discipline in the Hungarian army; copies of it were distributed by thousands in the trenches.
"It was also the Jewish masonic newspapers which always defended the Jewish immigrants from Galicia who ruined the economic life of Hungary by their shameful speculations during the war. They also worked to poison youth in the schools by their anti-patriotic theories. The Vilag wrote: "The exaggerated teaching of the Hungarian language and the exaltation of patriotic sentiments by the study of national songs have only one result— the brutalizing of the children." And the Kelet, the official paper of the Hungarian Freemasons wrote: "We must win over the teachers and schoolmasters in order to reach, through them, the soul of the young and prepare the way for non-religious instruction. The teachers must be the forerunners of the most advanced ideas."
Over and above the press and the schools they worked to obtain the greatest possible influence in politics and to hasten the passing of universal suffrage which they knew to be still impracticable in Hungary. As to the attitude of Freemasons during the war the author makes it clear by a few quotations.
In 1918 the grand symbolic lodge of Buda Pesth decided unanimously to send to count Michael Karolvi and to the national revolutionary council an address of welcome, declaring that: Hungarian Freemasonry will support the new government with all its power. Since it is found to be favourable to the accomplishment of masonic ends. On the 2nd November 1918 the same lodge defined its sentiments thus: "The government actually in power aims at realizing the same ideas as ourselves. Many of our brothers are members of the government, which for us is a guarantee that revolutionary Hungary will follow the path of radical reforms. Our duty is to help it according to our means.
All the Hungarian masonic lodges were dispersed in 1920 and their goods confiscated for the benefit of the state according to the laws of the Hungarian constitution. An inquiry was opened by the ministry of interior in order to know who were the masons directly responsible for anti-constitutional acts and to bring them before the regular tribunals as soon as the inquiry was over.
The Christian societies which formed themselves since the end of the war, all inscribed at the head of their programmes the struggle against Freemasons and demanded energetically their prosecution, for Hungarian public opinion held them responsible to a great extent, for defeat and above all for the revolutionary troubles which caused so much harm to Hungary.
In 1920 at the time when the dissolution of the lodges had been decreed in Hungary, M. Berthelot, in the name of French Freemasonry, addressed a letter to count Albert Apponyi head of the Hungarian peace delegation, requesting him to intervene in order to persuade his government to reconsider its decision. Members of the British diplomatic mission at Buda Pesth and in Vienna made similar applications; but the government informed them that so long as the part played by Freemasons was not entirely cleared up, there could be no question of giving back to them their former privileges.
To conclude let us briefly examine the masonic action during the war.