2. The Silver Legion and the Chief

  1.  Account of Silver Shirts meeting, box 1, folder 8, California Surveillance files 1934–40, San Francisco State University Labor Archives and Research Center.

  2.  Eckard V. Toy, “Silver Shirts in the Northwest: Politics, Prophecies, and Personalities in the 1930s,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 80 (4) (1989) 141.

  3.  Rogge, 187–91.

  4.  Cf. Gustavus Myers, History of Bigotry in the United States (New York: Random House, 1943), 401.

  5.  Leo P. Ribuffo, The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), 25–31.

  6.  Ribuffo, 43–46; Myers, 402.

  7.  Ribuffo, 48–50.

  8.  Ribuffo, 54; Myers, 402; Scott Beekman, William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult, 1st ed., Religion and Politics (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 54–55.

  9.  Ribuffo, 53–54.

  10.  Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, p. 5, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.

  11.  Ribuffo, 64.

  12.  Beekman, 83; Ribuffo, 64; Myers, 403.

  13.  Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, p. 2, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.

  14.  Beekman, 85–87.

  15.  Silver Legion of America, The Reds Are Upon Us: The First Council, 1938, 8.

  16.  Silver Legion of America, 4–11.

  17. Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, p. 5, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.

  18.  This estimate appears to come from the work of John Werly, which has been accepted by virtually all other historians: see Ribuffo, 64; Beekman, 100–101.

  19.  Beekman, 101; Ribuffo, 65.

  20.  Johnpeter Horst Grill and Robert L. Jenkins, “The Nazis and the American South in the 1930s: A Mirror Image?” Journal of Southern History 58 (4) (1992), 670.

  21.  Toy, 142.

  22.  Ribuffo, 71–72; Beekman, 107–9.

  23.  Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, p. 5, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.

  24.  Beekman, 113–15; Toy, 141.

  25.  Meyers, 409.

  26.  Beekman, 123; Toy, 142–44.

  27.  Dies Committee Hearings, vol. 6, p. 3766.

  28.  Dies Committee Hearings, vol. 6, p. 3786.

  29.  Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, p. 6, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.

  30.  Metcalfe surveillance diaries, early August, John C. Metcalfe Papers.

  31.  Ribuffo, 73.

  32.  “Portrait and Brief Biographical Information on Elwood A. Towner, ‘Chief Red Cloud,’” Scribner’s, 1937; Lecture by Towner, Spokane, Washington, August 4, 1937, Silver Legion of America, Washington State Division Records, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Seattle, Washington.

  33.  Accounts of German-American Bund meeting, July 4 and undated (likely 1939), box 3, folder 2, Hollywood Anti-Nazi League Papers.

  34. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Appendix A, p. 577.

  35.  Letter from Pelley to Orville Roundtree, December 11, 1937, Silver Legion of America, Washington State Division Records.

  36.  Letter from Pelley to state leaders, April 30, 1938, Silver Legion of America, Washington State Division Records.

  37.  Letter from Orville Roundtree to W. E. Monbeck, July 16, 1938, Silver Legion of America, Washington State Division Records.

  38.  Beekman, 125.

  39.  “Nazi Leader Run Out of Sharon,” News-Herald (Franklin, Pennsylvania), November 18, 1938, 1.

  40.  Undated report on Christian Party, folder 2-17, Nathan Krems Papers, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Seattle, Washington.

  41.  “Organized Bigotry,” Mason City Globe-Gazette, August 19, 1938, 4.

  42.  “Dies Asks Action to Indict Witness: Challenges F. S. Gardner as Seeking Job with Committee to ‘Sabotage’ Its Work,” New York Times, August 24, 1939, 16; Beekman, 127–28.

  43.  “Dies Asks Action to Indict Witness”; “Perjury Charge Asked Against Dies Witness: Committee Accuses Silver Shirt Aide of Sabotage Attempt,” Washington Post, August 24, 1939, 3.

  44. Myers, 412.

  45.  “Pelley Sues House Members,” New York Times, September 10, 1939, 59; Beekman, 127.

  46.  Beekman, 133–34; “Silver Shirt’s Chief Is Called to Court: Pelley Is Accused of Violating Suspended Sentences,” New York Times, October 20, 1939, 15.

  47.  “Charge Against Dies Denied by Committee: Witness Said to Admit Forging Letters Linking Him to Pelley,” New York Times, January 31, 1940, 10.

  48.  “House Embroiled by Mayne Letters: Hook’s Failure to Expunge Alleged Forgeries Fans Tilt Over Pelley and Dies,” New York Times, February 2, 1940, 2.

  49.  “Hook Takes Dies Charge from Record: Pelley Surrenders to House Group, Brands Mayne’s Letters Forgeries,” New York Times, February 7, 1940, 1.

  50.  Beekman, 135.

  51.  “Girl Secret Agent Tells Pelley ‘Plot’: Joins Dickstein at Dies Hearing in Linking Silver Shirt Chief to Plans for Uprising,” New York Times, April 3, 1940, 4.

  52.  Address from Pelley to Washington State Silver Legion members, 1941(?), Silver Legion of America, Washington State Division Records.

  53.  Beekman, 135.

  54.  “Pelley in North Carolina Jail,” New York Times, October 23, 1941, 19; “Pelley Is Ordered to Serve 2 to 3 Years,” New York Times, January 21, 1942, 11.

  55.  Cf. Beekman, 137.

  56.  “U.S. Fascists: Several Arrests Made,” Manchester Guardian, April 6, 1942, 6.

  57.  Report on Pelley, 1939, American Jewish Committee, pp. 5–6, http://www.ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/THR-SS2.PDF.