Mid-Twentieth-Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon

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2019 From Nativism to White Power: Mid-Twentieth- Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon

Shane Burley

Alexander Ross Portland State University, [email protected]

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Citation Details Burley, S., & Ross, A. R. (2019). From Nativism to White Power: Mid-Twentieth-Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon. Oregon Historical Quarterly, 120(4), 564-587.

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Mid-Twentieth-Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon

RESEARCH FILES

by Shane Burley and Alexander Reid Ross

The Ku Klux Klan, a racist, terrorist organization born after the Civil War, was rebooted following World War I. This resurgence was the high-water mark of classic White supremacy ideology in Oregon. By the end of the 1920s, the Klan’s influence had died of self-inflicted wounds. The vehicles that would carry White supremacy activism into the next generations of Oregon life were inspired by international strains of anti-Jewish bigotry and competing claims of White Protestant religious destiny — both conjoined with classic notions of nineteenth-century racism. The individuals, organizations, issues, and activities those forces introduced to Oregon culture and politics redefined what White supremacy ideology would look like in Oregon during the second half of the twentieth century.

DURING THE PERIOD between combative relationship between the the two world wars, White supremacist good, productive “people” and the organizations in Oregon were influ- evil, parasitic “elites” — but racism enced by rise of fascism in Germany and remained their guiding principle. Italy. Thoroughly antisemitic and White Leadership repeatedly asserted supremacist, these groups focused that the implementation of federal outrage against what they misconstrued New Deal policies amounted to a as outsized Jewish influence in banking consolidation of a Jewish-dominated and in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s admin- ruling class responsible for the istration. Although their membership 2 numbers remained relatively small, impoverishment of common people. these organizations provided a crucial The leading scholar of comparative link to the development of radical right- fascist studies, Roger Griffin, argues wing groups during the postwar era.1 that fascism is defined by calls for or All of these interwar fascist attempts to reclaim a mythically pure groups in Oregon could appear pop- past, and we add that fascism can fur- ulist — with their rhetoric outlining a ther be defined as a mass movement

THE AMERICAN GENTILE YOUTH MOVEMENT distributed stickers such as this one across the country during the late 1930s, according to a 1938 Investigation of Un- American Propaganda Activities in the United States hearings report. This and other White supremacist materials are held in the George Rennar Papers at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library in Portland, Oregon.

with intense reliance on specific, we focus on White supremacism’s collective identities.3 In the cases of taking the form of an ideological the groups discussed here — from emphasis on mystical Aryan glory interwar German-associated orga- in opposition to a paradoxical loath- nizations to the postwar Christian ing of Jews as, simultaneously, rich Identity movement — that sense of bankers, Bolsheviks, and federal identity is linked to White supremacy authorities. and is rooted in antisemitism. Significant documentation of those We define White supremacy as interwar organizations in the Pacific a set of ideological or institutional Northwest can be found in just two document cases that compose the precepts attributing superiority of George Rennar papers in the Oregon White people over everyone else. Historical Society Research Library. While White supremacism is often Covering the years 1922 to 1959, the expressed through individuals or collection includes meeting minutes, group ideologies, it can also mani- correspondence, leaflets, and other 4 fest in institutional inequality. In this primary-source materials that provide discussion of fascist-inspired White- glimpses into a variety of interlinked, supremacist movements of the mid- racist, and nationalist organizations twentieth-century Pacific Northwest, from those years. The documents

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 565 University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, SOC13714 University of Washington

SILVER LEGION OF AMERICA members, also known as Silver Shirts, pose in front of Silver Lodge in Redmond, Washington, in about 1936. William Pelley, pictured in black in the center of the second row from the front, founded the group and embraced White supremacy, antisemitism, racism, and anti-communism.

reveal connections among leaders, between the interwar organizations and some organizing strategies, and both the more militarized White supremacist, consistencies and changes in espoused or White nationalist, organizations that ideologies. Some groups documented took root during the postwar period in in the collection, and discussed here, the Pacific Northwest. The ideology of include Friends of New Germany British-Israelism — that is, the belief that (later the German American Bund, or Anglo-Saxon people and not Jews are simply, the Bund), the Silver Legion of the true genealogical descendants of America or Silver Shirts, the American the Bible’s “chosen people” — appears Defenders, and Americans Incorpo- as a connecting feature, with spiritual rated. At times, the Portland Police’s leader William Dudley Pelley a central “Red Squad” coordinated with some of figure in that connection.6 these organizations, and membership It is possible to say that Pelley’s overlapped. Membership also over- devout Methodist upbringing in a lapped with the Ku Klux Klan, which was hard-bitten coastal Massachusetts prominent in Oregon during the 1920s town determined his ambitious rise and has been extensively studied by to American mystic. A talented writer, other historians.5 Materials in the Ren- Pelley imbued into his early stories his nar collection indicate important links millenarian faith in a utopian future of

566 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 direct democracy, which gained him and “pyramid dates,” around which the stature enough to leave his East Coast universe vibrated most intensely, Pel- roots for a career in what he called “the ley came into contact with Nazi ideas. necromancy of movie making.”7 During With the rise of Hitler, Pelley converted the 1920s, Pelley’s increasingly arcane his mystical sect into a paramilitary mixture of the occult and populism political movement, espousing a brand was influenced by prevailing spiritual- of state corporatism in which White, ist ideas of the time as well as his 1918 native-born citizens would own equal sojourn through Civil War–ravaged shares of national stock, Black people Siberia, where antisemitic attitudes would become “wards of the state,” and pervaded, and a sense that Jewish Jews would be relegated to one city in producers held back his Hol- lywood career. His biographer OHS Research Library, Mss 2819, box 2, “Misc.” folder argues that “the great irony of Pelley’s work during the 1920s is that he had to dwell among the libertine residents of southern California to pro- duce defenses of traditional values.”8 At the end of the decade, Pelley experienced a dream-vision that drove him to dedicate himself entirely to mystical pursuits. He under- stood humans to be refractions of “Love by Vibration” emanat- ing from the “Divine Mind” that was accessible through clai- raudient communication with the “harmonious plane” above Earth.9 Published in 1929 in the popular American Magazine, Pelley’s testimony of spiritual transformation “became WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY is depicted here one of the most widely read in a line drawing on a pamphlet titled “What You accounts of paranormal activ- Should Know About Pelley Publications.” Pelley was a central figure in White supremacist movements ity in American history.” He across the United States, including the Silver moved to Ashland, North Caro- Legion of America. In the pamphlet, Pelley explains lina, to immerse himself in the that readers should ready themselves “with a development of his new cult. knowledge of Red-Jewish tactics,” so that they will As he built a following based know how to lead “when the aroused Christian on an apocalyptic interpreta- element of the nation finally takes the form of tion of the “Age of Aquarius” vigorous vigilantism.”

