The International Jew
Volume 3: Jewish Influences in American LifeBy Henry Ford
Jewish Degradation of American Baseball September 10, 1921
Every non-Jewish baseball manager in the United States lives between two fears, and they are both describable in the Biblical term “the fear of the Jews.” The first fear concerns what the Jews are doing to baseball; the second fear concerns what the Jew would do to the manager if he complained about it. Hence, in spite of the fact that the rowdyism that has afflicted baseball, especially in the East, is all of Jewish origin—the razzing of umpires, hurling of bottles, ceaseless shouting of profane insults; in spite of the fact that the loyalty of players had to be constantly guarded because of the tendency of individual Jewish gamblers to snuggle up to individual players; in spite of the evidence that even the gate receipts have been tampered with—the managers and secretaries of baseball clubs have been obliged to keep their mouths closed. Through fear they have not dared say what they know. As one manager said, “Good God, man, they d boycott my park if I told you!”
This is in free America, and in the “cleanest game”! It is time for baseball to begin to look round.
Incidentally, the fans have been looking round. The fans know. If managers only knew how much the fans have observed, they might feel more certain of support in the event of a move toward a clean-up.
All that a Jew needs to make him eligible to baseball or any other sport on the same terms with other people, is to develop a sportsman s spirit. The Jew has crowded into all the lucrative sports, but only on the commercial side of them, seldom if ever in sympathy with the sport as a real sportsman. The Jews referred to as gamblers in these articles are not really gamblers: they take no chances; they are not sportsmen enough to gamble; they are “sure thing” men. The “Gentile boobs” who walk into their traps are the people who provide the money. Even in the field of money, the Jew is not a sport—he is a gangster, ringing a gang of his ilk around his victims with as much system as a storekeeper supplies clerks and delivery boys.
Lately the Jews have been endeavoring to prove that they are sports. Venial sport editors are sometimes induced to write certain laudatory articles along that line, and frequently the name of Benny Leonard is used—Benny Leonard, the light-weight fighter. Benny forms an instructive illustration just along this line. Benny declares that he went into the ring without a scar and that he will leave the ring without a scar. Why? Because he will let no one hit him. He will go a long way to avoid pain.
The true wrestler risks and often suffers physical pain. So does the true ring fighter. But it is a Jewish characteristic to avoid, if possible, the pain of contest, just as it is a characteristic to avoid unnecessary effort.
Look at the other light-weight champions and fighters. Kid Lavinge carries scars; his hearing is affected by the blows he took. Battling Nelson was so badly shattered by his fights that operations were necessary. Ad Wolgast, as a result of the honest straight fighting he endured, went into a sanatorium. Imagine Willie Ritchie and Freddie Welsh boasting that they never took a blow! But Benny Leonard is still unscarred. It may be boxing, but it is not fighting.
Wrestling is so tightly controlled by Jewish managers, that a real wrestler is absolutely barred out, for fear he will be able to show that the handful of wrestlers hired by the Jewish trust are not wrestlers at all, but only impositions on the good nature of the public. In order that the statement just made may not be misunderstood, it is repeated: the wrestling game at present is like the chariot race in a circus—the performers are hired men and the race is only a sham. The Jewish controllers of wrestling will not permit real wrestler to appear—indeed, they go to infinite pains to bar him out—because a real wrestler would immediately show up the game. Wrestling is as much a Jewish business, controlled in its every part, as the manufacture of clothing, and its hirelings are mostly Gentiles.
That is what baseball was coming to. The whole sport was getting down to an “exhibition game” status. The overtone of “money, money, money” grew louder and louder. The sport aspect of the game was beginning to give way to the “show” aspect. There were numerous signs that an attempt was being made to “star” certain persons, to run “headliners,” and to pull off a game with a sensational ending—just like a ballet is staged, or a pageant. Thrills were being offered—not as the give and take of the game, the accident of tensest action, but as practiced acting.
That is, baseball was slowly being brought under the level of the box-office idea.
