Reuben H. Sawyer or Reuben Herbert Sawyer (1866–1962) was an American clergyman and a leader of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...

in Oregon until 1924. He was an important advocate of Anglo Israelism (also known as British Israelism). He associated religious beliefs with ultra-conservative and radical political activism.

Life

Sawyer was originally pastor of the East Side Christian Church in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

, where until the beginning of the 1920s he built up a strong grouping of Anglo-Israelites with the Anglo-Israel Research Society. He took a leading role in the establishment of the

British-Israel-World Federation The British-Israel-World Federation (also stylized as the British-Israel World Federation) is a United Kingdom-based organization that promotes British Israelism, the historical belief that the people of the British Isles are direct descendants ...

in London in 1919. He helped draft the federation's constitution and attended the first federation congress in London in 1920 He also spoke to large British-Israel audiences elsewhere in England. Sawyer was in demand as a speaker and in 1921 gave up his pastorate to dedicate himself exclusively to his lectures on the Pacific coast and western Canada, especially in Vancouver. In addition to his commitment to the Anglo-Israelite movement, Sawyer participated in the construction of the Oregon

of which he was leader from 1921 to 1924. Sawyer's participation was mainly as a speaker whose appearances sometimes addressed audiences of several thousand. In 1922 he also took on the leadership of the Women's Organization of the Invisible Empire, founded by the leader of the Klan in Oregon, Fred Gifford. In 1924 he fell out with Gifford and left the Klan. Originally a philo-Semite in the mold of

Edward Hine Edward Hine (10 February 1825 – 15 October 1891) was an influential proponent of British Israelism in the 1870s and 1880s, drawing on the earlier work of Richard Brothers (1794) and John Wilson (1840). Hine went so far as to conclude, "It is an ...

, Sawyer's views shifted profoundly to the opinion that one could distinguish between the true Israelites, from whom the Anglo-Saxons were descended, and "false" Jews. Under the influence of the publication of a series of anti-Semitic articles ''

The International Jew ''The International Jew'' is a four-volume set of antisemitic booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by the Dearborn Publishing Company, an outlet owned by Henry Ford, the American industrialist and autom ...

'', in the ''

Dearborn Independent ''The Dearborn Independent'', also known as ''The Ford International Weekly'', was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. At its height during the mid-1920s it claimed a circulation of between ...

'', a weekly newspaper published by

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American Technological and industrial history of the United States, industrialist and business magnate. As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited as a pioneer in making automob ...

and edited by William J. Cameron, Sawyer began to identify the "false" Jews with un-American objectives and

Bolshevism Bolshevism (derived from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined p ...

. He applied this particularly to Jews of Ashkenazic and Eastern European origin.

Works

*''The Jewish Question''. Crown Printing Works, Mere Wilts 192-? *''Bible religion. Or, the church of the scriptures''. Standard pub. Co., Cincinnati, Ohio 1900. *''The Livery of Heaven.'' The CM Clark Pub. Co., Boston, 1910. *''The truth about the invisible empire. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; A lecture delivered at the Municipal Auditorium in Portland, Oregon, on December twenty-second, nineteen twenty-one, to six thousand people.'' Pacific Northwest Domain, Portland, Or. 1922.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sawyer, Rupert British Israelism American Ku Klux Klan members 1866 births 1962 deaths Clergy from Portland, Oregon Activists from Oregon American conspiracy theorists

Life

Works

See also

References