1S X

AN EMERGENT FASCIST MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

Approved:

Approved:

Dean of the Graduate School.

AN EMERGENT FASCIST MOVEMENT IN AMERICA: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

THESIS

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

By

John Harmon Burma, Jr., B. A.

Austin, Texas August, 1938

PREFACE

THE LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

To Dr. W. E, Gettys, head of the Department of Sociology, I wish to express my appreciation for the time and attention he has given me in the preparation of this study, and for the advice and ideas he has given me in developing it. I am also deeply grateful to Dr. Carl Rosenquist for his advice and assistance in bringing this study to its present form. I am also grateful to Dr. Robert Montgomery for his kindness and consideration.

DEC 2 0 1938

John H. Burma

The University of Texas August, 1938

445844

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

Introduction 1

I. Fascism in Europe 9

11. Background for an Emerging Fascist Movement: Economic 24

111. Background for an Emerging Fascist Movement: Political 57

IV. Philosophy, Doctrines, Aims, and Objectives . . 84

V. Organization, Programs, and Platforms 110

VI. Leadership 138

VII. Techniques of an Emerging American Fascism . . . 161

VIII. An Emerging American Fascism: Crisis and Opposition 188

IX. An Emerging American Fascism and Social Change . 205 Bibliography 215

INTRODUCTION

THE LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS

The term H Fascism rt is a concept which now must be recognized as having assumed an important place in the American vocabulary.

For centuries the peoples of the world have striven to enlarge and maintain their freedom. Everywhere organs articulating individual initiative and human rights have sought the espousal of the concept of liberty. Initiated by the American Revolution and the French Revolution, democracy spread from nation to nation, from continent to continent.

Then came a period when bewildered people, no longer feeling self-sufficient, were willing to surrender their freedom in exchange for strong determined leadership which promised to give them more immediate order, security, purpose, and hope.

This attitude and movement, in a variant form, has manifested itself since the World War in a greater or less degree in every politically autonomous nation which was affected by the post-War chaos. In Italy, Germany, and now Spain, this movement is in control. Nations, both large and small,

have fallen beneath its platitudinous propaganda and its swift and brutal violence. So widespread a phenomenon has this movement manifested itself to be, that it appears to be expressive of one of the dominant political attitudes of the Western world. Certainly it is apropos at least to investigate the Fascist movement in the United States to ascertain the significance such a widespread movement may have in our own land.

But before we designate any definite growth or importance in the United States to the social movement we call Fascism, we must arrive at a definite understanding of the concept Fascism. That is a difficult assignment. In our common scale of speech the word '‘Fascism” has reached the stage where it is applied to almost any kind of action one does not like. The glossary of politics in particular is full of such terms; a movement starts with an ideal and takes a name roughly descriptive of that principle; those who are opposed to the movement at once turn the term into obloquy, and apply it indiscriminately to all sorts of things which they wish to besmirch or injure. And at present, as a term of abuse, Fascism stands as high as

All of which, instead of explaining what Fascism is, simply shows us that we can by no means be sure that all which is called Fascism can be taken at face value as such, or that all that is in reality Fascism will so label itself.

Norman Thomas, Socialist and arch foe of Fascism, defines it as "an extra-legal attempt by force and violence to maintain the class division of income under a dictatorship devoted to a totalitarian national state. •* He further states that

The growing tendency to use Fascism as a synonym for everything that is reactionary or brutal or oppressive is unfortunate because it is likely to mislead the public in recognizing and fighting the real Fascism. It is a virtual certainty that in this country the Fascist demagogue will hotly deny that he is Fascist. He will denounce Fascism and probably speak as a defender of some sort of democracy.s

We probably would be safe in defining as Fascism any movement which desired: (1) the elimination of democratic institutions and principles in favor of a disciplined minority, generally with a single individual as absolute dictator; (2) the destruction of freedom of the press, free speech, right of

assembly, the independence of the judiciary and all other safeguards which a democratic society accords its citizens; (3) the slow or instant destruction of the instruments of self-government and of opposition or dissent; (4) the extension of its control over the nation's industry, commerce, education, and other activities. A truly typical Fascist movement would be characterized by this four-point program.

Precise definitions of Fascism, however, should not give us too much concern, for they must necessarily be arbitrary. Officially, Fascism in every Fascist country is whatever its authorized Fascist exponents claim it to be. Actually, of course, terms like Fascism, Christianity, Americanism, “due process of law,” and the like must mean many different and often mutually exclusive things to different people For the purpose of unity and clarity, we will use the term Fascism as set forth in the foregoing four-point definition.

Inasmuch as we are going to treat Fascism as a social movement and attempt to analyze and trace its growth in the United States with that in mind, it would be wise also to set forth in advance just what we have in mind when we speak of tracing the growth of a social movement.

It has been stated by Dawson and Gettys that before

a social movement begins, there must be a condition of personal dissatisfaction and unrest. Usually this dissatisfaction is not objectified, and may be attributed to various causes, which may or may not be mutually exclusive as far as each individual is concerned. This unrest grows rapidly, for it is communicated by the individual to other individuals, who, by means of what is called a circular response, also become restless and dissatisfied. These individuals in turn communicate their feelings to other individuals and recommunicate their restlessness back to the individual in which it first had its origin, thereby heightening this individual’s state of dissatisfaction. It is from this somewhat widespread condition of social unrest that we may expect social movements of various types to have their incipience. During this period, there appear local disorders, an increase in crime, vice, and wandering individuals, and a marked increase in tensions of various types. But there is no organization; random gestures ere made, but there is no discipline. The leaders who emerge during this period are chiefly agitators, articulating the social unrest of the group.

Then, later, the dissatisfaction becomes somewhat objectified and coordinated. For the first time the group has focused on some objective or ideal, remote and general though it may be. It is during this second period that doctrines, myths, philosophy, and objectives are usually formed. These tend to make the group more self-conscious and unified, but they also bring about recognition and opposition which has not been present before. The leaders of this period tend to be re formers, or even prophets, and serve e much more unifying purpose than the agitator-leaders of the first period.

During this period we again see the phenomenon of circular interaction, and the various individuals stimulate each other and in turn are re-stimulated by their fellows. By this method, the crowd excitement begun in the first stage if further intensified and further narrowed, so that a dominant mood arises. Under this dominant mood the individuals of the group tend to respond very strongly to any stimuli favorable to their mood, but to inhibit response to any stimuli opposed to the dominant mood.

This second stage then shades off gradually into the third stage. In the third stage, the motives and aims of the group are firmly established. The movement has a program and responsible leaders and is established around them. By this time the movement has developed a structure, has acquired traditions, and set up dogme and ritual. For the first time the movement may be said to be "well-organized.” The leaders of this stage are of the statesman type; that is, they formulate the policies of the movement, and voice the convictions which have become established.

Later on, if the movement survives the third stage and finds itself accepted and supported by the current mores, it becomes established as an institution, a lasting organization. During this stage the individual is often lost sight of, and the laws, dogmas, and ideals of the movement assume greater importance. During this stage the social movement disappears 3 and a newly founded institution takes its place.

Rather than concentrating on the content of Fascism, we shall study it as a movement, endeavoring to ascertain its background, its aims, doctrines, and objectives, its various mechanisms and the characteristic techniques applied, possibly arriving at the role of this particular movement in bringing about social change. We shall make an effort to test the sociological theory of social movements by seeing if the socalled emergent Fascism in the United States conforms to the

hypothetical pattern set up for it; which test will serve both as a check on the theory of social movements and as a check on the particular stage in which the American Fascist movement may be at this time.

It must be borne in mind that when we study the rather recent nascence of Fascism in America, we do not mean to infer that the principles behind Fascism are by any means new, or by ♦ • any means indigenous to America. Far from it. It is quite possible that the ancient Greeks, although unfamiliar with the word, would have recognized immediately the aims, methods, and philosophy of Fascism. Certainly the principles it embodies are not new. Machiavelli, living in Italy more than four centuries ago, postulated the majority of the tenets now held by Fascism, and recorded them in his work, The Prince. The Italian Fascists even claim that ancient Rome is the model from which their ideas have been in a large measure copied. There can be no question as far as the United States is concerned as to the priority of the Mussolini or Hitler types of Fascism. They are an accomplished fact; they have entered the institutional stage and no longer may properly be considered movements. But with all this in mind, we shall attempt to trace not Fascism, per se, but an emerging Fascist movement in the United States.

Palmer, Paul, "What is a Fascist,” Nation, Vol. 138, pp. 36-39, January 10, 1934.

. , Thomas, Norman, After the New Deal, What?, pp. 142-143. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1936. TxU

3 Of. Dawson end Gettys, Introduction to Sociology, Chapters 18 and 19. New York, Ronald Press Company, 1935.

CHAPTER I FASCISM IN EUROPE

Before attempting to analyze any so-called Fascist movement in the United States, we must first get a general picture of its background. Without sufficient information as to background, the study of any movement would in large part be meaningless and inadequate. The best way to begin such a study would seem to be a treatment of the historic and current background of Fascism in countries in which there is a welldefined movement of that nature.

Although it seems unlikely that Fascism will come to America in exactly the same fashion es it has come to other countries of the world, it may be helpful to make a study of the background, inception, growth, and leaders of Fascism in those countries in which it is now present in order to set the stage for a study of the Fascist movement in America. Certainly such a study should be of value in questioning the blind relief that ”It Can’t Happen Here,"l

Throughout Europe, with the exception of Russia, the democratic conception that government shall ultimately derive from the people and be conducted according to the will of the majority of the people, still seems to be considered basic. In many countries the individualistic, ’’liberal,” parliamentary democracy seems to be changing into a stronger, organized, centralized, and authoritative democracy. Parliaments, parties, and representatives have lost ground in Europe. In Fascist countries, it is believed that parliamentary machinery is too slow, too circumstantial in relation to modern tempo, and too impenetrable for the individual to have any appeal to or contact with high authority, or to have any influence over it. An integration and organization of the nation, planned politics, and planned economics are preferred. A new borderline between executive and legislative power is aspired to in Fascist countries. Strong personal leadership and clear responsibility p appear to be their demand.

In Europe, former adherents of Socialism, unwilling to accept the Communistic Russian system, and clinging to the idea of property, began to fill the ranks of Fascism, which depends essentially upon the lower middle class. Desperete farmers and deeply disillusioned youths joined them. These, young either in age or experience, needed or wanted leadership. The co-operation of the young permeated and still permeates the movement, wherever it has become apparent in Europe, with stormy enthusiasm. Their rejection of pure individualism and Marxian pessimism, and their longing for new ideals, for a new spirit of community and leadership, open a new outlook for them. The combination of all these people, lower middle class, farmers, workmen, and 3 the youth of all classes, furnish the mass of Fascist supporters.

The chief evidences of Fascism are seen in Italy and Germany, and a study of the movement in these two countries will give us a fairly good background for our study of Fascism in America. These are not the only Fascistic countries, however. Turkey, under Mustapha Kemal Pasha, felt it needed a strong hand to rejuvenate the nation, and that only a Fascist dictatorship could furnish it. Poland, under General Pilsudski, felt that the turbulous times through which a newly reborn country must struggle needed a firm guiding hand. Central Europe took to Fascism for a variety of reasons. Jugoslavia granted

her king dictatorial powers, Hungary feared Communism, and Austria established a Fascist dictatorship to fight another dictatorship. The Bulgarian Fascists showed a combination of the old Social Democrats with the trade unions which were Fascist in principle if not in name. Spain already had Fascist leanings before Italy and Germany financed Franco’s seemingly successful attempt to make the country completely Fascist.

Fascism was also able to cross the Atlantic. In Uruguay, President Terra revolted from his Socialist government and set up a Fascist dictatorship with himself at its head. Dr. Getulio Vargas of Brazil frankly calls himself a dictator. In Chile, President Arturo Allesandri was granted powers which practically suspended the constitution. He is supported by a well-armed group called the Guardia Civil which is pledged to support the legal government against revolutionaries. President Augustin Justo declared the country of Argentina in a state of siege in 1933 and since then there has been organized the Legion Civica which "combats by all means the forces which conspire against the state." Even Cuba has a dictator, and the French-Canadians of Quebec, if their wish for an autonomous government were granted, plan to set up a totalitarian state. 4

Spreading still further, Fascism has come to rapidly westernizing Japan, uhere its peculiarly reactionary character draws its strength from an ultranationalistic patriotism. It is fundamentally an emotional movement which aims at a benevolent dictatorship. The broad factors underlying Fascism in Japan are similar to those now affecting all capitalistic countries, i.e., dependence on foreign markets, concentration of ownership and control of industry into a few hands, depressions, and close relationship between government and industry through subsidies, etc. In Japan the rise to power of the military class, coming partly from past political corruption by political parties, was extended by the discontent caused by the current depression. The Japanese ex-soldiers are tending rapidly to become Fascists in large numbers. There are a great number of reactionary societies of various types under different leaders. The diversity of the groups openly or tacitly favoring Fascism 5 render it difficult to estimate their actual strength.

But these examples show more the prevalence of Fascist movements that the programs, mechanisms, techniques, and the type of leaders who would employ them. That information we get

L4o 6 4 4

best from Italy and Germany. In Italy, the World War had much to do with bringing about Fascism. Italy had been promised colonies and through them a place of superiority among other industrial nations of her size, but she received no colonies. Her soldiers found their jobs gone, business was bad, factories and business men could not sell their goods. To war veterans and youngsters alike the depression and unemployment made the future look dull, unpromising, and useless. Strikes began to increase, and there was much discontent. Phices were high, wages low, and a general strike was being considered. Then property owners and business men became frightened. They realized that some sort of reorganization was needed, but they clung to the idea of private property and private profit. The government did nothing but debate; no constructive policy could be agreed on. People began to doubt whether it was possible to get a solution by democratic methods.

Then a leader appeared—Mussolini. Leader of a new nationalist movement, he talked about patriotism, the glorious past of Rome, the future greatness of Italy, national vindication, insistence on Italy's "place in the sun," social justice and the rights of people, a capital levy, and the danger of those who were obstructing reform. Thousands upon thousands listened

to him. Always he urged strong control and offered determined leadership. “It is not a program of salvation Italy needs, but rather a man with a will.’* What is more, Mussolini took the before-mentioned unemployed veterans and restless youths end organized the Black Shirts.

In the fall of 1922, Mussolini and his advisors decided the time had come for them to take over the government. The Fascists had only thirty-one out of five hundred and thirty five members of Parliament, but they had confidence, end the existing government was weak and futile. In October they organized the famous March on Rome. It was a psychological rather than a military attack. Mussolini became prime minister and formed a new cabinet. Within three weeks Parliament had approved the whole procedure and had granted Mussolini full powers to carry out any reforms he considered necessary. Thus, % Fascism marhed to power in Italy.

For three years Mussolini used his power as a dictator to get rid of opposition and to unify the country. Gradually he forced all leaders who opposed him either to surrender their convictions and come in with him or to resign. The Black Shirts used all kinds of punishment and violence to terrify any who refused to support the new government--whipping, huge doses of castor oil, imprisonment, even death. In 1925 all but the Fascist deputies withdrew from Parliament in protest against the assassination of Socialist Deputy Matteotti, and at that moment the last vestige of representative democratic government was swept away. To reorganize the industrial life of the nation, Mussolini formulated the ’’Corporate State,” the aim of which was to organize all economic activity and to prevent class conflict. Employers and employees were both organized into syndicates, and no other organizations of either were allowed. Employers elected their representatives, but the employees had theirs appointed for them out of the middle class. It became a crime to strike, and an impossibility for the workers to accomplish anything for themselves. The State kept watch on payrolls and profits, end factories could not be shut down. The increasing cost of public works and government activity to create jobs has resulted in higher and higher taxes for both groups. Both employers’ and employees* interests have been subordinated to those of the nation as defined by the Fascist party. The employers, however, have in practice exercised greater influence than the workers, both on their own organization and on the country’s economic life. 6

Germany under Hitler is the other chief example of Fascism in Europe. After the World War Germany was forced to f accept the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles, surrender her colonies, accept the war guilt, pay large reparations, and all this in addition to having a revolution at home The people were stunned and humiliated, for they had been proud of Germany*s power and world prestige. They began to grumble and find fault with the new government which had accepted the odious terms of peace. In addition to political troubles, the war had disrupted business and production; taxes were high; and then savings were wiped out by the inflation. Manufacturers could not be sure of prices, and workers never knew from one day to another what their wages would bring. Insecurity and fear spread over the country.

Things improved somewhat as time went on and the inflation ceased. Yet many economic problems remained unsolved. Reparations loomed as huge debts to people already paying onefourth their income as taxes. Even with increasing activity, unemployment became acute. Sixty per cent of every university graduating class had nothing to do; half the men between sixteen and thirty were permanently unemployed. The new government was ineffectual because no one party was strong enough to do anything Any constructive measure took a great deal of time and trouble

because of the necessity of making coalitions. It was this lack of agreement which caused the people to grow impatient with the republic and prepared the way for a new party.

Adolph Hitler had been working for and with his National Socislist German Labor Party (Nazis) ever since 1919, but met with little success until 1929 when, with the depression to help, his party grew by leaps and bounds. He was a genius at propaganda: to the workers he promised security, to the peasants land, to industry low production costs, to the middle class renewed national pride and self-sufficiency. He told the people that the old Empire was not to blame for Germany‘s defeat, that they could still be proud of their army, that German soldiers did not lose the war; the Communists, Catholics, and Jews had ruined the morale of the soldiers and were the ones who had brought about the revolution and accepted a peace without honor. Hitler promised to vindicate Germany in the eyes of the world, to throw off the burden of war guilt, and to establish. Germany once more as a military and political power in the world. He was a gifted orator and a dynamic personality, and great audiences came to hear him speak. Thus many Germans lost faith in the post-wer democratic government. By July, 1932, the Nazi party had become by far the largest political party in Germany. In January, 1933, Hitler wes appointed Chancellor. A month later the Reichstag burned and the Nazi Department of Propaganda announced that the fire was a Communist plot, the signal for a Communist uprising, civil war, and the slaughter of the owning classes, A week later new elections took place and millions stampeded to the Nazi party, giving it control of Parliament. The Communist members of the Reichstag were expelled and many thrown into prison camps. The Nazi Storm Troopers carried out a reign of terror against Communists, pacifists, Jews, and everyone opposed to Hitler. In the midst of this terror the German Parliament voted to make Hitler supreme and sole dictator for a period of four years. Thus the democratic government destroyed itself; end what little was 7 left Hitler soon wiped out by decrees.

Condensing and reiterating what we find in the rise and triumph of Fascist movements in Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, we note the following conditions or characteristics: (1) the existence of a grave social crisis giving rise to political problems which were difficult if not impossible to solve through the processes of bourgeois democracy-, (2) the appeerance of a mass movement, principally of the lower middle class and peasants giving militant organization to the impulse of rebellion against

the deprivations of the crisis; (3) the demagogic exploitation of vague and often contradictory promises to the dissident elements in capitalist society, and the utilization of social prejudices, especially those of race and nationality, for the purpose of recruiting the following necessary to gain political power; (4) the gradual conversion of the captains of industry and finance to the support of the movement-, (5) the abrogation of the parliamentary form of government and the substitution therefor of the rule of the Fascist hierarchy-, (6) the cancellation of all civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, press, or radio, which might aid dissident elements opposed to Fascistic rule-, (7) compulsory class collaboration in the name of the totalitarian state, with the destruction of independent labor organizations and the consequent destruction of any power labor might have; (8) efforts to achieve economic selfsufficiency, within the national economy; (9) the forceable imposition of a highly regimented, nationalistic, dogmatic culture; (10) an excessive militarism, excessive patriotism; (11) reforestation, reclamation, etc., carried on in a semimilitary manner; (12) the people are usually uniformed, organized, and periodically harangued by some spell-binding orator, rewarded if they conform to the set standard, persecuted if they

do not; (13) an excessive hate of Communism, and usually the persecution of some "inferior, degrading" race; (14) the limiting of academic and religious freedom, and the utilizing of schools and churches as media for propaganda, (15) the destruction of instruments of self-government and of the independence of the judiciary, and the servile acquiescence of the legislative body to the will of the executive, (16) the control of society, in the end, by the classes instead of the masses, and the rewarding of those who submit to or assist in the movement.

It would be fortunate for this study if the American Fascist movement were further along in its growth. Then we would undoubtedly find many parallels between it and European Fascism. As it is, there are, even at the present stage, some few of interest.

For example, we see that in Europe Fascism was an outgrowth of a period of restlessness, personal disorganization, and economic insecurity. In the United States the same factors are noticeably present. Since they will be discussed at length immediately following, it will now be sufficient to state that we shall show that American Fascism made its first real strides during a period of greet unrest. During the same period we find the worse depression America had ever suffered, and in conjunction with this a more than normal amount of personal disorganization.

In Europe we find Fascism gaining its strength through a period of more than normally severe political crises. In America we shall see that the trend toward American Fascism had its beginning during one of the most important political crises in many years. With the possible exceptions of the Revolutionary War period and the era of Reconstruction in the South following the Civil War, there is no period in the history of the United States in which there had been so much unrest and disorganization. Certainly the depression was the most widespread of these conditions, for there were large areas of the west and northwest which were little touched by either of the former but were struck hard by the latter.

It is seen that in the case of European Fascism, the post-World War period was the time in which Fascism made its greatest gains. Soldiers had returned from the army to find their country in the throes of depression. Industries were slack, business was poor, finances were precarious, and factories were letting out old employees rather than re-employing the returning soldiers. The fire of high ideals at first held by the soldiers had turned to the ashes of cynicism and callousness. The situation was ripe for the meteoric rise of any movement

which already had a few roots and which could appeal to a disorganized people. In the United States although some effects were noticeable, no real disorganization came, and no situation particularly so conducive to Fascism arose at that time.

As an emerging American Fascism is further probed, still other parallels will be seen and discussed, along with those already mentioned, at considerably more length. A parallel will be noticed in the demagogic exploitation of ideas for economic betterment. A slowly emerging anti-Semitism, whose roots had been long present, will be found. Seemingly abortive attacks on civil liberties, on educational liberties, and on the power of labor organizations will be noted. Tn short, the emerging American Fascist movement may be expected to follow fairly closely, up to its present stage, the fundamental patterns set up for social movements in general and those followed by Fascism in Europe in particular. It was about a decade later in appearing because our postponed economic crisis did not manifest itself, with the full force of its pent-up momentum and with practically every one of the characteristics of the European post-war period, until that time. Disorganization, confusion, and uncertainty became the order of the day, beginning about 1930.

Sinclair, It Can * t Happen Here, Garden City, Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1935.

S Cf. Simon, Hugo F. , Revolution Whither Bound?, pp. 263-265. New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1935. TxD

3 Ibid., p. 23.

4 Cf., Doyle, H. S., "Fascism in South America," Current History, Vol. 40, pp. 68-69, November, 1954.

5 Cf. , ’’Rise of Fascism in Japan,” Foreign Policy Reports, pp. 196-206. New York, The Foreign Policy Association, October 26, 1932.

6 Cf., Goslin, Ryllis A. (Editor), Dictatorship, pp. 11-15. New York, Foreign Policy Association, 1936.

7 Ibid.. pp. 16-20.

CHAPTER II BACKGROUND FOR AN EMERGING FASCIST MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: ECONOMIC

Fascism is the integration of an economic movement and a political movement. It is a mass movement of people and thus a social movement. It is our purpose to analyze the emerging Fascist movement on the basis of its social nature and its implications for sociological theory. But it would seem both impractical and fallacious not to discuss at some length the political and economic aspects of Fascism, for they are integral parts of the social movement as a whole and cannot be divorced from Fascism*s general social background.

It will be seen that, conforming to the growth of social movements in general and Fascism in Europe in particular, the American Fascist movement had its background in a period of great economic, political, and other stress. The economic background before which Fascism made its real debut in America, and before which its preliminary acts were played, was the depression of the early thirties. The general facts about the depression

are known to the average reader, end so it will be sufficient to mention only a few outstanding economic phenomena of that period.

The total physical output of goods in the United States was reduced 37 per cent between 1929 and 1932, The income paid out in the nation shrank 40 per cent. The number of people working in the various occupations of the country was reduced 33 per cent. The number of unemployed was reliably estimated at 14,400,000. Wage-earners who had work suffered ■ ■" ....... a 32 per cent reduction in income per capita. Total income paid on account of property ownership, including interest and dividends, was cut 30 per

When the full force of the depression hit, many people had time to think--some of them too much time. People were bewildered. Out of their bewilderment came the feeling that something fundamental was wrong. The newspapers told of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, who lacked sufficient food and clothes. There had been no drouths, no strikes of any importance, and yet people lacked the necessities of life, and saw no way to get them. The mystification and dissatisfaction of the people grew apace with their realization of the facts of the situation.

With this restlessness and confusion came a desire to know more about its causes. Slowly but surely questions began to form in the minds of thinking people: "Why has this depression come? Don’t we really have plenty of everything? What can we do to extricate ourselves from this condition?”

John T. Flinn, economist and journalist, speaking at the Dallas Open Forum on February 15, 1937, stated in part:

Someone has to study the capitalistic system thoroughly and make it work, or someone will find another system. Our main fear today isn’t Communism, as so many think, but Fascism; there's the real danger. With eleven years of prosperity out of twenty-five, and one of those periods brought about by a great war, and the other leading to a collapse that nearly ruined our economic structure, it appears to me that something is vitally wrong.

For the first time the average man developed an interest in economic theory. Before the beginning of the year 1930, the ordinary United States citizen knew practically nothing about such economic and political systems as Communism, Socialism, Fascism, and Syndicalism; and he cared somewhat less. If he had any occasion to think of them at all, it was as "foreign ideas.” For him, capitalism and democracy were the only possible systems; they were taken as a matter of course, like the sun and moon.

So when the common man thought about improving conditions economically, he did not consider dropping his traditional system. Information about Russia became more common knowledge and while Communist ideas failed to take root, they did stimulate thinking. The idee of economic planning, though by no means new, was treated as a discovery, and widely discussed. It seemed reasonable enough that if we had plenty of everything, then what was needed was organization and coordination. A planned economy caught the minds of the people. Some industrial and financial leaders recalled the achievements of the War Industries Board which, for a few months in 1918, had given America a lesson in economic planning. In countinghouse as well as academic hall the possibility of a controlled industrial society became a subject for discussion, and men with long heads conceived of a planned economy as a way to save Capitalism while apparently losing it.

George Soule, editing, during 1931 and 1932, a magazine which dealt with social problems, tells us that an endless stream of plans for changing, patching up, or reorganizing our economic system found their way to his desk during those years; more than he, with a corps of assistants, could have ever hoped to analyze. To him, as to us, these were important for the reflection they provided of the mental restiveness which is a p symptom of social change.

The meteoric rise of the cult of Technocracy serves as an example of this type of popular thinking in the early years of the depression. Within a life cycle which is better measured in weeks than months the cult of Technocracy spread throughout the American middle class. Before it was discredited, it was as much talked about as a presidential election. The spread of Technocracy shows how little time and effort are necessary for ideas to be widely accepted in America.