There were forces against this metamorphosis of the game. Certain men saw what was coming. There were also forces favoring the change, and wanting it to come. Curiously enough, the forces that favored turning baseball into afternoon vaudeville were Jews, and those who favored keeping the game as part of American outdoor sports were non-Jews.
There were more involved in that Chicago trial—that curious medley of Jewish defendants, witnesses, lawyers and judge—than the mere trial of baseball players accused of unlawfully taking money.
The players were the “Gentile boobs.” The players were not a whit different than a candidate for the United States Senate who plays the game according to the Jewish method. Every player on trial was there because he had listened to the suggestions of a Jew. The Jews who made the suggestions were not on trial. Some of them were not even indicted. Some who were called before the grand jury were not required to testify. Others who were indicted were acquitted. The spotlight of the whole scandal was centered on the non-Jewish players who were pushed out in front to do the job and who were known to any number of Jewish witnesses as having been mixed up in whatever shady work there might have been. The “Gentile boobs” had no witnesses; the Jews had all of them.
This is not a whitewash for the players. They deserved all they got for mixing up with the low hangers-on; but they did not deserve it alone. Had they been half men there would have been a few Jewish gamblers cured for life of the little habit of approaching ball players with a shady proposition. The players are Jewish dupes. To be such a dupe is punishment enough.
It would be erroneous, however, to hold the opinion that corruption in baseball began with the matter which was aired in court. Reference was made at the beginning of this article to the fear which the managers feel. This fear is of long standing. The managers had observed certain manifestations of evil years before. They had heard rumors which they did not repeat to their closest friends. They had started quiet investigations, the results of which they did not reveal even to their partners in the clubs. Everybody acquainted with the true situation lived in deathly fear of emitting a whisper that might give a clue to the truth. But the truth is stronger than walls and doors and steel vaults—the truth was known at every stage of the game, by somebody.
Fans may recall that several years ago one of the eastern teams began to get rid of most of its men. It was a strange proceeding and occasioned much discussion. The sport pages speculated about it, and the “wise” ones doped out plausible or fantastic explanations. The true explanation has never yet been given, and it is this: the manager of that club had seen certain things in the World Series of that year which turned him cold. He knew that he saw them; morally he was convinced that something was wrong; he exhausted every available method to get to the truth and failed; so, unable to bring the men to public punishment, he simply got rid of them one by one, and the next season he had practically “rebuilt” his team. That was not more than ten and not less than five years before the 1919 World Series which formed the basis of the Chicago scandal.
It may be stated also that this which follows is the consensus of Jewish opinion as regards baseball: “You can t kill baseball as a business. It will always draw a gang on an afternoon, particularly a Sunday afternoon. It can be pepped up and jazzed up in a way that will make it quite a show.”
The Jews are probably right, that baseball cannot be killed as a business. But it can be killed as a sport. And the American baseball fans who value the game as a sport should wish its utter destruction rather than consent that it become a rendezvous for the gangs that now fill the Jew-controlled burlesque houses. Baseball as a business will become a danger in American life, a mob-center, a hang-out of the disorderly and criminal classes.
There is another peculiar Jewish story regarding baseball which has not been told and it necessarily brings in the name of Judge Landis, of Chicago, an upright man with a wise head, whom the Jews would better not try to fool.
When the story is told, however, even the Jews will agree that Judge Landis is too shrewd for them.
Before the baseball scandal the situation was this: Ban Johnson was the head of organized baseball, through the National Commission. He had brought the sport from a minor place to its position as the national game. Ban Johnson was something of an autocrat, as all leaders must be, because as old General Booth of the Salvation Army said: “If the Children of Israel had been managed by a committee, they never could have crossed the Red Sea.” Autocracy has its uses, especially in striking out new lines. Ban Johnson used his power for baseball, not for personal aggrandizement. He saw the game grow great, he wanted it kept clean. In his efforts to keep it clean, he made certain enemies. One of those enemies, the Jewish owner of a baseball club, threatened to “get Johnson.” As far as the National Commission as the head of organized baseball is concerned, they did “get” him. But so far as his prestige is concerned, so far as his character and reputation are concerned, they did not “get” him.
