A Genealogy of the Extraterrestrial in American Culture

a Jew to own property in the United States," and to "defranchise [sic] the Jew by Constitutional
Amendment." These “reforms” were to take place in the newly emerged Christian
Commonwealth envisioned by Pelley. Said commonwealth, a post-rebirth adaptation of the
utopian principles outlined by Pelley in his Philosopher juvenilia, was to be the spearhead in the
epochal battle between Aryans and Jewry, a battle of cosmic import and proportions. His run
for president proved less than successful—placing him on the ballot in only one state,
Washington (a state that would be among the few nominating Pat Robertson a half-century later).
The beginning of Pelley’s legal problems preceded his run for president by some two
years. In 1934, the newly formed House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American
Activities sent a representative to Asheville, N.C. who, cooperating with local authorities, seized
Pelley’s financial records. Later that same month the State of North Carolina indicted Pelley on
charges of fraud, charges of which he was convicted in January of the following year. The
“Chief,” as he was known among the Silver Shirts, continued to attract the attention of federal
authorities, openly vilifying Roosevelt as “the lowest form of human worm” and accusing him of
a variety of crimes. 169
While Roosevelt expressed an interest in bringing Pelley up on charges of
libel nothing came of it, but in 1939, Pelley and the Silver Shirts again became the target of the
House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities, newly reconvened
under Chairman Martin Dies. The investigation was complicated by appeals and outstanding
legal problems in North Carolina, and came to a head with Pelley arrested under the 1917
Espionage Act on 4 April 1942. He was sentenced in Indianapolis and remanded to the custody
of the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute with a sentence of fifteen years. Upon his release, he
would take up residence in Noblesville, Indiana and start Soulcraft Press as a vehicle for his
ongoing clairaudient revelation.
169 Ribuffo, 74.
101