Franklin Prophecy

"The Franklin Prophecy", sometimes called "The Franklin Forgery", is an anti-Semitic speech attributed -- falsely, it is generally agreed -- to Benjamin Franklin and purportedly transcribed by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The speech was unknown before its appearance in 1934 in the pages of William Dudley Pelley's pro-Nazi weekly magazine Liberation. Despite having been repeatedly discredited since its first appearance, the “prophecy” has proved a remarkably durable canard, returning most recently as a popular internet hoax promulgated on usenet groups and anti-Semitic websites, where it is presented as authentic. While its author is not known, many who have investigated the “prophecy” suspect Pelley of having penned it himself.