A WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Year Twenty-One ... Number Twenty-Five ... June 21, 1974
THE CONTRIVED EVOLUTION
OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
PART EIGHT
RECRUITING REVOLUTIONARIES
On the 12th of December in 1905 a group of young men held a meeting in a loft above Peck's Restaurant, at 140 Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, New York. These men were not at all satisfied with conditions in the United States and they met to discuss ways and means of changing things, as things were then being changed in England. They had adopted the ideals of the Fabian Society, and they sought to organize themselves, even as the Fabians in England had been organized under intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas and Sydney Olivier, "The Four" of Fabianism who later were to be joined by such intellectual luminaries as Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, John Galsworthy, Mrs. (Beatrice) Webb, R. H. Tawney, G. D. H. Cole, Harold Laski, and John Maynard Keynes (whose economic theories they were forced to accept in place of their own.)
In the United States, instead of calling their organization the Fabian Socialist Society, they decided upon the name Intercollegiate Socialist Society (to be changed in 1921 to the League for Industrial Democracy).
The founding fathers of Fabianism in the United States were young men. Upton Sinclair, its godfather, was twenty-seven. Jack London, its first president, was twenty-nine. Morris Hillquist, Harry W. Laidler, Owen R. Lovejoy, Thomas Wentworth Higgins, J. G. Phelps Stokes, Clarence Darrow; all these were young men who attended that first meeting.
But these young men were not members of any of the Communist cults that resorted to violence and sought to change America into a Socialist State overnight. Like their London counterpart, they adopted a program of gradualism, a "slow but sure" approach. First, they would "promote an intelligent interest in Socialism among college men and women." Then, after having indoctrinated the new school of professors, journalists, administrators and opinion molders, they would move into the political arena with seasoned and well-trained change-agents as they were to do when FDR accepted their New Deal and their Brain Trust in 1933.
The New York organization copied the London Fabians in yet another important way: Though the Fabian Society sought to promote Socialism in English colleges, especially at Oxford and Cambridge, they felt that they should have their own center of higher education, one that was completely under their own control. So, they established the London School of Economics.
Similarly, in lower Manhattan, the Rand School of Social Science was founded; and here the Intercollegiate Socialist Society established permanent headquarters in 1908.
The next step of the ISS was to organize chapters in colleges and universities. These chapters (there were 61 of them in as many schools of higher learning by 1917) became training bases for future leaders in almost every branch of the overall Conspiracy. For example, Walter Lippmann was president of the Harvard chapter of the ISS in 1909. He went on to become an assistant to Colonel House, helped organize the Council on Foreign Relations, was a member of and an American Correspondent for the British based Round Table (of which CFR is the American affiliate). Lippmann, until his retirement, was on the staff of The New York Times, from which position he served as a transmitter of policy decisions and instructions to internationalist agents at home and abroad (a position now filled by James Reston and C. L. Sulzberger, both also staffmen at The New York Times).
The foregoing is but a brief sampling of the ISS members who graduated into other branches of the overall Conspiracy. We might also include, among many others, Norman Thomas who headed the political apparatus known as the Socialist Party, John Haynes Holmes who helped socialize organized Christianity in America, W.E.B. DuBois who lent his name so the NAACP could call itself a "colored" organization, John Dewey who is called the father of Progressive Education, Reinhold Niebuhr who popularized the Social Gospel, etc.
These are but a few of the names. It is not our purpose to go into further detail regarding the Fabians, as such. Our study in this series of letters has to do with Regional Government, and we refer to Fabianism only as it concerns the foundation we must lay before discussing current events. For a more complete history of the Fabian movement in the United States, the best work we have seen to date remains, Fabian Freeway, High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A., by Rose L. Martin.
There is, however, an interlocking connection between Fabian Socialism and Finance Capitalism that has never, to our knowledge, been fully explored or explained. And this would take us back to England, and to Oxford University in the year 1870 :-
Oxford had never had a professorship of fine arts, but in 1870 the university received a special bequest (Slade) which called for the creation of such a professorship, and John Ruskin was named to fill the chair. But Ruskin talked very little about the fine arts. Instead, he talked of the White Man's Burden or, more specifically, of the burden that should be borne by the world's elite, the Oxford undergraduates who were scions of the aristocracy, the ruling class, the privileged who should rule the world for the world's benefit. He told the Oxford students that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self-discipline; but that this tradition "could not be saved and did not deserve to be saved" unless it could be extended to the non-English masses of the world, by way of a world empire that should be established by and ruled by the English-speaking people of the world.
Ruskin's message had a sensational impact. From it came the British-Israel religious doctrine, the English Speaking Union, the Pilgrims Society, and other organizations calling for the reunion of the United States with the British Empire.
According to Carroll Quigley, author of Tragedy and Hope, Ruskin's "inaugural lecture was copied out in longhand by one undergraduate, Cecil Rhodes, who kept it with him for thirty years." With financial support from Lord Rothschild and Alfred Beit, Rhodes was able to monopolize the diamond mines of South Africa as De Beers Consolidated Mines, and to build up a great gold mining enterprise as Consolidated Gold Fields.
"In the middle 1890's," wrote Quigley, "Rhodes had a personal income of at least a million pounds sterling a year, which was spent so freely for his mysterious purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. These purposes centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking people and to bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control. For this purpose Rhodes left part of his great fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford in order to spread the English ruling class tradition throughout the English-speaking world, as Ruskin had wanted."