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 567 each state and would risk death if they a list of crimes to Jews and encouraged strayed beyond those boundaries to supporters to “Buy Gentile! Employ migrate.10 Gentile! Vote Gentile!”15 The emergence of Germany’s “New The U.S. government declared Reich” also stimulated some German the Friends of New Germany to be an immigrants to the United States who extension of the German Nazi Party in blamed the Weimar system for political 1936, and as the group imploded, Hoch- instability and economic precarity. With scheid stepped down from his posi- the help of the government in 1932, a tion as president and focused on the German immigrant founded a group Nachrichten.16 Later that year, Friends called Friends of the Hitler Movement of New Germany was replaced by the to promote the idea of German culture German-American Bund. Within a year identified with Nazi propaganda. It of establishment, the German-American was soon reorganized and renamed Bund claimed about ninety Portland the Friends of New Germany (Bund members with roughly the same mem- der Freunde des Neuen Deutschland), bership as its predecessor.17 What the and at a national convention in 1936, Bund lacked in numbers it made up for elected new leadership and became in performative impact. According to an the German-American Bund. Members informant report, meetings were held needed to demonstrate German-lan- in the backroom of a Portland cafe, “A guage skills and to guarantee that they large colored picture of George Wash- possessed Aryan racial pedigrees.11 ington occupies a prominent position on By the mid 1930s, the Friends of New the wall facing the membership and a Germany boasted some 5,000 to 10,000 crayon sketch of Horst Wessel, young members nationwide, although its Port- Nazi, killed in Hitler’s abortive ‘Beer land chapter likely never exceeded 100 Hall Putsch’ occupies a less prominent active members.12 position on another wall.”18 In 1934, a Portland newspaper edi- The Bund’s Oregon stronghold in tor named Adam Hochscheid became Portland was never particularly large president of the local chapter of the relative to some chapters in other cit- Friends of New Germany.13 Virulently ies throughout the country.19 While the antisemitic, Hochscheid’s Nachrichten national membership grew to some newspaper became a staunch defender 8,500 members, 5,000 to 6,000 “anony- of the Nazi regime, identifying opposi- mous sympathizers,” the only chapters tion to Nazism with anti-German senti- in the Northwest were the Portland, ment. The Hochscheid warned readers Seattle, and Spokane Ortsgrups, pre- of another newspaper that lies were sided over by the Bezirke, based in being spread about Germany and pub- Oakland.20 It is difficult to estimate the lisher Nachrichten publisher, A.E. Kern, total membership in Portland. Average provided lists endorsed businesses.14 In attendance of the meetings was about 1935, according to an informant report, thirty members, and events could sum- Friends of New Germany members mon up to three hundred members began handing out a flyer that attributed and sympathizers.21 To gain clout, the

568 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 OHS Research Library, 0024P227

THE NEW EARLE HOTEL, located at what is now Northwest Sixth Avenue and Davis Street in Portland, Oregon, was reported as the location of Friends of New Germany meetings during the 1930s. Aided by the Nazi government, a group of German-Americans founded the group to promote German culture aligned with Nazi ideals, including Aryan racial pedigrees.

Bund’s leadership built bridges with Speakers addressed things such as the other organizations that organized “communism run by the Jews,” and how around antisemitism, especially Pelley’s American citizens will have to stop the Silver Shirts. threat by use of violence, if necessary.24 The Silver Shirts first appeared in Talking points at a November 30, 1938, Portland soon after the national group meeting included statements such as:: was established in 1933. Initially caught “Jews claim to have caused all wars up in power struggles between former of the past 2000 years and brag that Klan leaders and associates, the openly they have made therefrom immense pro-Nazi Silver Shirts in Oregon grew to profits,” and “Jews plan destruction of some 400 members in Eugene alone the American Government in the near by the end of that year.22 Meetings future and under the present adminis- included lengthy speeches by White tration control both government and supremacists, Klansmen, and regional finance to further these plans.”25 One organizers such as Roy Zachary, a Seat- lecturer discussed “a definite plan of the tle restauranteur who helped shape the Jewish Communist to ruin the country,” Washington-based Christian Party as adding that “the International Jewish the political wing of the Silver Legion.23 bankers financed the Russian Revolu-

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 569 tion[,] that two percent of the population the scourge of Communism, which were Jewish and they controlled the threatened the destruction of America.32 [sic] 98 percent of the Russian white Thus, interlocking opposition to Jews as people.”26 Articles from Pelley’s journal, the embodiment of foreignness, elites, Liberation, circulated by the Oregon and Communism became a central Silver Shirts even suggested geno- component of a burgeoning movement cide. On August 15, 1936, Pelley gave that implicitly identified Whiteness as a speech in Portland, which, according the principle criteria for entrance into to the Oregon Liberal, a weekly broad- the national community. sheet edited by former Klansman Lem While the Federal Government Devers, was attended by some 500 monitored the Silver Legion and the Silver Shirts.27 Bund for dangerous activities, some Oregon’s Silver Legion remained members of local governments found active through the 1930s, with chapters them useful, particularly as a coun- in The Dalles, Bend, Medford, Toledo, terforce to communist influence. The and St. Helens. By 1939, the Silver Shirts Portland Police Bureau’s “Red Squad” boasted 125 neighborhood councils in did much of the work against left-wing Portland with between six and twenty social movement, particularly orga- members each, as well as several nized labor, that would have been councils across the Columbia River in in line with Silver Legion’s politics.. neighboring Vancouver, Washington.28 Formed in the 1910s to monitor radical In 1938, between 250 and 300 people activities, the secretive “Red Squad” came to hear Zachary speak in Portland. produced a series reports that detailed “Every red blooded American citizen different groups, that harbored “red” should have a good gun and ammuni- sympathies. By August 1937, the Red tion,” Zachary told a captivated crowd. Squad’s leader, Captain Walter Odale, “Put up a target and have your wife had joined a Silver Shirts spin-off called practice shooting it if you want to keep a the American Defenders.33 Accord- free government.”29 As one early distrib- ing to meeting notes, the American utor of Silver Shirts material exclaimed, Defenders received support from a man “look what has happened — the Jews named “Kemp” — likely Wilford Kemp, wax fat while gentiles struggle for mere a San Diego millionaire who had been existence.”30 One Pacific Northwest Pelley’s running mate on the Chris- leader suggested that Jews should be tian Party ticket in 1936.34 In turn, the fully disenfranchised, and their voting American Defenders contributed $100 rights provided to Native Americans, toward printing Pelley’s propaganda continuing Pelley’s romanticism about and made plans for a “Committee of American indigenous people.31 The One Thousand” to serve as a vigilante Bund similarly promoted the narrative of organization.35 the “vast Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy,” Odale wrote that Portland was in the words of political scientist Leland “reportedly the third largest center of V. Bell, declaring that their shared pur- Nazi activity in the United States,” in pose with Nazi Germany was to fight the October 1, 1937, Red Squad “Weekly