Judge Landis was a fan. That is, he was a fan, besides being a learned and rather strict judge. Judge Landis was one of the few judges who did not quail before Chicago meat packers and Jewish bootleggers. Judge Landis always went the limit on the numerous cases of Jewish business crookedness that came before him—“blue sky” investment companies, and the like. He was at least one judge who tried Jew and Gentile alike and whose impartiality and fearless righteousness no one doubted.
Judge Landis was a rather uncomfortable man to have on the bench in Chicago.
Moreover he was a comparatively poor man. The United States pays its judges only $7,500 a year. That is less than $150 a week, comparatively little on which to live as a Federal judge must live. Yet Judge Landis lived in a modest house and within his income. And no one ever dared tamper with him. An honest judge on the bench, a frugal man outside.
And he was a fan!
Now, while Ban Johnson was doing his best for baseball, and while Judge Landis was seeing a game as often as his duties permitted, certain others were viewing the situation. One of them was Alfred S. Austrian, the Jewish lawyer referred to in the last article, attorney for several ball clubs, friend of Replogle and Lasker, attorney for Rothstein the gambler and several others. Barney Dreyfuss, the Jewish owner of the Pittsburgh Club, was on the trail of Johnson, on persistent enmity. The Jewish coterie in Chicago and the Jewish influence throughout American baseball looked at Johnson and they looked at Judge Landis.
Then the great idea broke! If at one stroke they could rid baseball of Johnson and rid the bench of Landis, what a good job that would be.
Both these men were dangerous to Jews—not that they intended to be, not that they were consciously so—and it would be desirable to remove both from the spheres of their activity.
Then it was that the Jew lawyer, Austrian, came forth with the “Lasker Plan,” named for his Jewish friend Lasker, member of the American Jewish Committee, head of Lord & Thomas (Gentile names) and Chairman of the United States Shipping Board.
The “Lasker Plan” proposed that the National Commission with Ban Johnson be superseded by a one-man government, that one man be selected from outside both leagues.
The proposal was not an immediate success. Even the National League was in no hurry to obey this suggestion against Johnson. Indeed, there was so much hesitancy on the part of the Nationals in which the Jewish colleagues expected to find their best support, that the trump card was played.
What was that trump card? It is said to be the secret testimony of the grand jury before which Ban Johnson was glad to appear as a witness to tell the jury everything it would need for a proper prosecution of its inquiry, and before which Alfred S. Austrian also appeared to save some of his clients from the consequences of such testimony. The report is that Austrian was able to reproduce at the National League meeting the secret testimony which Ban Johnson had given before the grand jury, and by that means swing the Nationals against Johnson and in favor of the “Lasker Plan,” because in the grand jury room Johnson told the truth about certain elements in baseball, which was held to reflect on National League members. What those elements are may be gathered from a survey of the people who were interested in “getting” Johnson. Johnson is anything but anti-Semitic. He probably has never stopped to think about such a thing. He has never been known to attack Jews as Jews. But he has stood for straight baseball, and for so standing he has won the enmity of the Jews in baseball. These facts are sufficient to justify a conclusion.
So, with Johnson left to head only the American League and not both leagues, the next task was to select the new autocrat of baseball. Not a commission this time, but one man! With all his power, Johnson was never more than one of a commission; but the “Lasker Plan” disposes of such safeguards and leaves the whole authority in one man s hands. It will be interesting to see who becomes the second incumbent of that office, if indeed the “Lasker Plan” lasts long enough to warrant a second autocrat.
Gentle reader, do you suppose for a moment that the Jews who opposed Johnson did not know who the new leader would be? Ah, well they knew! He was to be a man outside both leagues. And he was to be a man whom the Jews would just as soon have off the bench as on it. He was, indeed, none other than Judge Landis, who can be trusted to see through a trick as far as any other living man.
Of course, he would accept a $42,500 job, he who was receiving only $7,500 a year! And, of course, he would resign from the bench!—thus the coterie reasoned.
