Silver Shirts

The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an American fascist and pro-Nazi organization which was founded by William Dudley Pelley and headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina.

History

Pelley was a former journalist, novelist and screenwriter turned spiritualist who began to promote antisemitic views by 1931, including the belief that Jews were possessed by demons. He formed the Silver Legion with the goal of bringing about a "spiritual and political renewal", inspired by the success of Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement in Germany.

A nationalist, fascist group, the paramilitary Silver Legion wore a uniform modeled after the Nazis' brown shirts (SA), consisting of a silver shirt with a blue tie, along with a campaign hat and blue corduroy trousers with leggings. The uniform shirts bore a scarlet letter ''L'' over the heart, which according to Pelley was "standing for Love, Loyalty, and Liberation." The blocky slab serif ''L''-emblem was in a typeface similar to the present-day Rockwell Extra Bold. The organizational flag was a plain silver field with a red ''L'' in the canton on the upper left hand corner. By 1934, the Legion claimed that it had 15,000 members.

Legion leader Pelley called for the establishment of a "Christian Commonwealth" in America, a government that would combine the principles of fascism, theocracy, and socialism, along with the exclusion of Jews and non-whites. He claimed he would save America from Jewish communists just as "Mussolini and his Black Shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his Brown Shirts saved Germany." Pelley ran in the 1936 presidential election on a third-party ticket under the Christian Party banner. Pelley hoped to seize power in a "silver revolution" and set himself up as the dictator of the United States. He would be called "the Chief", a title which would be analogous to the titles used by other fascist leaders, such as "Der Führer" for Adolf Hitler and "Il Duce" for Benito Mussolini. However, the Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-elected, and Pelley failed to appear in the top four. By around 1937, the Silver Legion's membership had declined to about 5,000. In 1936, a small Silver Shirt office was established in downtown Spokane. About 200 members participated before the group's end.

When the Silver Shirts tried to hold a rally at the Elks Club in Minneapolis, the meeting was interrupted by senior local Jewish-American organized crime figure David Berman.

Pelley disbanded the organization soon after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

On January 20, 1942, Pelley was sentenced to serve two to three years in prison by Superior Court Judge F. Don Phillips, in Asheville, North Carolina, for violating terms of probation of a 1935 conviction for violating North Carolina security laws. The same sentence had been suspended pending good behavior, but the court found that during that period, Pelley had published false and libelous statements, published inaccurate reports and advertising, and supported a secret military organization. For claiming that the devastation of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor was worse than the government claimed, Pelley was arrested by federal authorities and sentenced to 15 years in prison for sedition and conspiracy to commit sedition, including for making seditious statements, obstructing military recruiting, and fomenting insurrection within the military.

In popular culture

* Sinclair Lewis's novel ''It Can't Happen Here'' depicts a fascist takeover of the United States by an anti-Roosevelt demagogue who claims that he is inspired to do so by the Silver Legion of America.
* In the Paradox Interactive video game ''Hearts of Iron IV'', should the United States turn fascist, the Silver Legion of America will be depicted as the ruling party. Pelley can become president if certain conditions are met and the country will be renamed to the "Free American Empire".

See also

* Authoritarianism
* Christian Party (United States, 1930s)
* German American Bund
* Political uniform
* Ulrich Fleischhauer

References

Notes

Further reading
* Allen, Joe "'It Can't Happen Here?': Confronting the Fascist Threat in the US in the Late 1930s," ''International Socialist Review,'' Part One: whole no. 85 (Sept.–Oct. 2012), pp. 26–35; Part Two: whole no. 87 (Jan.–Feb. 2013), pp. 19–28.
*
* Ribuffo, Leo Paul ''The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War.'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983.
* Spivak, John L. ''Secret Armies: The New Technique of Nazi Warfare.'' New York: Modern Age Books, 1939.
* Werly, John ''The Millenarian Right: William Dudley Pelley and the Silver Legion of America.'' PhD dissertation. Syracuse University, 1972.
* Yeadon, Glen. ''The Nazi Hydra in America.'' Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2008.

External links

Photo of a Silver Legion of America meeting in the 1930s:
* The Holocaust Chronicle


The American Jewish Committees' archive on the Silver Shirts:

''Atlas Obscura'' article on Rustic Canyon's Murphy Ranch

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1933 establishments in the United States
1941 disestablishments in the United States
Antisemitism in the United States
Anti-black racism in the United States
American collaborators with Nazi Germany
Asheville, North Carolina
Christian fascism
Christian nationalism in the United States
Clothing in politics
Collaboration with Nazi Germany
Fascist organizations in the United States
Organizations established in 1933
Organizations disestablished in 1941
Political parties established in 1933
Right-wing militia organizations in the United States
Social history of the United States
White supremacist groups in the United States