570 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 OHS Research Library, 0098P214 Report of Communist Activities” and asserted: “It can be safely said, that if it were not for the Communist Party, there would be no Fascist or Nazi scare.”36 That would prove one of the final Red Squad reports. The Oregonian revealed on Octo- ber 26, 1937, that Red Squad member and school district board direc- tor Louis E. Starr had interrogated a student union leader at Lincoln High School. Public controversy ensued, with the president of the Council for Economic and Social Research stating four days later to city council that the squad’s work could “by no stretch of the imagi- nation, be termed engaged in law enforcement.”37 On October 30, a CAPT. WALTER ODALE, pictured here new group called Americans Incor- in 1949, led the Portland Police subversive porated, filed articles of incorpora- activities detail, or “Red Squad,” during tion under Oregon’s state laws.38 A the 1930s. Odale’s Red Squad integrated month later, during a business-only with groups such as the Silver Legion and meeting of American Defenders, it American Defenders in its efforts to quash communist influence, especially among was reported that should Odale’s organized labor. Red Squad have to stop its activities, “his work and records will be taken over by a new [private] organization, Americans Incorporated.”39 International Woodworkers of America Ten days after that meeting, the first “with 133 signatures obtained in less issue of Americans Incorporated’s Radi- than three hour’s [sic] time.”41 The orga- cal Activities Bulletin came out, picking nization looked abroad as well, con- up where the Red Squad had left off. demning support for the Republicans With lengthy articles on the activities in the Spanish Civil War as pro-Soviet of the Congress of Industrial Organiza- and anarchistic, while denouncing as a tions (CIO), a labor union’s organizing of Communist front a Chinese-American timber workers, and internal struggles picket against a pig iron plant that was within the Portland School Board, the sending munitions to the Japanese Radical Activities Bulletin maintained Empire.42 Key members were promi- the general drift of the Red Squad’s nent businessmen and police officers, reportage.40 It reported that “one Legion including Odale, who was on the post in Milton-Freewater,” returned a board of directors, and Louis Starr, who petition to deport the president of the headed up the organization. As the

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 571 Anti-Defamation League’s David Rob- man Hall, and Redman Hall, which was inson noted, the organization attracted associated with a romanticized notion “certain fascist individuals who saw an of Native American culture. Historian opportunity to ride their hobby under Roger Griffin has argued that fascists’ the guise of fighting communism.”43 identification with indigeneity and the Americans Incorporated had sig- representation of an archetypal human nificant partners. In a February 24, community manifest their desire for 1939, event at Benson Polytechnic rebirth of their own mythical, ancestral Auditorium, former governor Charles community, whether Nordic or Italian H. Martin performed the task of public or “100% American.”46 In early 1938, honorary chairman at an Americans the American Defenders announced Incorporated National Defense and they were joining the Americanization Americanism Rally, emceed by Mayor Council that was already affiliated with Joseph Carson.44 It is difficult to assess “twenty one patriotic organizations in the size of Americans Incorporated, the city of Portland,” including “the partly as a result of the secretive German Folksbund and the K.K.K.”47 behavior of some of its members, but Many of the groups listed were rela- its influence in high society is indicated tively small, and there is little evidence by the major politicians who helped to that the Americanization Council ever promote the group. Examining Ameri- manifested to any public effect. cans Incorporated in light of its obscure One of the phenomena that drew origins (out of the cross-over between together members of the fascist milieu the Portland police and Silver Shirts, during the 1920s and 1930s was the and fostered by the American Defend- growing popularity in North America ers) brings to focus the group’s role of an eccentric body of thought known as a public-facing brand of Portland’s as British-Israelism. British-Israelists far-right ecosystem. The existence of a asserted that Anglo-Saxons were the relationship between the Silver Shirts true genetic descendants of Biblical and Portland’s police is further illus- Hebrews. Emerging as early as the trated by a February 1940 informant’s sixteenth century, this idea gained report found in the Rennar papers, popularity during the late nineteenth which notes that Silver Shirts boasted and early twentieth centuries, foster- of “making excellent progress in the ing a sense of Anglo-American mis- Police Department and that it would be sion in the world.48 While many British- well organized.” The report added that Israelists thought that the Jewish the organization’s members believed people were either Khazar “Asiatics” “if any trouble starts in Portland the or had originated through a rebellion Police will be with [the Silver Shirts].”45 against the divine commandment not The American Defenders, Bund, to intermarry with “Edomites,” more and Silver Shirts met in houses, cafes, virulently antisemitic formulations, and Portland’s Turnverein Hall, run by which formed the basis of the post– pro-Nazi activist Otto Uhle, as well as World War II Christian Identity religion, the Harmony Hall, Norse Hall, Wood- asserted that Jews were the spawn

572 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 OHS Research Library, Mss 2918, box 1, Anglo-Saxon Federation file

THIS CHART, published by the Anglo-Saxon Federation, provides the group’s justification for why Anglo-Saxon people, not Jews, are true descendants of the Bible’s chosen people. These views, known as British-Israelism, were shared by many fascist groups during the 1920s and 1930s.

of Satan.49 In either case, the genetic Connections to British-Israelism bearers of the divine covenant, a run deep in Oregon. Reuben Sawyer, chosen people, were Anglo-Saxon the leading lecturer and organizer for and not Jewish, according to British- the Oregon Ku Klux Klan, had lectured Israelism. on British-Israeli principles while serv- One of British-Israelism’s promi- ing as a pastor at Portland’s Eastside nent acolytes was William Cameron, Christian Church during the early 1920s who, during the 1920s, had edited the and played a role in the founding of Dearborn Independent, the Michi- the British-Israel World Federation in gan publication of Henry Ford that 1920.51 A.A. Beauchamp, editor of the published a series on the menace of British-Israelist publication Watchman “The International Jew.” In the 1930s, of Israel, found the viciousness of Klan Cameron served on the executive com- antisemitism and racism distasteful, mittee of the Anglo-Saxon Federation and Sawyer’s affiliation with the Klan and lectured in the United States and came to an end in 1924. He remained Canada on the Bible as a “racial book” active in British-Israel circles until the that told the story of the Anglo-Saxon 1930s, when leadership passed into race.50 new hands.52

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 573 OHS Research Library, Mss 2819, box 1, Americans Incorporated folder Mss 2819, box Library, OHS Research

THIS FLYER, titled “Shall These Subversive Forces Dominate the United States?,” was distributed by Americans Incorporated. The group was founded in 1937 and continued the work of the Portland Police “Red Squad,” railing against forms of foreign extremism, such as communism, dictatorships, and fascism.

