A bribed-politician list converted an antisemitic paper into a political force

Evidence

Shortly before his death, however, he had taken a step the consequences of which for French Jewry can scarcely be exaggerated. He had given the Libre Parole, Edouard Drumont’s antisemitic daily, his list of suborned members of Parliament, the so-called “remittance men,” imposing as the sole condition that the paper should cover up for him personally when it published its exposure. The Libre Parole was transformed overnight from a small and politically insignificant sheet into one of the most influential papers in the country, with 300,000 circulation. The golden opportunity proffered by Reinach was handled with consummate care and skill. The list of culprits was published in small installments so that hundreds of politicians had to live on tenterhooks morning after morning. Drumont’s journal, and with it the entire antisemitic press and movement, emerged at last as a dangerous force in the Third Republic. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 290

Categorization

• XREF: The mechanism of a sensational press papering over its own corruption while exposing others echoes the populist press dynamics traced in later Islamophobia readings on media amplification of race-panics.