Changes

::Like most things Austrian, "Liberalism" gradually acquired a significance very different from its ostensible meaning.  Its catchwords "freedom," "progress," "culture," "civilization," originally the rallying-cries of democratic enthusiasts and reformers, gradually became mere shibboleths by which a rapacious clique recognized its own partisans.  The natural and healthy reaction against the State "system" of Alexander Bach, a system that co-ordinated with marvellous skill the agencies of the Police, the Church, the Bureaucracy and the Army in the work of stamping the progressive spirit out of Austria, brought into power during the later 'sixties and the 'seventies of last century, a party that strove for a time to correct the worst anachronisms and to remedy the most flagrant abuses of the obscurantist past.

::Like most things Austrian, "Liberalism" gradually acquired a significance very different from its ostensible meaning.  Its catchwords "freedom," "progress," "culture," "civilization," originally the rallying-cries of democratic enthusiasts and reformers, gradually became mere shibboleths by which a rapacious clique recognized its own partisans.  The natural and healthy reaction against the State "system" of Alexander Bach, a system that co-ordinated with marvellous skill the agencies of the Police, the Church, the Bureaucracy and the Army in the work of stamping the progressive spirit out of Austria, brought into power during the later 'sixties and the 'seventies of last century, a party that strove for a time to correct the worst anachronisms and to remedy the most flagrant abuses of the obscurantist past.

::But "liberty" and "freedom" in Austria then meant, in most cases, liberty for the clever, quick-quitted, indefatigable Jew to prey upon a public and a political world totally unfit for defence against or competition with him.  Fresh from Talmud and synagogue, and consequently trained to conjure with the law and skilled in intrigue, the invading Semite arrived from Galicia or Hungary and carried everything before him.  Unknown and therefore unchecked by public opinion, without any stake in the country and therefore reckless, he sought only to gratify his insatiable appetite for wealth and power. The Press, which he invaded, corrupted, and dominated, denounced resistance to him as "religious intolerance," and clamour for protection against him as "anti-Liberal".

::But "liberty" and "freedom" in Austria then meant, in most cases, liberty for the clever, quick-quitted, indefatigable Jew to prey upon a public and a political world totally unfit for defence against or competition with him.  Fresh from Talmud and synagogue, and consequently trained to conjure with the law and skilled in intrigue, the invading Semite arrived from Galicia or Hungary and carried everything before him.  Unknown and therefore unchecked by public opinion, without any "stake in the country" and therefore reckless, he sought only to gratify his insatiable appetite for wealth and power. The Press, which he invaded, corrupted, and dominated, denounced resistance to him as "religious intolerance," and clamour for protection against him as "anti-Liberal".

::Little by little the "Liberal" Jew established himself, as he thought, in an impregnable position.  But the excess of the evil brought, if not remedy, at least a palliative in the ugly form of an anti-Semitic agitation that drew strength from the financial and building crisis of 1873. For that crisis the Jews were not alone responsible, though their unbridled speculative habits and mushroom fortunes undoubtedly started the speculative mania which led to the crash; and while the aristocracy and the middle classes, which had been caught by the mania, lost heavily in the inevitable catastrophe, the Jews extricated themselves more nimbly and were little the worse. Resentment and envy rapidly found vent in an anti-Jewish outcry that made of the Jew a scapegoat for the sins of the community. The Jewish "Liberal" press hastened to denounce as "religious" intolerance this not unnatural reaction; and the Catholic Church, taking the hint, added a "religious" count to the general indictment.

::Little by little the "Liberal" Jew established himself, as he thought, in an impregnable position.  But the excess of the evil brought, if not remedy, at least a palliative in the ugly form of an anti-Semitic agitation that drew strength from the financial and building crisis of 1873. For that crisis the Jews were not alone responsible, though their unbridled speculative habits and mushroom fortunes undoubtedly started the speculative mania which led to the crash; and while the aristocracy and the middle classes, which had been caught by the mania, lost heavily in the inevitable catastrophe, the Jews extricated themselves more nimbly and were little the worse. Resentment and envy rapidly found vent in an anti-Jewish outcry that made of the Jew a scapegoat for the sins of the community. The Jewish "Liberal" press hastened to denounce as "religious" intolerance this not unnatural reaction; and the Catholic Church, taking the hint, added a "religious" count to the general indictment.