574 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 British-Israel gospel spread through U.S. entry into World War II, had helped the network of Oregon’s interwar White promote pro-Axis causes without clear supremacist organizations. G. Fred and direct associations with fascism. Johnson, president of the Oregon The movement therefore received, branch of the Anglo-Saxon Federation and accepted, the support of fascist of America, a British-Israel organization, groups.56 Shortly before the Japanese spoke on themes such as “Masonic His- attack on Pearl Harbor, Oregon Sen. tory,” “Pyramid Symbolism” (a particular Rufus Holman told fellow lawmakers: obsession of Pelley’s), “Racial Origins,” 53 I have always deplored Hitler’s ambitions and “Israel Truths.” The Anglo-Saxon as a conqueror. But he broke the control Federation of America, including How- of these internationalists over the com- ard B. Rand, who sat on the national mon people of Germany. It would be a commission and the executive council good idea if the control of the interna- of the British Israel World Federation, tional bankers over the common people of England was broken, and good if it was obtained support from local Episcopa- broken over the wages and savings of the lian and Presbyterian churches and from common people of the United States.57 the Associated Fraternal Societies and Portland Chamber of Commerce.54An Following the declaration of war on intelligence memo from 1936 noted that, Japan and subsequent dissolution of as they made the rounds of churches the national America First Committee, and luncheons, the British-Israelists’ former Silver Shirt Delmore Lessard talk “seemed very much like the mouth- declared himself the head of Oregon’s ings of William Dudley Pelley.”55 The anti-interventionist America First Com- proximity between Johnson, Rand, and mittee.58 Under the guise of the group the ideology of the Silver Shirts further that had already officially disbanded, elucidates the extent of fascist networks Lessard disseminated pamphlets pro- that were both within Oregon and tied duced by A.E. Kern & Co., the same pub- into larger, transnational ideological lisher responsible for the Nachrichten.59 systems. That the British-Israelists Following World War II, in 1947, Lessard found such a warm welcome from local joined Holman, a former Klansman, to religious and political representatives create the anti-Zionist group American suggests that the Silver Shirts also had Foundation, Inc.60 a fertile seedbed on which to cultivate Meanwhile, other Silver Shirts car- their bizarre and occult theories. ried on, in spite of the official dissolution of their group in April 1940. Erst- THE EXPERIENCE of World War II while Silver Shirts leader Henry Beach would forever change the character consolidated his activities into what he of fascism in the United States. Amid discretely called the “Research Club.” pressures on fascists from the House Once considered the spokesperson Committee on Un-American Activities for the Silver Shirts in Oregon, Beach under Congressman Martin Dies dur- hoped to organize “ten thousand ing the late 1930s and early 1940s, the armed people in Portland.”61 Beach isolationist movement, which fought faced pressure from the U.S. army to

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 575 stop his radical activities or leave the became involved with America Plus West Coast in 1942 after defending and urged its leaders to endorse his Pelley for publishing anti-government “Minutemen” idea, which would “have materials. He fought to remain in the a semi-military purpose in checking Pacific Northwest but retreated from the violence and sabotage, which the far-right politics.62 enemy constantly perpetrates in our After the war, former Silver Shirts country.” America Plus leaders proved joined with members of other interwar receptive but demanded absolute far-right groups to transform the British- secrecy. Desperate to stem the tide of Israeli interpretation of the Bible into the “one-worldists” and “international- the angrier denial of the humanity of ists,” del Valle went on to form a new Jews and other minorities. Emerging group called the Defenders of the in California and spreading throughout American Constitution, Inc., with other the Pacific Northwest, the so-called retired military officers.65 The secre- “Christian Identity” movement built on tive militarization of White supremacy British-Israel origin stories to express that characterized del Valle’s paranoid White supremacy. Instead of identify- ideas, disseminated in his bulletin TASK ing Jews as Asiatics, Christian Identity FORCE, would find a thriving ecosystem taught that Jews were the spawn of in the Pacific Northwest of the 1950s Satan and that all non-Whites were and 1960s.66 “mud people” who did not have One California-based Christian souls.63 Former Silver Shirt John Met- Identity group founded by Army lieuten- calf, who was inspired both by Pelley’s ant colonel William Potter Gale, called spiritualism and his focus on Jewish Army of White American Kingdom conspiracy, came to join the circles Evangelists (“Awake”), demanded that around the Christian Identity move- its chapter leaders subscribe to del ment, as did Henry Beach.64 Valle’s bulletin and join his Defenders Amid the growth of Christian Identity of the American Constitution, Inc.67 within the increasingly revolutionary far Gale’s close associate, Robert DePugh, right, an intriguing interplay emerged took inspiration from del Valle and between above-ground advocacy Gale’s ensuing, short-lived paramilitary groups and clandestine paramilitary group, The Rangers, forming a subrosa organizations. By 1951, right-wing activ- paramilitary group of his own called ist Irvin Borders had taken the leader- The Minutemen to prepare for an ship of a new group based in Los Ange- incoming Communist assault on the les called America Plus, Inc., which contiguous lower forty-eight states.68 attempted to counter disenfranchised DePugh’s Minutemen claimed tens of ethnic and racial minorities’ growing thousands of members, although the demands for wages and housing. A FBI estimated their national member- distinguished retired Marine lieutenant ship at between 200 and 1,000.69 Silver general, Pedro del Valle, who claimed Shirts and Klansmen joined the vigilante to have known Mussolini “personally Minutemen, which in 1965 plotted to and served with his forces in Ethiopia,” assassinate Martin Luther King, Jr., with

