Shirt Business

Last week at Asheville, N. C. a Federal judge signed an order directing a U. S. marshal to take possession of all assets of Galahad Press, Inc. Galahad Press formally "averred" to the court that it should be declared bankrupt. Among its creditors a local printer claimed $2,695, an editor claimed $130 pay, a firm in Washington $111. This routine little failure was a blow to no great publisher, but it was a blow to a big man in the shirt business.

Once upon a time William Dudley Pelley was a newspaper man in Vermont. Later he was a spiritualist. Since January 1933 he has occupied the exalted post of commander and promoter of the silver-shirted Silver Legion (claimed membership: 100,000). Galahad Press published Liberation, a weekly magazine with which Shirtman Pelley publicized Silver Shirt ideals, attacked Jews for ruining the world, attacked the Federal Reserve System for being run by Jews, attacked NRA as a plan to sovietize the U. S., referred to Franklin D. Roosevelt as "President Rosenfeld."

Last week Commander Pelley was not in Asheville when his press slumped into bankruptcy. He was reported in California, where the Silver Shirts are relatively strong in number. Asheville believed he would return to examine the financial ruins of his publishing house. But whether he did or not, Asheville knew it would hear of him again, for last week the special House of Representatives' committee chairmanned by Massachusett's McCormack announced that it would begin in Asheville shortly its investigation of Nazi propaganda in the U. S.

Decade ago the No. 1 business in race prejudice in the U. S. was the Ku Klux Klan which passed its heyday when the huge profits of its rulers were disclosed and some of them were sent to prison. The Klan still functions from its Georgia headquarters and claims to be coming back but the rise of Mussolini's black shirts and Hitler's brown shirts gave a new twist to the racial clothing business. Sheets were changed for shirts. New organizations sprang up in which Klan philosophy, Fascist ideas and economic nostrums were crossbred to appeal to a Depression-sick country. Today there are no less than six colors of shirts operating in the U. S.

Khaki. First shirt organization to gain wide attention was the Khaki Shirts (claimed membership: 25,000), founded by Art J. Smith (christened Herbert N.) after the 1932 bonus march on Washington. Its membership was open to all U. S. citizens who subscribed to the Constitution, believed in a white man's God, paid $2 a year to Mr. Smith, and bought his khaki shirts, boots, etc. His program included "America for Americans," abolition of the gold standard, a greenback bonus, freedom for the Philippines, abolition of the "chainstore evil" free coinage of silver. Not its assorted panaceas but the imbroglios of its chief brought the Khaki Shirts its notoriety. Last July when Art Smith was holding a meeting in New York's Queens, antiFascists demonstrated against him and one of them was killed. Before a grand jury Smith accused one Athos Terzani of the killing. Terzani was tried for murder and acquitted before one of Smith's followers, who had paid $2 to be made a captain, confessed the killing. Last week the Khaki Shirts were much disrupted: General Smith, having been convicted of perjury in falsely accusing Terzani, was sentenced to six years in jail.

White. Chattanooga, Tenn., is the home but Idaho, Oregon and Washington are the great strongholds of the Crusaders for Economic Liberty-- whose shirts are white. (Estimated membership: 40,000; claimed: 200,000.) Their patriotic-economic program is to destroy the gold standard, repudiate the public debt, fight inflation. George W. Christians, commander-in-chief of the Crusaders, was very indignant six weeks ago when Dr. Wirt said that the Brain Trust regarded President Roosevelt as the Kerensky of the U. S. revolution. Christians loudly claimed credit for having told Mr. Roosevelt that very thing at Warm Springs three months before his inaugural.

Black. In Atlanta, like the Klan, the American Fascisti (Order of Black Shirts) have their headquarters (claimed membership: 30,000). For a $3 application fee they promise an "up-to-the-minute ritual and all the new features that a new Fraternity should have" to those who believe in ''a Supreme Being . . . in the leadership and supremacy of the White Race . . . a Bible in every school . . . Old Glory floating over every public building." They urgently oppose atheism and Communism.

Silver. Since the Silver Legion regards not the white race but the Aryan race as God's chosen people, it stands closest in spirit, and reputedly in fact, to the real Nazis:

"Brown." The Friends of the New Germany (estimated membership: 22,000) is the title of Herr Hitler's followers in the U. S. They wear Nazi-like uniforms, are brownshirts at heart and sometimes in fact, although their official dress calls for white shirts. Though they do not admit it, they are virtually the Nazi organization in the U. S. Unlike the other shirt groups they are mainly German-Americans with a great reverence for Hitler, a strong desire to uphold Hitlerism against the criticisms of U. S. Jews. They support the Hitler doctrines of "leadership" and "order"; that is, dictatorship. But their main interest lies overseas, and their chief hate against U. S. Jewry is because of its boycott against German goods.

Blue. As a Fascist organization, the Blue Shirts have their home in Montreal where their aims parallel those of General Owen O'Duffy's Irish Blue Shirts. With followers in the Midwest, they number some 15,000. In the U. S., however, there is another blue shirt organization--on the other side of the fence. The National Blue Shirt Minute Men (estimated membership 10,000) are the dire enemies of the Brown Shirts. Only fortnight ago a crowd of Blue Shirts attempted to storm a meeting of 2,000 Hitler supporters in Brooklyn. They burned an effigy of the Reich Chancellor in front of the Nazi meeting place, shouted "Down with Hitler, the murderer!", charged police lines four times. Other orders, not shirted, but engaged in the Klan-Fascist-secret-society-economic panacea business: Order of '76 (claimed membership: 100,000; estimated membership: 38); Croix de Feu, which denies any connection with U. S. politics, (estimated membership: 100).

*Not to be confused with the Crusaders, a young men's organization which worked hard and well for Repeal, is now, with reduced ranks, opposing Inflation.

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