Joseph Elsberry McWilliams (1904 – 1996) was an American right-wing political figure of the 1940s, and the principal defendant in the federal

Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...

sedition trial of 1944.

Biography

McWilliams was born in 1904 to a poor pioneer family in

Hitchcock, Oklahoma Hitchcock is a town in Blaine County, Oklahoma, Blaine County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 121 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. Geography Hitchcock is located along Oklahoma State Highway 8. It is northeast of Waton ...

. In his earlier days McWilliams was well known for using an American-flag-draped covered Conestoga wagon for publicizing his rallies and speeches, as well as for drawing attention to his cause. Most of his early rallies were impromptu street presentations that at times ended violently, as one did on July 4, 1940 in New York City. A crowd which had supported McWilliams turned ugly when McWilliams began to disparage Jews, Communists and businessmen for the world's problems, and McWilliams was arrested. McWilliams used the arrest to further his cause through newspaper reports of his speech and the violence that resulted. In 1939, he led a group called Christian Mobilizers that splintered from the Christian Front founded by

Charles Coughlin Charles Edward Coughlin ( ; October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979), commonly known as Father Coughlin, was a Canadian-American Catholic priest based in the United States near Detroit. He was the founding priest of the National Shrine of the ...

. McWilliams supported an escalation on the violence against Jews and communists and also supported cooperation with the

German American Bund The German American Bund, or the German American Federation (german: Amerikadeutscher Bund; Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, AV), was a German-American Nazi organization which was established in 1936 as a successor to the Friends of New Germany (FoN ...

. In 1940, he ran for

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...

as a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

in the 18th Congressional District of New York, which is around the Yorkville section of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. After losing by a large margin, he ran for Congress under the American Destiny Party, a political organization he'd founded and based on the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

. McWilliams was disqualified from the ballot after failing to gather enough signatures. In 1944, McWilliams was identified as the main defendant in the government prosecution of 30 suspected conspirators and sympathizers under the

. The 30 were widely varied, including the anti-Capitalist Fascist

Lawrence Dennis Lawrence Dennis (December 25, 1893 – August 20, 1977) was a mixed-race American diplomat, consultant and author. He advocated fascism in America after the Great Depression, arguing that liberal capitalism was doomed and one-party planning of ...

. After seven months

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

Judge

Edward C. Eicher Edward Clayton Eicher (December 16, 1878 – November 30, 1944) was a United States representative from Iowa, federal securities regulator and Chief Justice of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. He was consid ...

died of a heart attack, causing a mistrial. After the war ended, the government chose not to pursue the case. After World War II, he briefly worked on the campaign of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Democratic Senator

Robert Rice Reynolds Robert Rice Reynolds (June 18, 1884 – February 13, 1963) was an American politician who served as a Democratic US senator from North Carolina from 1932 to 1945. Almost from the outset of his Senate career, "Our Bob," as he was known among ...

, who had been a fascist sympathizer. McWilliams died in 1996.

References

External links

Christian Affronters
Time Magazine, November 27, 1939.

Time Magazine, September 23, 1940.

Time Magazine, May 1, 1944. {{DEFAULTSORT:McWilliams, Joe 1904 births 1996 deaths 20th-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors American fascists American political consultants New York (state) Republicans Old Right (United States) People from Blaine County, Oklahoma American anti-communists Activists from New York City 20th-century far-right politicians in the United States Antisemitism in the United States