William Dudley Pelley, Silver Shirt leader whose glittering torsal garment has been more than a little tarnished by revelations of financial irregularity and by still pending charges of fraud under this state’s Blue Sky laws, works himself into a new fury against Jews in the September issue of his current venture into the shadowy fringes of journalism.
In a masterpiece of split infinitives and ringing economic inanities spread across nearly three full pages of Pelley’s Weekly, he sets forth “The New Emancipation Proclamation: the Silvershirt Platform.”
Under the sub-heading, “The Jews,” Pelley expresses himself as follows:
“We contract to impose racial quotas on the political and economic structure, observing rigorously in effect that no racial factions shall be allowed further occupancy of public or professional office in excess of the ratio of its blood-numbers to the remaining sum total of all the races completing the composition of the Body Politic.”
So that there can be no possible room for misunderstanding as to how this new Abraham-Lincoln-with-reverse-English feels on the entire subject, “The New Emancipation Proclamation” continues, under the heading, “Deportation of Aliens.”
“We shall expeditiously appoint Alien Registration Day throughout the public domain, in which all persons of Hebrew blood or extraction, or all persons not native-born or completely naturalized, shall be required under penalty of confiscation of their goods and a term of imprisonment, to register their nationalities, countries of birth, and dates and manners of their entries to this country.
“It shall be punishable by confiscation of goods and a term of imprisonment for any Hebrew to give a false or adopted Gentile name to secrete the evidence of his Jewish extraction, at the time of such registration or at any time in future, and legislative change of name shall not excuse such Hebrew from registration.
“Inasmuch as the Jewish people, native-born or otherwise, have published or otherwise attested that they consider themselves a nation with their own political integrity, and have pursued such political and ethical philosophy in their constant dealings with Christians, they shall there for and thereby be permanently relegated to the status of Resident Aliens inasmuch and insofar as civil prerogatives shall apply, unless they foreswear such Jewish political allegiance and take oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States regardless of American nativity.
“If any Jew thereafter shall be apprehended endorsing or giving moral or financial support to Jewish Nationalism operative in this country, he may be criminally prosecuted for sedition, and it shall be the arbitrary duty of the federal attorney to so prosecute him on complaint of three citizens.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
