Transatlantic Alliance
By the early twenty century, the merchant elites in Great Britain and the United States had developed a powerful alliance, pursuing jointly their commercial interests all around the globe. The underlying principle of the transatlantic alliance rested in the conviction of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, which, in words of a contemporary political scientist, John Burgess, was “particularly endowed with the capacity for establishing national states...”168 Thus, British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour and British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain sometimes called this partnership “the race alliance.”169 Influential writers, philosophers and politicians were meant to provide the American ruling elites with intellectual foundations to justify their expansionist policies which were not very popular among the American people. In America people like Reverend Josiah Strong preached for nearly twenty years of the Anglo-Saxons as “the great colonizing race of the ages.”170 Albert Beveridge, a US senator from Indiana and a compelling orator, encouraged colonization claiming that “The American Republic is part of a movement of a race - the most masterful race of history - and race movements are not to be stayed by the hand of man. They are mighty answers to Divine commands. Their leaders are not only statesman of people – they are prophets of God (…).”171 In order to reinforce the transatlantic race alliance, Rhodes Scholarships in Oxford favoured American students, with one hundred scholarship allocated there, two for each of the fifty states and territories, whereas a total of sixty scholarships were made available for the entire British Empire. Furthermore, in 1902, the City of London initiated a secretive dining club, 'the Pilgrims', that brought the groups of rich individuals on both sides of the Atlantic together on regular basis. It advocated the idea that 'Englishman and Americans would promote international friendship through their pilgrimages to and from across the Atlantic'. At least 18 members of the London Elite attended Pilgrims dinners including head of the City of London banking sector, Nathaniel Rothschild; Viceroy of India and future British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon; the owner of Daily Mail and Daily Mirror 1st Viscount Northcliffe; a confidential adviser to royals and politician Lord Esher; British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey and British prime minister Arthur Balfour. In New York, members of the Pilgrims included the new rising Morgan and Rockefeller dynasties.172
The Anglo-American merchant elites acted jointly with their like-minded business partners in Germany, France, Holland, Russia and other countries, making joint strategic investments, but also floating loans to finance military conflicts, political movements and revolutions across the globe. The method by which they operated was based on philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: the glorification of the State and Dialectic. In Hegel’s dialectics, as in Plato’s Dialogues, a contradictory process between “opposing sides” led to development from less sophisticated definitions or views to more sophisticated ones. In other words, the progress was made through contrived conflict. This was presented by another German philosopher, Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, as a triad of “thesis-antithesis-synthesis”. Thus, a Hegelian dialectic comprised three stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an antithesis which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. In more simplistic terms, it gives a formulation: problem → reaction → solution. In politics, this translated into a policy of controlling the opposite sides of the conflict in order to dominate the nature of the outcome. Hegel's philosophy was brought to the United States in 1830s by William Russell, a cousin of Samuel Russell, who was making fortune on smuggling opium to China. William Russell studied Hegel's philosophy in Germany and like Karl Marx he intended to use it for political purposes. In 1830s, upon his return to America, William Russell set up together with Alphonso Taft, a secret society known as SCULL AND BONES, as Chapter 322 of a German secret society.173 Number “322” referred to 322BCE when the Greek orator Demosthenes died, a moment that saw ancient Athens begin its transition from democracy to plutocracy, implying the group's belief that America should follow suit and surrender the responsibilities of government exclusively to the wealthy.174 175 Scull and Bones was attached to a Yale College, an educational institution founded by an American merchant and slave trader of British descent, Elihu Yale. He made money serving with the East India Company, in Madras, and donated funds to the Collegiate School founded in 1701 in New Haven, in Connecticut.