3ut what is the importance of the wide temporary acceptance of Technocracy? What are the implications of economic planning? They are obvious. A controlled economy is the essence of the economic side of Fascism. Certainly there could be no economic planning without rigid discipline and certainly power would have to be vested in a small group or an individual in order that quick decisions be made and the plans kept going without interference. Civil liberty as we know it would have

to be curtailed, else those who did not choose to accept the government’s plan could ruin it by failing to cooperate. All of which simply means that, regardless of the name, if we had a planned economy we would have Fascism.

The belief that we needed some sort of concentrated authority of this type has been held by numerous influential people, which belief we must accept as prima facie evidence of a friendliness for Fascist principles.

. Gary, the United States Steel king, declared at the International Chamber of Commerce Congress in 1932, "We would be the better for a man like Mussolini here, too.” Former United States Ambassador to Berlin J. W. Gerard, in the New York Times, October 15, 1933, said, "Hitler is doing much for Germany; his destruction of Communism, his creation of a Spartan -- ■ ■ ■■ state animated by patriotism, his curbing of parliamentary government, are all good."

This idea appealed to Hoover, for he tried repeatedly to enlist the aid of the top financial and Industrie 1 men. But he was unsuccessful because he was loath to sanction anything except “suggestion” and "mutual co-operation.” Roosevelt set out to do this same type of planning, and "put teeth” in his efforts, only to have them largely extracted by the Supreme Court.

Norman Thomas, who by no stretch of the imagination can be called pro-Fascist, after studying and analyzing the economic and political situation of the present time, answers his own question, "After the New Deal, what?" by saying, "After the New Deal, Fascism.

Muste summarizes the concentration of economic and financial resources in a few hands by saying that in most major industries an approach has already been made to monopoly, and that banking is in the same situation. He asserts that the Corgan-National City-Chase oligarchy, comprising 167 individuals, holds directorship over one-fourth of all the corporate assets of the country. He further quotes Owen D. Young, Herbert Hoover, the New York Times, Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, William Green, H. L. Harriman, Grover A. Whalen, Nicholas M. Butler, and Bernarr Macfadden as all having seid that there was a need for a

Lawrence Dennis, one of America's No. 1 Fascists, thinks that in the measure that defenders of a system deem it necessary to argue with the people in favor of the preservatioh of the old system, they really admit and advertise its doom. There is no doubt in his mind but that the continuous attacks on Fascism end defenses of the present system by such publications as the Saturday Evening Post, and by such influential citizens as Herbert Hoover do more to further and advertise Fascism than almost any other factor calling Fascism to the attention of the American people. s

One cannot help but notice that Dennis is so sure S that the present system iy outmoded end no longer desirable that in his book, The Coming American Fascism, he disposes of that phase of the problem in the introduction as something selfevident, and spends the rest of the book in attempting to prove that what will rise from the ruins will be Fascism and not Communism. He hardly considers the possibility that our present system may be expected to stay in use.

George E. Sokolsky predicts a strong possibility of a rabble rouser from the south, elected president, ignoring the Constitution, making himself a Fascist dictator and creating such a vast inflation that people starve. His reasons for this theory are high taxes, high prices, people who want something for nothing, and the era of lawlessness beginning with the advent of prohibition, continuing through the era of the sitdown strikes, and, so he feel, culminating in an era of die- g tatorship of a most vicious nature.

But these were not the only political or economic thinkers to arrive at somewhat the same conclusions, Gerard Swope, Robert LaFollette, Chas. A. Beard, Stuart Chase, George Soule, and Mark Sullivan all more or less concurred that a supreme economic authority to supervise and prorate all factors of business would be very beneficial.

This seeming about-face of the intellectuals, important public figures, and the publicists is stressed by Lyford Edwards. And we find, other than those already named, E. Francis Brown, Father Coughlin, William Randolph Hearst, Raymond Swing, Gary Cooper, Victor McLaglen, and many others. All openly espouse either Fascism as such or certain fundamental Fascist principles. The conversion of people of this type, people of at least some influence in the moulding of public

opinion, is likely to be of considerable importance

We may not look, however, for the impetus for a social movement of any degree of importance to come from the semi-intellectual reasoning and discussion we have mentioned. Rather we shall find Fascism in America conforming to our theory of the natural history of social movements. That is, Fascism in America will emerge from something less finite on the part of the mass than reasoning. It will come from sentiment and feeling, conditions of disorganization and restlessness, and attitudes of insecurity and defeat. It is in this • connection that the economic background is most important. It is in this connection that the depression and unemployment lent their greatest influence toward the rise of Fascism in America. In studying these results of the depression there is no better way to begin than with youth.

It seems possible that the youth respond more quickly and more completely than the older generation to the stimuli resulting in any social movement. Certainly that was true in Europe. It was primarily among the young men that Mussolini found candidates for his Slack Shirt Army. Hitler based his hopes of power on disgruntled and restless young men. Both men now concentrate more on the youth than on any other group.

What, then, was the condition of the youth of America during the disorganized period of the early thirties? For, if an American Fascist movement is to follow at all the lines of European Fascism, the condition of our youth was and is of primary importance.

The disorganization of youth during this depression was striking. Tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of boys and young men, and some thousands of girls, roamed the country. Between the ages of ten and twenty-five, completely foot-loose, these young people drifted about, hearing of better conditions but never finding the change they sought. At that time, in a day's drive anywhere in the land, one could see from twenty to two hundred young people standing beside the highway hoping to thumb a ride from a passing motorist or truck driver. Every freight train had its cargo of driftingjderelicts, too numerous for the railroads to be able to prevent their traveling as "guests of the road." Most of these young people were not what we call "bad." Hungry, aimless, discouraged, restless, disorganized in their personalities, yes; but evil, no. Every town had to make some sort of provision for these roving youngsters. Never before had there been so widespread and aimless a movement of youth. The Children's Crusade had a goal; but this was just a disorganized, fruitless wandering

o in search of better conditions.

Nor was the disorganization of youth confined to these wandering unfortunates. Another, and from the standpoint of Fascism, more dangerous group were restlessly marking time, shocked and dissatisfied. Graduates of high schools, business - colleges, and universities found their world awry. They had been led to believe that the world wes waiting for honest, industrious, educated young men and women, waiting to reward their efforts with at least moderate wealth and position. What they found was a world which could not even, give them a chance to prove their qualities; a world not so much cold and hard as impotent.

Within our own small group of friends were college graduates who were unable to secure work of any sort; others whose treined minds were rewarded with no more difficult problem than figuring the cost of the ice they delivered or the gasoline they sold. Still others were doing construction or road work for twenty cents an hour, working twelve hours a day when they could get work. There were trained young engineers who were employed at scraping rust from unused machinery. There were

trained young teachers accepting seventy-five-dollars-a-month jobs, knowing they would have to accept doubtful vouchers for at least a third of that meager salary. There were college graduates picking cotton and mowing lawns. This group of young men and women, unable to pay the debts they had contracted while going to college, unable to afford marriage, often with aging parents, will not soon forget those days.

What we are trying to show is not that Fascism is a youth movement. Our point is that conditions were somewhat the same among the youth of America and the youth- of Surope when Fascism made its meteoric rise in Italy and Germany. Nor did we mean to show this unrest, disorganization, and feeling of insecurity to be limited to youth, for it most certainly was not.

The situation during the height of the depression was disheartening to older people some times more than to youths, for the older group did not possess the buoyancy and resiliency which seem characteristic of youth. Concomitant with financial insecurity came widespread personal disorganization and unrest among the more ’‘solid citizens.” Even those Americans who personally experienced none of the actual privations of the depression were obliged to witness the sorry plight of friends, relatives, and neighbors. While youth sometimes accepted the

situation with a modicum of fatalism, the older group were almost unanimous that ’’something ought to be done.” To add to the gravity of the situation, wealthy families, commercial and industrial interests, and financiers all shared the symptoms of restlessness and in addition had the uneasy feeling that they might be sitting on a powder keg.

Probably of most importance to our study of Fascism is the lower middle class. It is within this class that Fascism has set its deepest roots and from this class have its first flowerings sprung. And this class suffered as badly or worse than any other in the depression. Before 1929 the middle class had set the tone of the whole country. For generations its members had been building a great nation whose future appeared to be assured. Gradually they had raised the standard of living until, despite the deplorable conditions that many workers had to accept, they believed that poverty might actually be abolished Theirs was a spirit of hope, of belief in human progress onward and upward forever. Nursed on the doctrine of individualism, Americans turned away from anything that smacked of collectivism or socialism. Not being a contemplative people, they disliked social criticism; dissent was seldom tolerated.

Suddenly the dream faded; the ’’years of the locust” were at hand. Security of livelihood, which had meant adequate income during the working yeers and a comfortable income in old age, had always been a goal which all hoped to attain and which many did. The stock market crash in 1929 and the deepening of the depression that followed destroyed the hope that real security would ever be realized. When that fact sank into the minds of America’s middle class, it suffered the first of many g disillusionments.

One of the significant indices of times in which a great social movement is nascent is the increase in scandals, baseless rumors, and pitiless investigaticn of the members of the class or group purported to be most responsible for the discontent and dissatisfaction.

The period in which American Fascism began to emerge was rich with a series of scandals which went far to destroy faith in bankers and big business men, not only of the common man, but of stock holders and bondholders, who normally would support the "big business men." With the collapse of the stock exchange, gods crumbled to sand. Investment trusts faded away; bonds became virtually worthless. The Bank of the United States failed amid scandal; Kreuger and Toll broke. Insull's involved structure of utility holding companies fell, and he had to flee. Shady banking practices were revealed in high places; it was shown how those on the “inside" had unscrupulously gained while the "small investor" suffered. Mitchell, of the National City Bank, was tried for income tax irregularities; Wiggin departed from Chase National. High-salaried executives of industry were shown to have drawn enormous bonuses while dividends were reduced or discontinued.

It was rumored that the "big rich” had barricaded themselves in country-home fortresses, with arsenals, huge supplies of canned goods, and hired only gunmen-servants. Stories were told which smacked suspiciously of the century-and-a-half old “No bread! Let them eat cake" joke of the French Revolution. Moral scandals of the rich were excessively publicized in the tabloids, and their idleness was held up to ridicule.

In our study of the natural history of social movements we have seen that one phenomenon of major importance in the growth of a movement is the narrowing of the focus of attention. First the various individuals have somewhat different causes for their discontent and disorganization and are affected in different ways. Phen their dissatisfaction is drawn into a closer focus.

In the case of this depression which is so important in the nascence of American Fascism, we find that unemployment stands at the major economic factor causing social unrest and dissatisfaction. The depth of dissatisfaction may be at least partly gauged by a study of unemployment and its attendant conditions.

Unemployment was common from 1930 until today; it was common from Maine to Texas and from South Carolina to Oregon. So, for purposes of clarity and insight we shall use Detroit during the first of the depression as a “social cat” to dissect. We could use any other city in the United States, but the case of Detroit is clear cut and the city itself of more than average importance in the economy of the nation. In this study we must bear in mind that the automotive industry has its center in Detroit, and that it had given that city the reputation of paying the highest wages of any in America. Charles A. Walker, who published the article from which most of our information comes, made a personal survey of the city, and in his presentation seems to have no ulterior motive other than acquainting the rest of the United States with the danger he sees in Detroit.

In Detroit Mr. Walker found 227,000 men unemployed. Out of this number 15,000 were reported homeless. These men were housed in "flop houses" maintained at the city's expense. One of these was an unused factory which housed 1,600 men. There he found bank tellers, travelling salesmen, expert toolmakers, and workmen of every variety. About ten per cent were chronic vagrants; the rest were bona-fide unemployed, with a large sprinkling of white collar workers. And skilled workers were the ones who felt the bite most keenly. Mr. Walker gives an average case history:

An average case history would show, for a married man, that before 1927 he had a good job, a savings account, and was making payments on a car and a house. Then in 1927, for the Ford employees, came the five-month lay-off while models changed, and the bank account was gone by the time the jobs opened up egain. By 1929 the family men were worried; not in a panic, but thinking hard. They still had their homes, their cars, and their jobs, but their savings were gone; and the expanding vacations gave them an increasing sense of insecurity. Then came the crash and the following lay-off. First the car went; then the householder borrowed on the furniture and it went to satisfy the loan. Finally, the payments on the house .could not be kept up longer, and the whole amount paid in to date went with the house. The children were sent to relatives, and the parents took a couple of rooms. With the change there went into discard the emotions which clung around a united family and one's own home. The father took any kind of job he could get at any kind of pay. Any number of men found a month's work at a dollar or two a day, but it certainly failed to constitute the beginning of rehabilitation. Then, soon, the odd-job market was exhausted and the unemployed

man. began to either pity or despise himself. The mental attitude of his new employers was almost without exception a compound of self-interest and charity. At some point during this off-job epoch the wife went back to her mother. He found himself in one of the emergency lodges where the city gave him a cot and two meals a day at a cost of twenty-two and a half cents a day per person and a total cost of two million dollars a month.

TT nderneath it all, there was deep resentment in the city--not toward the men laid off, but to the fact that it was found that 40 per cent of this money was going to laid-off workers from automobile plants outside the city limits. A barrage of criticism against the mayor and his policy of relief finally resulted in the closing of all flop-houses in Detroit. Henry Ford and other powerful interests strongly opposed this relief. Finally, the banking interests agreed to take over the indebtedness, provided that no more then $8,000,000 be spent the next year for relief, and the next year was twice as bad as the preceding one. The lesson which the financisl interests in Detroit seemed bent on driving home was that both private enterprise and democratic government in Detroit had failed. The masses of starving workmen who still hoped for aid from the manufacturers were turning to other sources for leadership and hope.

Mr. Walker says that he attended a meeting of unemployed workers in the outskirts of Detroit in the local school house. The speaker was telling about Soviet Russia. A man behind him kept muttering, ’’They’ve got a better system than we've got.” He had a strong American face, and when asked if he was a Communist answered, "Hell, no. I’m a Roman Catholic, how could I be a Communist? But I’ve been out of work for fifteen months. I’ve got four children, and”, his eyes narrowing, ”I’ll fight before I’ll see them starve; wouldn't

In spite of the widespread conditions of unrest and discontent engendered by the depression, there were no real revolts. Had there been real organized opposition by the laboring or lower middle class, there is little doubt that Fascism would have been the reaction to it. Actually, although vice and crime rose to unprecedented heights, there was only one mass phenomenon which might be construed as revolutionary, the Bonus March.

Outwardly and formally, this march was one thing; inwardly it was another. Outwardly it was the climax to the long effort to raid the Treasury by veterans who considered themselves a specially favored class. Actually, the rank and file were at

their wits’ end for a means of sustenance, who seized upon the best excuse they could to enforce their claims upon organized society. They wanted money, not really because they were veter ans, but because they had no way to feed their families or keep a roof over their heads. The army was called out to disperse this pitiful remnant of the ex-army, and in short order there was no more Bonus March.ls

But unemployment does not furnish the only symptom of dissatisfaction and unrest in the economic background of an emerging Fascism. The prevalence of strikes is of very considerable importance. Strikes are important for at least two reasons. First, they are organized manifestations of discontent, and we know from our study of the natural history of social movements that while personal discontent and restlessness are primary, organized expressions of dissatisfaction are more advanced symptoms of a growing social movement. A strike shows that the circular response, of '’milling” process, has advanced, and that discontent is become at least to some extent objectified and that the focus of attention has been noticeably narrowed

The prevalence of strikes during this period has a more subtle meaning, however. Strikes are always an attempt to change the status quo. Fascism is an attempt to maintain the status quo. A strike is progressive; Fascism is reactionary. This gives us an altogether different significance to strikes in regard to an emerging Fascist movement. I believe that in direct ratio as strikes increase, the reaction to them also increases. Strikes are commonly, if somewhat incorrectly, interpreted as radical and therefore dangerous in theory, and anything savoring of ’’radicalism” is Fascism’s sworn enemy.

A glance back to our introductory history of Fascism in Italy and Germany reminds us that just at the time that Fascism really made its bid for power both countries were in the throes of major strikes. Tn Germany the strikes were numerous but not particularly well coordinated; in Italy a general strike had unsuccessfully been called, and Mussolini’s first •’service” was to help make this general strike unsuccessful by using his Black Shirt Army. Was any such reaction to strikes noticeable in the United States? If so, it is significant.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, is the seat of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, famous not only for its munitions but also for its labor disorders. In the spring and early summer of 1936 labor troubles broke out there with extreme violence. The whole town was involved more or less indirectly, and it looked as though a riot might develop over the determination of the

strikers to close the plants and the equal determination of Bethlehem Steel to keep running in defiance of picketing, etc. On June 19, 1936, Gov. Sarle, fearing further bloodshed, and probably more than half-convinced in favor of the cause of labor in any event, declared martial law and closed the struck plants.

About a month later some two hundred citizens met in Johnstown in response to messages from a Johnstown Citizen's Committee warning that "What has happened here can happen anywhere," and proposing a "Johnstown Flan" to prevent it. The meeting was backed by a $50,000 advertising campaign.

Besides denouncing the ‘'Communists,'* Roosevelt, and Earle, the Johnstown assembly adopted a set of resolutions whose preamble was a perfect definition of vigilantism. They resolved that since elected officials had failed to enforce the law (as the committee interpreted it), it was their "patriotic duty" to organize nationally and to do the enforcing themselves. Chosen as an organization committee were a Johnstown preacher, an Afton, Oklahoma, preacher, a Washington farm paper editor, a South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, engineer, and a New Yorker who described himself as "Just a patriot."

The Committee stated itself to be patriots preserving the national welfare against radical masses and weak officials. It assumed the position of representing the average solid American against a mob running beserk. It seemed to be seeking to organize the forces of reaction into cells from coast to coast. It has failed in this effort, but there can be little doubt that the Johnstown Committee and its plan are just as Fascist as Mussolini.

If then, as seems true, the forces of Fascistic reaction rise against strikes and industrial disorders, it would be logical to see if there were many strikes of sufficient magnitude thus materially to accelerate the growth of reaction. Again, because of numbers, it will be beneficial to clarity to use several ’’social cats'* for dissection in the case of strikes.

Probably the worst of the strike troubles were in Harlan and Bell Counties, Kentucky. Louis Stark, of the New York Times, wrote from Harlan County in September, 1931. '‘The situation is ripe for revolution and the seizure of the reins of government in the county.” But 8 brutal reign of terror prevented anything like that from happening. Gunmen hired by the companies and sworn in as special deputy sheriffs created the terror necessary for the operators’ purpose. Early in the morning of May 5, 193, they descended upon the tou'n of Evarts in force. They found a group of miners assembled on a hillside facing the mein approach to town. It has not been definitely settled who fired the first shot. The firing lasted for more than thirty minutes; in the end the miners took to the hills, leaving one of their number dead and several wounded; three of the deputies were killed and several hurt. The victorious gunmen drove on into the town. The first person they arrested was the chief of police; subsequently, other town officials, two

clergymen, several merchants, and sixty or seventy miners were taken into custody. The charges ranged from banding and confederating on up. Bruce Crawford, editor of Crawford 1 s Weekly, published at Norton, Va. , declared through his editorial columns: "An unspeakable terrorism exists. Arrests are made daily, and injustices of the rankest kind are perpetrated in the name of law and order."

But Harlan County was not the only trouble area. In Franklin County, Illinois, Joe Colbert, president of the Taylorville Local 305 of the United Mine Workers Union, called a mass meeting of coal dig gers. Three gunmen shot him down on his front porch the following day. Deputy sheriffs then broke up several picket lines and attacked a mass meeting of strikers.

Within forty-eight hours 25,000 strikers were marching on Franklin County. They were met at the county line by 1,000 special deputies under Sheriff Robinson. At 8 given signal the deputies opened fire, and machine gun bullets and buckshot poured into the pickets’ ranks. After retreating, their leaders demanded that they be allowed to return and search for the wounded, but this wes refused “After the first attack,” said one of the strikers, "many cars attempted to get away with the wounded, but the road was hopelessly jammed. The deputies made a second attack and we leaped into the ditch. Then we received the beating of our lives. We got away again, but the countryside was alive with gunmen, and every junction was guarded by machineguns.”

The state militia had been held back; but when another march was threatened, when murders continued, the operators decided it was time to bring in the troops. The governor first sent four officers of the National Cuard, who recommended that no soldiers be sent; but as a result of strong politice.l pressure from local representatives of the coal company, the governor overruled the recommendations of his officers and ordered troops into the city. As soon as the militia arrived, mass meetings were forbidden, picketing

was stopped, and scores of citizens were arrested. Three prominent business men were arrested at the direction of the local representatives of the Peabody Coal Company “because they had expressed themselves as being in sympathy with the cause of the miners.” The chief of police, although in full uniform, was ordered by the troops to move on. The mayor was ordered off the streets, as were also the state’s attorney, the circuit court judge, and three justices of the peace. Farmers driving to town were arrested for having more than two persons in their cars; one man was shot to death by 8 guardsmen when he refused to leave his yard and go into his house. The terror was especially directed at the miners, 1,200 of whom were arrested. Countless others were shot or gassed.

Nor were industrial cities without similar reactionstimulating phenomena. Detroit, already once used as an example, furnishes us with further material on this situation. In that city, Henry Ford and other auto makers built up private police forces recruited in large measure from the underworld. At the Briggs Body Plant men were hired end deputized as deputy sheriffs, their wages were paid by the Briggs Company, and they carried out company orders. When for the sake of municipal economy policemen had to be laid off, they were immediately hired by the auto companies; it would never do to have these trained men who could shoot straight enter the ranks of the unemployed.

Besides several minor riots, there was a workers* demonstration on Mack Avenue, which attracted 10,000 people. Permission to hold the meeting had been granted by a. police official, but a hundred uniformed policemen sallied out of the Briggs Plant and dispersed the group with their clubs. After the killing of several strikers in front of the Ford plant, 30,000 to 50,000 workers attended the great public funeral for the workers who had been killed. The symptoms of rebellion were not even confined to the jobless workers. Among the better paid mechanics who still had employment, the shop keepers, school teachers, petit bourgeois intellectuals, and city employees there were signs of smoldering unrest.ls

The cities were not the only places in which we find these semi-organized, rather random outbreaks of violence. Our theory of social movements holds true egain as we see widespread dissatisfaction throughout most of the farming areas. Not very well coordinated, but extremely in earnest, the farmers came to the defense of their homes when threatened by wholesale foreclosure, A group of neighbors would crowd into a foreclosure sale, bid in the house, the implements, and the livestock for a

pittance, and return them to the owner. Outsiders were given to understand that it would be unhealthy for them to bid. In some cases threats of hanging were made against the agents of the creditor, the judge, or the sheriff.

There were numerous dairy strikes in the north-west, as exemplified by the five-day strike at Portland, Oregon. There were food riots in Oklahoma, pretty well crushed by that Fascist terrorizer, Wildcat Williams. In Texas the cotton growers were demanding that the governor send the state militia into the fields to regulate the production of cotton. They were inspired by the action of Governor Murray of Oklahoma in sending troops to the oil fields to boost the price of petroleum. In North Dakota the influential Farmers’ Union asked for a farmdebt moratorium, suggesting that the governor take dictatorial action under his police power. In the State of Washington, Governor Hartley in 1932 declared, ”We cannot endure another winter of hardships such as the one we are now passing through. I am fearful of what may happen unless Congress comes to our aid." The farmers of lowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Missouri went on strike in August, 1932. In the neighborhood of Des Moines a ’’wrecking crew” of fifty men was used to clear the road of pickets. In the meantime the strike movement spread to North Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Tennessee. In

California six reputed leaders of a strike which had disrupted fruit picking in Vaca Valley were kidnapped from the Vacaville jail, painted red, beaten, and told never to return to that vicinity. l6

Sheriff H. %♦ Burma states that in 1932 in northern lowa, at the crossroads at the corner of Butler and Black Hawk counties, a group of one thousand farmers stopped all traffic except that which they wished to let by, and kept this up for several days. They had no plan, no leaders, but they knew that they were dissatisfied and not getting what they thought was a square deal, and they wanted to protest. Sheriff Burma, an officer in the World War and a sheriff of fifteen years experience, said that he, although reinforced by a considerable number of regular deputies from all the adjoining counties, had never felt so helpless in his life. There was no animosity shown him or his men, but the temper of the crowd was such that a spark of some sort would have set off a terrific demonstration, the results of which could not be forseen. Butler County is one of the best farming areas in lowa, most of the farmers own their own farms, and many are well-to-do. The mob spirit spread rapidly. To quote one dispetch, ’’The farmers are no longer in a good humor. They are in an ugly temper, intimidating sheriffs and bidders on farms. They are telling some courts what they will and what they will not stand for.”

Perhaps as many as ten million of the sixteen million unemployed in the spring of 1933 belonged to the lower middle cless. Moreover, the unemployment figures portray only a part of the story. They do not include the several million farmers who surely were suffering; or the additional millions of skilled mechanics who were working on a part-time basis, or the host of professional workers who were their own bosses and thus never included in the unemployed, even though their income had dwindled to almost nothing. Many of them fell from a comfortable standard of living to the bottom. What was perhaps more important was the psychological effect of this circumstance, the deep and terrible feeling of insecurity, the great unrest of the middle class. 17

An interesting side light on the problem of unemployment, its social consequence, and its importance as a factor in the rise of social movements bringing great changes is given by Alious Rockett. He would have us remember that when measures for relief were first adopted in the United States they were declared to be temporary measures caused by emergency unemployment. The emergency was to pass in two or three years at the most and then the country would again be ’’back to normal.” But now the attitude of the experts has changed; they do not say that the period of unemployment will not cease, but they postpone the arrival of that termination. We hear of plans of relief that are to cover twenty years or more. The emergency has admittedly passed from the acute to the chronic stage.

'Alien we read the history cf other and older-civilizations. one event is found common to all of them: at some period of the time in their history 8 class of people arose who could not find an occupation. They failed to fit into the economic life of the nation. They were the mobs who crowded on the arenas of ancient-Rome; the mobs who participated in the bread riots of France; the mobs who begged for their sustenance through out the Russia of the Czars. Nations, either consciously or unconsciously, have devised methods of keeping their surplus population from becoming a too noticeable menace to the status quo. The time has come in the history of our country when it is natural for this group to arise. All of our frontiers have closed, and the time for such a class to come into being is when the frontiers have closed. This was true of ancient Rome: when the barbarians closed her frontiers, unemployed free men crowded through her streets selling their votes for bread and entertainment. In the light of what has happened to unemployed classes in other countries, it is interesting to speculate upon what 18 will happen here.