576 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 OHS Research Library, Mss 2819, box 1, “misc.” folder 1,400 pounds of stolen dynamite. Members of the group also alleg- edly blew up a police station in Redmond, Washington, a town that had been a thriving hub for regional Silver Shirts during the 1930s. They plotted to bomb Redmond’s City Hall and rob four banks before the FBI caught up to them in January 1968.70 After the FBI’s crackdown on the Minutemen, Beach helped pick up the slack of political organizing by piggybacking on Gale’s ideas and purportedly establishing the virulently antisemitic Posse Comitatus in Portland, Oregon.71 In a later interview with the Oregonian, Beach recalled that the Silver Shirts had been “a very spiritual group” and that Pelley wielded extraordinary metaphysical powers: “Pelley taught me to communicate with ON JULY 8, 1938, the Astorian-Budget the spirit world.”72 Beach would published this image of a an anti-Jewish flyer transfer what he had learned from found in a Portland, Oregon, store window. Pelley to Posse Comitatus, a pro- The image includes hand-written notes on the totype for the Patriot movement poster deriding its antisemetic content. that concentrated resentment against what leaders labeled as an encroaching federal government presence in all fifty states, by1974 , the captured by outside influences often FBI observed Posse Comitatus chap- assumed to be Jewish or of a compet- ters in six Oregon counties and labeled ing, usually Communist, nation.73 the Lane County chapter as the “most The post-war far right began reori- active to date.”75 Yet, during the mid enting toward Posse Comitatus. One 1970s, Beach was openly admonish- of del Valle’s contacts in Oregon, ing recruits to “never let it be known John Birch Society member and Hitler how many members you have. . . . Not admirer Dean Kennedy, announced knowing how many of you there are, that his Lane County chapter of the makes the TRAITORS more afraid of National Association to Keep and Bear the influence you have.”76 Arms (NAKBA) would join Posse Comi- Political geographer Carolyn Gal- tatus en masse,.74 Claiming to have a laher has argued that Posse Comitatus

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 577 578 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 began to gain power by instrumental- a literal spiritual war that justified acts izing the rural disenfranchisement of violence in the name of Armaged- stemming from the farm crisis in the don.80 Likewise, Posse Comitatus found Midwest and connecting it to Christian a new narrative of rural discontent Identity leader Richard G. Butler’s calls and form of organizing, one that was for a White homeland in the Pacific revolutionary because it depicted the Northwest.77 In 1973, Butler created federal government as captured by a Christian Identity compound on alien interests. That shift in ideological Hayden Lake, in Idaho, about eighteen intensity and praxis came with a shift in miles from the Washington state line, broader conditions, such as the change which became a hub for the most in social values after the Civil Rights extreme members of Posse Comita- movement, which contributed to the tus as well as Klansmen and other development of the “White power” extremists bent on race war across movement’s identity.81 Oregon and Washington.78 This center The new “White nationalist” or for the growing White supremacist “White power” movement in the post- movements in the Pacific Northwest war period was defined by an explicitly facilitated an interconnected network revolutionary character and reliance of organized crime responsible for on vigilante violence pitted as much bank robberies and assassinations against the federal government as throughout the 1980s.79 The “White against African Americans, Latinos, power” movement that had come to immigrants, and members of the LGBTQ roost in the Pacific Northwest was, community.82 White nationalists have therefore, not just informed by or imi- tried to distinguish themselves from tative of but directly descended from White supremacists by defining their Oregon’s interwar White supremacist, movement as the ideological pursuit of fascist movements. White political sovereignty and social separation from non-Whites; however, CHRISTIAN IDENTITY took on a this distinction does not absolve White much more revolutionary character nationalists from being identified as during the 1970s and 1980s than had White supremacists, because their earlier British-Israelism, reframing the ideology is simply a particular strategic story of supposed Anglo-Saxon dias- implementation of White supremacy.83 pora portrayed as the “lost tribes of In our study of the materials avail- Israel” in eschatological terms in which able regarding interwar fascist groups racial enemies (Jews) and subordinates and their immediate allies, as well as (non-Whites) were enemy combatants in the ensuing White power movement

LEFT: These two maps, published in a 1990 Coalition for Human Dignity report titled Organized White Supremacist Groups in Oregon, document White supremacist organizations that existed throughout the state. The report highlights over two dozen groups operating in Oregon at the time of publication. As the keys indicate, the maps point out the types of organizations, their location, and the type of media used to spread their messages.

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 579 Skanner, May 6, 1991, Dean Guernsey photographer, OHS Research Library, Org. Lot, 1286

ON MAY 5, 1991, White supremacists gathered outside Portland City Hall to protest the civil trial ruling against Tom Metzger, who was found financially liable for the recruitment of Skinheads in Portland, leading to Mulugeta Seraw’s murder in 1988. According to the Oregonian, the rally was organized by the White supremacist group American Front, and was met with about one hundred counter protesters.

that developed through their post- ers. Hence, the marginality of the iden- war networks, we have found several tity-bound fascist groups was folded important points. First, the interwar into a broader far-right ecosystem that period appears to have been a time included Portland’s then-mayor Carson, of coalition, through which Anglo- former governor Martin, then-Senator Saxon supremacy promoted by the Ku Holman, and police officers such as Klux Klan in the 1920s gave way to a Odale. Meanwhile, fascist groups and more marginal assemblage of identity- their allies were surveilled by the Anti- based, far-right groups, including occult Defamation League and the FBI, adding British-Israelists and German-American to the complexity. supporters of the Nazi Party. “Aryan” Our research suggests that, as heritage in opposition to Jewish hege- a result of federal opposition during mony appears to have been the glue World War II, those who had been that ensured this coalescence. Second, engaged with the Silver Shirts during we uncovered elements within Ore- the interwar period increasingly began gon’s political establishment, including to mobilize in opposition to the govern- members of the police, that supported ment and in favor of White political sov- groups intertwined within the fascist ereignty. Rhetoric of “Aryan” heritage networks around the American Defend- and Jewish hegemony was replaced,

580 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 in more public-facing discourse, with zations, such as Patriot Prayer and their conspiracy theories about a “One Alt Right bedfellows that bring fascism World Government” and “international- to bear again in cities such as Portland, ist” bankers, providing a more acces- we can see how the interwar fascist sible milieu for recruitment from a movement, while ultimately a failure, broad pool of political affiliations. With helped sow the seeds for today’s rural the rise of Donald Trump as President discontent as manifested in the mod- and of “Independent Trumpist” organi- ern Patriot movement.84