There was already one secret society operating in Yale and that was Phi Beta Kappa Society (ΦΒΚ) which was originally founded in 1776, as the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity, by a group of students from College of William and Mary, based in Williamsburg in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa Society stood for Φιλοσοφία Βίου Κυβερνήτης (Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs), "Love of wisdom is the guide of life."176 Over time Society developed chapters at other universities including University of Yale as well as University of Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was the oldest educational establishment in the United States founded in 1636 with a donation from the clergyman and an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, John Harvard.177 Thus, similarly to the Illuminati society in Bavaria and Rhodes' Secret Society in Oxford, Phi Beta Kappa and Scull and Bones were attached to a University. The purpose of Scull and Bones Secret Society was to initiate a chosen group of American students into the rules of Hegelian dialectic. The Scull and Bones, known also the “Brotherhood of Death” and on the inside as “The Order” was incorporated as The Russell Trust in 1856 and tapped each year 15 new members at the Yale University who were then called 'Knights' upon graduation. Number 322 was their identification number and any correspondence between the knights would end with the number 322 to indicate membership in the Order. The Order also used Knights Templar' symbol of Scull and Bones, as another identification sign, and had a Temple at the Yale campus where it conducted initiation ceremonies and other rituals. According to American researcher, professor Anthony Sutton, membership of Scull and Bones was dominated by the old American families who arrived on the East coast of America in 1600s, e.g. Whitney, Lord, Phelps, Wadsworth, Allen, Bundy, Adams, and by the families who acquired wealth in the last 100 years and sent their sons to Yale, including clans like Harriman, Rockefeller, Payne, Davison among others.178 The aim of the Society was to permeate the American big industry, banks and state institutions and apply Hegelian dialectic for the benefit of the members of the Order. The members would seek to support one another in public sphere and would act in accordance to the rule: “That only who wears upon his breast, Their emblem, he for every post shall be considered best.”179 In later years two other secret societies were established at Yale to counter the dominance of Scull and Bones Society: Scroll and Key founded in 1841, and Wolf's Head founded in 1880s.180 Majority of the US presidents, judges and prominent politicians, were members of one secret fraternity, or another, or were members of various masonic lodges. Such membership was necessary to achieve prominent posts in public administration and politics.
For further reading please purchase an eBook
168 Zinn, People's History of the United States, p. 299 »
169 Srdjan Vucetic, The Anglosphere: A Genealogy of a Racialized Identity in International Relations (Stanford University Press, 2011), p. 29 »
170 Michael L. Krenn (ed.), The Impact of Race on U.S. Foreign Policy (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1999), p. 96 »
171 Ibid., p. 98 »
172 Gerry Docherty and Jim Maccgregor, Hidden History: The Secret Origin of First World War (Edinburgh and London: Mainstream Publishing, 2013) pp. 2010-2012; For more information, search: 'Pilgrims Society'. The group has been in operation for over a century and has Queen Elizabeth as its patron. Members include ministers, diplomats, CEOs and others. »
173 Alfonso Taft, Secretary of War (March 8, 1876 – May 22, 1876) under President Ulysses S. Grant »
174 Anthony C. Sutton, America's Secret Establishment, An introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones, Reprint (USA: TrineDay LLC, 2009), p. 6 »
175 Joe Sommerland, “George W.H. Bush: Who are the Scull and Bones? The Yale secret society with three presidents among its ranks”, The Independent, 8 May 2018 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/george-hw-bush-skull-bones-yale-secret-society-uspresident-dubya-kerry-a8340596.html »
176 Further reading: William T. Hastings, Phi Beta Kappa as a Secret Society With Its Relations to Freemasonary and Antimasonary. Some Supplementary Documents (1965) »
177 For list of members of Phi Beta Kappa Society see: Bowling Green State University, “Notable Fellow Phi Beta Kappa Members” (exerpted from an article about PBK in Delta Airlines Magazine) https://www.bgsu.edu/arts-and-sciences/pbk/noteable-members.html »
178 Sutton, America's Secret Establishment, p. 8 »
179 Ibid., p. 43 »
180 Abby Jackson, “7 of Yale's super-elite secret societies ranked by wealth”, Business Insider, 23 November 2016 https://www.businessinsider.com/yales-wealthiest-secret-societies-2016-11?r=US&IR=T »