William Dudley Pelley
Pelley c. 1936
Born(1890-03-12)March 12, 1890
Lynn, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedJune 30, 1965(1965-06-30) (aged 75)
Noblesville, Indiana, U.S.
Resting placeCrownsville Cemetery, Noblesville, Indiana
Occupation(s)American fascist leader Journalist
Screenwriter
Known forFounding the Silver Legion of America and the Christian Party
Criminal statusDeceased
Conviction(s)Sedition (50 U.S.C. § 33) (10 counts)
Seditious conspiracy (50 U.S.C. § 34)
Criminal penalty15 years imprisonment
Wanted by
Asheville Police Department
Buncombe County Sheriff's Department
United States Military Police
United States Department of Justice
Writing career
LanguageEnglish
GenresFiction
Political journalism
Notable worksThe Continental Angle
The Face in the Window
Seven Minutes in Eternity
Notable awards2 O. Henry Awards
Chairman of the Christian Party
In office
January 30, 1935 – December 7, 1941
Preceded byposition established
Succeeded byposition abolished
Personal details
Political partyChristian Party
SpouseAgnes Marion Henderson-Pelley
A wanted poster for Pelley

William Dudley Pelley (March 12, 1890 – June 30, 1965) was an American fascist activist, journalist, writer and occultist, noted for his support of German dictator Adolf Hitler during the Great Depression and World War II.[1]

Pelley came to prominence as a writer, winning two O. Henry Awards and penning screenplays for Hollywood films. His 1929 essay "Seven Minutes in Eternity" marked a turning point in his career, published in The American Magazine as a popular example of what would later be called a near-death experience. His antisemitism led him to found the Silver Legion of America in 1933, a fascist paramilitary league. He ran for president of the United States in 1936 as the candidate for the Christian Party.

In 1942, Pelley was prosecuted by the U.S. government for sedition and seditious conspiracy for conspiring to cause insubordination in the military and obstruct recruitment. He was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. Pelley was released on parole in February 1950. As a condition of his parole, he was forced to cease his political activities.[2]

Upon his death in 1965, The New York Times assessed Pelley as "an agitator without a significant following."[3]

Early life

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, William Dudley Pelley grew up in poverty, the son of William George Apsey Pelley and his wife, Grace (née Goodale). His father was initially a Southern Methodist Church minister, and was later a small businessman and shoemaker.[4]

Early career

Largely self-educated, Pelley became a journalist and gained respect for his writing skills; his articles eventually appeared in national publications such as The Chicago Tribune.[5] Two of his short stories received O. Henry awards: "The Face in the Window" in 1920 and "The Continental Angle" in 1930.[4] He was hired by the Methodist Centenary to study Methodist missions around the world. He joined the Red Cross in Siberia, where he helped the White Russians during the Russian Civil War. His opposition to Communism grew, and he began to subscribe to the conspiracy theory of Jewish Communism.[2] Upon returning to the United States in 1920, Pelley wrote novels in addition to his journalism.[2] In the 1920s, his short stories frequently appeared in pulp magazines like Adventure and Short Stories, and mainstream journals like The American Magazine and The Red Book. He went to Hollywood, where he became a screenwriter, writing the Lon Chaney films The Light in the Dark (1922) and The Shock (1923).[6] Pelley became disillusioned with the film industry. What he regarded as unfair treatment by Jewish studio executives increased his antisemitic inclinations. He moved to New York, and then to Asheville, North Carolina in 1932, and began publishing magazines and essays detailing his new religious system, the "Liberation Doctrine".[2]

Occultism

In May 1928, Pelley gained notoriety when he claimed he had three[7] out-of-body experiences in which he traveled to other planes of existence devoid of corporeal souls. The first took place while alone in a cabin in Altadena, California.[7] He described this experience in the article "My Seven Minutes in Eternity" (Mind, Inc., May 1929), published in book form in 1933 as Seven Minutes in Eternity: With the Aftermath. In later writings, he described the experience as "hypo-dimensional".[8]

The second took place while he was at home in California reading a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay.[7] The third took place in New Mexico, while he was alone in a train car—again reading Emerson.[7] He wrote that during the last event, he met with God and Jesus, who instructed him to undertake the spiritual transformation of America.

He later claimed that the experiences gave him the ability to levitate, see through walls, and have out-of-body experiences at will. He also said that they removed his desire for alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine, as well as curing physical ailments such as indigestion.[7]

His metaphysical writings greatly boosted his public visibility. Some of the early members of the original Ascended Master Teachings religion, the "I AM" Activity, were recruited from the ranks of Pelley's organization, the Silver Legion of America. Pelley's religious system was a mixture of theosophy, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and pyramidism. He considered it to be a perfected form of Christianity, in which "Dark Souls" (Jews, Communists and Papists) represented the forces of evil.[2]

Political activism

When the Great Depression struck America in 1929, Pelley became active in politics. After moving to Asheville, Pelley founded Galahad College in 1932. The college specialized in correspondence courses on "Social Metaphysics" and "Christian Economics." He also founded Galahad Press, which he used to publish various political and metaphysical magazines, newspapers, and books—many of which Pelley had written, claiming to have transcribed them from souls in another dimension.[7] The publishing house and college both failed within a year.[7]

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Pelley, an admirer of Hitler,[4] founded the Silver Legion, an antisemitic organization whose members, known as Silver Shirts and Christian Patriots, wore Nazi-style silver uniform shirts. Their insignia was a scarlet L, emblazoned on their flags and uniforms. They also wore blue neckties, blue corduroy trousers, and puttees.[7] Pelley preferred to be called "Chief" of the Silver Shirts.[7] Biographer Scott Beekman noted that Pelley was "one of the first Americans to create an organization celebrating the work of Adolf Hitler."[4]

Pelley traveled throughout the United States, holding recruitment rallies, lectures, and public speeches. He founded Silver Legion chapters in almost every state in the country.[4] Membership peaked at 15,000 in 1935, dropping to below 5,000 by 1938.[2] His political ideology consisted of anti-Communism, antisemitism, patriotism, corporatism, isolationism, and British Israelism, themes which were the primary focus of his numerous magazines and newspapers which included Liberation, Pelley's Silvershirt Weekly, The Galilean, Silver Legion Ranger,[7] and The New Liberator.