NOTES

The authors want to thank Larry Lipin for Lay, The Invisible Empire in the West: Toward substantial editorial assistance. a New Historical Appraisal of the Ku Klux 1. The literature on fascist organization in Klan of the 1920s (Champaign: University of Oregon is much less extensive than that on the Illinois Press, 2004); David A. Horowitz, “Order, Ku Klux Klan, reflecting the smaller size of the Solidarity, and Vigilance: The Ku Klux Klan in La movement. See Eckard Toy, “Silver Shirts in the Grande, Oregon,” in Lay, The Invisible Empire in Northwest: Politics, Prophecies, and Personalities the West; David A. Horowitz, “The Klansman as in the 1930s,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 80 Outsider: Ethnocultural Solidarity and Antielitism (October 1989): 139–46. in the Oregon Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s,” Pacific 2. Cas Mudde defines populism as a Northwest Quarterly 80 (January 1989): 12–20; movement that sees two groups in antagonism Paul M. Holsinger, “The Oregon School Bill with each other, a corrupt elite and the pure Controversy, 1922–1925,” people. Cas Mudde, The Far Right in America Pacific Historical Review 37 (August 1968): (New York: Routledge, 2018), 2–3. See also, 327–41; Robert D. Johnston, The Radical Middle Martin Durham, White Rage: The Extreme Right Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of and American Politics (New York: Routledge, Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon 2007), 8. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 3. Roger Griffin, Fascism: An Introduction to 223–47; and Linda Gordon, The Second Coming Comparative Fascist Studies (Cambridge: Polity of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the Press, 2018), 40–45; Roger Griffin, The Nature American Political Tradition(New York: Liveright of Fascism (New York: Routledge, 1991), 34–40. Publishing, 2017). 4. George M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: 6. Materials relating to the ideology of British- A Comparative Study in American and South Israelism can be found in Mss 2918, George African History (New York: Oxford University Rennar papers [hereafter Rennar papers], box 1, Press, 1981), xi. Anglo-Saxon Federation folder, Oregon Historical 5. See, for example, Eckard Toy, “The Ku Society Research Library, Portland, Oregon Klux Klan in Oregon,” in G. Thomas Edwards [hereafter OHS Research Library]. and Carlos A. Schwantes, eds., Experiences in 7. Scott Beekman, William Dudley Pelley: a Promised Land: Essays in Pacific Northwest A Life in Right-Wing Extremism and the Occult History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 1986); Toy, “Robe and Gown: The Ku Klux Klan 1–2, 41. in Eugene, Oregon, during the 1920s,” in Shawn 8. Ibid., 41.

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 581 9. Ibid., 55, 70–71. 19. Gretchen Jane Guber, View Master: The 10. Ibid., 57, 77–78, 86. Biography of William B. Gruber (Minneapolis, MN: 11. James E. Geels, “The German-American Mill City Press, 2014), 140. Bund: Fifth Column of Deutschtum?) (M.A. thesis, 20. Leland V. Bell, “The Failure of Nazism North Texas University, 1975), 53–59; Bureau in America: The German American Bund, 1936- of Immigration, Portland Office, “The German- 1941” Political Science Quarterly 85:4 (1970): American Bund,” report prepared in 1941, Rennar 589; U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, papers, box 1, Friends of New Germany folder 2, “German American Bund (Amerika Deutscher OHS Research Library. Volksbund),” New York City, November 17, 1941, 12. Francis MacDonnell, Insidious Foes: p. 6, https://vault.fbi.gov/german-american-bund/ The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home german-american-federation-bund-part-11-of-10 Front (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), (accessed November 18, 2019). 43. The Portland chapter estimate is based on 21. “Memorandum,” November 6, 1937, documents available in the Rennar papers, box Rennar Papers, box 1, Friends of New Germany 1, Friends of New Germany folders 1 and 2, OHS folder 1, OHS Research Library. Research Library. 22. Groups included former Klan editor Lem 13. U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration Dever and Roy Metcalf’s National Brotherhood, and Naturalization Service, Portland, Oregon, on one hand, and Fred Gifford’s National “File no. 235-4093, Record of Sworn Statement Crusaders, on the other. See “Satus of antis,” early made by Otto F. Decker,” Rennar papers, box 1, November 1933, Rennar papers, box 2, Silver Friends of New Germany folder 1; Howard L. Fenn, Shirts folder, OHS Research Library. A Portland Naturalization Examiner, Portland, Oregon, June observer wrote in a letter that in 1933 “one of 23, 1941, p. 2–3, Rennar papers, box 2, Silvershirt the local Italian societies joined en masse,” Legion of America [hereafter Silver Shirts] folder; see C.W. Houghtailing to Henry J. Berkowitz, “Report for Week Ending 3/31/34,” Rennar Papers, December 29, 1933, Rennar papers, box 2, Silver box 2, Silver Shirts folder, all held at the OHS Shirts folder, OHS Research Library. On Pelley, Research Library. see Suzanne G. Ledboer, “The Man who would 14. A. Hochscheid, Letter to editor, February be Hitler: William Dudley Pelley and the Silver 27, [no year], box 1, August Hochscheid folder, Legion,” California History 65:2 (June 1986): OHS Research Library; “Where do you buy? 127–36; Scott Beekman, William Dudley Pelley: Support those Firms that Advertise in the A Life in right-Wing Extremism and the Occult ‘Nachrichten’,” Rennar papers, box 2, A.E. Kern (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), & Co. folder, OHS Research Library. 63–71, 80–90. Also useful is Eckard V. Toy, “Silver 15. U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration Shirts in the Northwest.” and Naturalization Service, Portland, Oregon, 23. Toy, “Silver Shirts in the Northwest,” 142. “File no. 235-4093, Record of Sworn Statement 24. Silver Shirts Meeting Report, June 16, made by Otto F. Decker,” Rennar papers, box 1, 1938, Rennar Papers, box 2, Silver Shirts file, OHS Friends of New Germany folder 1. Research Library. 16. Ibid. See also, Frank C. Hanighen, 25. Silver Shirts Meeting Report, November “Foreign Political Movements in the United 30, 1938, Rennar Papers, box 2, Silver Shirts file, States,” Foreign Affairs 16:1 (October 1937):6–7. OHS Research Library; “Report of Meeting of the 17. Silver Shirts meeting report, February 10, Silver Shirt Region, Turn Verein Hall, Portland, 1939, Rennar Papers, box 2, Silver Shirts folder, Oregon,” June 16, 1938, Rennar papers, box 2, OHS Research Library. Silver Shirts file, OHS Research Library. 18. “Report: Activities of Portland branch 26. Silver Shirts lecture and meeting report, German American Bund [mid-1938],” Rennar February 10, 1939?, Rennar Papers, box 2, Silver Papers, box 1, Friends of New Germany folder 1, Shirts folder, OHS Research Library. OHS Research Library. Anna Bernstein, Swastika 27. “Portland Jews in Danger of Losing Many Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the Friends,” Oregon Liberal, 1:18, September 11, 1936, German-American Bund (New York: St. Martin’s pg. 1, Rennar Papers, box 2, Lem Devers folder, Press, 2013), 189. OHS Research Library. See also Rennar papers,