May we, then, from the examples of economic insecurity end conflict cited, discount them though we may, draw a few preliminary conclusions? Their importance lies not in any definite changes made, but in demonstrating that a great number of Americans have been, possibly are st this moment, ready for a change. Of just as much importance, they show that the upper, moneyed classes will not hesitate to use Fascist methods in order to maintain their position. Probably no real class uprising of the proletariat will ever take place here, but none would be essential'. If any change seems advisable, the upper class evidently will be ready to bring about whatever type of Fascism they think will be beneficial to them. And in both Italy and Germany Fascism was used not so much for revolutionary purposes as to forestall revolution and entrench reactionism. Its main purpose in each country was to keep the capitalistic class in power. The middle class, so important to the growth of a mass movement like Fascism, has been so disturbed and unsettled that it will quite possibly readily acquiesce to reaction of the Fascist type.

Francis Brown may not be far wrong when he says

Only one thing stands out clearly: the capitalism of yesterday lies behind. Ahead we cannot see, but there are signs which beer out the contention that America is on the road to

~ Sould, Jeorge, The Coming American Pevolution, p. 184. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1934.

2 lbid., pp. 189-190.

3. Thomas, Morman, After the New Deal, What?, p. 143. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1936.

Sluste, J. H. , ‘’America's Stampede to Fascism," Labor Age, Vol. 23, No. 7, pp. 13-14, July 14, 1932.

5 Dennis, Lawrence, The Coming American Fascism, p. 2. New York, Harper and Bro., 1936.

g Sokolsky, George, ’’Suppose It Were True,” Commentator, Vol. 1, No. 7, pp. 36-59, July, 1937.

L. P., Natural History of Revolution, p. 58. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1927.

8 Minehan, Thomas, Boy and Girl Tramps of America, pp. 7-9. New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1935.

9 Cf. Brown, E. Francis, ’’The American Road to Fascism, Current History, Vol. 38, p. 392 ff. June, 1933.

10 Cf. Edwards, L. P., op. cit., p. 49.

11 Cf. Soule, George, op. cit., pp. 201-202.

12 Cf. Walker, Charles A., “Down end Out in Detroit,” Forum, Vol. 86, p. 70 ff., September, 1931.

13 Of. Soule, George, op. cit., pp. 185-195.

from Hallgren, Mauritz, Seeds of Revolt, pp. 93-114. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1933.

15 0 f. Ibid., pp. 138-145.

16 Cf. Ibid., p. 149.

17 Cf. Ibid.. 224-226.

l®Cf. Rockett, Alious, "The Rise of the Outcast in America,” Social Science,Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 356-358, July, 1933.

19 Brown, S. Francis, op. cit., p. 394.

CHAPTER III BACKGROUND FOR AN EMERGING FASCIST MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: POLITICAL

Fascism, as before mentioned, is a combined economic and political social movement We first discussed the economic o background for an emerging Fascist movement in America because this factor contributed to a much greater extent to the disorganization, dissatisfaction, and unrest which are essential for the nascence of any social movement. But Fascism, although its roots lie in the economic life of a nation, manifests itself most overtly through the organs of government, and it is through government that most of the social results of Fascism are effected.

Fascism, as we have seen, includes the political characteristics, first, of the abrogation of the parliamentary form of government and the substitution of some type of dictatorship; second the cancellation of civil liberties and the persecution of opposition, Communists in particular; third, government destruction of Labor’s power; and fourth, the limiting of educational, judicial, and legislative power. To the extent

that we find these phenomena present in our political life, we may say the stage is set for the rise of the political side of Fascism.

The first step in revolution, says Edwards, is loss of faith in the individuals who control society at the time. They demand a “good man" at the head, refusing to admit the institution will not function with "good” leadership. After this comes concentration of public dissatisfaction on the individual or group representing the institution or institutions in ques

Most certainly this was true of the period during which Fascism had its greatest growth. Politically it was most apparent in the reaction against the Republican Party with Hoover as its personification. In the 1932 presidential election the citizens of the United States tacitly said, “If we get some one else as president and clean up our crooked politicians, we’ll be a long way toward having this depression licked.” The Republican Party was defeated completely, from president to representatives in the state legislature. In the 1936 presidential election this feeling had not abated. We had a good leader, now, so it was said, and if we gave him time he and the institution involved, our government, would get things straightened out. The further narrowing of dissatisfaction is shown in the precipitous defeat of Governor Landon in the 1936 election.

The next step, Edwards continues, is the less of p faith in the institution itself. Was there then in the United States any loss of faith in parliamentary government as such? There was.

In foreign countries Fascism has only come when the masses of people have become convinced or have been led into believing that theii representatives were no longer capable or no longer worthy of carrying on the complex business or government. This has been strikingly true in all cases. In the United States there has also been an effort to discredit Congress, but in our case it seems to have been done by the monopolists as a result of the fear that something might be done under the pressure of petit-bourgeois unrest.

The Hoover administration, fumbling, making false steps, was meanwhile engaged in a running fight with Congress. Its purposelessness gave big business and finance an opportunity to instill in many minds the belief that in a time of crisis, democratic government was impotent. Strident editorials and magazine articles scored the dilly-dallying of Congress, urged the desirability of its adjournment, and hinted at its being forced to end its session.

The situation had already been tense for the past eighteen to twenty months. The mechanism of checks and balances had brought the government machine to 8 standstill. The President was deadlocked with Congress, and Congress was deadlocked within itself. The dramatic satire, “Of Thee T Sing,” ridiculing the American political system, was a “hit.” The foibles of official Washington were presented in the book, Washington Merry Go-Round, which immediately became a best seller. There were not many illusions left.

Owen U. Young argued that if a holiday of armaments is good,e. holiday of parliaments would be better. The New York Times, on December 4, 1930, stated that it is the uncertainty which political action threatens which paralyzes economic efforts in world recovery. Representative Charles Eston of New Jersey declared that it would be a great advantege to the country if we could omit the next regular session of Congress, and the New York Times published his statement on May 25, 1931. The Bristol, Connecticut, Chamber of Commerce stated that it doubted that a special session of Congress would help matters, not because Congress would not help in fact, but because too many people thought it would not help. Frank R. Kent, political commentator for the Baltimore Sun, stated

No one can recall a time when there has been more bewilderment, less coherent thought, and as little unity of purpose as exists among our so-called statesmen today. Here is a Congress faced with problems concededly grave, but utterly unable to deal with them. The decent men in the House and the Senate are disgusted,snd the shallow politicians thrust into positions of leadership conceal their incapacity behind silly pronouncements of "policies” and ’’programs” w'hich they abandon almost as soon as made.~

This evidence of dissatisfaction with the old parliamentary form of government does not go sufficiently far. It yet remains to be shown in which direction the remedy for this discontent is thought to lie. And unmistakably it is not toward Communism; it is not toward a new economic order. It is, instead, toward a renovation and reorganization of our present economic order. Of easily distinguishable dimensions is the dalliance with the idea of a dictatorship. We shall see not only some theoretical desire for a dictatorial government, but some actual steps toward such an idea already taken in our own government in the unprecedented powers granted the chief executive.

Here again the emergence of an American Fascism follows principles set forth by Edwards. He postulates that the mass of people begin to lose faith in the institution undergoing fire, and in the group representing it. Then the group itself begins to lose faith in itself and its efficacy. 4 This is exactly what happened in the case of the national government. It felt the reaction against it, and began to doubt its own ability.

At this point John Nance Garner, Democratic leader in Congress, brought out his plan to confer dictatorial powers upon the president. This suggestion was acclaimed throughout the country. Congress was not averse to shifting responsibility for doing something it felt it could not do. Much of the population of America agreed with Walter Lippmann when he said:

To those who object that such powers should not be vested in the executive, the proper answer is that the will of the people, as expressed by their votes, cannot be made effective if minorities, special interests, factions, and private influence are allowed to take advantage of the procedure of Congress to nullify the will of the people. s

Certain dictatorial powers were given the president, and in as much as Fascism is ordinarily associated with dictatorship, it might not be amiss to consider briefly just what powers the chief executive of the United States has had in the person of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and of what importance these powers are. Roosevelt is not, has not been, and probably never will be a dictator; but it is within the realms of possibility that he may lay the cornerstone of Fascism and that later presidents may raise the superstructure. We can have no doubt but that concentrated power and Fascism are boon companions.

The President of the United States, being the executive for four years and not dependent upon the Legislature, has a far stronger position than his European colleagues. Beyond that, by recovery legislation, the President was given the power to organize the industry and agriculture of the country, to initiate :.and direct public works to the amount of three and onethird billions of collars (since considerably increased), to manage the currency and devalue it by half, to reduce the salaries of federal officials,and to inaugurate a new veterans' pension system. By the Trade Agreements Act of 1934, the President was authorized to make trade agreements within the next three years and to raise or lower tariff rates by fifty per cent. The power of the executive was also strengthened by the Securities

Exchange Act of 1934, as well as by the Communications Act of 1934, enlarging his controlling power in security and communication matters. The Emergency Appropriation Act of 1935 granted a lump sum of four billion dollars for work relief "to be used in the discretion and under the direction of the President." 6

President Roosevelt has asked for and received more powers than any other peacetime president, and does not seem satisfied. His sincere devotion to the welfare of the common man, his urbanity, his friendliness, his genuine democracy, make him the antithesis of the dictator type. Yet he violates democratic traditions to achieve democratic aims. He enjoys the exercise of power and asks for more. The Constitution makes our President the most powerful executive in any democratic country. When the Congress added to his normal powers great control of business, farming, and finance, it gave him the power, of dictator while leaving itself and the people free to criticize the exercise of these powers or to withdrew them.

Power to print and spend money was the most important royal prerogative in the days of the absolute monarchs. Great battles were fought over the power of the purse. Yet Congress empowered Roosevelt to print end issue three billion dollars at any time he wished. Our gold, the measure of monetary value, and incidentally over one-half of the world’s stock, is completely in his control. He controls the price of copper; he controls a two billion dollar stabilization fund with which he can buy or sell dollars, pounds, or francs, thereby forcing the value of foreign money up or down; he may also devalue our own dollar without reference to Congress. He controls bank reserves, deposits, credits, and operations. He may close the stock exchanges or do away with margin trading. The mere printing of his ideas on not buying on margin tumbled the market to 7 a quarter’s low. '

The hours they work and the pay they receive have been determined by the President for two million relief workers. He decides how to spend the billions appropriated by Congress for relief; for eight million Americans he is already a dictator, for he thus controls their destinies. He can subsidize farmers if they do as they are told, penalize them if they refuse. He can control shipping policies and development through subsidies granted or withheld by the Maritime Commission. He can ignore

or recognize a state of war end then grant or deny to belligerents access to the world's chief source of war materials. And in the last Congress there was introduced a bill to give him personal control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Communication Commission, Comptroller-General, and Civil Service Commission.®

James Truslow Adams, a former business man and now a professor, and a lucid writer on social and political subjects, says that we now have a one-man government. Congress has abdicated for the past four years. Roosevelt’s power is so strong economically, he says, as to cover the working of economic and social laws. At present there is a revolt against this one-man government. Tf it fails, and the people continue to transfer all powers of government to one man, that makes another picture, and to see what that one will be we can study Germany and Italy 9 and see if we like it.

Still further Fascist leanings are seen by those who wish to see them. Some of them may be noticeable even to those who do not wish to see them. Most of this real or fancied evidence is found in the powers granted the government under the New Deal, and in particular the powers granted by the National Industrial Recovery Act. It will be valuable to at least make a survey of the charges against the New Deal as brought by those of its opponents who cry H Fascism M end see to just what items they refer.

First we may consider R. Palme Dutt, a Communist, who says that the New Deal, as expressed in the NIRA and associated measures, represents the most comprehensive and ruthless attempt of finance capitalism to consolidate its power with the entire strength of the state machine over the whole field of industry, to hold the workers in subjection under extreme and intensified exploitation with a universal lowering of standards, to conduct on this basis and the basis of the depreciated dollar a world campaign for markets, and to prepare directly for the consequent 10 war.

There are undoubtedly others like Mr. Dutt who believe the present American government to be definitely Fascist. It is no doubt true that if there are any very strong Fascist tendencies in our government, we would find monopolists and industrialists being given aid by the government. It would seem this aid was proffered and accepted. But one caution: it must not be forgotten that such things as protective tariffs, dozens of huge subsidies, and gunboat collection of foreign debts were extensively carried on before there was any charge of Fascism leveled at eny American or any American group.

We are more interested, however, in later developments and just what they prove. It has been charged that monopoly * cap talism organized the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to help itself to government money. We do know that there was gossip, whether unfounded or not is not known, that little busi ness could not get hold of any Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans. 9e that as it may, we do know that the Missouri- Pacific Railroad borrowed several millions from the R. F. C., used it to repay an outstanding Morgan loan, and then went into 11 bankruptcy. We also know that Roosevelt has continued and extended this procedure.

It is the traditional policy of Fascism to circumscribe business freedom while maintaining the fundamental principles of capitalism. And what evidence do the opponents of the Mew Deal bring forward on this issue? Let us trace with H. F.

Ward some selected contacts of the supposedly self-directing business man with his government which he feels will be particularly enlightening.

If this business man is engaged in an industry which is dependent upon public financing, he finds his business existence continually at the mercy of the presidentially-appointed Securities and Exchange Commission.

If he is an employer of labor, a small minority of his employees mey form a union, and if they are able to coerce a majority of the workers to vote for them in a "representation” election, he is obliged by the Wagner Act to accord "collective bargaining" power to them,and to give them closed-shop dictatorship.

If he is a coal operative he finds himself bound by the further restraints of the Guffey Act, a measure virtually identical with the Italian Law of Corporation. Under this act he may produce only the quota which has been allotted him, and sell at a price which has been determined by his "guild."

If he manufactures a product which he would like to sell in part to the government, he finds, under the Walsh-Healy Act, Uncle Sam both the timekeeper and paymaster of his industry, which must operate under a forty-hour week and a minimum wage.

If he is a merchant he must conduct his business under the Patman Act. Lest he '’destroy competition,” he is forbidden to cut prices, except in accordance with w fair practice” regulations of the Federal Trade Commission, under penalty of $5,000 fine or a year in prison.

If he is a banker he finds himself little more than a rubber stamp for policies which have been predetermined for him by the Federal Reserve Board or by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Membership

is actually, if not theoretically, obligatory if he desires to hold his competitive position. Under the New Deal his profits are arbitrarily limited by the maintenance of artificially low interest rates which are imposed for the political end of aiding government financing policies rather than to benefit the general economy. In effect the national banking system under the New Deal has been reduced to little more than an involuntary reservoir for the financing of federal deficits.

If he is engaged in a public utility industry the ’Aheeler-Rayburn Act lies in wait to prescribe his business practices. He must register with the Securities Exchange Commission if he is organized as a holding company, and submit to such regulations as the Commission may impose upon his methods of doing business. He will also find the Federal government competing with him and establishing “yardsticks" for his rates through public power projects which he, as a taxpayer, must contribute to erect.

If he operates a railroad, his control over his property will be nominal. Ninety per cent of his operations will be subject to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which will prescribe the rates he may charge and the profits he may have. If he is a water transportation operator he is under the same supervision by the Maritime Commission.

Perhaps the strongest end most biased summery of the dictatorial powers over the private economic life of the American citizen which have been forged by the government during the first four years of the Roosevelt period was presented by Dr. Virgil in his address before the United States Chamber of Commerce on April 28, 1937. He lists a number of governmental mechanisms, created and set in motion by the federal legislation of the first four years, which are designed fundamentally to transform the enterprise system of production gradually into a system of State capitalism under the ownership and management of an absolute central government:

(1) The State has expropriated and now owns all the present and future gold reserves of the nation, and can determine their currency value at its discretion.

(2) The State now has complete control and part ownership of the banking system and credit resources of the government.

(3) The State has the power to, and is, expropriating present and future savings by unlimited taxation of individuals and corporate surplus incomes, estates, and inheritances, and by unlimited borrowing. The whole working population of the United States are now under forced labor for the State and all its agencies for more than two months in the year. The State now confiscates every year for the benefit of its employees and dependents a fifth of everything the American people produce by their work and their savings.

(4) The State now controls food and clothing prices through control of agricultural production and farm operation.

(5) The State now controls the principal power resources and the prices of coal and electric energy.

(6) The State now controls the management and cost of labor in the production of commodities, services, and construction purchased by it from private enterprise.

(7) The State now has indirect control of general wage levels, working hours, and labor costs in all

private enterprise through the distribution of vast funds for public employment and relief under conditions which it determines.

(8) The State now directly controls labor costs and management efficiency through compulsory collective bargaining by semi-governmental or semi-state-supported labor organizations.

(9) In addition to the control of costs and prices the State now controls the financial management of corporations and their access to the capital market and to sources of credit.

(10) Finally, and most important of all, this government machinery has an automatic device for creating and supplying credit and capital to operate the productive organization when private savings shall have been dissipated and destroyed and private capital and credit resources exhausted. The State is now accumulating a gigantic capital fund in its own bonds through a comprehensive system of compulsory savings in the form of taxes on wages and payrolls, now covering more than half the working population. Through this system of forced saving the State will be able not only to make the aged and unemployed dependent upon it, but also to provide employment compulsory upon workers and employer by acquiring controlling ownership of business concerns, or lending them working capital under specified conditions regarding wages, working hours, and management.

But even this comprehensive indictment of the New Deal fails to mention another New Deal course which is startlingly Fascistic in its analogy, 1.e., its labor policy. By encouraging and assisting John L. Lewis to build an officially sanctioned labor movement in opposition to the non-governmental American Federation of Labor, Mr. Roosevelt is treading a pathway already blazed by Hitler and Mussolini. Both in their marches to power found it advisable to attach Labor to their regimes by destroying the independent trade union movements, and by replacing them by their semi-official labor bodies. In Italy, for instance, it is interesting to note that Mussolini employed Edmundo Rossini, former Italo-American I. W. W. leader, to perform a role in some respects similar to that which Lewie is now playing in America.

The intrusion of the State into industrial reletions which Roosevelt is now attempting, strikes fatally at the selfgoverning, autonomous unionism of the pattern of the old American Federation of Labor. In two years Lewis, with Roosevelt’s tacit consent, has succeeded in undoing Gompers' life work. They have connected the destinies of American unionism and the New Deal regime, and they have doomed the future of autonomous unions. With acquiescent unions, wedded to the paternalistic ideology, there is now no effective barrier to the institution of a Fascistic system of State control over industrial relations The creation of a ’’kept” labor movement has everywhere been an intrinsic part of the Fascistic technique of government.

Simon is another who believes that there is a Fascist- like government interference with industry. He bases part of his contention on the fact that Title 7, Section 3, of the National Industrial Recovery Act says that "codes of fair competition" voluntarily agreed upon "between and among persons engaged in trade, . . . industry, organizations, or associations," and approved by the government were the means of realizing the intentions of the law. Approved codes became law. Conditions agreed upon or prescribed by the President were some the prerequisites of government approval. Title I, Section 9 of the National Industrial Recovery Act gave the 1 resident "police power" to supervise the oil industry in order to compel it to company with "any state law or valid regulation or order by any duly authorized agency of the state." The petroleum code provided for a representative planning and co-ordinating committee of the industry under federal supervision.

Possibly the most noticeable interference with business was forced upon the government by the very dangerous withdrawal of gold and currency from the banks in the first days of March, 1953, caused by a collapse in the confidence of people in safety of banks and money itself. Liquidation of the nationwide banking moratorium and the reorganization of the most important central business of the country by the government became a necessity. The following laws indicate its development: Proclamation of the President on March 6, 1933; the Presidential Decree of April 5,

1933, concerning hoarding of gold and gold certificates; the Securities Act of 1933, creating the Securities Exchange Commission, which is empowered to regulate and supervise the issue of securities in order to protect investors and eliminate ’’unnecessary, unwise, and destructive speculation”; Act of June 10, 1933, to authorize the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to prescribe for preferred stocks of banks and other corporations, making the government a partner; the Glass-Steagel Bill, with the remarkable provision for compulsory insurance of time deposits; the Banking Act of 1935, continuing even stricter control which may lead gradually to the restriction and organization of the banking business; the organization of the short-term money marked under the Federal Reserve system; the Gold Clause Act, prohibiting, individual suits against the government; the Communications Act of 1934, initiating central control over telegraph, telephone, cable, and radio activities in this country; the Federal Power Act, attacking “in the public interest” and for “the protection of investors and consumers” the impenetrability of public utility holding companies.

He can thus see that there is in the United States a sufficient background and beginning for the wide powers the government would assume under a Fascist regime. Probably that part of the Fascist program would never prove an insurmountable stumbling block; but that is not the essential pert of the beginning of the social movement of Fascism. Fascism as a social movement needs a feeling that the future has nothing in store, before it can get well started. Americans have never believed this; so Fascism as yet has not made remarkable progress in America.

According to the Communistic Dutt, the signal marks of the Roosevelt policy are three-fold. State controlled capitalism is the primary mark. The process of trustification in the United States was previously hampered by the remains of the old antitrust legislation. But by one stroke all anti-trust legislation was swept away. A gigantic process of consolidation of the big . . .. • monopolies, and extermination of producers and independent firms in the leading industries already begun by the effects of the crisis, the credit smash end the operation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation under the National Recovery Administration was carried on to its logical conclusion in every leading industry with regulation of labor conditions, price fixing, restriction of production, end guaranteed profits.

Inflation, he says, is the second signal mark of the Roosevelt policy. Its actual operation reveals it as one of the familiar weapons of finance-capitalism brigandage in periods of crisis. It means in the first place a direct robbery of the small owners end of all small savings. Tt serves as the basis for colossal share speculation; and it affects an universal reduction of the real wages of workers.

The third signal mark, to him, is the servitude and exploitation of labor under the National Recovery Administration as shown by the subjection of the workers under direct union of the employers and the state, with government fixed hours, wages, and conditions of work, virtually compulsory arbitration bj the govern ment, and an increasingly open offensive on the right to strike. The inauguration of the industrial machine strike in western Pennsylvania and the proclamation of martial law against strikers in Utah and New Mexico are examples. "The American Federation of Labor has voluminous evidence," declared William Green on January 15, 1934, at a hearing of the lumber code, "that drastic reduction has taken place in the wages of skilled workers since the adoption of the National Recovery Administration code, and that 15 minimum wages tended to become maximum wages."

At the same time preparations for war are continuing at an unheard of pace. We spend more for the army and navy than ever before. Prices for “buying out” one’s self from the navy have doubled, millions are spent on our air fleet, 1235,000 000 of the Public Works Appropriation under semi-military conditions, even though not engaging in military pursuits.

In fact, it would seem that the New Deal uses the mechenics of Fascism to combat the spirit of Fascism in American business. Fascism in the beginning was simply interpreted as a militant anti-Communism intended to combat the Marxian heresies of the Russian Revolution by counter-revolutionary means. Modern Fascism seeks to terminate the class struggle as devised by Marx. A policy of aggressive nationalism is the planned Fascist policy for combating subversion at home, and its proponents feel that they can do no better than to stimulate nationalism, which in turn fosters a permanent militarism, emphasizing the value of taking orders from above, and the legitimacy of superiorities and inferiorities.

These are items of the evidence given by the opponents of the New Deel to show its Fascism. Unquestionably there is something in what they say. Yet we must not accept without reserve tion all these alleged facts, and particularly we must beware of their organization of these facts and their propensity to overlook extenuating circumstances on contradictory facts. It seems that the actual fact of the matter is that the New Deal had Fascist leanings; but it also leaned the other way. In America we had occupational co-operation by industries under government supervision in the National Recovery Administration. But Fascism is in sympathy with the vested interests, while the New Deal has definite ties with the masses. The corporate state is used in Surope as a shield for big business; in the United States it is used as a threat.

The National Recovery Administration, although Fascistic in many of its mechanics, really was used to combat Fascism in American business. And although it was accepted by a majority of the people, there was a minority who strongly opposed it. The significance of the National Recovery Administration and its attendant measures, now after its death, lies more in the spirit it showed than the actual legal powers delegated to it. After all, it did not last. The fact that a majority of people and a majority of firms accepted as fairly satisfactory the restrictions imposed by the National Recovery Administration show that a Fascist state in America is not an impossibility. With many people the National Recovery Administration was popular, and they felt they were benefited by it. Some groups still run under the codes they made at that time. All of which shows that there is some soil on which the seeds of Fascism might fall and find the ground already prepared. The American people felt that drastic action had to be taken, and they willingly allowed Roosevelt to take it. Such a thing happening at a later date and with 8 different executive might end much more tragically.

All this study does show one thing; and it was this one thing which we set out to prove; namely, that our governmental set-up is such that Fascistic tendencies may creep in; they might even sweep in; they could engulf the whole government. These studies do not prove at all that such a thing has happened. They do prove what is quite fundamental to our study of the background of an emerging Fascist movement, simply that Sinclair Lewis was 17 right: "It can happen here.**

While we have already touched on the more fundamental phenomena in the political background, there is at least one more of some importance not yet concretely mentioned. That is the tendency toward one party government — seemingly another Fascist condition. This would seem to derive from the emotional support accorded any policy that promised an attack on the growing economic insecurity. By this primitive force opposition is temporarily swept away. The promises made by the administration were not only reassuring, but capitalized disuse by modern Americans of the existing facilities for self-government and their habitual dependence on political and economic bosses. Unquestionably the party in power acquires enormous extra influence from the relief funds and jobs at its disposal.

For these reasons there are those who profess to see the familiar American combination of a party machine and financial interests being painted on a national scale in the relation of the American government and the liberal-capitalistic system. This reasoning is fallacious. The party machine here and the party as represented by the National Socialist Labor Party of Germany are two entirely different things. The one party government here could not and has not made any attempt to declare that it has a monopoly on all that is correct and beneficial. The one party government during 1932-1937 acquired its unity through willing cooperation, not coercion. On the other hand, after Mussolini had been in power three years, all organized opposition had been wiped out, when three years before the Fascists had controlled only about 5 per cent of Parliament. This American one-party government is already markedly breaking down, and most of its few attempts at coersion have met with failure. The essence of Fascist one-party government is the elimination of any opposition, not its defeat. In the United States the whole emphasis has been on the

basis of defeating the opposition, but not eliminating it. The importance of this unusual party unity lies only in its value as an index of the narrowing focus of attention which inevitably accompanies the various phases in the growth of a social movement. And unquestionably both causes for dissatisfaction and the desired modes of solution to that discontent have been narrowed.

To say that Roosevelt’s program is Fascist is a little far-fetched. It is true he capitalized the discontent of the nation and appealed to the country in a campaign that featured a mysterious something called the New Deal. The mass of voters had little understanding of what constituted the New Deal; they wanted a change. People did not understand where Roosevelt stood during his campaign, nor do they understand where he may be lesding them today. They only know that he is the kind of leader they like, for he seems to have their interest at heart, and, above all, they delight in his policy of bold, forthright action.

Certainly there is no dictatorship on the Italian or German model. Nor, as shell be shown, have civil liberties been particularly encroached upon. Possibly there has been no need to curb democratic activities; possibly enlightenment has discovered that suppression is far more dangerous than freedom. Finally, America manifests little of the chauvinism and militarism of Hiuropeen Fascism, largely because any movement must reflect the

folkways of a people, and such phenomena do not arise from the American culture.