They trooped over to the court to interview the judge. They made so much commotion on their entry that the gavel was banged for order. The interview was held. Judge Landis agreed to accept. This news was widely heralded. The judge tied them down to a seven-year contract. It was assumed in all the interviews in all the newspapers that the judge would resign. It was assumed he would devote the rest of his life to baseball.
The baseball magnates signed up under the “Lasker Plan” put across by Austrian.
Judge Landis also signed.
And then he remained on the bench!
The reader no doubt remembers how quickly enthusiasm for Judge Landis died down in certain quarters; remembers, too, no doubt, that a fight was started immediately afterward in the United States Congress to force Judge Landis off the bench—not to make him give up the dictatorship of baseball, but to make him quit the bench.
And be this said: in spite of all the collusion and conspiracy and trickery, of which Judge Landis was the unconscious object, baseball fell into the hands of a man who will be just as jealous for its good name as Ban Johnson was. The Austrian-Lasker-Dreyfuss plan has so far failed. And Judge Landis has rendered several decisions which show that on the bench or off the bench he has the same shrewd eye for the detection of a fallacy.
Judge Landis is safeguarded by a seven-year contract. He is free to be absolutely fearless and fair. What his accession means to baseball will be anxiously awaited.
Judge Landis is probably not empowered to stop the steady falling of baseball clubs into Jewish hands, and if this cannot be stopped, his position as supreme dictator becomes little better than that of a police court judge settling disputes relating to the rules and offenses against them. The peril of baseball goes deeper than that.
A few years ago the owners of the American League entered into a gentleman s agreement not to sell their holdings at any time without first consulting all the other owners. The name of a prospective purchaser was to be submitted and considered, and the deal was to wait upon the approval of all the owners in the league.
In the face of that fact many people wonder how Harry Frazee became owner of the Boston American club. It is very simply explained: the agreement was not observed in Boston s case, and thus another club was placed under the smothering influences of the “chosen race.” The story is worth telling:
Frazee, like so many of his kind, was in the “show business,” a manager of burlesque companies. Then he saw a chance in sport. In partnership with Jack Curley, another Jew, he put on the notoriously crooked fight between Jack Johnson and Jess Willard at Havana. Curley has been the principal influence in killing wrestling, by precisely the kind of Jewish policy here described.
Jack Johnson, the Negro, was a fugitive from justice, yet he was champion prize fighter of the world. He was spending money like a wild sailor, and his funds were running low. He was getting into precisely the condition where Jews like to find a man, to use him. Unable to fight in the United States, but still possessing the championship, he was in need of a way out. At this time Frazee and Curley made a proposition to Johnson, said to involve the sum of $35,000, if he would “lay down” before Jess Willard. And thus Jess Willard, “probably the worst fighter that ever held a title,” was made world champion. Frazee and Curley then exhibited Willard on the stage and in circuses, and drew rich dividends. The crooked fight at Havana did not involve Willard, he was too poor a fighter to need “fixing.” Only Johnson had to be “fixed” not to knock Willard out, which he could easily have done. But between the time when Curley and Frazee gave Willard the title, and the time when Dempsey took it away from him, the Jewish syndicate made a very rich killing out of the gullible American public.
But Curley is not the subject here, he deserves a separate story. Frazee concerns this article because he became owner of the Boston baseball team. He bought a new show—the Boston club, in the best baseball city of the American League. John J. Lannin, former owner, was a real baseball man, so much so indeed, that the excitement of the games told on his health and it became necessary for him to relieve himself of the strain. Frazee was waiting to cut in, and whether Lannin feared that the proposal of Frazee s name to the American League would result in disapproval, or whether Frazee himself, knowing it, contrived to make it worth while that the agreement between the American League owners should be ignored, remains an open question.
However that may be, the American League woke up one morning to find the little burlesque manager and promoter of a crooked prize fight in their midst. It was a sad shock to the dignity of “the cleanest sport.”
What could they do about it? Nothing. Frazee had bought and paid for what he held.
Baseball was about as much of a sport to Frazee as selling tickets to a merry-go-round would be. He wanted to put his team across as if they were May Watson s girly girly burlesquers. Baseball was to be “promoted” as Jewish managers promote Coney Island.