582 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 Silver Shirts folder held at OHS Research Library. American Defenders folder, OHS Research 28. Silver Shirts meeting report, February 10, Library. 1939, Rennar papers, box 2, Silver Shirts folder, 40. A number of Radical Activities Bulletins OHS Research Library. These numbers were covering these subjects are located in the Rennar likely inflated, since they came from the Silver papers, box 1, Americans Incorporated folder, Shirts themselves. OHS Research Library. 29. “Report of Meeting of the Silver Shirt 41. Americans Incorporated, Radical Region, Turn Verein Hall Portland, Oregon,” June Activities Bulletin, Portland, Oregon, no. 14, 16, 1938, Rennar Papers, box 2, Silver Shirts folder, March 11, 1938, Rennar papers, box 1, Americans OHS Research Library. Incorporated folder, OHS Research Library. 30. Silvers, November 1933, Rennar papers, The report also noted that Australian-born box 2, Silver Shirts folder, OHS Research Library. Harry Bridges, who founded the International 31. Silver Shirts meeting report, November, Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in 1937, 20, 1938, Rennar papers, box 2, Silver Shirts should also be named on the petition. For more folder, OHS Research Library. on Harry Bridges and the ILWU in Portland, see 32. Bell, “The Failure of Nazism in America,” Sandy Polishuk, “They can’t come in the front 587. door because you guys won’t let them,” Oregon 33. Untitled American Defenders meeting Historical Quarterly 120:4 (Winter 2019): 546–61. notes, September 17, 1937, Rennar papers, 42. Americans Incorporated, Radical American Defenders folder, OHS Research Activities Bulletin, no. 14, March 11, 1938, Rennar Library. Papers, box 1, Americans Incorporated folder, 34. Untitled American Defenders meeting OHS Research Library; Americans Incorporated, notes, October 23, 1937, Rennar Papers, American Radical Activities Bulletin, no. 14, March 11, 1938, Defenders folder, OHS Research Library; Untitled Rennar papers, Americans Incorporated folder, American Defenders meeting notes, December 4, OHS Research Library. 1937, Rennar Papers, American Defenders folder, 43. David Robinson, “Preliminary OHS Research Library. Organization Report,” October 17, 1941, Rennar 35. Untitled American Defenders meeting Papers, box 1, Americans Incorporated folder, notes, October 9, 1937, Rennar Papers, American OHS Research Library. Defenders folder; Untitled American Defenders 44. “Fascist Party,” Portland Voter, July meeting notes, December 24, 1937, Rennar 30, 1938, Rennar papers, box 1, Americans Papers, American Defenders folder, OHS Incorporated folder, OHS Research Library; Louis Research Library. E. Starr to Myer Rubin, February 14, 1939, Rennar 36. Walter Odale, “Weekly Report of papers, box 1, Americans Incorporated folder, Communist Activities, Bureau of Police, Portland, OHS Research Library. Oregon,” October 1, 1937, Rennar Papers, box 1, 45. Report, February 29, 1940, Rennar Portland Police folder, OHS Research Library. Papers, box 2, Silvershirt Legion of America 37. “‘Red Squad’ Head Quizzes Student,” folder, OHS Research Library. Oregonian, October 26, 1937; “City ‘Red Squad’ 46. Meeting places are named throughout Flayed by Chief of Research Body,” Oregonian, the Silvershirt Legion of American folder in box October 31, 1937. 2 of the Rennar papers at OHS Research Library. 38. J.H. Hazlett, Corporation Department, Roger Griffin, “The Primacy of Culture: The State of Oregon, to Arthur A. Goldsmith, attorney, Current Growth (Or Manufacture) of Consensus December 22, 1937, Rennar papers, Americans within Fascist Studies,” Journal of Contemporary Incorporated folder, OHS Research Library; David History 37:1 (2002): 21–43. Robinson, “Preliminary Organization Report,” 47. American Defenders Meeting Report, October 17, 1941, Americans Incorporated, Rennar January 8, 1938, Rennar papers, box 1, American papers, box 1, American Defenders folder, OHS Defenders folder, OHS Research Library. Fred Research Library. Gifford had revived the Klan in 1937, claiming that 39. American Defenders Meeting Report, the primary focus was to fight both “communism December 4, 1937, Rennar papers, box 1, and fascism in this country” and to keep the U.S.