A summary of the political and economic background from which an American Fascism may emerge was given by Roosevelt in his address to.the nation on May 7, 1932, when he called for ”a partnership between government and industry; not partnership in profits, because the profits will still go to the citizen, but rather partnership in planning, and partnership to see that the plans are carried out.”

. Edwards, L. P., The Nature! History of Revolution, pp. 44-46. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1927.

2 lbid., p. 47.

from Baltimore Son, January 11, 1933, by Dutt, R. Palme, Fascism and Socis Inßevolution, p. 274. New York, International Publishing Company, 1935.

4 Cf. Edwards, L. P., op. cit., pp. 45-59.

s Dated February, 1933 but quoted without further citation by Hallgren, Mauritz, Seeds of Revolt, p. 287.

6 Cf. Simon, Hugo F., Revolution Whither Bound?, p. 275, New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1935.

1 Cf. Kaltenborn, H. V., “When Does a President Become a Dictator?,” The Comentator, Vol. I, No. 7, pp. 40-45, .Tuly 8, 1937.

B Cf. Ibid.. pp. 40-45.

$Cf. Adams, Tames T. , ’’America in 1940,” The Commentator, Vol. I, No. 7, pp. 30-35, July 8, 1937.

10 Cf. Dutt, R. Palme, o£. cit., p. 215.

•^Cf. Hallgren, op, cit,, p. 274,

12 Adapted from Ward, H. F. , ’’The Development of Fascism in the United States,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 40, pp 51-55, 1935.

12 Quoted from Dr. Virgil Jordan by Ward, H. F., Ibid. , pp. 55-61.

14 Of. Simon, Hugo F. , Revolution Whither Bound?, pp. 326-328.

15 Cf. Dutt, R. Palme, o£. cit., p. 267 ff.

16 T . Idem.

. Lewis, Sinclair, After the New Deel, What?

CHAPTER IV PHILOSOPHY, DOCTRINES, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES

By the time any social movement reaches the third or formal stage in its natural history it has developed certain philosophies, doctrines, dogmas, creeds, aims, objectives, and purposes. Certainly, then, in studying an American Fascist movement, we could profitably spend some time on these phases of the movement .

Essentially fundamental to the philosophy of Fascism is the social theory of Vilfredo Pareto, noted Italian sociologist and philosopher. So important has been Pareto’s influence on Fascism that he is now called the precursor of Fascism; Mussolini made him a member of the Senate, and he may in the future be given the same place in relation to Fascism as Marx holds to Communism, the same relation to Mussolini as Machiavelli to his Prince. Pareto has been widely read in many countries, including the United States, and to whatever degree his influence increases, Fascism’s philosophy may also be said to spread. Dr. Franz Borkenau has made a summary and explanation of Pareto’s social theory in which he quotes some of Pareto’s philosophy which has

had much influence on Fascism:

Pareto believes thoroughly in hierarchy, and uses humanitarianism as synonomous with degeneracy. There is an underlying sentiment of domination and submission; egalitarian ideas are to be discarded; hierarchy is inevitable. Any deficiency of the sense of domination in the elite spells destruction to their society. Domination is an immediate consequence of the biological differentiation of abilities; it is inherent in every society and arises out of the existence of a group specifically talented for domination. There is differentiation among men in every respect, so universal suffrage is to be avoided. Those with the highest ability are found in the highest places. The elite have special abilities coincident with the special demends of a given society and a given time. The elite change, and the social system changes with them. This is because there is no influx of fresh blood into the elite. 'When the elite "degenerate 1 * into humanitarianism, they prove unable to keep the political power. When the elite begin to use astuteness and bargaining instead of force, that is a sign of decadence. As the elite change more and more toward astuteness, they exclude those elements who would use force, and place them in the subordinate group where they finally become so strong as to cause a change of the elite and put themselves in power. Then, when the regime of the weak, cowardly, humanitarian speculators is overthrown by men of force, some of their rank are killed, 8 thing extremely useful for the society, as humanitarians are no better than noxious beasts, and their downfall a well-deserved penalty.

Pareto’s sociology is first and foremost a violent manifesto against liberalism and democracy. He advocates ruthless punishment, ruthless use of force, and ruthless oppression, if they have ’’utility”; lynching is an intelligent habit. What is best for the individual may not be best for the community as a whole, so the individual must suffer for the community good. Generally, government is based on force as well as consent, and consent is the more readily granted if the inferior feels that the superior is prepared to use force if necessary.

The masses desire security, and an income of which they can be sure. ‘They desire uniformity, and hate lack of conformity for its own sake. Propaganda is extremely important, end truth is not always the thing most urgently needed. Ideas must be transformed into passions in order to influence society. Statements must be repeated over and over, not proved. Simplicity and repetition are the essentials in a successful slogan or any other type of propaganda.

The transformation of the effects of competition changes the antagonisms existing in modern industrial society into bloody and destructive strife. If the basic transformations are overlooked, the change appears simply as a decline of the whole society on account of the ‘’weakness” of the leading group The necessity of putting an end to the internecine struggle works for the ascendancy of groups with an iron centralization within and a crude method of violent command without, under a personal chief embodying in his person the principle of unity. This coming about of a new type of government then is taken as the result of the reaction of people who would not longer suffer the weakness and decline of the existing government and who saved society by their tremendous vigour. Here lies the explanation of Pareto’s theory of non-logical actions and residues. It is in profound agreement with the prevailing trend of the Fascist movement against intellectual ism and in favor of “vigorous” and natural sentiments. And the fact is' very evident that sentiments uncontrolled by reason have really played an enormous role in the ascendancy of Fascism.

In exalting the importance of non-logical actions, especially those embodied in authoritarianism, traditionalism, patriotism, military spirit and physical courage, Pareto again formulates the dominating current of the practice of Fascism.

Barnes and Becker in their treatment of Pareto’s sociology

bring out several other concepts developed by Pareto which evidently have had considerable influence on Fascism. They quote him as saying:

Individuals and nations do what they want to do, and find the reasons afterward. Because good has come to certain nations, these nations falsely associate that good with democracy and universal suffrage, which are rationalized causes rather than real causes. The “residues of the integrity of the individual and his dependents” lead us to strongly resent any disturbance of ourselves or society, to desire uniformity. The attempt is always to restore the old order, even though the means are non-logical. The “derivations of affirmation” are valuable; they include statements not controlled by experience, although "facts” may be used to prop them up. The techniques of propaganda and advertising use these derivations widely. The “derivations of authority,” without regard to the competence of the authority, are of great value in the control of society. “Derivations of sentiments or principles” lead the individual to believe that conduct beneficial to others (or the state) is really to his own interest. When the upper class no longer has the residues necessary for governing, end the lower class has, revolution is inevitable. No society can maintain itself by reason; all countries are governed by oligarchies using force. ?hen an oligarchy becomes soft-hearted, squeamish, humanitarian, when it has lost the willingness or ability to use force, “social equilibrium” can only be restored when a new elite forcibly wrests power from the effite rulers, and does the governing itself. When the upper class becomes unwilling to use force, and closes its ranks to aspirants from below, its overthrow is inevitable. The masses then have a new elite to satisfy their desire for being dominated.

Gaetano Mosca, an Italian contemporary of Pareto, has also had an influence on Fascist philosophy and social theory. His chief contribution (by no means original with him) is the theory that the majority

is always lacking in capacity to govern itself, and must be controlled by those with that capacity. 2

As 8 further introduction to the peculiar philosophy and objectives of American Fascism, let us see what Fascism’s greatest living protagonist, Mussolini, would have Italians and the world at large believe the philosophy of Fascism really is. He says:

Fascism is not only a law-giver and a founder of institutions, but an educator and a promoter of spiritual life. It aims not only at refashioning the forms of life, but also their content--man, his character, and his faith. To achieve this purpose it enforces discipline and uses authority, entering into the soul and ruling with undisputed sway.

Fascism was not the nurseling of a doctrine previously drafted at a desk; it was born of the need of action and was action. Fascism does not, generally speaking, believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those people who have the courage to face it. Therefore all doctrines which postulate peace at all cost are incompatable with Fascism. As a member of the community of nations it looks other peoples straight in the eyes; it is vigilant and on its guard.

Such a conception of life makes Fascism the absolute negation of Communism. Fascism denies the immutable and irrepairable character of the class struggle which is the natural outcome of the economic conception of history. And Fascism thus denies the equation: “wellbeing equals happiness,” which sees in men mere animals, content when they can feed and fatten.

Fascism denies that numbers as such can be the

determining factors in human society; it asserts the irremediable, fertile, and beneficient inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage. Democratic regimes may be described as those under which the people are, from time to time, deluded into the belief that they exercise sovereignty. In rejecting democracy, Fascism rejects the absurd, conventional lie of political equalitarianism, the habit of collective responsibility, the myth of felicity and indefinite progress.

The Fascist negation of socialism, communism, democracy, and liberalism should not be interpreted as a desire to drive the world backward. From beneath the ruins of liberal, communistic, and democratic doctrines, Fascism extracts those elements which are still vital. Granting the nineteenth century was the century of democracy, this does not mean that the twentieth century must also be the century of democracy. We ere free to believe that this is a century of authority, a century tending toward the "right,” a Fascist century.

The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the state. For the Fascist the State is absolute, the individual and the group relative. The State, as conceived and realized by Fascism, is a spiritual and ethical entity for securing the political, judicial, and economic organization of the nation; an organization which in its origin and growth is a manifestation of that spirit. The state guarantees the internal and external safety of the country, but it also safeguards and transmits the spirit of the people. Transcenoing the individual’s brief span of life, the State stands for the imminent conscience of the nation The State educates the citizens to civism, makes them aware of their mission, urges them to unity.

If liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells authority. The Fascist state lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others. But far from crushing the individual, the Fascist state multiplies his energies, just as in a regiment a soldier is not diminished but multiplied by the number of his fellow soldiers. The Fascist state organizes the nation, but it leaves the individual adequate elbow room. It has curtailed useless or

harmful liberties while preserving those which are essential. In such matters the individual cannot be the .judge, but the State alone.

The Fascist state expresses the will to exercise power and to command. Fascism sees in the imperialistic spirit, X.£. ♦ the tendency of nations to expand, a manifestation of their vitality. But imperialism implies discipline, and coordination of efforts. This explains many aspects of the practical activities of the State, and the direction taken by many forces of the State, as also the severity which has to be exercised toward those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement. Never before have the peoples thirsted for authority, direction, order, as they do now. If each age had its doctrine, then innumerable symptoms indicate that the doctrine of our age is Fascism. Fascism has now acquired throughout the world that universality which belongs to ell doctrines which by achieving self-expression represent a moment in the history of human

We must bear in mind that this may not really show, as far as we may interpret the facts, the honest, underlying philoso phy of Fascism. And definitely it gives us only a starting point from which to construct the philosophy of the Fascist movement emerging in America.

Max Lerner, making a study of dictatorships in general and Fascist dictatorships in particular says:

Fascism smells of the blood and dust of battle, in which fixed principles are so many impedimenta. It has had above all else to be mobile, lightening-quick

in its adaptations. Its idiology falls into several groups of elements: (1) the anti group: anti-liberalism, anti-tolerance, anti-parliamentarism, anti-electionism, anti-equality; in short, anti the whole machinery of the liberal-democratic state; the indictment is that the democratic state consists mostly of talk, fails in emergencies, and allows Communists, Socialists, <Tews, and foreigners to gain power. (2) The cult of the nation-state and of the related patriotic and militaristic virtues that are to restore its former glory; the nation is the cohesive force that must dominate every class, sectional, economic, or religious loyalty. (3) The concept of order seeks to stamp out all dissident elements; to bring firmness and authority where liberalism and tolerance had existed, and to create 8 hierarchy at the apex of which stands the leader of the party and the guardian of the state. (4) The myth of a cultural renaissance reaching back to the "old virtues."

Such ideology shows that its framers have learned well that hatreds as well as loyalties must be created and manipulated; that they must swing habit, prejudice, inferiority, direct cruelty, and despair into politically useful channels.

In attempting to observe the idees underlying Fascism we find a. rsther complicated problem before us. In the first piece, since Fascism is both political and economic, we have both political and economic doctrines with which to contend. Tn the secord place, and more disheartening, is the task of attempting to integrate in an understandable way the sometimes conflicting o doctrines of the various present exponents of Fascism in the

United States. Certainly Mussolini or Hitler may not be appealed to as authorities on what the doctrines of American Fascism will be. Men like Sinclair Lewis are not much better. Unfortunately, at the present time there is no one man to whom we may turn for such information. The present heterogeneity of doctrine by no means may be used to disprove the existence of an American Fascism Rather, it points to the particular stage in which the movement is at this time.

At the very beginning of the movement, there was no doctrine of any sort. There was a strong desire to protect, but no real organized objectives behind this desire, finding no organized channels for protest, acting in the spirit of rugged individualism, some voiced their opposition through individual acts of illegality, robbery, and racketeering. Vice, crime, and immorality seemed to rise to greater heights. Others, the socalled progressives and intelligentsia, demanded with renewed vigor the introduction of legislation such as maximum hours, minimum wages, child and women labor laws, etc. One was just as effective as the other, for neither caused any noticeable alleviation of the irritating situation.

Out of this period grew the beginning of Fascist doctrine snd philosophy, inchoate at first, but gaining in concreteness as time passed.

Fundamental to the Fascist philosophy, and underlying its specific doctrines, aims and objectives is the Fascist interpretation of the economics of the present period.

It is possible to trace the growth of fascist economics somewhat in the nature of history. Hallgren, whose attitude is typical, tells us that capitalism wanted freedom, in which -to expand and prosper, and so democratic liberalism was born. The liberal democratic state functioned with a fair degree of efficiency so long as the capitalistic class was composed of small bankers, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs, and had the support of the workers (who wished to become capitalists). But with the advent of monopoly capitalism, economic power began to pass from the small merchants and manufacturers into the hands of the industrial and financial monopolists; and since its own nature has become monopoly, not freedom, cap talism finds democratic machinery unsuited to its purpose. It needs rigid and centralized controls. Therefore, it substitutes the all-powerful centralized state for democracy. In the countries where democratic procedure is more deeply rooted and democratic tradition longer established, it proceeds more slowly by the whittling away of democratic controls and guarantees of freedom. In the liberal democracy the individual has much freedom, which he is supposed to guard with a ballot. The lower and middle classes feel a need of protection against the stronger, upper class, and they seek this protection in antitrust laws, social legislation, and various regulatory measures. But every time a law of this nature is passed, the authority of the state is enlarged and the freedom of each individual member is lessened.s

The opinion of America's leading literary Fascist is interesting. Writing concerning events of the 1929-1934 period, Lawrence Dennis paints a gloomy picture for liberal democracy.

The orderly processes of the liberal capitalist system, he says, cell for adjustment of financial difficulties through bankruptcy, mortgage foreclosure, and the adjustment of prices and wages by the free play of supply end demand. But there is no one who would keep his head if he tried to put the country through the wringer of orderly capitalist readjustment. Therefore, the system is doomed and no longer works. The plea of the conservatives to return to the constitution is absurd, he feels, when the strict enforcement of constitutional property rights would precipitate civil war. So we have the alternative of a final author!- £ tarian state to do economic and social planning, or final chaos.

Broadly summarized, the issue is one of ways and means The ends of the liberal capitalist state are based on the assumption that individuals can best plan their economic activities without government intervention. The ends of the authoritarian state are some sort of planned social order made explicit and effective by the state. The plan under the liberal scheme of things results mostly from the play of individual and competitive initiative in a relatively free market. The plan of the authoritarian scheme has to result from the planning of a central author 7 ity, which should be a council of persons.

Fascists say that society stands above any occupationally divergent groups within it. So society demands that capital and labor be joined in wedlock which is productive of general social welfare. Forced unions of this type happened in Italy and Germany with the lower middle class brandishing the weapons and calling themselves society. Tn his book, Industrial Ficipline, Rexford Tugwell assumes that government in a capitalistic state may be imbued with an essentially social aim that is inclusive of all classes; and may, therefore, in an emergency, find it necessary to persuade or compel a higher cooperation for a national

8 purpose; an essentially Fascist solution. If Fascism is essentially capitalism’s alternative to socialist revolution, there i p group d for viewing with s uspjl c i mi Li t&ry preparation as a Fascist defense against Communism. And the Roose velt administration has made the most extensive preparation for war ever before made by a peacetime United States government. There is a pronounced drift in the direction of militarization of the nation.

Tn the United States the growth of the idea of nation alism and its attendant self-sufficiency are among the indices by which to judge the growth of a Fascistic sentiment.

While it would doubtless be incorrect to say that all of the forces of nationalism are Fascistic, there is no doubt that Fascists ere only nationalistic, but ultra-nationalistic. The restriction of immigration culminating in the almost complete exclusion of immigrants may not be considered the work of Fascist forces. Yet, “America for the Americans” will be again used as a slogan as the American Fascist movement gains strength.

More recent, but none the less important, is the somewhat sporadic movement in favor of autarky. National economic self-sufficiency is a'relatively recent concept as far as our

modern nations are concerned. So far it has made little progress, but a strong Fascist movement would unquestionably demand an increasing degree of self-sufficiency.

In addition, Fascism involves the recognition of classes. Dr. Paul Einzig, an international authority on Fascism, says that the respective share of the various social classes in the proceeds of production should be determined not by strength but by agreement based on mutual understanding. And although theoretically the United States do not believe in classes, now the Agricultural Adjustment Act recognizes the farmers as a class; the government has from time to time intervened in labor and capital disputes, being partially favorable to both sides, upholding the Fascist equilibrium of power between labor and capital, 9 with both under the ultimate control of the government.

The chief purpose of Fascism is to end the Marxian class controversy by a united front. For this an economic system is necessary, and Fascist economic organization takes the form of the corporate state, and under it strikes and lockouts ere forbidden, with compulsory arbitration a stete-directed substitute. Capital and labor are represented by occupational guilds or confederations. The private employer is stringently regulated. > Big business, plus state subsidization, appears best adapted to the Fascist economic system. Controlled profits are more desirable to big business than no profits at all; therefore, it supports Fascism. Fascism is thus often considered a rich man’s tool.

Fascism is generally espoused by the propertied classes, both landed and industrial, as a means of limiting the freedom of, and so serving as a bulwark against, the demands of radical workers or peasants. The right of the worker to strike, the right of the employer to dismiss his workmen, and the business man’s freedom are all limited in the interest of the state or consuming public.

'//here democracy stresses the rights of the citizen, Fascism stresses the obligation of the citizen to the state. Curtailment of freedom is an essential part of the Fascist philosophy. Mussolini has said of Fascism that it has been the first to assert that the individual does not exist, except in so far as he is within the state and subordinated to the needs of the state; for as a civilization assumes more and more complex forms, the freedom of the individual must be more and more restricted.

It stresses and glorifies the concept and r6le of the state, which is, to the Fascist, a great spiritual entity to which every individual, class, and organization must be consciously and willingly subordinated, and against which none has, ultimately, any inalienable and enforceable rights. The duty of the individual is to elevate himself to the heights of the national consciousness and to lose completely his own identity in it. He has individual rights only so far as they do not conflict with needs of the sovereign state. Duty and discipline are the watch words of the citizen; authority that of the state.

The explicit aim of Fascism is to displace the enfeebling creeds of individual equality, freedom, and right by its own orderly doctrine of an organic, hierarchically constituted nation, whose few virile and discerning citizens hold the multitude of commonplace individuals in subservience to the realization of destinies more important and permanent than their limited hopes and beliefs dare

Of the Italian form of liberty Mario Pei says, “The Italian people of today are enjoying a new and different type of freedom. They are enjoying the liberty of feeling themselves members, part end parcel, of a powerful, organic state, which is ruled for the welfare of all, rather then the interest of a chosen few; a state whichhas social justice within, and international prestige without its borders.

The high-brow, dress shirt type of Fascism promulgated in publications like the Awakener and the American Quarterlx. expresses and cultivates the patronizing rejection of democracy, the desire to set up the rule of the allegedly efficient and cultivated few over the many who are assumed to be permanently unable to think and act for themselves. It makes explicit the implications of the attempts of the liberals to substitute a planned capitalism, controlled by experts, for the economic chaos that uncontrolled profit seeking has produced. At this point it reveals one of the essential aspects of Fascism--the attempt to preserve the present class-controlled society. This particular attempt is necessarily abortive because it lacks a popular basea characteristic which is essential to Fascist success. A Fascist leader does not succeed unless he conceals his attempt to revive, in a degraded form, the tradition of aristocracy behind mouthfilling promises of power and plenty to the crowds.

Fascism tends to change the state politically, as it were, from a private garden in which flowers are allowed to grow in wild profusion, with some weeds intermingled, to a very formal garden where all flowers are segregated in their proper beds. Furthermore, weeds are not allowed. The distinction between the liberal and the Fascist ideology culminates in the treatment accorded the ’’weeds,” the opponents of the government. The British Parliament officially recognizes the leader of the opposition. The Fascist state knows only friend and enemy, and tried to remove or at least limit opposition as far as possible as a danger to the unity of the state. Opposition is allowed to become manifest in general elections and plebiscites only through permission 12 to vote "no” on a government question.

Fascism is sometimes thought of as a formula for rather revolutionary social action for the under-privileged, dissatisfied and frustrated, who have a will to power and a will, through the seizure and use of power, to change a situation they feel intolerable and, of course, to conserve a situation they find more satisfactory. Fascism is a crisis formula, and thus has no remarkable significance within itself. Unlike liberal reform, it does not have much chance except in measure as the crisis of the existing system causes an increase in the influence of Communism, and Fascism is made to seem its only alternative.

And while Fascism is to be thought of largely as 8 formula for the frustrated in an extreme social crisis, it also has a strong appeal to many whose personal fortunes may still be far from desperate in such a crisis, as well as national governments which may be interested more in conservation than further acquisition. Fascism does not expropriate all property rights or effect the wholesale liquidation of the owning and managing classes of the present order. Fascism, although widely denounced, can therefore never be shown to all people as being irrational and wholly evil. It would seem rather that wherever Fascism has come about, there has been reason for the response to it, and wherever it survives there must be some sort of reeson for its maintenance of power.

According to Ire. J. Williams, Fascism is as old as Athens and as young ss the youngest bully; it is simply the seizing and using of power irrespective of group mores. It is profoundly cynical; its war cry is, ’’Things are in such a mess that I can get power, and I mean to have it.” Behind that bald statement lurks the implied assertion that men are not strong enough, clever enough, or good enough to run their own lives together without a tyrant. Fascism never has had a chance while any other system worked.

In matters of doctrine, Fascism stands at the opposite pole from Communism in that Fascism aims primarily at recasting the political structure, while preserving capitalism, and merely establishes new and closer relationships between the political and economic phases of national life.

Simon states the rationalization of the emergence of European Fascism by saying that in Germany end Italy the gulf between the people and their representatives led to a longing of the masses to eliminate the latter and to have a direct approach to one personal leader, to one representative who could be trusted and who, therefore, could be given a free hand for action Not protection of the individual against infringement upon private rights, but leadership in government is considered first by the masses in Italy and Germany. Instead of uncertain chance, a systematically organized leadership is preferred. Because of the constant cockfight between the numerous representatives of the sovereign but irresponsible people, a strong tie, forged by mutual confidence and common liabilities connects people and leader.

The strong desire for organized efficiency, organized leadership, simplification, avoidance of waste by roundabout procedures on one side, and the enthusiasm of the leader on the other, have become new and decisive motives leading to changes

in political life. Such feelings correspond better to the primitive, natural idea of youthful-minded people, who are entirely disillusioned with the old, over-complicated and over-intellectual parliamentary apparatus. They indicate a return to the more simple, original forms of governmental life. The professional politician, separating the leader and the nation, has been wiped out by the Fascist state.

More or less all over the world, the masses are utterly disillusioned of the myths of the World War, the post-war selfishness of the great powers, the failure of the League of Nations, the extreme unreliability of politicians and financiers, inflation, depression, and so on and on. All this has destroyed more and more in the masses belief in international understanding, in so-called liberty, and laissez faire. The masses in Italy and Germany, and to a lesser extent in other countries, are fed up with the old ideals. They are willing to sacrifice even their freedom for a new security, for a sincerity, a trust in one man, in the beloved leader of their choice. This is the basis of Fascism. Most of the liberals look complacently 15 elsewhere for the key to the situation.

Lawrence Dennis, acting as spokesman for American

Fascists, gives the ends of an ideal Fascist state in the United States. Its first general aim would be the public welfare, order, end as high a standard of living as the people are willing to pay for in labor and resources. The government would assure employment and a tolerable standard of living to the people. This would be achieved by military mobilization of all the people in economic enterprises to provide the requisite elements of goods end services to make up some scheme of the good life. Any difference would be made up by the government.

The government would have to spend far, far more than at present, but on a pay-as-you-go basis. Wages and prices would both have to fall, and production would have to rise. Interest and profits would be secured, but pared down by taxation. The government’s budget must always balance. The success of this financing would be based on control, the Fascist believing that the free interplay of forces brings only chaos.

The private property right is the right to do only as the state may decide from day to day may be done with private property. The investor would be assured of his investment and a low rate of interest. The manager or entrepreneuer would be allowed to retain certain profits for efficiency. Ownership and management would be shown of much of their power, but would be freed from labor trouble and competition. The judiciary

would become clerks handing down the decisions of those charged with responsibility. Individuals would be without judicial protection from administrative abuses; but that would be an advantage because now only the rich have such protection. The Supreme Court would be abolished. The end of the state would be to control the economic processes, rather than merely to umpire the pursuit of profits.

The Fascist state is concerned largely with the effective control of capital and labor. The individual should be left choice of occupation, use of leisure time, and uses of resources not required for public ends. Only two or three thousand corporations and their ten thousand head men would be much affected. The ordinary stockholder can now do nothing but sell his ownership or collect what the management gives him. These rights would be left intact. Wherein would the right of an insuree of the Metropolitan Insurance Company be modified if the state had told its managers that they could not put *25,000,000 into an office building at high rates of interest, but must put it into clearing of slums at a low rate of interest? There would be much interference with corporate management. but little with personal habits. But the state must have a monopoly of those sources of power which can make or break social planning, i.e.,

1 c radio, press, school, church, etc.

But on this last point we may be able to dispute Mr. Dennis* word or, shall we say, clarify it. The doctrine of Fascism as it is arising in America is by no means anti-religious, and we must not make that inference. Certainly Fascism does not fit the teachings of Christ, certainly Hitler has persecuted the church, but Mussolini, a truer Fascist than Hitler, brought to a close an old quarrel with the Popes. Throughout the war in Spain, Fascism and the Church have united against Communism. Nor is that remarkable, for the techniques of Fascism and the Catholic Church resemble each other in many instances. In America we notice the Fascists, though not too friendly with Catholicism, strongly appealing to what they are pleased to call M Christ '• and strongly avowing and desiring Christian support. Huey Long’s Number One rabble-rouser was the Baptist minister, Gerald K. Smith; Father Coughlin certainly is not anti-religious. So we must more correctly conclude that Fascism in America, while definitely trying to bend the church to its use, is not anti-religious

No study of the ideology behind American Fascism would be complete without the doctrine of the much publicized American unit of the Nazi party. The Amerika Deutscher Volksbund cannot be considered as American Fascism in the strict sense because of its unity with German Nazism. But its attempt to "Americanize" Nazi creeds is instructive.