The American League owners rebelled, but let them rebel! What could they do about it?
Frazee began his next inside work almost immediately. Ban Johnson was unalterably opposed to the Frazee idea of sport, and Frazee set out to “get” Johnson. A split occurred in the American League, with Frazee, Til Huston and Jake Ruppert of the New York Club, and Charles A. Comiskey and Grabiner, of the Chicago Club, on one side against Johnson, and the other American owners comprising the other party supporting Johnson.
Frazee got money out of Chicago—the home of Lasker, Austrian, Replogle and Grabiner—to put through his Boston deal. A bank loaned him a quarter of a million dollars—one of Frazee s friends was a director of the bank. Frazee s friend died and Frazee had difficulty with the bank about remaking the notes. He finally was enabled to pay $125,000. Frazee secured this money from the New York American Club by selling “Babe” Ruth. Thus the New York and Boston clubs have become financially interwoven. Boston is referred to as “New York s farm” in baseball circles.
In the meantime, the fans of Boston feel toward Frazee as the fans of Chicago feel toward Grabiner. The “class” of Boston no longer flows through the gates. The attendance at Boston park is smaller than at any other time in the last 15 years.
Now, it is unlikely that Judge Landis could tackle that question. Has he power, or lacking power, has he daring enough to assume power to drive the peril away from the ownership and fringes of baseball? It is probably not his field, but it pertains to the future character of baseball.
The Chicago American League Club is the most recent to attract the desire of Jewish capital. The Ascher brothers of that city have offered $1,500,000 for the club franchise. The Ascher brothers comprise a Jewish family, Max, Nathan and Harry, who conduct a string of motion picture theaters in Chicago. They have erected their own theatrical circuit. Like Frazee, they wish to add baseball to their string of “show businesses,” and are willing to pay the price. At the time of this writing, their offer has not been turned down.
But a significant development—and in Chicago also—is the announcement made by the Chicago Tribune that it will curtail the space heretofore devoted to baseball on its sport pages. This, more than anything which has occurred, indicates the new scrutiny with which the game is being viewed. For a long time many observers have wondered where the “sport” was found in sitting on a bleacher watching a few men earn their salaries. Hours thus spent in a ball park “do not take anything off the waistline of the spectators nor add anything to the chest measurement,” says the Tribune; “the majority of spectators get only eye and mouth exercise.” “Journalism has overfed it with space,” the Tribune rightly says, referring to professional baseball. In ruining baseball and securing control, the Jews may be just in time to take a loss. Better no baseball than every park an afternoon midway filled with the alien and Red elements of the country.
There is, however, a baseball duty devolving upon the police of every city, and that is the abolition of the Jew-controlled baseball pool. Gambling has grown up round the “cleanest game” to the extent of $20,000,000 a year. It flourishes in 150 cities in the country, and in many small towns. The “boobs,” of course, are mostly non-Jews, the owners and profit-takers are Jews. It is as much a part of the national network of the Jewish gambling fraternity as are booze-running and horse-racing. The baseball pool runs more openly than the “books” because the very name “baseball” has seemed to give it the protection of “the cleanest sport.” However, it has turned cigar-stores, barber shops, pool rooms, near-beer saloons, and newspaper stands into agencies for the national and international Jewish gambling forces. The bettor is entirely at the mercy of the managers of these pools.
These dishonest money-collecting devices are in violation of the law everywhere. The police could put them out of business easily if they should decide to give their attention to it. And thereby they would be taking the hands of the most undesirable alien class out of the pockets of the American people.
If baseball is to be saved, and there are those who seriously doubt it ever can be restored, the remedy is plain. The disease is caused by the Jewish characteristic which spoils everything by ruthless commercial exploitation. The disease may be too far gone for any cure. There are those who, like the Chicago Tribune, deny that professional baseball ever was a sport, and who are glad that Jewish exploiters, like scavengers, have come along to reduce it to garbage. But there is no doubt anywhere, among either friends or critics of baseball, that the root cause of the present condition is due to Jewish influence.
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