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 583 “safe for the democratic principles that made it debate (accessed November 15, 2019). great.” “Klan Revival Due in Oregon, Gifford Says,” 58. Letter from Delmore Lessard, Acting Oregon Journal, October 19, 1937. Chairman, Oregon Chapter, America First 48. Michael Barkun, Religion and the Racist Committee, April 30, 1941, Rennar Papers, box Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity 2, Misc. folder, OHS Research Library. Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North 59. David Robinson (Reporter), Preliminary Carolina Press, 1997), 18–27. Organization Report, Oct 17 1941, George E. 49. Ibid., 121–70. Rennar Papers. 50. Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right, 60. For more information on American 22–26, 31–40. Foundation, Inc., see the “American Foundation, 51. Ibid., 22–23. Inc.” file in the George E. Rennar Papers, which 52. Barkun, Religion and the Racist Right, includes newspaper clippings and the group’s 22–26; Lawrence M. Lipin, “Reexamining the articles of incorporation. Oregon Klan in the Age of Trump: True Believers 61. Alphabetical List of Individuals, HIA-R, and Fellow Travelers,” Common Knowledge, Barnhart Collection, N-5D-3-125-7, p. 11 and Pacific University, https://commons.pacificu.edu/ “Silver Shirt Legion of America, January 9, 1943, ashist/1/ (accessed November 18, 2019). HIA-R, Barnhart Collection, N-5D-3-125-7, p. 9-11, 53. Business card for G. Fred Johnson, https://digitalcollections.hoover.org/images/ Lecturer, Rennar papers, box 1, Anglo-Saxon Collections/78006/HIA-R-BARNHART-EDWARD- Federation folder, OHS Research Library. Rand’s N-5D-3-125-7.pdf (accessed November 18, 2019); public talks throughout the month of September Daniel Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia included luncheons in Portland at the Rose City Movement and the Radical Right (New York: M.E. Church, Church Forum in the Imperial Hotel, Palgrave Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), 118. the Multnomah Civic Club at the Congress Hotel; 62. Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door, 118–20. and in Salem and Clatskanie at the American 63. See Barkun, Religion and the Racist Lutheran Church. See 1936 handbill published Right, 199–254; and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, by the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Oregon Headquarters, Portland, Oregon, Rennar Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Papers, box 1, Anglo-Saxon Federation folder, OHS Press, 2002), 236–41. Research Library. 64. See Toy, “Silver Shirts in the Northwest,” 54. “Dr. Howard B. Rand Here Saturday,” 144. Clatskanie, Ore., Chief, September 11, 1936. 65. See letter exchange between del Valle to According to an informant memo, Rand also met Irvin Borders of America Plus, sent August 14, 1951, with Portland’s Mayor on September 11, 1936, and a response from American Plus via Aldrich Rennar papers, box 1, Anglo-Saxon Federation Blake sent October 3, 1951. Regarding his claim folder, OHS Research Library. See also, “Trunkful about Mussolini, see de Valle’s letter sent August of Theories,” Statesman Journal, September 9, 1962, and addressed to National States Rights 16, 1936. Party organizer J. Paul Thornton. For quotes on 55. “Memo” April 21, 1936, Rennar papers, “one-worldism” and “internationalists” see TASK box 1, Anglo-Saxon Federation folder, OHS FORCE, April 1955. This material is available in Research Library. Pedro Del Valle papers, 1949–1978, University 56. Manfred Jonas, “Pro-Axis Sentiment of Oregon Libraries, Coll 126. These sources are and American Isolationism,” The Historian, 29:2 included in an excellent summary of del Valle’s (1967): 221–25. work, which can be found in Kevin Coogan, 57. “Wheeler, Holaman Scored as Injecting “The Defenders of the American Constitution Anti-Semitism in Lend-Lease Debate,” Jewish and the League of Empire Loyalists: The First Telegraphic Agency, March 6, 1941, https://www. Postwar Anglo-American Revolts against the ‘One jta.org/1941/03/06/archive/wheeler-holman- World Order’, a paper delivered at Amsterdam scored-as-injecting-anti-semitism-in-lend-lease- International Institute for Social History, 2004.

584 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 66. For instance, among Del Valle’s myriad 72. Quoted in Toy, “Silver Shirts in the correspondents was Dean Kennedy, a John Bircher Northwest,” 144. Levitas similarly claims that Gale and Defenders of the American Constitution disliked Beach’s promotion of the group. See member who led a strange anti-gun-control group Levitas, The Terrorist Next Door, 116. called the National Association to Keep and Bear 73. Levitas, Terrorist Next Door, 108–111; Arms, based in Medford, Oregon. That group’s FOIA documents acquired by Levitas from FBI, acronym, NAKBA, is the same word Palestinians Sheriffs Posse Comitatus, Portland, OR: FBI, use to describe the mass displacement following PD 157-1432, archived here: https://archive.org/ the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, suggesting perhaps stream/SheriffsPosseComitatusDetroit15710687/ the same ultranationalist anti-Zionism that Sheriffs%20Posse%20Comitatus%20-%20 characterized del Valle’s own antisemitic writings. Detroit%20157-10687_djvu.txt (accessed To view their correspondence, see Pedro Del Valle November 16, 2019); Aaron Winter, “Posse papers, 1949–1978, University of Oregon Libraries, Comitatus,” Religion and Violence: An Coll 126. For more on Kennedy, see Levitas, Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict, ed. J. I. Ross, Terrorist Next Door, 115–16, 120, 137. (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2011), 575–80 67. Federal Bureau of Investigation, LA 74. Levitas, Terrorist Next Door,120. 157-571, “William Potter Gale,” January 22, 1964, 75. Ibid. p. 3, https://archive.org/stream/GaleWilliamP. 76. Ibid., 119. HQ1/Gale%2C%20William%20P.-HQ-1_djvu.txt 77. Carolyn Gallaher, “On the Fault Line: (accessed November 18, 2019). Race, Class and the US Patriot Movement,” 68. Steward A. Wright, Patriots, Politics, Cultural Studies, 16:5 (2002): 673–703. and the Oklahoma City Bombing (Cambridge: 78. Kathy Marks, Faces of Right Wing Cambridge University Press, 2007), 58–61. Extremism (Boston: Branden Books, 2011), 85, 139. 69. Ibid, 60. 79. Timothy G. Baysinger, “Right-wing Group 70. Silver Shirts built a “Silver Lodge” in Characteristics and Ideology,” Homeland Security Redmond and congregated there during the Affairs 2, Article 3 (July 2006). 1930s. See McNamara, N. and “Temple For 80. On the Christian Identity movement, see ‘American Hitler’ Once Stood In Redmond: George Michael, Theology of Hate: A History of Knute Berger,” Redmond Patch, May 29, 2018, the World Church of the Creator (Gainesville: https://patch.com/washington/redmond/temple- University of Press of Florida, 2009), 49–50. american-hitler-once-stood-redmond-knute- 81. Aaron Winter, “Posse Comitatus,” 575– berger (accessed November 16, 2019). See 80. also Silver Shirt Legion of America, Washington 82. Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: State Division photograph collection, circa The White Power Movement and Paramilitary 1930s, PH1521, University of Washington America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Libraries, http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ 2018), 106–117, 127, 140. ark:/80444/xv84258; James Aho, The Politics 83. George Hawley, Right-Wing Critics of of Righteousness: Idaho Christian Patriotism American Conservatism. Lawrence: University (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), of Kansas Press, 2016), 246. It should be noted 57; and “7 ARE CONVICTED IN PLOT ON COAST: that in this case, it is pursuing political separation Guilty of Conspiring to Rob Banks for Minutemen,” motivated by their belief in in their inherent New York Times, June 23, 1968. supremacy. 71. While some sources follow Beach’s claim 84. Spencer Sunshine, “The Growing to have founded Posse Comitatus in 1969, Leonard Alliance Between Neo-Nazis, Right Wing Zeskind insists that Gale founded the group in Paramilitaries and Trumpist Republicans,” 1971 and Beach plagiarized him. Zeskind, Blood Colorlines, June 9, 2017, https://www.colorlines. and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist com/articles/growing-alliance-between-neo- Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream nazis-right-wing-paramilitaries-and-trumpist- (New York City: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2009), 72. republicans (accessed November 18, 2019).

Burley and Ross, From Nativism to White Power 585