When asked why Washington’s Birthday and the Armistice were the two chief holidays, Fuehrer Kuhn said:

Because, although we are of German descent, we are patriotic Americans. The most important thing to us is: We are a group of Americans who have only the benefit of the United States in our minds. We do not like all of these false reports about Germany. We do not like to see these different groups who create hatreds of other countries which will affect diplomatic relationships. There was never such a thing as our attacking the Constitution of the United States. We need it. We are for a clean country, politically and socially. We do not like crookedness in politics. We are fighting Marxian doctrines in any form. We bring our German-American boys and girls together and take care of them. We educate them in history—American history. ; e try to make them all learn the German language, because they ought to know and speak the tongue of the Fatherland. We bring them to the great outdoors in our camps.’ 'Ze are doing a job of Americanism.

Mr. Kuhn made this pronouncement striding up and down the room beneath a six-foot, silk Nazi flag, with the swastica boldly emblazoned. There wasn’t an American flag in the room.

One cannot dogmatize on the details, but one can give

a fairly accurate forecast both of the Fascist appeal and of the Fascist rule. Fascism in the United States will not talk the language of Herbert Hoover, Al Smith, the Liberty League, or even William R. Hearst. It will berate Wall Street almost as much as it will berate Socialism and Communism,but "all. Street magnates will be safe from its mobs and its vigilantas; Communists and labor organizations will,, not. It will profess magical power to pull rabbits out of a hat. It will proclaim some sort of platform to be received on faith, a platform warranted by a solemn pledge to conquer poverty, and yet to keep the institutions of private property and profit relatively untouched, and above all, to protect the status of the American middle class. Great emphasis will be placed on the word "American,” for the movement will be passionately and jingoistically patriotic. Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Dr. Townsend suggest the kind of appeal which the Fascists will use.

from Borkenau, Franz, Fareto, pp. 21-214. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1936.

2 Adapted from Barnes, Harrv F., and Becker, Howard, Social Thought from Lore to Science, Vol. 11, pp. 1013-23. Boston, D. C. Heath and Company, 1938.

3 Adapted from Mussolini, Benito, Doctrine of Fascism, pp. 1-46. Firenze, Italy, Vallecchi Fditore Firenze, 1936.

from Ford, Guy S. (Sditor), Dictatorship in the Modern World, pp. 8-10. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1935.

Hallgren, Mauritz, Seeds of Revolt, pp. 264-265.

£ A typically Fascist technique of argument.

n Cf. Dennis, Lawrence, ’’Fascism in America,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 40, pp. 62-73, 1935.

®Cf. Tugwell, Rexford, Industrial Discipline. New York, Columbia University Press, 1933.

9 Dutt, R. Peine, Fascism and Social Revolution, pp. 163- 164. New York, International Publishing Company, 1935.

Ogg, Frederick A., European Governments and Politics, p. 643 ff. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1934,

U Cf. Pei, Mario, ’’Freedom under Fascism,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 40, pp. 9-13. 1935.

2 Cf. Simon, Hugo, Revolution Whither Bound?, pp. 62-64.

lsCf. Dennis, Lawrence, The Coming American Fascism, pp. vii-viii. New York, Harper and Bros., 1936.

Cf. Williams, Ira J., “The Future of Democracy in the United States,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 40, p. 84 ff. 1935.

i5 Cf. Simon, Hugo, op. cit., p. 79

16 Cf. Dennis, Lawrence, op. cit., p. 62-ff.

17 Cf. Dineen, Joseph, "An American Fuehrer Organizes an Army," American Magazine, Vol. 124, No. 8, p. 14 ff., August, 1937.

CHAPTER V ORGANIZATIONS, PROGRAMS, AND PLATFORMS

Of equal importance in the growth of a social movement ere its philosophies and doctrines end the mechanisms for putting them into practice. The doctrine is fundamental, but the layman often fails to see the philosophy and recognizes the movement first by its mechanisms, chief of which are the various organizations whose platforms conform to the doctrines of the movement.

We immediately encounter the difficulty that the various Fascist organizations do not have identical programs, and each lays stress on a small part of the total Fascist program or platform. There is, in addition, a great body of Fascist sentiment which has not yet been grouped into formal organization. For that reason we would do well to consider first in somewhat general terms, the organizations 1 machinery which is common to the movement as such, rather then to any single organization.

It is more than possible that an American Fascism would take the form of a program of what may be called sociological rationalization, whose end will be the bringing up to date of our social machinery. This is one of the ways in which Fascism likely will exercise a strong appeal in the United States. It is quite

possible that after our discontented and frustrated people have experienced a few more dissappointments with monetary schemes, economic specifics, and largesses of the public treasury to minority groups, they may see in the logic of Fascism the only rational scheme of means and ends which promises success.

Fascism does not have so sharply delineated a program as has Anarchism or Communism. A few really Communistic measures and the opposition would shout aloud "Communism”; a few Anarchistic measures, and the country would rise in arms to resist such policies. Several Fascist measures or policies, however, can be incorporated in an otherwise seemingly democratic program, and few if any seem the wiser; certainly the protest is negligible.

The reasons for this seeming peculiarity are not so obscure as might be thought. While the other authoritarian philo sophies demand the demolition of the present economic set-up and the erection of a whole new structure, Fascism simply recommends a remodeling and renovating of the old organization while seeming to keep its most important parts. Thus we are supposed to see Fascism, not as an enemy conquering and overthrowing the present capitalistic organization, but as an ally bolstering and aiding an ailing friend.

Whatever Fascism becomes or does in any given country

or period results first from a combination of the requirements for successful management of the productive and cultural factors; second, from the ideal of a social scheme cherished by the leaders of the discontented elite who seize political power; and third, from the play of the innumerable and complex factors of the world situation.

The Fascist scheme of things is an expression of human will which creates its own truths end values from day to day to suit the changing purposes. Fascism starts out from a situation of fact and a human will to do something about it, whether to alter it or preserve it. As a triumphant force, Fascism is essentially an expression of the human will to change a given situation to some other desired pattern. Truth, right, justice, reason, the Fascist program, are whatever serves the fulfillment of this purpo.se. The Fascist plan may be what the leaders want or what the people went; it is a formula of fulfillment. Tt may do the wrong things, but it is not held back or defeated by inhibitions. 1

We have seen the importance of civil liberty to Fascist philosophy; thus, as might be expected, we find limitation of

liberty one of the mechanisms of the Fascist movement in America Raymond Swing tells us:

The present fight on civil liberties in the legislative field falls under five heads. First, the common attack would take the Communist party from the ballot. A little mature thought will show that the one place where we need not fear the one-third of one per cent of the population who are Communists is in the ballot. Give them a chance to argue at the bar of public opinion--repressicn is always dangerous. Yet this bill, has been introduced in twenty-two states.

Second, the lowa House Bill 160, the teachers' oath, is another example. “It shall be unlawful for any teacher to advocate publicly or privately eny political, economic, or social doctrine or theory, the design, intent, or object of which is opposed to or destructive of the constitutional system of representative government of the United States.*’ Teachers would become intellectual slaves as they are in many European countries. Nothing is mor & profoundly undemocratic, but today fifteen states have such legislation, and many more have proposed it.

Third, bills, such as Kramer H. R. 4313, which would send to prison for ten years anyone advocating the overthrow of the government by force, or publishing such advocacy. The gj^vernmentagainst any activity counter to its authority. purpose of the bill seems chiefly to be to prevent the expression of opinion; it could be used against any radical political doctrine, and almost any political action by labor. This bill strikes the keynote of the Fascist defense of the present economic system.

Fourth, the aforementioned bill is flanked by another measure, McCormick H. R. 5845, which would make the armed forces of the government safe for use in industrial, werfare by providing for e fl,ooo fine or two years' imprisonment for anyone spreading radical propaganda or advising any member of the military forces to disobey the

laws or regulations governing such forces. An excellent enough law at first glance; on a second look, we see that a letter written by a mother to her soldier son telling him not to shoot down fellow citizens in a civil disorder would furnish an open and shut case resulting in her imprisonment for two years.

Fifth, laws closing our frontiers to foreign propagandists of all kinds end forbidding foreigners any political activity. Under this bill, Dickstein H. R. 5839, it would be illegal for a British diplomat to speak concerning a treaty of co-operation with Great Britain. In fact, no foreign statesman could speak in this country.

These five bills would place the straightjacket on all political and economic nonconformity, and would place the United States in the most complete quarantine maintained by any country save Tibet.

As we have already mentioned, there is as yet no complete program for the Fascist movement in the United States. We would do well, it seems, to give space to a proposed Fascist program. That proposed by Kirton Varley, a leading English Fascist write/', for use in the United States seems the most complete and most representative. Varley’s program contains eleven points:

1. Name.

A new name is necessary. Fascism must be avoided, for it at present connotes crushing dictatorship in the average American’s vocabulary. Any name, though preferably a patriotic one, will do.

2. Form.

The outward form of American democracy must be left as nearly intact as is possible. Nothing revolutionary must be done, for the average man assumes that a revolution must precede Fascism. By using all the old names and formulas, necessary changes will not be particularly noticeable, and without revolutionary changes a totalitarian state could be built just so much the easier.

3. The Platform.

(a) Organize corporations. The framework for corporations already exists in our Chambers of Commerce. Every interest that has already organized its members into an association is a potential corporation. "any of them already have political offices or agents that keep in touch with the lobbies and the legislature. Although their immediate aims and objectives may be opposed to each other, that should not prevent them from forming a corporation and maintaining a political agent at the state capital. Organize the industrial guilds under the National Recovery Act administration into guilds with the same end in view.

(b) Take complete possession of all state legislative lobbies, and chase out free lance lobbyists. Term the lobby the third chamber, all mutual transactions to be settled in committees. Revise all legislation ex-officially before it is passed, and by way of propaganda broadcast it by every known means when it conceals chiseling by a, rival interest, buying votes with public money, raiding the public purse, or any form of racket. By these means the lobby would become a third chamber de facto. Abolish by constitutional methods the middle chamber as superfluous. The third chamber will then become the lower house.

(c) Preserve the traditional system for state governors and the upper chamber; revise the state constitutions and institute reforms that limit demagogic opportunities and that will create a new set-up in the judiciary; strengthen the power of the state government by every means that can be done in conformity with the Federal Constitution as it now is.

(d) When two-thirds of the states are corporative, revise the Federal constitution in the light of the new state and in accordance with a program to be decided upon at a States’ Convention. To attempt to achieve a fixed sovereign power in the United States and against its traditions is an impossibility in this generation. To attempt to eliminate all forms of popular government is undesirable.

4. Propaganda.

The greatest propaganda function of the new state's government will be the disestablishment of Marxism. The enlightenment of the public and the literati on the subject of the danger of the subversive movement is necessary. A subversive writer is noticed and supported by every cell in his movement. The corporative movement must do the same for its writers. Those who are competent would find an amazing field waiting them in exposing the revolutionary swindles worked from Berlin, Moscow, Geneva, etc., and in enlightening our publicists as to their forms and formulas. The best form of propaganda to popularize the new state movement is to associate it with a platform of reform of the law. Show that every criminal parasite on society who is eliminated makes room for other decent people. Most of the rampant political idealism that is founded on the belief in the competence of a state to run society like a department store can be gotten interested in other forms of social reform, and given a constructive direction toward Fascism. A basic legal code for the United States to secure legal unity and cultural stability should be a popular form of research, and attract the best minds of the movement. Open propaganda egainst demagoguery as such would not take; it is possible that the government would have to come to terms with it for purposes of popular appeal against our rackets.

5. Foreign Policy.

The Fascist diplomacy, not having party politicians tc consider, would call a spade a spade and join with other governments so motivated in protecting their mutual interests from the subversive movement. With clear eyes and clenched fists of determination the Fascist will recognize that the emergence of his new corporative

state will raise the issue between it and the subversive movement, end woe to parliamentarians who take sides with the latter.

6. Armaments.

Fascism must be antithetical to war as something not having any more the competencies attributed to it. However, the Fascist state must be completely armed for defense of the state, and against the subversive movement and revolution.

7. Taxation.

The plan of taxation of the new state will be from the bottom up rather than from the top down. In practice it might mean local option in taxation by local authorities, and cash and carry in expenditure. Local treasuries should meet all expenditures and make up all deficits by special levies; or else curtail expenditures when taxes are not available. No more loans should be floated. Interest on the public debt should be paid out of the surplus so as to insure financial solvency. In the new State each state would finance the Federal government and receive nothing back. The power and authority of the Federal government would then be derived from the delegated power and authority of the sovereign states instead of from the purse and its parasites. Reduced to its proper function as an organ of convenience for the states, possibly a million dollars a year would suffice for its official needs. Functions necessary to society which have developed under past bureaucratic control would have to be continued by the state until other ways and means were found to carry them on. The elimination of an excessive bureaucracy and the performance of irs necessary functions would necessarily be a work of time.

8. Labor

In the new state labor would be represented by state and federal corporations. It is proposed that labor be invited to enter the set-up of the corporative state, and if necessary be compelled to enter. It is vital to the new state that the American Federation of Labor should be kept American, and that it not be dominated by the subversive movement. It must come in

in full ecuality as a consultative body. 9. Organizations.

The problem would arise es to how to organize the farmers, fruit growers, stock raisers, etc., into corporations; but that is not exactly what would be done. There are many businesses whose interests are the seme as the farmers*; in the new state it would have to be their corporations that would form the nucleus of the agricultural interest. They would be the only ones who could suggest a program for organizing the farmers.

10. Anti-Semitism.

The twentieth century subversive movement is not Jewish, and anti-Semites are to be regarded as possible spies or disruptive agents. The government would prevent malicious Jews from controlling the state, but it would also be proof against anti-Semites.

11. Organizing new State.

In organizing the new state countless meetings, corporation and general, would have to be held. If these meetings were to be held under parliamentary rules, only one result could conceivably be obtained: the rise of party divisions and the mergence of the movement into the sewer of parliamentary politics. We suggest the following plan for corporative meetings:

Every association to be ruled by a diarchy: a business manager to conduct its affairs and act as secretary; a. director of procedures or ’’chief" to direct the meetings with special ’’rules of decorum,” and to watch out for treason.

No member may address the assembly for longer than two minutes except by majority vote of the members.

The "chief” will have absolute control of the meeting, even to putting motions on a matter to the meeting himself and cutting out amendments that confuse or waste time.

The meeting to close with a secret vote of confidence to the director. If this vote fail, there will be another vote at the next meeting, and if this fail also, the director must resign and the proceedings of the last meeting will become null and void.

In some cases the director would be the autocrat, and in other cases the meeting wou d be. Treason on the part of the director would soon show itself. Treason and demagoguery are naturally inflamed by parliamentary rules; the causes are mental and arise from the excessive combativeness of human beings when inflamed by attempts to reason out their difficulties. So the Corporative State, depending upon solidarity and unity of thought and purpose and action, would do away with the use of parliamentary procedure.

In the United States there are three major types of Fascist organizations. First, there are the admittedly Fascist organizations of Germans and Italians which are patterned closely after their parent organizations in Europe. These are easily recognized. Second, there are indigenous organizations of native Americans, which organizations are either admittedly Fascist or more or less closely resembling their European prototype. These ere numerous, and not particularly hard to recognize. Third, there are organizations which are completely native American and which stoutly deny any Fascist tendencies. However, their principles and techniques are often Fascist in character. These organizations always have some special function other than the promotion of a Fascist movement, and so this group is by far the hardest to recognize and analyze.

The leading example of the first type organization is

that variously called the "Amerika Deutches Volksbund,” the “German-American Bund,” and the “American Nazis.” This is by far the largest, most powerful, most advanced, and most publicized of the organizations. It is primarily for first and second generation German immigrants.

National headquarters of the’’American Nazis” are at 178 East 85th Street, in the Yorkville section of New York. The ”Bund“ began as the ’’Teutonia,” in Chicago, organized by Fritz Gissibl, with anti-Jewish and anti-Negro aims. In 1932 “Teutonia” climbed aboard the Hitler band wagon, enrolled its members in the German Nazi party, and grew by leaps and bounds. When Hitler came into power in 1933, “Teutonia” changed its name to “Friends of New Germany” and elected Heinz Spanknoebel leader. Spanknoebel was indicted for violetion of customs, propaganda, and immigration laws and fled to Germany. After a small international disturbance over this matter, and an investigation by Congress, the Nazis avoided the spectacular, quietly drilling and organizing. Through the country German-American turnvereins and arbeiter clubs became affiliated, and the organization bought property and camp sites. The membership in 1935 was estimated at 125,000 members.

Then on March 29, 1936, at the Buffalo Convention, Fritz Kuhn became leader. One of the first official acts was to change the name of the organization to the ’’German-American Bund.” The ’’Bund” is now a profitable, going concern, controlling among other things, nine boys' camps, the largest of which, Camp Siegfried on Long Island, accommodates 15,000 German-American youths under 21. They are drilled with sticks and wooden guns, attend numerous lectures each day, learn to respect and more than admire Adolph Hitler, and are instructed in Nazi politics and policies. The same procedure is provided for the eight smaller camps.

Hand in hand with the Bund is the German-American Business League. Theoretically, it is a German-American Rotary Clue; actually, it is the hub of the K ’azi boycott to meet the numerous anti-Nazi boycotts. Sach local must publish a business directory, and each merchant must pay a sum of money for listing in the directory. All members of the are ordered to buy only from these dealers. The directories are printed at the Bund printing plant at Yorkville.

Persons desiring membership must fill out a membership blank after which they are investigated by a membership committee. The initiation fee is one dollar, dues are seventy-five cents a month, and provision is made for donations. Duties consist mostly in attending meetings and festivals.

A former German author and philosopher, not connected with the Bund, says of it:

Its only serious aspect is the armed force. Arms belong to the army; military drill is not an activity to be incorporated into a secret society. The strength of the Nazis in America is not among the older, wiser German-Americans, who ere the salt of the earth, but among the youngsters between sixteen and twenty-two who love to wear uniforms and play at being soldiers. This is where the real menace lies. These boys have been taught for three or four years to admire Hitler. Many of the older Germans who are members of the Nazi organizations were driven into it. When Hitler came into power the reverberations on this side of the were almost instantaneous.

The announced purposes of the Nazis in America are conflicting. The purposes of the organization, as given by Fritz Kuhn and above mentioned do not iibe with the purposes as outlined by its first convention:

As an organization of American citizens its purpose is to take a positive attitude in the affairs of the country, while complying unqualifiedly with its duties to the United States, We shall educate the American people to become friends of the New Germany. We shall form a protective front against machinations. As American citizens we shall advance our political interests, defend our native land against slander and lies, and to a greater extent do justice to our exalted task of making known the aims and objects of the Third Reich.

There is nothing in the printed platform of the American

Nazis concerning the Storm Troops. This organization within the party is not mentioned. There are no published or announced aims and purposes of the Storm Troops. This menace, the uniformed and trained private militia, has been overlooked. The threat of the Bund lies in the future. It is an organization devoted to principles which are in direct opposition to those of the American government, and the Bund may exert a considerable amount of in. 5 fluence over public opinion through its propaganda activities.

Although there are many Italians in the UniPed States, more of recent origin than in the case of Germans, the Italian population is not nearly so thoroughly organized. Not that they are completely neglected. It is said that Mussolini provides schools and courts for all of the four million Italo-Americans he can get to use them. This he does to secure soldiers when needed and to form counter-propaganda against American criticism of Italian policies. This comes in direct conflict with American citizenship rights and attempts at Americanization, for the aim is to keep these immigrants Italianized, and above all, to keep them sending home money. It is undoubtedly true that Italian firms in America must toady to Mussolini or they will find both

their Italian and American business suffering from a ruinous boycott. The weapon of intimidation or extra taxation of relatives still in Italy proves quite effective, and American citizenship is recognized neither here nor when back in Italy on a visit. 3

These semi-foreign organizations are probably not so important to the American Fascist movement as their publicity would seem to indicate. In the first place, they do not represent American Fascism. Admitted or not, they are merely offshoots of European Fascism. They represent the transplanting of Fascism, not its evolutionary growth. They are no more a part of the American Fascist movement than a unit of the American Legion in Paris would be a part of the French organization for ex-soldiers.

They are not unimportant, however. On the contrary, they ere very helpful in studying the rise of American Fascism. They show just what techniques and mechanisms the European Nazis feel best fitted to influence Americans. The measure of their acceptance and the measure of the opposition to them give us a very valuable insight into how more Americanized Fascism will be accepted or opposed by the American people. There is, of course, 8. slight possibility that it is from one of these semi-foreign organizations that an all-powerful American Fascism may spring. Their potential limit of strength seems to be the combined number of first, second, end third generation immigrants of the particular nationality of the individual organization. This number will never be a majority, and it would probably have to be a huge majority to ever make the minority swallow what it felt to be a foreign system of government.

The actual importance of these groups, other than as indices, lies in their eventual dropping out of existence. By that is meant that these groups are unquestionably doing an efficient job of inculcating Fascist doctrines into old and young alike. Should an indigenous Fascist organization of very considerable power arise, the addition to its banners of these trained and ardent foreign groups might sway the balance of power in their favor. That is to say, these foreign organizations may be ignored for themselves, but may be considered of first rate importance as spreaders of propaganda and as mechanisms for training future Fascists.

The second type, the more indigenous Fascist organizations, are so far all rether minor organizations. While partly imitative of their European precedents, they mostly follow

the plan of the Ku Klux Klan and our milder secret societies. Oftentimes they have exhibited themselves as financial rackets, either in the form of high profits from the sale of uniforms and supplies, or in capitalizing the fears of patriotic money holders Their charges and their economics are absurd, their leaders ridiculous when viewed from a distance, but that is exactly the way Fascist organizations began in Europe.

An example of this type of Fascist organization is the Silver Shirts, organized in Asheville, North Carolina, and possessed of some strength in Southern California. William Dudley Felley is the fuehrer. The barest outline of the platform and tactics of this organization as stated by Felley in his magazine, The Liberation, tends to inspire amusement more than fear. But when one remembers how laughable were Hitler’s ideas to intelligent Germans at one time, when one considers Felley’s boast that his membership now runs into millions, one must take stock of him. Felley frankly acknowledges he apes Hitler’s anti- Semitism, “red” phobia, Aryan appeal, and denunciation of powersthat-be. To Pelley all Communists are .Tews, and these Jewish Com munists and bankers are out to rob the country and then turn it over to the Bolshevists. Pelley professes a great deal of reverence for Americanism, but he warns that the present administration is being duped by Jews, and he includes in his platform

the significant words "to preserve our representative form of government, if possible." Each of Pelley’s alleged members must pay an initiation fee of ten dollars and twelve dollars a year dues, which could rapidly amount to a sizeable sum. Although Pelley is a cross between a spiritualist-clairvoyant and a politician, there is no doubt where he stands: "To be grouped in the class of the Klan and the Nazis is unwittingly to be complimented," says he. In imitation of Hitler’s Storm Troops he has organized the "Protestant Christian Militia," which wears the silver shirts from which his organization gets its name.

The platform of the Silver Shirts, summarized, is to make the government of the United States a great corporation and issue common stock, one share to each person in the country, so each one would get equal dividends.

But what other organizations with a definitely Fascist aim are there? In New York the Order of •76, while especially busy distributing Representative Louis T. McFadden's strictures against the Tews, also states itself opposed to racketeering, banking, crooked politics, and also to publicity for itself. It was chiefly instrumental in exposing petty graft by the method of backdoor espionage, and in sending its "organizers" wherever trouble centers sprang up.?

Tn Boston, the Industrial Defense Association, a “Gentile" group, spreads anti-Semitic and anti-Communist propaganda. Another Massachusetts society bears the frank name of the “Swastika League of America." Founded in Chicago in 1933, the Farmer-Labor Confederation has shown reasonable growth. This group is opposed to Communism and stresses American Socialism. The combination of nationalism and socialism suggests the early Fascist developments in other countries.

Arthur Smith, in Philadelphia, organized the Khaki Shirts of America. This grew out of the “Bonus Army” march on Washington. Washington was to be captured by one and one-half million Khaki Shirts. The first plan was to get Smith as dictator then franklin D. Roosevelt. But instead of a million and a half, less than half a thousand turned out. Smith promptly embezzled the funds and the organization died under the white light of publicity.

The Crusaders for Economic Liberty, whose president is F. W. Christians, ere strongest in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. They want a managed currency, expanded until all laborers are at work. Their idea is to accomplish equilibrium by manipulation of credit. They are militant, and seem to have an unofficial connection with the Nazis. They are also known as the White Shirts.

Harry A. .Tung is head of one of the most interesting and most venal of these organizations, the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation. It was originated to spy on Communistic workers. Jung, a professional patriot for years, collects funds from Gentiles through the thoroughly discredited Protocols of Zion and a high pressure sales t*lk. But he elso collects from Jews in his "labor" to prevent the Third International from confiscating their businesses and netionalizing their wives and daughters. One author claims to have seen checks made out to him from General Slectric, Stewart Warner, Sears and Roebuck, International Harvester, Florsheim Shoe Company, Northern Trust c Company, the former Miss Helen Gould, and William Wrigley, Jr.

While not exactly an organization, the Fascist conspiracy revealed by General Smedley Butler merits a short statement. The Wall Street Plot was a kind of Hollywood Fascism which was to culminate in a march on Washington, a general at the head of an army of ex-service men, and a happy Wall Street dictatorship ever after, all of it bought with money. Whet they failed to appreciate is that passion and prejudice are essential to revolution, and neither of these is an attribute to be bought and sold as a commodity. The conspiracy is extremely diverting, but does not show desire on the part of the great middle class for Fascism. Instead it shows that the topmost moneyed group felt their hold on the government about gone, and were willing to sponsor revolution if it set them more firmly in the saddle. The Securities Exchange Commission is now? punishing this group by limiting its activities, and it is more then possible that here, too, are fields ripe for the harvest. Big Business may be counted on to do its pert to foster Fascism just as soon and to just such an extent as it believes that such a thing is necessary to its welfare and continued growth.

Much more showy and much more shallow' than other Fascistic organizations are those of Hollywood. Gery Cooper has organized the “Hollywood Hussars” to uphold and protect the princopies and ideals of true Americanism. In it are an imposing array of officers, a majority of them retired from the regular army. Pretty uniforms at forty dollars apiece are not the least of this group’s attractions. Victor McLa glen has organized a. "Light Horse Cavalry Troop,” and_George Brent a "California Esquadrille.” Both of these closely resemble Gary Cooper’s organization.