Ruskin impressed others in much the same manner that he had impressed Cecil Rhodes, not all of whom were to follow the dream of Imperialism. Graham Wallas was such a person, and Graham Wallas was one of the "Founding Fabians." In This Little Band of Prophets, the story of the British Fabians by Anne Fremantle, there is this important passage:
"Sir Alfred Zimmern and Walter Lippmann were among Graham Wallas's devoted pupils. And there is scarcely a considerable figure in England among the younger generation of politicians and publicists, who does not owe something to Graham Wallas's slow, fussy manners, his penetrating and inspiring counsels. As an undergraduate, Wallas had been very influenced while at Oxford, at Corpus Christi College, by John Ruskin. 'I heard his lectures,' he wrote, 'and for some time saw him almost every day. His mobile lips were not yet covered by a beard, and he always wore his precise costume, with an intensely blue neck-cloth. His face was that of a man who had seen, and was to see again, hell as well as Paradise'."
So, the record reveals that John Ruskin, who was called, most incongruously, a Christian Socialist, had a profound effect upon Fabian Socialist Founding Father Graham Wallas, just as he made a lasting impression upon British Imperialist Cecil Rhodes. It is, of course, generally explained that Socialism and Capitalism are at opposite ends of the political pole. However, here is Professor John Ruskin inspiring and giving policy direction to both!
Furthermore, there was Walter Lippmann, who began as president of the Harvard chapter of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, sitting at the feet of Fabian Graham Wallas who, in turn, sat at the feet of Christian Socialist John Ruskin.
Lippmann later became an important member of Col. House's The Inquiry group, which went with him to Paris where the Council on Foreign Relations was created, Lippmann being a charter member.
Ergo, it would appear that functionaries such as Walter Lippmann are members of an interlocking directorate which connects and controls, and gives policy decisions and instructions, to both the extreme right and the extreme left in world political movements!
Perhaps even more evidential is the very existence of an organization such as the Council on Foreign Relations, which has been called the Invisible Government of the United States and which has, among its very carefully chosen members, representatives of all branches of the Conspiracy. In the CFR are Communists, Fabians, Finance Capitalists, International Bankers, and all shades of political and economic ideology which allegedly lie between those two extremes called The Right and The Left. And, furthermore, this Council on Foreign Relations is, in turn, the American branch of a world-wide organization originally created to carry out the dreams of Christian Socialist John Ruskin of Oxford, whose two chief disciples were Imperialist Cecil Rhodes and Fabian Socialist Graham Wallas.
And that particular thread in our story must bring us back to Cecil Rhodes, his wills and his bequests and the organizations which were established in his name :-
Rhodes, financed by Lord Rothschild and Alfred Beit, became a multimillionarie but, while amassing his fortune, he kept with him the words of John Ruskin, and on Feb. 5, 1891, with the assistance of his friend and associate, journalist William Stead, he organized a secret society of which he had been dreaming for sixteen years.
"In this secret society," wrote Carroll Quigley, "Rhodes was to be leader; Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and (Alfred Lord) Milner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a Circle of Initiates; while there was to be an outer circle known as the Association of Helpers (later organized by Milner as the Round Table organization) .... the central part of the secret society was established by March 1891. It continued to function as a formal group, although the outer circle -- was, apparently, not organized until 1909-1913. This group was able to get access to Rhodes's money after his death in 1902 and also to the funds of loyal Rhodes supporters like Alfred Beit and Sir Abe Bailey. With this backing they sought to extend and execute the ideals that Rhodes had obtained from Ruskin and Stead. Milner was chief Rhodes Trustee and (Sir George) Parkin was Organizing Secretary of the Rhodes Trust after 1902 ....
"Milner recruited a group of young men ... to assist him .... In 1909-1913 they organized semisecret groups, known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and in the United States .... They kept in touch with each other by personal correspondence and frequent visits, and through an influential quarterly magazine, The Round Table, founded in 1910 and largely supported by Sir Abe Bailey's money (and still being published and distributed to Round Table members in eight countries, including the United States-Ed.)"
"In 1919," notes Quigley, "they founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) .... Similar Institutes of International Affairs were established in the chief British dominions and in the United States (where it is known as the Council on Foreign Relations) in the period 1919-27."
For several years the Round Table Groups worked desperately trying to find a way of converting the British Empire into a World Federation. It was even suggested that the United States be cajoled into joining such a federation by making Washington, D.C. the world capitol. But gradually it became clear to the Planners that the English-speaking nations and dependences would not accept the plan for a world federation. So, the plan was dropped for a while, and it was decided that a British Commonwealth of Nations be formed. Lionel Curtis, at this time the chief promoter of the plan, wrote a book (1916) in which he advocated changing the name "British Empire" to "Commonwealth of Nations," giving India and Ireland and other chief dependencies their complete independence on condition that they join this new Commonwealthh of Nations; and at the same time the Round Tablers would work to bring the United States into this same worldwide orientation, while also "seeking to solidify the intangible links of sentiment by propaganda among financial, educational, and political leaders in each country."
So far as we know, the total American membership in Round Table Groups has never been made public. Carroll Quigley names a few, and we can expect his list to be accurate since he has worked with the groups and had access to some of their secret files. Quigley names the following Americans as past or present members of the Round Table:
The organizational plan laid down by the Big Four -- Rhodes, Stead, Rothschild and Milner -- has been maintained. There is the secret inner circle, the Round Table Group; and there are the semi-secret Institutes of International Affairs, the American organization being called The Council on Foreign Relations. There is probably an ultra-secret inner sanctum of rulers within the secret Round Table Group which directs the whole world-wide operation, including the Communist Parties of the world, the other Socialist groups such as the Fabians, the Bilderbergers, and all other internationalist organizations. But here, proof is impossible, there can be but speculation and conjecture.
We do know that the vast amounts of money for the widely ramified activities of this organization and its satellites, came originally from the Rhodes Trust, the Rothschild interests, the Beit brothers, Sir Abe Bailey, the Astor family; and since 1925 from the American members of the international banking fraternity and from the tax-exempt foundations. And the world headquarters was moved from London to New York City.
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