Mid-Twentieth-Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon
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Portland State University PDXScholar Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations Geography 2019 From Nativism to White Power: Mid-Twentieth- Century White Supremacist Movements in Oregon Shane Burley Alexander Ross Portland State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/geog_fac Part of the Human Geography Commons, and the Politics and Social Change Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y 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. This Article is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. From Nativism to White Power 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 564 OHQ vol. 120, no. 4 © 2019 Oregon Historical Society OHS Research Library, Mss 2918, box 2, “misc.” folder 2, “misc.” Mss 2918, box Library, OHS Research 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 folder 2, “Misc.” Mss 2819, box Library, OHS Research 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 spiri- tual 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