The probable answer to all this seeming militarism in Hollywood may be found in the fact thatJilliam R. Hearst suspected that it was becoming ’’radical” and “subversive.” Then he began to furnish backing for any venture which might counteract this movement and advertize the charms of Fascist organizations. All these groups have volunteered their services to the authorities “in case of trouble.” But mostly these organizations would seem to exist to give recreation to the members and advertising to the backers.

The third type of Fascist group, those who are definitely something else in particular but Fascist in general philosophy and technique, are probably the most important. It is possible that if Fascism ever becomes very powerful in America it will be a Fascism stemming from one of the ’’Shirt” organizations now existent. Likely it will not. Certainly its power must come from some other source. It is groups of the third type that have the potential numbers, finances, and influence to put over a real Fascist movement.

Chief among these groups is the American Legion. A study of the parts played in the rise of Fascism by the ex-soldiers in Europe would cause us to look immediately at our own ex-service organisations. And we do not look in vain. The American Legion is a veritable hotbed of Fascist philosophy, techniques, and

dogmas. The Blue Shirts of Canada, patterned after the Silver Shirts of the United States, have as their chief purpose the wielding of influence over the American Legion. In Seattle, a faction of the American Legion has organized the Shirts.

In their recent convention the Legion made a great show of being non-partisan in everything but patriotism. But they did not denounce the extra-legal vigilante movements in which legionnaires have often played a large part. Peace was spoken of only in terms of militarism and the next war. The Legion passed resolutions defending property rights and sanctity of contracts, but it neglected to mention freedom of speech, of press, peaceable assembly, or picketing; and its new commander, William J. Doherty, took occasion to say that "each legionnaire must preserve law end order when celled upon by the legal authorities."

The Legion leadership, aside from drinking, spent most of its energy in a typical ’’know-nothing” attack on Fascism, Communism, end Nazism, while fostering in the ranks of the organization an intolerant attitude which would do credit to any of these "isms."ls

In fact, from all evidence, the American Legion more

truly than any other organization represents the field in which Fascist seed are repeatedly being sown and expected to mature. The American Legion as such is not 8 particularly Fascist organization, but there is no doubt but that the views of the individual members make it, as a whole, extremely susceptible to all the germs of Fascism that blow its way. The members of the American Legion, and possibly the Legion in its official capacity, may be depended upon to be the backbone of whatever Fascist group may ever seriously bid for power. Already Legion members are in evidence in every overt capital-labor dispute, and always on the side of capital. In addition, the group represents the middle class, both upper and lower, as no other group does. As far as the American Legion is concerned, the handwriting on the wall is written so clearly that “he who runs may read”: An American form of Fascism could spread through those million men like wildfire.

The convictions of Professor William Gellerman of Northwestern University concerning the Fascist tendencies of the American Legion have caused national reverberations of late. Dr. Gellerman’s Ph. D. thesis was entitled The American Legion as Educator. After making a factual study of reactionary activities in which the Legion has been engaged, he roundly flays the Legion for being Fascist, urges its democratic members to leave the organization, and concludes by asking the National Education

Association to break off all relations with the Legion.

National Commander william Doherty, saying that the thesis was undoubtedly inspired by Moscow, asked permission to speak before the National Education Association convention in defense of the Legion. He was denied that privilege on the grounds that the agenda was already fixed, and that there would be no time for his speech. Most of the members of the convention refused to take Dr. Gellerman’s charges too seriously, even though they also refused to sit through Commander Doherty's explanations. Probably the chief importance of the incident is to show that anyone willing to make a thorough study of the Legion can find plenty of material showing the Fascistic activity of many of its members and some of its posts.

Another Fascistic type organization, end a much more fully developed one, is the Imperial Valley Anti-Communist association. Although relatively small, this organization is as truly Fascist in the American sense as any which lay definite claims to be such. Organized to combat the Communist-led migratory vegetable and fruit pickers, it is a merger of four vigilante committees. It co-operates with the law, or rather, vice-versa; it stands ready to take the violent steps which the law may not take or to act quickly when the law may be delayed. Its membership is made up almost entirely of fruit and vegetable farm owners and friendly business men who are supported by their patronage. »Vhile there is no real Communist menace in this country yet, these vigilante groups give us an excellent idea of what may happen in 1? case such a menace should arise.

To give en idea of the danger which the forces of labor and Communism see in vigilantism, we note an editorial in The Nation. In substance this editorial says that vigilantism is the most brutally clear of ell class phenomena, the purest spirit of counter-revolution. It becomes articulate in time of social unrest whether in the ’‘esoteric hokum and pretentious scholarship of a Pareto or Sorokin” or in the “rabble-economics” of Father Coughlin. It is dangerous (to Labor) to the extent to which the 1 dominant classes encourage and subsidize it.

We must not make the mistake cf considering vigilantism as a purely Fascist technique, for it was old in America when the South siezed it as its most effective weapon during the throes of Civil War Reconstruction. But it is an example par excellence of 8 tradition of America which will serve Fascism’s purposes most admirably.

There remains yet another group to be considered. This group is mostly unorganized and are not Fascists in the strict sense of the word. Rather they are to be termed the potential Fascists of America. These axe the men one finds in the luncheon clubs all over America, the big little business men. It is they who, if aroused by what they think is a menace to their private property, would flock to the ranks of Fascism as loyal cohorts of reaction. The Lions, Kiwanis, and Rotary Clubs, even the Chambers of Commerce, can not be counted Fascist organizations; but next to the American Legion they present the most fertile field for Fascist growth.

Of course, the reel American Fascists are not the Silver Shirts or Sons of *76, but the die-hard big businessmen-- bankers, industrialists, and mine owners. They do not think of themselves as Fascists, far from it; but they hire linkerton detectives, factory police, strike breakers, etc., and it was with such private armies that Mussolini, Hitler, and their financial backers came into power. The spirit of Fascism is a militant minority possessed of determination and machine guns, which could easily defeat the mass ballots. The potential power of

American Fascism as wielded by ’’Old Guardsmen” of both parties is enormous.

Dennis, Lawrence, The Coming American Fascism, pp. 105-106.

2 Cf. Swing, Raymond G. , Forerunners of American Fascism, PP. 154-171. New York, Julian Messner, Inc., 1935.

from Varley, Kirton, Gospel of Fascism, pp. 51-70, New York, The Generation Press, 1934.

4 This estimate is probably about 25 per cent too high.

5 Dinneen, Joseph, “An American Fuehrer Drills an Army,” American Magazine, Vol. 124, Mo. 8, p. 14 ff., August, 1937.

g Cf. Duffield, Marcus, ’’Mussolini’s American Empire,” Monthly, Vol. 67, No. 12, pp. 661-672, November, 1929.

7 They have recently merged with the Silver Shirts

Q Cf. Spivak, John A., America Faces rhe Barricades, pp. 191-195. New York, Covici-Friede Company, 1935.

$Cf. McWilliams, Carl, ’’Hollywood Plays at Fascism,” The Nation, Vol. 140, pp. 623-624, May 29, 1935.

, Sditorial, The Nation, Vol. 145, p. 558, October 2, 1957.

, ’’Criticizing the Legion,” (Editorial), The New Messes, Vol. 28, No. 5, p. 13, July 12, 1938.

12 Of. Spivak, o£. cit., pp. 237-238.

1 Cf. Editorial, The Nation, Vol. 145, pp. 166-168, August 14, 1937.

4 Cf. Shaw, Roger, ’’Fascism end the New Deal,” The North American Review, Vol. 238, pp. 559-564, December, 1934.

CHAPTER VI LEADERSHIP

As to the importance of leaders, Max Lerner tells us that the most important symbol and the most emotionally evocative figure is the leader of the movement. A glamour-starved populace creates the myth of a supermen. He sways thousands by his demonic oratory; he moves in 8 continuous hysterical parade; he is a mystic, adventurer, orator, fanatic; the man of action who moves by his words, the man of words who incites to action. It is immaterial whether he really posseses the Nietzchean quali ties attributed to him; in short, be is the hero, Il Puce, Unser Fuehrer. l

The first leaders of the emerging Fascist movement in America ere no longer of much importance. They were mostly of the agitator type and differed widely in their appeal. Some appealed to the middle class orally, but the majority of the agitator leaders B.pealed to the middle and upper classes through magazine

and newspaper articles. Few, if any of them, were avowed Fascists. To a large degree they concentrated on some few Fascist principles as being ways out of the economic morass in which the United States found herself.

Some few of them, like Huey Long (later to be discussed), appealed to the laboring class and the lower middle class with promises of a much higher income. But the majority of this type of writer-agitator-leader railed against the chaos and disorder of our present economic order offering panaceas or reorganizations, and postulating a better economic situation.

Another type of leader, an important type, is characterized rather well by William Dudley Pelley. This type of leader actually heads an organization of sorts. Usually a radical, this type is enough of 8 politician to make his appeal to a. wide group, but usually he is accepted only by a. small group. Often this type of leader exploits his followers and does not himself follow the precepts he sets forth. Ordinarily the radicalism of this type of leader precludes any real importance. Germany had hundreds, all of them now forgotten, with one exception, Hitler. Mussolini, too, is an example of this type of leader who was able to succeed when dozens of much the same type failed to make any permanent impression.

The United States has had, and still has, many of these leaders, each with his own group, his own plan, and his own little field of importance. None yet has risen to prominence. Such men es Royal Scott Gulden, Richard Rollins, Col. Charles E. Gilpen,Colonel C. W. Throckmorton, Harry A. Jung, Louis T. McFadden, Ralph M. Easley, C. F. Fulliam, Captain Eugene R. Case, Wildcat Williams, and Colonel Henry Sanborn are examples.

Of this group we shall pick Cojionel Sanborn as a case study to show the r6le, importance, and technique of this type of leader.

At present Colonel Sanborn is just a would-be dictator who has packed his bag and departed from the scene of an attempted Fascist "putsch" in the "Salad Bowl" of the nation at Salinas, California, in 1956. Colonel Henry Sanborn, professional red-baiter, former army chaplain, reserve army officer, and publisher of the American Citizen, a fear-mongering sheet distributed free on San Francisco doorsteps, wes nominated by forces behind the scenes to be dictator of all "law-enforcement" agencies in three counties. He sat in the seat of power a few days, but he is gone now, and the story is instructive to those who care about liberty in America.

The story of the California lettuce strike, summer of

1926, is the familiar one of 3,500 workers striking for preferential hiring of union members, and the determination of growersshippers to break the strike with outside labor and the police power. Peaceful picketing was carried on during the first ten days of the strike, and no attempt was made to pack lettuce. One ranch signed up with the union, but encountered strange difficulty in getting crates, ice, and cars. Finally, the bank foreclosed and the ranch capitulated and broke off with the union. Trucks were convoyed by state police and deputy sheriffs armed with gas. One day a street had to be cleared by the police using gas bombs. Next day the president of the Associated Farmers, a state-wide organization of big farmers, drove a truck down the mein street of Salinas. When the truck was forced to stop for a traffic light, hundreds of strikers lining the side-walks unloaded the truck in unceremonious fashion. The driver was pulled down from the truck and beaten before the deputies could interfere and clear the street with their gas and clubs; fleeing people were pursued and beaten.

The sheriff summoned the American Legion by a previously arranged emergency call, but when the men found what was expected of them, seme of them are said to have torn up their membership cards. In any event, the call was rescinded with the public explanation that the Legion was divided in its sympathies. The sheriff then issued another order summoning every able-bodied man in the county to report to the armory to be deputized and to hold himself in readiness for duty. About 2,000 men are said to have been deputized, some of whom were armed and put upon the street.

At this stage in the program there began to appear the name of Colonel Sanborn as “co-ordinator of all law-enforcement agencies of Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties." It was apparently he who organized and ordered the illegal entry and search of a local labor leader’s dwelling. It was the local sheriff, possibly acting under Colonel Sanborn’s orders, who ordered the illegal raid on the room of reporter Bailey of the San Francisco Chronicle. One of the city police threatened bodily injury to the reporter, and repeated reports that his lynching had been planned were circulated. The refusal of police protection for this reporter caused his editor, who was in Salinas, to order him out of town by airplane.

In the meantime Sanborn was finding "reds" on every hand, and assuring Salinas that it had barely been saved from a "red” uprising by his timely assistance. Warning flegs of the customary color, placed by the highway department to indicate road repairs, were seen by excitable patriots as mobilization

signals put out by the Communists. Even the Governor fell into this ludicrous error in a public statement.

Two factors combined to defeat the plan of Sanborn and his backers to crush a revolution and save Salinas and California. One was that the strikers were well advised, and after the one street fight stayed off the streets for several days and were as docile as citizens are expected to be. It is hard to put down a revolution which declines to put in an appearance. The other factor was that Sanborn and the "law and order" people made a bad impression on the newspaper people and gained the enmity of the press. Reporters were gassed and beaten, and their cameras smashed The San Francisco Chronicle especially has repeatedly denounced the Fascist domination of the government in Salinas and Monterey County by the employers' interest. Then a mass meeting of Salinas citizens, eight hundred in number, passed resolutions condemning the manner in which the whole manner had been handled. Newspapers began to hammer the authorities for surrendering their authority to Sanborn. Under this criticism Sanborn left Salinas.

Mr. Chase draws the conclusion:

There will undoubtedly be a tendency to belittle the Sanborn affair as a comic interlude. In my opinion it failed to become a successful assault upon constituted authority and liberty in California only because of the two fortunate factors mentioned; the workers

maintained an unprovocative calm, and the press failed to give the Colonel the sort of blind support that he obviously expected. Attorney Aram of the state Federation of Labor may be overstating the case very little when he declares:

**lt [the Fascist drive] was directed from outside the affected zone of Monterey County. It embraced all civil government, including the courts. The State Militia and the Highway Patrol were directed by a civilian local committee acting as the head of a provisional dictatorship. It indicated long preparation, prior rehearsal, and the work of men who understand public psychology, as the average citizen is not aware that it has happened. ... In semi-agricultural and semi-industrial communities, it would crush any strike however peaceful.” 2

Just what will be the importance in the future of any of these minor leaders would be very difficult to say. Both Hitler and Mussolini were comparatively unknown a few years before they became dictators.

There is yet a third possibility for American Fascism which complicates our discussion of leaders. In America democratic political principles are relatively well rooted. An American dictator, possibly leader of an armed, loyal group, and certainly supported by a subservient party, might content himself in pulling the strings on which his political puppets dance. Pomp of office fits in remarkably well with the Fascist temperament but is by no

means essential. "Americans are used to a political boss with great actual power and no legal power at a11."3 In any event it will be worth while to see if there are any strong American personalities who leen toward Fascism, who might be able to fulfill the r6le of dictator in a Fascist state.

Of this type of leader, of greatest interest, of greatest fitness, and now of least importance, is the late Huey P. Long, "Kingfish” of Louisiana. Long*s personal dictatorship of Louisiana and his "Share the Wealth" movement have become al* most legendary in the few years since his demise. Combining a shrewd mind, a remarkeble driving force, and excellent knowledge of the human materiel with which he worked, an unscrupulous char* acter, a gift for oratory, and a capacity for showmanship practically amounting to genius, Huey Long was undoubtedly a success as a dictator. And in it all he was thoroughly "American." He consistently went out of his way to reward his friends and to harm his foes.

That a majority of the people of Louisiana, who are about as “American* as any other state group, accepted him as a dictator pure and simple was perfectly evident. And the important thing is that a majority of them accepted him because they preferred the benefits of his rule to their freedom. Just as important is the implacability with which he ruthlessly squashed his opponents.

As an example of Long*s methods, in a special session of the Louisiana legislature thirty-five bills were referred to the Committee of Ways and Means. Long met with them and explained, but did not reed, the bills; remained standing the full seventy minutes which it took to pass the thirty-five laws; in one case he rejected a bill without a vote because it did not please him; in another case he wrote in an amendment while the committee waited; in all it took an average of two minutes per law. That may not be the Fascist method of government, but at least it is so close to it as to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes.

Long was not Fascist in the sense of having the Fascist philosophy of the state and its functions. He was just plain boss and did what he pleased, and woe to his opponents. He was not Fascistic in his fight on corporations and public utilities, although he threw plenty of favor to those who finally began "to see things his way." He was not particularly Fascistic in his building of roads and furnishing of free textbooks, nor in that he drew most of his support from the poor farmers to whom he

promised $5,000 per family. He was as free from race prejudice as any southerner, end he was smart enough to realize that it was better, for the time being at least, and much shrewder, to use the numerous Negroes than to abuse them.

But Long was Fascistic In his method of government and his summary treatment of those who really opposed him--no opposition minorities were free from his wrath* He saw to it that the educational institutions and their personnel said what he wanted them to say, and his tax on newspapers was the greatest peacetime blow to freedom of the press America has ever witnessed And today, in Louisiana, for every person who hates him there are more who look back to the "good times'* when he was their "king-4 fish*, and curse the assassin who ended his career.

Huey Long is truly an excellent example: His intellectual grasp of economics was extremely limited and naive. Louisiana’s welfare program never included the enactment of even a modest labor program. His radical theories never prevented him from arriving at excellent working relations with certain corporate interests. His performance in relation to his theory was, allowing for the difference in the American scene, in the best

5 Fascist or Nazi tradition.

Associated with Long and a No. 1 rabble-rouser in his own right was Father Charles Edward Coughlin. Before Roosevelt’s election in 1936, Father Coughlin spoke to millions of people weekly. His mail averaged 80,000 letters a week and ore week he received 1,200,000 letters after an address on “Hoover Prosperity Means a New War,” and 60,000 letters one week after an address ■ entitled “Morgen, Mellon, Mills, and Meyer, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.“ He claimed to have two million names on file. On the World Court issue, his address against it sent a stream of telegrams to Washington never before equaled; Congressmen ordinarily surprised by one telegram, found their desks covered by dozens to hundreds of the yellow missives. From then on he became a great nationalist, and with his Irish brogue taught Americans Americanism, as Hitler with his Austrian brogue taught Germans to feel more like Germans.

Although not an avowed Fascist, Father Coughlin’s principles and statements include such Fascist fundamentals as (1) nationalization of banking and natural resources; (2) labor unions under government supervision, with no strikes or lockouts; (3) social taxation; (4) simplification of government; (5) conscription of wealth in war; (6) strong denunciation of Communism; (7) no voiced support for free speech or democratic government; and (8) animosity toward bankers.

Although Coughlin undoubtedly lost a considerable part of his strength when Roosevelt was elected (he had to leave the air), he is now back on the air, and the August 12, 1938, Austin American states that he is popular with the anti-Lewis labor groups, end is steadily increasing in popularity in Nazi strongholds such as Yorkville and Manhattan in New York. Coughlin, like Long after his death, fits into the present Fascist picture, not as a possible dictator, for such a thing is relatively impossible in his position, but as a conditioner, a paver-of-theway, for some strong personality who will benefit in the utmost £ by the seeds of thought planted by these two men.

The field of religion has yet another of Long’s cohorts to present for our consideration: The Reverend Gerald H. K. Smith. Smith was the chief lieutenant of Long in the days when the “Kingfish” ruled Louisiana. Smith declared himself heirapparent to Long’s empire, but has as yet been unable to get much results out of his claim. He is, however, still upon the scene, having recently allied himself unsuccessfully with Dr. Townsend.

Gerald Smith is cunning, ruthless, visionary, proud of his associations with Long, and has a tremendous demagogic appeal.

“You know what my ambition is? I think chaos is inevitable. I want to get as many people as I can new, so that when chaos comes, I*ll be a leader. Since Huey’s death, six million people have commited themselves to me in writing . . .

“The people will keep on fermenting and fermenting, and some fellow like me, who’s fearless and honest, will get on the radio, make three or four speeches, and have them in his hand. The people are beginning to trust leadership.

The latest religio-Fascist would-be dictator to achieve a degree of national publicity is the '‘Reverend 4 ’ Gerald B. Winrod of Wichita, Kansas. ?4r. Winrod has just run a poor third in the race for the Republican nomination for senator from Kansas in the United States Senate.

Mr. Winrod seems to bear more resemblance to Reverend Gerald H. K. Smith than to any of our other possible American

fuehrers. He is a fiery speaker with an excellent radio pitch, devoid of scholarship, combining homespun wit with hair-raising venom. He is strongly anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, and anti- Communist. In his youth he distributed tracts against evolution, cigarettes, and whiskey. Somewhat later his efforts were directed toward saving the nation from Al Smith and the Fope. At present he calls Roosevelt a “Communist-lew, * and fights “Papist" Jim Farley and the "Jewish-Communist" New Deal.

The American Legion has for some time been Winrod*s favorite field of labor, and he seems to have me de some progress. He is alleged to have many Fascist connections, including some in Germany and the avowedly Fascistic William D. Pelley. He publishes a monthly paper, The Defender, and a campaign sheet entitled the “New Federalist.

Of considerable interest is the assertion that he is spending 55,000 a week to finance his campaign, more than all his opponents combined. It definitely is not coming from the Republican Party. Possibly the Congressional Committee which is investigating him at present by now knows who is putting up this money to see what chance an avowed Fascist has in a popular election. Certainly it would be helpful in studying the forces behind the American Fascist movement if we knew, too. But until we do, we can only watch and wait.®

There is a third character upon the American scene who must be included, not as a possible dictator, but as a preparer-of-the-way end an active sympathizer with Fascist views. This is the Venerable Lord of San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst. He is important now only beceuse of his power and wealth, but because he is an example of what lower middle class America is thinking end wishing. He is a partial expression of all those who read what his minions express. So if he is Fascist, it is beceuse he represents this class and it is going Fascist. For half a generation Hearst protested against our economy changing from individualism to finance capitalism. Now he has become resigned to it, accepting its Fascist implications.

has fought against any sort of foreign cooperation or foreign ideas. He has fought Communism, and been very bitter against strikes, saying they were fermented by Communists, whose evil hand he professes to see in all disorders. He feels that the proletariat as a class should be the concern of the government, but that government should not be the peculiar concern of this class. Opposing the proletariat, he stands for

preservation of democracy. Democracy, we presume, in which the proletariat is disfranchised, for mass government without the proletariat is the gospel of Fascism.

Hearst’s "Trained Seals" are even now busy writing tirades against the "reds", and in stirring up "red" scares for the consumption of the middle-class America. Because of them some people have not yet forgiven the government for recognizing Soviet Russia. Just as quickly as possible Hearst is overdeveloping and expanding the Communist menace so that it may assume such false proportions that even the few dry stalks and young plants of Communism in the United States may be completely uprooted, to the glory of Hearst’s Fascistic democracy.

He says that if we had a system of government of the date of the airplane, we never should have abandoned the airplane. Does democracy date with the airplane? No. Does Fascism? Yes. Waging war on professors, contemptuous of academic freedom and the rights of free speech (so long as freedom of his press is not disturbed), hostile to the ’’alien” ideas of labor, apologetic for big business, admiring the Fascists of Europe for having suppressed Communism, that is Hearst today. But it is also a portrait of lower middle-class America. It feels hostility to the proletariat and resentment of the intellectuals. The current of their themes flows in one direction, toward a "system of government of the airplane."

Probably of less importance than eny of the three men mentioned, but still of very considerable importance, is the prophet of the EPIC, Upton Sinclair. Sinclair cut a wide swath in California in the early 1930's and his influence, through his writings, is still felt. The EPIC plan proposed to put the unemployed at work in vacant factories and on unused land in order to produce their own goods and raise their own food. The owners would be compensated by being paid rent. All this to be mainly financed by a steeply graduated income tex and inheritance tax. Yet these "islands of socialism" were proposed only as helps to get capitalism on its feet, which is, after all, the avowed purpose of Fascism.

Upton Sinclair is not a Fascist; he would never consent to being a dictator, but the acceptance of his plans, which could so easily be made Fascist, by so many people is significant. In I j - fact it was very largely the fear of a Fascist coup d’etat if Sinclair was elected that made President Roosevelt shift his support from the Sinclair nomination; even then Sinclair polled 879,000 votes after winning the primary. 9

In naming men whose qualifications fit them in some degree to become Fascist dictators in the United States, we must include John L. Lewis. Not as picturesque as Huey Long, not as sincere as Sinclair, not as wealthy as Hearst, but with a following stronger than any other man in the United States with the exception of Roosevelt, John L. Lewis is a power to be considered.

The present trend toward an authoritarian regime in the United States is largely motivated by a united-front army of gullible workers captained by opportunists with a will-to-power philosophy of ruthless class warfare. The supreme example of such leadership is Lewis, and the spearhead of his militant opportunism is the Committee for Industrial Organization.

The year 1940 may find Lewis wielding the balance of America’s political power. The masses throughout the world, bewildered, unfit, yet hungry for power, are invading the domains of sovereignty: and in the United States, John L. Lewis is their special representative. Yet he is 8 man many senators and representatives have gone out of their way to placate, and one they fear to antagonize.

Essentially the story of Lewis is the story of “Might makes Right.“ Gifted with en extraordinary time-sense, in his American manner, he has enacted here, in the field of industrial organization, the seme startling assent to prominence that has marked the careers of Europe*s three masters of power-politics— Messrs. Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. Beneath the surface, benesth the suave cloak of opportunism, is the Man of Action, pledging himself to bring Utopia to the masses of workingmen if they will only benu their brawn to his brain.

In view of the opportunistic nature of Fascism in general, and the reputation for opportunism which the present European Fascist leaders have acquired, it is significant that Lewis is definitely an opportunist. Most significant of his opportunism is his present alliance with the Communists. For years Lewis had fought Communism. Communists were not allowed membership in the United Mine Workers Union and it is said that Lewis spent 1207000- in exposing the "Red Menace,’* while he was leader of the United Mine Workers Union. He often denounced Communist fakers and traitors to labor. Yet today, probably because he has come to realize the value of Communist organizers, and the value of the Comrades in the gouging tactics of the new labor warfare, Brophy, Germer, and Hapgood are all officials in the Committee for Industrial Organization., He very evidently recognizes the value to the Committee for Industrial Orgenization of "pink* intelligentsia authors, and of the Communistic-leaning

garment unions.

So we see that the seemingly contradictory fact in gauging Lewis as a possible Fascist leader, that is, his Communist aides and organizers, is not really a paradox. Breaking with the American Federation of Labor, Lewis had to have some help and the Communists were the only mass-manipulating group in America which possessed the organization and techniques for class warfare. Moreover, the gamut of°pink w to "red" is much more fashionable than it once was.