Pelley became fairly well known as the 1930s went on.[9] Sinclair Lewis mentioned him by name in his novel It Can't Happen Here (1935) about a fascist takeover in the U.S. Pelley is praised by the leader of the fictional movement as an important precursor.

Pelley opposed Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, claiming that he was part of a Jewish plot to control the U. S. government.[7] Pelley founded the Christian Party in 1935, and ran an unsuccessful campaign as candidate for president in 1936, winning only 1,600 votes.[2] He spoke often of protecting the U.S. Constitution.[7] He also proposed turning the U.S. into a corporation, with all white Christian citizens as shareholders.[7]

He engaged in a long dispute with the United States House of Representatives' Dies Committee, predecessor to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1940, federal marshals conducted a raid on Pelley's headquarters in Asheville, arresting his followers and seizing his property.[4]

Despite serious financial and material setbacks within his organization which resulted from lengthy court battles, Pelley continued to oppose Roosevelt, especially as diplomatic relations between the United States and the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany became strained in the early 1940s. Pelley accused Roosevelt of being a warmonger and advocated isolationism. Roosevelt enlisted J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to investigate Pelley. Subsequently, the FBI interviewed subscribers to Pelley's newspapers and magazines.[4]

Although the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led Pelley to disband the Silver Legion, he continued to attack the government in his magazine, Roll Call, which alarmed Roosevelt, Attorney General Francis Biddle, and the House Un-American Activities Committee.[10] After stating in one issue of Roll Call that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested at his new base of operations in Noblesville, Indiana, and in April 1942, he was charged with 12 counts of sedition. Also charged were his secretary and future wife, Agnes Marion Henderson, his editor, Lawrence A. Brown, and his publishing company, Fellowship Press, Incorporated. One charge against Pelley was dropped, but he was convicted of the other 11 charges, mostly for making seditious statements and for obstructing military recruiting and fomenting insurrection within the military. Henderson and Brown were both acquitted on all counts, save for charge of seditious conspiracy. Fellowship Press was also found guilty.[11] The judge sentenced Pelley to 15 years in prison, Brown to five years in prison, and Henderson to a two-year suspended term. He also imposed a $5,000 fine on Fellowship Press.[12]

After serving eight years, Pelley was paroled in February 1950.[3] While still incarcerated, he was one of 30 defendants in the "Mass Sedition Trial" of Nazi sympathizers which culminated in a mistrial after the death of the judge, Edward C. Eicher, in November 1944.[2]

Later life

In his final years, Pelley dealt with charges of securities fraud that had been brought against him while he was living in Asheville.[13]

The terms of Pelley's parole stipulated that he remain in central Indiana, and desist from all political activity.[2] He developed an elaborate religious philosophy called "Soulcraft" based on his belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials,[14] and published Star Guests in 1950. Pelley died at his home in Noblesville, Indiana on June 30, 1965.[3]

Filmography

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "The American Hitler Comes to Washington | Boundary Stones". boundarystones.weta.org. 2021-05-19. Retrieved 2023-10-30.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Beekman, Scott (October 31, 2006). "Pelley, William Dudley". American National Biography (online ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1501310. (subscription required)
  3. 1 2 3 "William Dudley Pelley, 75, dies; Founded fascist Silver Shirts." The New York Times, July 2, 1965. Retrieved: May 9, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Beekman, Scott (2005). William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult. Syracuse University Press. pp. 2–3, 80–81, 87, 94, 162, 174, 206. ISBN 978-0-8156-0819-6.
  5. ↑ William Dudley Pelley (August 4, 1929). "The Continental Angle". Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ "IMDb profile:William Dudley Pelley.' IMDb. Retrieved: May 9, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Maddox, Rachel (2023). Prequel (1st ed.). Crown. pp. 66-69. ISBN 978-0-593-44451-1.
  8. ↑ Abella and Gordon 2002, p. 241.
  9. ↑ Lobb, David. "Fascist apocalypse: William Pelley and millennial extremism." Department of History, Syracuse University, November 1999. Retrieved: May 8, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Strange doings in Noblesville." Time Magazine, January 27, 1941.
  11. ↑ "Imperial Valley Press 6 August 1942 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  12. ↑ "United States v. Pelley, 132 F.2d 170 | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  13. ↑ Baum, Steven; Cohen, Florette; Jacobs, Steven; Kressel, Neil (2016). Antisemitism in North America: New World, Old Hate. Vol. 26. Brill Publishers. p. 76. doi:10.1163/9789004307148. ISBN 9789004307148. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  14. ↑ "William Dudley Pelley (1885-1965)".

Bibliography

  • Abella, Alex and Scott Gordon. Shadow Enemies. Guilford, Connecticut: The Lyons Press, 2002, ISBN 1-58574-722-X.
  • Beekman, Scott. William Dudley Pelley: A Life in Right-wing Extremism and the Occult. Syracuse University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8156-0819-5.
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