Lewis’ chief lieutenant, Brophy, says that

He [Lewis] is not moved by theory but by events. His personality is felt in action. He is entirely a pragmatist. . . . When he sees a chance, he moves, Quickly and decisively. He adopts and adapts and discards as the situation dictates. ... He is primarily interested in the next step, but that step he takes clearly, definitely, ruthlessly, and always in the direction he wants to

Today Lewis likes to talk passionately of his love of democracy. Throughout his public and private utterance runs the theme of liberty, equality, and fraternity, including remarks emphasizing the tyranny of capitalism and Fascism. The Committee for Industrial Organization, orates Lewis, offers a democratic haven to the American worker; he paints an entrancing picture of the future, when every proletarian will live in harmony with his brother—and earn $3,000 a year to boot. But unhappily Lewis* pledges do not square with his record. In his home lodge, the United Mine Workers of America, it is said that there are broken men who tell a tragic narrative of the dictatorial qualities of John L*s “democracy. Sven his partisans admit that he moved from vice-president to president of the United Mine Workers by means of illegal voting “for the good of the union.'*^ 2

He shoved himself into the center of the Democratic picture by endorsing Roosevelt’s re-election at the United Mine Workers convention in January, 1936, and by forcing through a resolution pledging mine-union money to the presidential campaign. He then organized the Labor Non-Partisan League. The campaign waged by the Non-Partisan League was clever in strategy. The Lewis drive set an all-time high for labor political effectiveness;, in such old-time Republican fortresses as Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Michigan, the Lewis tactics turned the tide.

In Michigan, when New Deal Governor Frank Murphy won by a slim margin, the Lewis vote was decisive—a fact that John L. was to capitalize handsomely later on.

If Lewis, with one eye always on the social horizon, decides that the pathway to power lies further and further to the left, he is capable of driving to that direction ruthlessly. Which means that it is in his character to press just as ruthlessly to the right, if he becomes convinced that his future lies in that direction. In fact, Fascism seems more to his personal inclinations than the Communism which he now professes. Meanwhile, he is content to remain a brooding figure upon the American scene. He bitterly denounces Fascism, denies any official connection with any party, plays the part of a good Roosevelt man, calls Farley "Jim,” and tried to indicate that he is first for Labor, and will work with anyone who will further the cause. But unfortunately, allegiance to Labor is a common catch-phrase in the modern world of self-made dictators. And even Lewis’ friends admit his dictatorial

So we see that at present. Fascism in the United States has not reached the stage in which attention is focused on any one leader or set of objectives. As yet the leaders are agitators, reformers, a prophet or two, and some out and out adventurers. There are men in the public eye, now with noticeably Fascistic tendencies, who might eventually come to head this emerging Fascist movement. For the present, as far as can be ascertained, Fascist leaders run to quantity decidedly more than quality. Undoubtedly, if the Fascist movement continues, when it reaches the appropriate stage, a national leader of the statesman type will present himself.

Ford, Guy S. (Editor) Dictatorship in the Modern World, pp. 10-12. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1935

2 Chase, Don M., “A California Fascist Retreats,* Christian Century, Vol. 53, pp. 1355-1356, October 14, 1936.

3 Thomas, Norman, After the New Deal, What?, p. 153.

Swing, Raymond, Forerunners of American Fascism, pp. 44-51.

5 Cf. Thomas, Norman, op. cit., pp. 147-149.

g Cf. Swing, Raymond G., o£. cit., pp. 50-58.

Gerold, “Huey Long the Second,** The Nation, Vol. 143, pp. 93-94, July 25, 1936.

8 , “The Crooked Cross for Kansas?", Ken, Vol 2, No. 2, pp. 70-73, July 28, 1938.

9 Of. , American Messiahs, by the Unofficial Observer, pp. 68-76. New York, Simon Schuster, 1935.

Benjamin, "John L. Lewis: Portrait of a Realist,” The Nation, Vol. 143, p. 12, August 1, 1936.

U Cf. Carrol, Gordon, “John L. Lewis: His Labor Record,** American Mercury, Vol. 41, No. 162, p. 137, June, 1937.

12 Cf. Stolberg, Benjamin, op. cit., p. 123.

IS Cf. Carrol, Gordon, op. cit.. pp. 137-150

CHAPTER VII TECHNIQUES OF AN EMERGING AMERICAN FASCISM

Having to some extent discussed the doctrines and mechanisms of our emerging Fascist movement, it would be well to consider some of the more important and frequent techniques employed by it.

As an introduction we will use one minor technique which may be dismissed with a brief word: the open-handed salute Our American Fascism, because it is indigenous, is unlikely to use such a noticeably European technique. The various American branches of European Fascism do use this salute, but we may be reasonably sure that even if Fascists should completely control our government, we still would see no open-handed salutes, or swastikas either, for that matter.

That does not mean that American Fascists will not make use of this type of technique. They most assuredly will. But it will be some different, Americanized version not now in popular use. Our penchant for carrying banners and posting placards during elections shows that American Fascism by no means will be lacking in that sort of thing when it reaches the appropriate stage.

Already America has its Silver Shirts, White Shirts, Blue Shirts, etc. The Storm Troops of the German-American Bund goosestep and salute straight arm. Uniforms and equipment tend to be a racket in present avowed Fascist organizations. The Ku Klux Klan dressed a large percentage of southerners and many northerners in sheets at one time. All in all, we may be sure that our American Fascism, if end when sufficiently far'developed, will exhibit all the symbols, signs, uniforms, etc,, that Fascism elsewhere and social movements in general seem to employ.

There are a great number of techniques now employed by European Fascists which our emerging Fascism undoubtedly will also find to its advantage. One of these techniques is conflict literature. Most noticeable was Huey Long’s chief literary effort, Every Man a King. Had Long lived, it might have become an American Mein Kempf. Long made great use of his Senatorial frank to distribute his speeches, etc., and it was said that he could, and often did, flood the whole of Louisiana with handbills in forty-eight hours.

But Long was the only one to make very successful use of such literature. Nearly all of the organizations mentioned in Chapter V publish some sort of little magazine, but without wide circulation; Lawrence Dennis sponsored The Awakener, and there are one or two other highbrow Fascist magazines with small circulation. A real body of Fascist literature does not seem to have yet arisen.

At the present stage of its development, most of the literature of our Fascism is in the form of propaganda, and would be better treated as such than as real conflict literature, which may include poems, stories, etc. And the majority of the propaganda is interlaced inextricably with another of the special techniques common to many social movements and to Fascism in particular, i.e., the persecution of a special race or group. In the case of Fascism, this group is the Jews.

The importance of propaganda at present depends largely upon one‘s own situation and point of view. If one is a Jew, living in a large city in the east, he will consider it already quite important. If one is a Gentile, living where Jews are not numerous, he will probably consider it negligible.

Nevertheless, the most widespread technique of Fascism in the United States at its present stage is propaganda. Practically every Fascist or semi-Fascist organization in this country makes use of propaganda. This technique is of course not peculiar to our brand of Fascism. All the Fascist movements elsewhere have made it one of their important techniques. This is to be expected, for social movements have always made wide use of propaganda. We think of propaganda as being printed, and so it usually is at the present time. But propaganda was just as valuable during the Crusades as during Hitler’s rise to power. The difference is that the Crusade propaganda had to be spread by word of mouth, and means of transporting speakers were slow. But the Christian priests preaching a Crusade and the Mohammedan dervishes or mullahs preaching a jhed were just as much propagandists as Herr Goebbels.

As a technique, propaganda is of great value because of its effectiveness as a moulder of public opinion. In its simplest form it is capitalized prejudice, resting on some emotional Propaganda makes use of all the more fundamental prejudices, emotions, and attitudes, belonging to society, prostituting them for its own uses. Propaganda aids in the focusing of attention, and particularly in creating the rapport, the feeling of unity, the oneness of thought so necessary to any successful movement. It is used to create ready-made values, ready-made attitudes, and to release inhibited tensions. Social movements in general and Fascism in particular need a mass base, a collectivity must be formed out of the masses. Force and terrorism are valuable in the beginning, but propaganda is not only valuable in the beginning, but is one of the best techniques for maintaining mass unity and guiding its dynamic force into the desired channels. That propaganda is of importance in the United States is evident; great power in irresponsible hands is always a social menace, and against destructive propaganda there seems to be little protec- 2 tion which does not weaken the right of free speech.

Fascist propaganda at present is viewed in some quarters with great alarm. We find, for instance, on the paper cover of Nazism: An Assault on Civilization, a statement to the effect that Nazi movements are being fostered throughout Europe and that such widespread propaganda exists in the United States as to threaten the whole American government.* Frank Bohn and Richard Ely say that from the American and British Fascist propagandists we have suffered seventeen years full of spoken folly and printed rubbish the like of which has never before been inflicted upon English speaking peoples. The amount of it and its power for harm have been so amazing that the injury done to our

younger generation, our progressives, and our liberals can not be measured. Bohn and Ely fear that to what they call "our younger realists," democracy has become a taboo and liberty a decayed

Actually, the importance of both these statements, the first of which is as much propaganda as any it curses, and the second the dubious judgment of mature scholars, depends upon which of two types of propaganda is meant. For there are now in America two general types of Fascist propaganda.

By far the most important of these two types, the most insidious, far-reaching, and difficult to recognize is that used by various organizations and individuals who would stand aghast at the mere suggestion that they were Fascist. I believe it is to this type of propaganda to which Bohn and Sly refer. This type we find published under the names of eminently "respect able'* scholars, authors, statesmen, and business executives. The books and pamphlets distributed gratis by the Chemical Foundation are examples. Magazines published by luncheon clubs, Chambers of Commerce, veterans organizations, patriotic clubs, and groups of intelligentsia are often filled with these peans of

praise for ’’democracy”—which "democracy” has at various points a marked similarity to Fascism. Popular magazines of the Liberty and Saturday Evening Post type carry articles by ’’economists” and ’’political scientists" which can be construed in no other fashion than as propaganda. There is a possibility that most of this propaganda cannot be termed as intentionally Fascistic. It strives rather toward what its producers think of as "democracy,” “patriotism,’’ anti-labor sentiment, and the idea that the present capitalistic economic system must by all means be preserved for posterity. Its importance lies, then, mostly in its inference and its connotation. Carry many of these propagandist statements to their logical conclusion, and you have thinly veiled Fascist doctrine. If Fascism comes to power in the United States, which is possible but far from inevitable, this type of propaganda will have been one of the contributing causes.

Then there is another type of propaganda now extant in the United States which to me is much more interesting, if less effective and important. That is the outright Fascist propaganda of the avowed Fascist organizations in the United States, both of foreign and native origin. This type is nearly all anti- Semitic or anti-Communistic in character.

Since instances of this type of propaganda are often recounted by Jewish or Communist sympathizers, it certainly ’’loses nothing in the telling.” But it does show what some people will believe, ©nd it does give us a very general idea of the trend that some Fascist propaganda might take.

The largest body of this propaganda, by far, is traceable to the American branches of German Nazism. Most of it originates in New York or Berlin. The first German-American organization to spread much propaganda was the "Friends of New Germany” with Heinz Spanknoebel commissioned by the German government as its head. It was under him that Douglas Brinkly, former National Broadcasting Company announcer and newspaper commentator, become one of the important Nazi propagandists. An interesting side light on the sources of propaganda is given by Dr. Frank Boaz, Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. He cites an official order of the German government requiring all exchange students to spread Nazi propaganda.

As before mentioned, most of this type of propaganda is anti-Jewish or anti-Communist. These groups are used as scapegoats to keep people’s minds from more important matters of govern ment and economics by European Fascism, and they are already springing into use here. This type of propaganda, I believe, is important out of proportion to its amount. That is, the Jews and the Communists are both regarded here with a certain amount of

antipathy. There would be plenty of fertile soil on which the seeds of anti-Sem tism or anti-Communism might fall and readily sprout. Neither group, at present, has a sufficient economic root to be markedly obnoxious. A wave of emotionalism, thrown up by a wider break in economic security could, so easily, develop into persecution hysteria. A dominant Fascism would undoubtedly have plenty of trouble on its hands, and would likely welcome the Jews and the Communists as scapegoats. It will be valuable, therefore, to see just what are the ends and methods of this type of propaganda.

Anti-Semitic propaganda is mostly still in a crude form. Such phenomena as handbills in subways, surreptitious scratching or painting of swastikas on Jewish stores, and inflammatory articles in Fascist-controlled magazines and newspapers like the Deutsche geitung and the Deutsche Post are common.

John L. Spivak, who seems to be both a Communistic and a Jewish sympathizer, has made a considerable study of this type of propaganda, and in his alarmist book, America Faces the Barricades, he gives us a great deal of extremely detailed informa tion about it and its originators. Although almost certainly biased and concentrating on the worst instances, this book seems to be the most authoritative work on the subject. He traces the growth of Nazi propaganda in the United States for us, saying that Colonel Edward Emerson, soldier of fortune, author, and war correspondent, was for some time the chief distributor of anti- Semitic propaganda, until called to Germany in 1934, leaving the various by-then-established Nazi organizations to carry on the task.s

He asserts that Harry A. .Tung of Chicago, as head of the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, is extremely active in spreading Anti-Semitic propaganda, as is Edward H. Hunter, of the Industrial Defense Association of Boston. Royal Scott Gulden, head of the Order of *76, which was absorbed by the Silver Shirts, is given as one of the leaders of anti- Semitism. Ex-Congressman Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania is alleged to have been the chief governmental anti-Semitist, making a vitriolic anti-Jewish attack before the House on May 29, 1933, and then using his frank, plus the aid of the Silver Shirts and the White Shirts, to spread this speech widely.

George S. Viereck is given as the most important Nazi agent and propagandist, and is alleged to work largely through Ralph M. Easley, chairman of the executive council of the National Civic Federation. The acting president of this federation is

Matthew Woll, vice-president of the American Federation of Labor. This is alleged to be the largest "patriotic” organization spreading anti-Semitic propaganda. Mr. Spivak states that when he wished to interview Easley on the subject of anti-Semitism, his interview was postponed, and then refused by Easley "on advice of counsel. n

A few examples of the form the more violent anti- Semitic propaganda may take would seem of interest. It is alleged that Jung’s organization used the chain letter ides to spread this:

DO YOU REALIZE we ere nothing but JEWISH SLAVES?

DO YOU REALIZE that every nation which accepted the Jews signed its own doom? . . . Their religion end business are nothing but international racketeering, blood-sucking gangsterdom, exploiting the poorest of the poor to the lest drop of their blood.

The Jews are the biggest enemies and the cause of the destruction of the U. S. A.

HIT THS JEWS WHEREVER YOU CAN. 7

An editorial from the New Republic gives us further insight into the types of propaganda which are expected to stir anti-Semitism:

Two items have come into our hands that indicate pretty well the form Fascist propaganda of the cruder type is taking in this country and, more disturbing, how widspread it is. From San Diego comes a handbill left in an automobile; a well-printed little sheet which says that the Lindberg kipnapping notes were signed with symbols which prove definitely that the kidnapping was part of the Communist plot, being the sign of the "Illuminati,” a secret Communist intelligentsia group, instigated the French Revolution and every revolution since. It concludes: "Until this Judo-Communist gang is exterminated there will be no safety for any Gentile child in the United States.'’ The other item is simply a small square sticker bearing a Jewish face, encircled with the words "By buying here you help Communism." The correspondent who sent it from Washington, D. C. says that the group that has printed them intends to past them on all non-Nordic store fronts, but is, as yet, afraid to start. Such material is, of course, no longer particularly novel, but these bits show in particularly concentrated form certain features that mark Hitler’s propaganda in Germany, the identification of the Jews with the Communists, the accusation of this group as being criminals of the worst sort, and the visual portrayal of the hated type. Also, they imply an important feature sometimes overlooked; i. e., sources of funds with which to print and distribute such vicious material.®

Spivak asserts that Royal S. Gulden and William D. Pelley

have distributed thousands of cards prepared for signature pledging the signer to oppose non-Christians seeking office, to buy from Christian-American firms only, end to combat all un- American forms of government. These cards were sent to numerous cities in the mid-west, and, with copies of the Protocols of 9 gion, to the Army and Navy.

Probably most of this anti-Semitic propaganda is imi tative of Suropean patterns, although few if any of our anti- Semitists would admit the charge. The depth of this feeling, as well as its unreasonableness, is fairly well shown by an alleged interview between Spivak and the anti-Semitist Gulden who has already been mentioned.

We’re not opposed to the Jews as Jews, but every Jew is a potential Communist, and both ere breaking down the laws of the land.

But I will say this: we’re trying to prevent pogroms by preventing the Jfews from driving people to start pogroms against them. We must defend ourselves. ... If pogroms are forced upon us, we will not run away.

The Jews are making economic pogroms against

us. They are taking our businesses, our professions, away—and if that continues, pogroms will start.

Communist propaganda is usually present in conjunction with this anti-Semitic propaganda. For two decades this country has had a smouldering anti-Communist attitude, and every so often some ’‘patriot” fans it into flame. It would seem that our native Fascist organizations, and of course those with foreign roots, are quite united on this subject. We would expect them to be, for their European prototypes use this technique ad nauseum. Not only is this the same type of technique as anti-Semitism but the two are very closely interlinked, as illustrated by the interview between Mr. Spivak and Mr. Gulden already quoted. In the majority of cases the Jews and Communists are considered as one and the same, and attacked as being a unit rather than two separate groups.

There is, however, enough anti-Communist propaganda which makes no mention of the Jews to show that anti-Communism is not merely an outgrowth of anti-Semitism. For instance, in Southern California there is a great deal of anti-Communist feeling. This is strongest among the fruit and vegetable growers of the Imperial Valley. These men themselves are interested primarily in action, not propaganda, yet Spivak quotes an undated editorial from the Los Angeles Times which seems rather strangely like anti-Communist propaganda:

Formation of the Imperial Valley Anti-Communist Association to repel and combat the Red invasion is . . . very timely ....

The Imperial Valley Anti-Communists have somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 members, expecting to reach the latter strength by next week, and it is to be hoped they do. It must not be forgotten that the Communist drive is not a labor disturbance but the genesis of a revolution; it is not improved wages, hours, and working conditions which are the ends sought, but the overturn of the government and that from a Communist standpoint it is better to lose strikes than to win them, since to lose a strike promotes discontent and bitterness. The workers who are dupes of the agitators do not understand this. For this reason, defensive organizations against Communist agitators are absolutely necessary.

The San Joaquin Valley folk . . . and the Valencia orange growers . . . will do well to form similar defensive organizations.

There is still another technique which has been used in America before, but which in some degree has been transmitted to America, by the German Nazis. That is the education of youth.

The Amerika Deutsches Volksbund maintains nine camps across the country where German-Arnerican children, in addition to being conducted through the more stereotyped camp activities, are drilled in elementary military tactics and in Nazi ideals and politics. The literature is prescribed, written in German, and said to contain such statements as "If the world at large bares its teeth at Germany, we will smash it.” In connection with this is &n organization, the “Hitler Youth,” purporting to be a German Boy Scout movement, but actually inculcating the Fascist philosophy into young German-Amerleans. The fete of these youth or- ganizations in particular is likely to prove interesting. Lately most of their officials have been fined for breaking the laws regulating secret organizations, and there seems to be some governmental attempt to put a stop to these

As a technique, the control of youth is one common to social movements in general and Fascism in particular. In Europe, Hitler and Mussolini sponsor groups of young people for the purpose of inculcating within them from the beginning the attitudes and values deemed most important to the movement. The Fascist

dictator, unlike the medieval despot, makes use of all known educational devices on the largest possible scale, but prostitutes them in every way so that they may contribute to the strengthening of his regime. Without doubt Fascism in America will make increasingly greater use of this technique as the movement expands .

This technique lacks importance in the United States at present solely because of the narrowness of the range of American Fascism. It is directed toward German-American youth almost exclusively. Unquestionably the use of this technique is a potent factor in making permanent the ideology of the movement, as well as in spreading its doctrines. Like so many other techniques used by Fascism, the education of youth is one which we may logically expect when or if American Fascism reaches a more advanced stage. Through such a technique we may expect to take form many of the social changes which would evolve from a fullfledged American Fascist movement.

The German-American Nazis employ still other techniques which they have "inherited" from the parent organization. For example, they have one of the most formidable indirect

boycotts in this country, particularly as far as its duration 16 is concerned. Sectional business directories are issued, telling the German-Amerleans where to buy and sometimes where not to buy. A tax is levied on German-American business men for this service. The Bund has instilled such fear into reputable German- American merchants and business men that they are frankly afraid to criticize the Nazi leaders. Persecution of relatives in Germany and barring certain consignments of imports or exports are the weapons with which American Nazi leaders secure their will. H

There ere many other techniques which our study of the European Fascist movements in Chapter I tells us will arrive sooner or later, but at present few of them have emerged. One of the most important, the dragooning of labor and use of illegal methods to break strikes, has been discussed already in j Chapter II in relation to the unrest shown by strikes and the methods used to break them. This appeal to violence to settle labor disputes in favor of the employer is, however, no new thing to America, as are but few of the techniques which we might expect American Fascism to use when it reaches greater maturity. But this violence is important, for it shows clearly that given the necessity, we may expect big employers to become increasingly favorable to Fascist methods of handling labor. The American public has shown its attitude by remaining quiescent while these methods were used to quell labor. While the emerging American Fascism has not yet developed to that extent, it may safely be said that the violent settling of labor disputes in favor of the employer is one technique it will find already formed and which it will unquestionably not neglect.

Because of the importance of military organization, drilling, and parades in European Fascism, one might expect the same thing in the Fascist movement in the United States. In Europe this technique has been very successful as a unifying, stimulating, organizing, and integrating factor. At present it is of particular importance in the American branches of European Fascism only. There seem to be two possible reasons for this: First, as before mentioned, the American tradition is not militaristic; the uniform of a soldier attracts little attention except from adolescents and the wearing of it seems to entitle the individual to few if any social privileges. The type of culture pattern glorifying the army seems to exist in the first and second generation immigrants much more than in the bulk of native Americans. In short, this technique culturally does not appeal so well here as in Europe. The second reason is that American Fascism is not yet ready numerically to try to make use of that type of technique very widely. It is of particular value in welding together rather large groups; Fascism in the United States does not yet have those groups sufficiently organized to be ready for unification and integration. In the present situation the gathering or parading of uniformed members of Fascist organizations is of little value as a technique because it often results in unpleasantness for those parading, running from the hurling of jibes to the hurling of bricks. That is, the disorganizing influences are sufficiently strong to balance, at least as far as the nation as a whole is concerned, the possible values to Fascism accruing to the group engaged in the technique. When or if, however, American Fascism becomes more widely accepted, we may expect it, in its political phase at least, to make just as wide use of this technique as European Fascism already has.

The Fascist technique of "swift justice" has as yet not made much headway in the United States. There is, however, an evident trend toward speeding up and harshening criminal justice

The United States, almost en masse, frowned upon the long drawn out Hauptmann trial. The unsuccessful Congressional fight for an anti-lynching law clearly shows that a large percentage of Americans condone lynching. Governor Rolph of California even publicly announced himself to be among that group, as far as ‘♦punishment” for kidnapping was concerned.

The growth of judicial Fascism may arise in this manmer: popular discontent, usually largely of economic origin, seizes upon academic criticism of courts and law as 8 justification of mob violence. This reacts upon vote-conscious and public-opinionconscicus jurists who compete to convert justice into a summary process for the conviction of the accused. An example of the growth of a somewhat different Fascistic sentiment among lawyers is ensampled by a resolution unanimously voted by the Riverside Bar Association to refuse to defend a Communist in court. Under the guise of reforming our criminal law we may be fashioning an efficient instrument for the use of the new terrorists, whomsoever they may

Another technique now in use in the Fascist movement in the United States is the myth. All social movements during what we have called their second or popular stage seem to acquire or create myths. These are collective representations of what is, fundamentally, mass wish-fulfillment. Their range is wide. They may concern leaders, alive or dead, the movement, the opponents of the movement; in short, anything pertinent to the focus of attention. These myths are more important than might on the surface be expected. They spread rapidly and widely; they need not be rational, for they are not accepted by proof, but on faith; proof is superfluous. They are highly important in creating a focus of attention, rapport, and group unity.

It is certain that American Fascism has not sufficiently emerged to have anything like its full quote of myths; but it does have examples to serve as straws in the wind. That a Fascist movement makes great use of myths cannot be doubted by one who has made even a cursory examination of Fascism in Europe.

Among the myths of American Fascism, those of Huey Long were the first to loom as being important. Long started the myth of dividing up the national income so that everyone would have $5,000. It was believed because people wanted to believe it—mass wish-fulfillment. Then Long was killed, and a myth grew up about his life, his greatness, and his work so that in many quarters he has assumed almost heroic proportions.

The Roosevelt myth is another American myth. That is, the myth of Roosevelt’s dictatorship. This collective representation has two sides. One group believes that it would be congenitally impossible for Roosevelt to be a dictator; that he might have the chance and, like Caesar, each time refuse. The other side of this myth is the belief that Roosevelt already is a dictator and has been since 1933, that his word is law, and that as dictator he is bringing about a Fascist state just as rapidly as is humanly possible. Obviously this myth does not take into account the numerous reverses he has suffered, and the vociferous opposition which is obviously a thorn in his flesh. Rut as before mentioned, reason is conspicuous by its absence where myths are concerned.

A rather common myth has to do with the numbers of the membership of the various organizations. Anything less than millions is just "small stuff." Fifty per cent errors in total enrollment are the rule rather than the exception.

Frobably the most fundamentally Important of these myths is that of the Communist menace. The incipient American Fascist organizations are in substantial agreement on this point at least: The hand of Moscow is seen in every strike. “Laboragitator" and “Red” are synonymous. The Jews have already taken over the economic life of the country and are merely waiting a

convenient time to combine the U. S. A. and the U. S. S. R. Such is the material of which this myth is made, and rational or not, it cannot be ignored. In fact, the "Red Menace" has been a favorite subject in America since the World War, and for that reason many people unconnected in any way with Fascism, are falling or are preparing to fall under the influence of this myth. There can be no doubt that that if Fascism increases in power in America, the "Red Menace" will be one of its chief foci of attention.

Another myth is now doing, end likely will continue to do, yeoman service. That is the myth which avers that democracy and the capitalistic system are irrevocably doomed. We are then left the choice of Communism or Fascism, with the assumption that Fascism is obviously the better of the two. It is wholly upon this myth that Lawrence Dennis has written The Coming American Fascism and numerous articles. Whether he or someone else originated this myth I do not know, but it is very widely exploited by the better American Fascist writers. A variant of this myth is even more widely held: e. g., that capitalism and private property can continue only with considerable government interference and the strengthening of the economic system along what may or may not be recognized as-Fascist lines.

Peculiar among these myths, and interesting as an example of to what extremes they may go and still find some credence is that concerning William D. Pelley. This leader of the Silver Shirts, who claims great spiritualistic powers, has convinced (seemingly) certain of his followers that he ascended to heaven during a rigorous trance and for seven minutes held communion with Jesus Christ and returned with instructions to found the Protestant Christian Militia, which any observer, and he himself, admits is almost like Hitler*s Storm Troops.

Myths, then, running from rank mysticism to pseudological rationalism, are already current in this emerging American Fascist movement. And we may most logically expect to see them grow in numbers, variety, and irrationality as the movement continues.

One rather modern technique has yet to be mentionedthe use of the radio broadcast. Without a doubt the Fascist movement in America will use this technique to the fullest. Already its use has been quite noticeable, not to say outstanding. Huey Long made monumental use of it, with a very high degree of success. Father Coughlin based his whole appeal and drew all his power from his radio "sermons.” Gerald H. K. Smith is said to practically live in a sound truck. The only barriers to even

greater use of this technique for spreading the spoken word are equipment and finances, and if precedent means anything, the emerging American Fascism will lack for neither if it continues at a steady rate of growth. The present extensive use of the technique in Germany and Italy give us a forecast as to its use in America.

What we see, then, is that the techniques now employed or likely to be employed in the future by the American Fascist movement are essentially those which any social movement might be expected to employ. Fascism in America will use most of the techniques which its predecessors in Surope used. It will, of course, change them to fit the American scene, but fundamentally they will be the same. Sinclair Lewis, although somewhat hazy on fundamentals, gives us about the clearest picture of the techniques probably to be used in America.

A large number of these techniques will be the more successful beceuse they are end have been present in the germinal stage on the American scene for a considerable number of years and will undoubtedly be quite effectively disguised as being techniques of “Americanism. *

A Communist would view this Fascist use of established techniques with even more alarm than we. R. P. Dutt asserts that the traditional tactics and methods of domination of the American bourgeoisie would be adapted to Fascism in proportion as occasion arises. The people of the United States, he says, have not had experience as other peoples in the domination of colonial people, but they have had plenty of experience in their own domain in the suppression of the twelve million Negroes in the United States and the heavily exploited immigrant population. It seems impossible to him that anyone can recall the Chicago hangings, Scottsboro, the violent and coercive methods of the coal mining and steel areas, the private armies of big employers, the anti-Red drive of the Department of Justice after the War, and the waves of sudden expansion of the Ku Klux Klan, without seeing the plentiful basis for Fascism in American bourgeois traditions.

The techniques we mentioned are some which are beginning to be employed by American Fascism and which would unquestionably be employed more extensively if the movement reaches a greater height. These techniques will be largely those used by Fascism in Europe and social movements in general, but they will be of peculiar potency because many of them are known and traditionally recognized, in a minor form, in the American milieu.

X Cf. Park, Robert ®., and Burgess.EErnest W., Introduction to the Science of Sociology, p. 837. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1933.

2 lbid., p. 840.

3 Cf. Van Faassen, Pierre, and Wise, Jas. W. (Editors), Nasism: An Assault on Civilization, New York, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934.

4 Cf. Bohn, Frank and Sly, Richard, The Great Change, pp. 126-127. New York, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1935.

5 Cf. Spivak, John L., America Faces the Barricades, pp. 172-173.

6 lbid., pp. 204-205.

7 lbid.. p. 192.

New Republic, Vol. 88, p. 4, August 12, 1956.

g Cf. Spivak, John L., op. cit., p. 175.

10 Ibid., pp. 184-186.

John L., op. cit.. p. 239.

12 See Chapter V, p. 120.

13 Cf. Dineen, Joseph, "An American Fuehrer Organizes an Army," American Magazine, Vol. 124, No. 8, pp. 14 ff., 1937.

brought by the State of New York under a state law regulating secret societies.

15 Cf. Brooks, Robert C., Deliver Us from Dictators, pp 90-95. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935.

lsSee Chapter V, p. 121.

17 Cf. Dineen, Joseph, op. cit., pp. 147-148.

l®Cf. McWilliams, Carl, “Fascism in American Law,” American Mercury, Vol. 29, No. 6, pp. 199-201, .Tune, 1934.

19 Cf. Lewis, Sinclair, It Can*t Happen Here.

20 Cf. Dutt, R. Palme, Fascism and Social Revolution, pp. 260-282.

CHAPTER VIII AN EMERGING AMERICAN FASCISM: CRISES AND OPPOSITION

Fascism is 8 crises movement. Its advent in America came as the result of a great crisis; it grows as crises continue, and if it reaches full fruition, it will do so as the result of another great disturbance.

In both Italy and Germany Fascism arose as the result of crises. In Italy the post-war depression created a condition which started Fascism*s growth, and the exigency precipitated by the threat of a general strike and the threat of the rise to power of Communism brought it to maturity. In Germany the post-war inflation, reparation, end depression brought Nazism to the forefront, end the "prepared” crisis caused by the statement that the Communists were planning to burn the state buildings and take over the government brought Nazism to full power.

It is in response to a crisis that the war-time mentality and mobilization of national resources so essential to Fascism are created. Fascism must have a foe, and the crisis furnishes that foe, usually internal rather than external.

In America the great contributing emergency was the depression of the early thirties. It caused the unrest, disor ganization, fermentation, and need for united action that the post-war depression of Europe furnished European Fascism. Had it not been for the depression it is likely that no indigenous Fascist organizations would be present in America.

Since our second and third chapters dealt somewhat in detail with the conditions--economic, political, and sociel—of this crisis, it will be unnecessary again to make a thorough study of them. Suffice it to say that every time capitalism and liberal democracy stumble, Fascism progresses. And from 1929 to 1935 capitalism stumbled so badly that there is a group which meintrins it not only stumbled, but nearly fell never to rise again.

It was, then, from this economic crisis that American Fascism began to emerge. It furnished the requisite unrest, dissatisfaction, and disorder needed by any social movement in its incipiency. The period of 1929-1933 was one of emotional tension. It was a time when the public imagination, made dangerous by the depression, was toying with the dangerous thought of a short-cut to recovery. It was the period of Father Cox, of Waters and his Bonus Expeditionary Force, of "Khaki Shirt" Art Smith, Howard Smith and Technocracy, Milo Reno and his Farm Holiday association of

mortgage-ridden farmers, Jay Franklin and his “Nationalist” movement, Sugene Daniell and his ’’American Nationalists,” Lester Barlow and his “Minute Men,” Pelley and his “Silver Shirts,” George W. Christians and his “White Shirts,” Colonel Simmons and his revival of the K. K. K., and, ominously, a revival of anti-Semitic feeling. Hysterical and hollow as most of these movements may seem in retrospect, they were indubitable symptoms of an explosively dangerous national frame of mind. They are reminiscent of Italy in 1920-1921, of Poland in 1926, and of Germany under Dr. Bruening. What was lacking to transform all this incipient Fascism into a dangerous national challenge was the appearance of a colorful, realistic, popular leader on the European model. It was the good fortune of America that no fuehrer

In the moment of greatest danger an election occurred. In the same sense that the British nation had done a year before, the American people elected 8 popular leader with such an overwhelming majority tnat he was able to go ahead with admirable courage, unhampered by overscrupulous hesitation. It is doubtful if the average American has recognized the blessing of this development as many objective foreigners did. It is difficult

to imagine what might have happened if the election of 1932 had stubbornly assigned the same power as before to the different governmental factors so that they could have continued to neutralize 2 each other.

It has been Roosevelt’s destiny, unpremeditatedly, both to halt and create an American Fascist possibility. The possibility which he halted was the inchoate but potentially explosive Fascism which pervaded the whole atmosphere at his inauguration. Because it never found a detonator, few Americans realize how close we came to an organized black shirt challenge to the government in the closing months of Hoover’s administration. A dynamic demagogue, had he appeared, might easily have enacted the Hitler r6le in America. It was Roosevelt’s genius to sublimate all this floating and incalculably dangerous Fascism into the much milder alternative of his own New Deal.s

So much for the crisis from which American Fascism emerged. That emergency seems over and much of its influence put to an end by exigencies of the Fascist movement itself. Chief of these was the peaceful election of Roosevelt, already mentioned. Not quite so much in the nature of a crisis, but of much importance to Fascism, was the upturn of business about the time of Roosevelt's second election.

This upward trend served as a damper on Fascist growth. Fascism needs some foe, some great enmity requiring the unquestioning unity end obedience of the whole population. The depression was such an enemy, and when it began to disappear the Fascists were left in the same embarrassing position in which Don Quixote found himself so often. As long as the depression continued, Fascism had a good chance. Fascism purports to be an essential remedy for an almost intolerable situation. When the situation is withdrawn, the chances for a nation to accept Fascism are considerably lessened.

American Fascism in general has suffered several minor crises in the form of crises of its organization or leaders. One such of chief importance was the death of Huey P. Long. At Long's death the most promising Fascist organization in America suffered disruption and disorganization. Like all dictator-controlled organizations, Long’s "Share the Wealth" movement was held together by his own dynamic personality and demagogic oratory, and when they ceased to function the opposition overwhelmed the only really strong Fascist unit so far to arise on American soil, with the

possible exception of the revived Ku Klux Klan of the early 1920'5. Long was the only leader who has thus far arisen who could unite the scattered forces and potential powers of Amer ican Fascism.

Seemingly Long’s only possible successor. Father Coughlin, was able to build up some of the Fascist sentiment latent in the vicinity of Detroit. But by allying himself with the Roosevelt opposition and by foreswearing the use of the radio in case of Roosevelt’s election, he himself destroyed nearly all the influence he had acquired. Coughlin would have been, and may still be, of great service to any competent leader who seeks to assume leadership of an emerging Fascist movement.

A crisis which would have been very important had it continued was the rapid decline of the sit-down strike. Nothing would seem to be more conducive to the growth of Fascism than a labor movement which seems to be getting too strong for the employers to control. A really competent Fascist leader might have been able to twist the significance of those strikes to the extent of using them as a rationalization for a coup d’etat to circumvent what he would call the “rise of Communism.”

In Europe this very sort of labor trouble was one of the chief causes for the rise to power of the reactionary movement True, there were Fascist organizations waiting to pounce upon such an opportunity. We were extremely fortunate that American Fascism had not emerged to a stage making such a thing possible in this country. I am inclined to think a great deal of credit is due John L. Lewis for having been able to avoid too much of the stigma of Communism in his strikes.

The strikes in the automobile industry afforded the best change for a rapid increase in power for the American Fascist movement since the bank failures immediately preceding the inauguration of Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s action, more than anything else, kept that crisis from growing into one of the first magnitude. Another such banking crisis seems very improbable, but an emergency growing out of a thoroughly organized strike, such as would be possible for either of our riv«l labor factions to precipitate, might cause a wave of reaction which would sweep Fascism into power on its crest.

Just what are the forces or factors most important in holding back the rapid growth of a Fascist movement? Probably Fascism’s greatest obstacle lies in the fact that it is associated with dictatorship and the suppression of personal liberty. Americans have a heritage of liberal tradition, and are arbitrarily opposed to any decrease in what they consider their “rights,* whether there is eny rational value in those rights or not. The

word “liberty” has been mouthed so often, and dictatorship is so patently its antithesis, that Fascism will possibly be under the necessity of creating a number of new words to avoid the onerous connotation which many terms used by Fascism now possess. 4

A tradition of freedom and individualism have been drummed into our youth for generations. It will be much harder to get the ordinary person to accept the idea of being controlled by a dictator than to get him to accept any other Fascist principle. For this reason it is quite plausible that Fascism in the United States will do without an actually declared dictator. Congress may turn into a complete rubber stamp. An economic oligarchy may have the government at its beck and call, but a self-declared, open dictator is extremely unlikely. The American people may learn to want Fascism, they may be led into it, they possibly will be fooled into it, but they will hardly submit to being driven into it.

A further difficulty lies in the feet that Fascism seems to show itself strongest in those countries where the military tradition is an accepted culture pattern, so that it is possible for a militia to support e domination for whose existence

there are also precedents. In the United States uniforms are largely disregarded; the army and navy are not a force in politics The American tradition takes pride that there is no taint of militarism in its world outlook. In America political Fascism lacks that ladder by which it often mounts to power. But the spirit with which our citizenry responded to World War propaganda shows us that such a ladder would not be impossible to construct.

What other forces might counteract Fascism? There are, first, such fundamentally anti-Fascist groups as the Communists and Socialists. But these groups need not be considered as being of prime importance. Earl Browder and Norman Thomas will certainly do their part to try to awaken the quiescent and inert American public to the dangers of an incipient Fascism. But the number of people who can be influenced by either of these is decidedly limited.

Where else can the anti-Fascist movement find supporters? Surely the Jews and Negroes, who would both undoubtedly suffer greatly, should be in the front ranks of this counter movement. So they are; but what is their influence with the great middle class? Today the Jew has much of the wealth of America, and much of the talent, and should have much of the power. Actually, antagonism toward the Jews is no new thing. It will not have to be born; neither will it have to be ’’sold” to a skeptical public. It is already here. The embers are so numerous and scattered so far, that the .Tews will never be able to put them out. But these same embers could burst into an all-consuming hysteria with a minimum of fanning. We do not know how much Nazi propaganda the Jews have been able to counteract. But we do know that there is at the present time a spirit of antagonism against the Jews which, though held in check now, under certain conditions could be unleashed and made to set a new record for intolerance in this country. The Jew must certainly be counted high in the list of rabid anti-Fascists, but his influence is not strong enough to be of much value as a deterrent to Fascism.

The Negro has been and still is looked upon as an inferior. In the south, where his numbers might make him politically important, any idea held by or sponsored by the Negro is flouted as valueless simply because of its origin, and never taken on its own merits. The Negro may be ’’America’s Tenth Man,” but he is extremely unlikely in the near future to be able either to put himself on an equal footing with or wield any influence over the other nine men.

And speaking of nine men, it is the “Nine Old Men,” the Supreme Court, who at first sight loom as extremely important bulwarks on the list of anti-Fascists. The majority seem the

conservatives of the conservative, and will ponderously smite sny governmental Fascism which may become apparent. They stand, at first glance, as an impenetrable barrier to any legal Fascist steps; but can they really be counted on as such? The answer is "No.” In the first place, the death or resignation of only one or two justices could metamorphose them into anything but the ultra-conservative group which they have the reputation of being. In any event, Congress completely overrode and intimidated the Supreme Court when it put into effect in the south its clearly unconstitutional reconstruction plan. What has been done once might be done again. Therefore, while we may consider the Supreme Court as some safeguard against Fascism, it is very far from an impregnable one.

The Supreme Court will, of course, be valuable only in preventing a gradual growth of governmental Fascism. If a real crisis were to occur and the reaction to it were to bring Fascism to power, Fascism would consolidate its position so rapidly that by the time the Supreme Court got around to ruling on the constitutionality of the proceedings, it would be too late for its rulings to be efficacious.

As we mentioned previously, we may not look to the church for much opposition to Fascism. Our Fascists make a considerable show of “religion,” and probably will do little to

antagonize the church. The Catholic Church may even go so far as tacitly to support the movement as it has already done on this continent in the case of the Canadian Fascist movement centering in the province of Quebec. Numbers of Fascist leaders are clergy men--Coughlin, Winrod, end Gerald Smith to name just a few. Some ministers would take a stand against many of the Fascist principles and techniques, but in the main they would probably accept Fascism as inevitable. Don Chase tells us that in one community in the Imperial Valley where Fascist technique in handling labor resulted in violence, of half a dozen Protestant ministers, only one dared or cared to speak out. The rest were either in favor 5 of the Fascist program or afraid to oppose it.

Among the difficulties which those who would warn us against Fascism must combat are the inertia and lack of understanding and Information of the American public. Of the two groups, Fascists and anti-Fascists, the Fascists, except for tradition, probably have the advantage. The majority of the people of America are much more conservative than they are often given credit for being; and Fascism is reactionary. That hinders any anti-Fascist movement, for the Fascist movement is and will be

strong also in the more mobile, influential and radical minority. That minority, even to a greater extent than most Americans, is susceptible to gadgets, whether they be mechanical, political, or otherwise. This group, if and when it desires a change, will be captured by Fascist thought. Then when the battle begins between the Fascist movement and the anti-Fascist movement for popu ler favor, the Fascist group will have a great advantage. Anti- Fascism can only warn against a change, and recommend that things be left relatively untouched, hoping that the situation precipitating the crisis will remedy itself if given time. On the other hand, Fascism has a definite program, it makes plenty of shining promises, and offers to remedy specific problems if just given the chance. It sees many evils, concrete and imaginary, in the present system, and hesitates not to point them out when call ing for a change.

Another of Fascism’s very definite advantages lies in the fact that it is trying to get something done, to accomplish some set aim. This once being done, may not easily be undone, and Fascism’s job is in the main completed. But anti-Fascism is faced with the disappointing task of ever vigilant watchfulness. Suppose an extremity arises and Fascism secures itself in the saddle. Then it is in to stay for some time; for Fascism, by its nature, does not tolerate opposition. Suppose when this emergency arises that the anti-Fascist movement is successful. That merely means that for the time being Fascism is relegated to second place. Democracy, by its very nature, must allow Fascism to try again and again, each time there is a crisis. And therefore there are chances that sooner or later Fascism is going to triumph for the single time necessary for its success.

We find, then, that American Fascism is largely a crisis movement. It made its chief strides as the result of crises, and if it rises to power it will probably be because of a national crisis. The opposition is not very well organized or powerful at present, consisting, except for tradition, almost whol ly of groups rather low in public favor who fear its oppression. The gradual growth of the American Fascist movement is somewhat hindered by this opposition at present, but given a real emergency it may override that opposition.

Our conclusion from available data on basic social trends in the United States is to the effect that the discernible drift is toward Fascism, although it has not yet accelerated to a speed that suggests inevitability. Yet there seems to exist no anti-Fascist forces strong enough to check completely that drift. The uniqueness of American institutions will not alone prevent a coalescence of forces that may untimately welcome a Fascist attempt to solve the problems of the continuing social crisis; only uni£ fication of the opposing forces can prevent it.

Varney, H. L., "The Truth About American Fascism,” American Mercury, Volume 41, pp, 385-398, August, 1937.

B Cf. Simon, Hugo, Revolution Whither Sound?, pp. 31-32.

5 Cf. Varney, H. E., op. cit.

4 Cf. Varley, Kirton, The Gospel of Fascism, pp. 47-49. N. Y. , The Generation Press, 1934.

$Cf. Chase, Don, tt A California Fascist Retreats,” Christian Century, Vol. 53, p. 1356, October 14, 1936.

®Cf. Matthews, J. 8., and Shallcross, R. E., "Must America Go Fascist?", Harpers, Vol. 169, pp. 1-15, June, 1934.

CHAPTER IX AN EMERGING AMERICAN FASCISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE

In the study of social movements in general or any social movement in particular, one can not overlook the outcome of such a movement. As a social movement nears its end, social change becomes apparent. The movement, if successful, ends in an institution, which in this light we may consider as crystallized social change. Fascism in Europe has given rise to multitudinous social changes, and we may very logically expect the same of American Fascism if the movement continues to grow.

At the present time, however, American Fascism has given rise to few social changes. This can be largely attributed to the lack of maturity of the movement. At this time our Fascists seem to content themselves generally with bending to their own purposes already existing American tendencies, techniques, and mores. Some of these tendencies have been speeded up or strengthened, others have been hindered in their growth; publicity has thrown light on others; but few if any actual changes have been made in the existing culture patterns. But American Fascism, if it continues to grow, may be expected to

furnish foundation-shaking social changes.

In the United States the question of direct Fascist organization is still one of confused tendencies and beginnings; from these tendencies more developed Fascist organizations may be expected to emerge. The contest in America at present would seem to be somewhat different from what it was in pre-Fascist Europe. Force does not seem to be the field in which Fascism is now striving. If it is possible for Fascism slowly and peacefully to evolve out of liberal capitalism rather than be a result of force, then America is the place in which it will take place. Probably this evolution will be brought to an end by some crisis precipitating Fascism into power before it has had time to evolve to the final stage. But the further the evolution, the smaller the necessary crisis

It is the psychology of people that when they no longer know exactly what to do, when they no longer feel self-sufficient and able to cope with their world, then they welcome someone who will tell them what to do, who speaks with the voice of authority, and in whom they think they can repose complete trust. They welcome authority and do not question it overmuch, for if therein they cannot find refuge the ills that beset them, where else can they turn? The wide acceptance of Franklin D. Roosevelt is

sufficient proof of this statement applied to the American scene.

Our size, some protection against tyranny, is not proof against self-inflicted tyranny. We submitted to something approaching autocracy, which was strangely Fascistic, during the War. We accepted it then because we preferred unity in a crisis to freedom; and we would accept it again if we found we preferred unity in another crisis. War is not the only crisis that can unite a sprawling nation; economic despair would work just as well.

But when the demagogue becomes dictator in some new crisis his economics here as in Europe will have to be the economics of state capitalism. He cannot in reality solve his problems by breaking big business up into little business. He will have to attempt some sort of planned economy, and that will require an immense degree of national control and a considerable amount of national ownership. This national control and ownership will be directed toward saving what can be saved of the status of the middle class and of the institution of private profit. But even these institutions will be subordinate to nationalism and the power of the dictator, who will be under the necessity of rewarding his followers and maintaining the dominant position of his own party.

However, it is apparent, even from this rough sketch,

that the economic aspect of Fascism may become clearly developed here without its having yet taken the sharply repressive political form. This is a variant from the course of events on the continent and follows more nearly the developments in England. It shows, therefore, that where democratic forms of government have become firmly established, the economic purpose of Fascism, the attempt to preserve a failing economy, is able to express itself for a while through them. Where there are no revolutionary parties approaching the point where they can make a bid for power, there is no need to start a defensive civil war against them or to attempt a forcible or unconstitutional seizure of power, as European Fascism has done. With no revolutionary parties strong enough to cause the defenders of the existing order any alarm, we nevertheless notice an attempt to make it impossible for them to grow, as is clearly evident from present attempts to pass repressive legislation in the states and in Congress. There is a powerful drive to pass a Federal sedition bill designed to make it impossible for those who wish to reconstruct our economic order to organize, meet, or circulate printed matter. Accompanying this drive on Congress is an organized attempt to get the states to pass a law which could be administered so as to make it impossible for parties of such radicals to get the ballot. If these or similar laws can be passed, it will not be necessary for the financial interests of this country to spend any money in support of Nazi Storm Troops. The repression of the forces they fear can be accomplished by due process of law, under the form of an allegedly democratic state.

This does not mean that the brutalities of Fascist bands in Italy and Germany could not be duplicated here. The vigilante tradition is a prominent feature of the American milieu. Its habit of lawless violence, first in the supposed interest of the community and then in behalf of private interests, has long been transfered to our industrial struggle. The record of brutal violence against striking workers, by both public and private forces, blots almost every page of our industrial history. This premonitory characteristic of Fascism has long been present with us. If the economic conflict becomes more acute, if the standard of living of the workers becomes still lower, we may see more of this illegal Fascist violence and brutality.

Before the extreme type of Fascist state, boldly repudiating democratic procedure and openly resting on force and violence, can be established in this country, it must secure sufficient popular support; that is, it must get a mass base. Our economic Fascism might secure this for itself by glowing promises to restore our material prosperity. When these have worn thin and lost their holding power, it could resort to stronger measures. A completely repressive type of Fascism will not find sufficient popular acclamation or toleration until one of two events provides the necessary attitude of fear: the complete break-down of economic security, or the coming of war.

It is quite possible that war will come first The multiplication of the points at which war now threatens reveal the pressure of the underlying forces. The Fascist state, which a declining capitalism has created in a last, desperate effort to prolong its life, seems a war-making state. Its economic policies accentuate all the other tendencies to war. This Fascist characteristic is manifest here, as elsewhere, in our growing economicnationalism. In common with the other capitalist powers, we have entered upon an extensive trade war. The weapons are depreciation of currency, manipulation of tariffs, limitation of imports, and subsidizing of exports. The inevitable outcome of these policies, as well as the general world-wide economic and political instability, is reflected in our extensive war preparations. War provides a temporary release from, and a momentary check of, the economic insecurity which capitalism has produced and seems unable to abolish. As a part of the process of supposed recovery, we are planning war as never before in our history. We are thinking war, and beginning to talk war.

If war is declared the full development of the Fascist state in this country probably will be attempted. This is made quite clear by the answers of the representatives of the military authorities to the Nye Committee concerning the kind of controlling legislation for which they will then ask. It is then that the Fascist developments of the past few years will be pushed to whatever fruition they are capable of reaching in the American environment. It is then that we shall discover whether there are present here sufficient forces to stop both the war and the formation of the full-blown Fascist state. It is then that we shall find out whether there is now within the American nation the capacity to continue to carry over the principles of democracy to the control of our economic life.

As has already been shown, war is almost sure to bring on some form of American Fascism. In 1917-1918, there were no precedents for Fascism; neither had the American people recently gone through a catastrophic depression such as they now vividly remember. The faith of the middle class man in the institutions of liberal capitalism and laissez-faire had never been actually assailed, much less seriously shaken; nevertheless, we had a Fascist-type dictatorship. Should we enter into s var in the next few years, the outlook would certainly be bright for American Fascism. We will never age in engage in a small war. Any war into which the American people can be propagandized will necessarily be a world affair. In such a war, endurance and wise use of resources will count more than anything else, and nothing but complete Fascist control of our country would make us as efficient as we would need to be. These last statements do not appear debatable, and it certainly seems indicated that such Fascism find itself in power for a period of years and under such conditions, only national defeat in war could defeat Fascism.

Another such foundation-shaking depression as we have recently passed through might well serve the same purpose as a war. The past depression showed the American people some of the benefits of placing their various liberal prerogatives in temporary discard, and showed few of the injuries which might be expected to be the outcome therefrom. The majority of people in the United States acquired a number of semi-Fascistic attitudes and ideas during the past depression, and a great many of these feelings are at present merely being held in abeyance until some occasion may call them again to the foreground; the slow return of prosperity seems to be removing the need, seeming or real, for the exercise of these semi-Fascistic principles. Nothing yet has completely disproved to the majority of the people the validity of these principles. Should another great depression strike us soon and forcefully, this time the American Fascists would find ” U

the ground already prepared for the seeds of their doctrine. Liberal capitalism was fortunate to survive the past recession as well as it did; or rather, as well as it is doing, for we cannot yet say that the recession has ended, even though the signs point to a fair degree of recovery. But a new major depression might easily find the American people in 8 more receptive mood for Fascist doctrines, and there is no doubt that it would find the Fascists in a much better position than in 1930.

I do not mean that the people of the United States ere anxious to stray far from the old paths, but after all they have witnessed they are increasingly prepared to attempt to straighten those paths where it may seem necessary. The straightening has seemingly begun; it may be a slow, halting process, but a new America would not be capitalist in the old sense, nor would it be Communist. If at the moment the trend is toward Fascism, it is an American Fascism embodying the experience, the traditions, and the culture patterns of a great middle class nation.

When this Fascist trend is likely to become a completed movement we cannot so easily say. As long as the American capital istic system can keep out of war and out of such catastrophic depressions as we experienced and are experiencing in the decade from 1930 to 1940, it can keep afloat, steering a zig-zag course by the uncertain charts afforded by either the Democratic or

Republican party, switching from one thing to another, but always avoiding actual Fascism. Let us be caught again in a war or plunged into another really dangerous depression, end the new crisis, whatever it may be, may bring the occasion for a fullblown American Fascism, and we may see that ”It Can Happen Here. w

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