Elizabeth Dilling

Elizabeth Dilling addressing the Senate Judiciary Committee, 11 January 1939[lower-roman 1][1]

Elizabeth Dilling (19 April 1894 – 26 May 1966) was an American writer and political activist.[2] A dedicated, and rabidly anti-semitic, anti-communist campaigner, in 1934 she published The Red Network—A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, which lists over 1,300 supposed radicals and communists (including international figures like Albert Einstein and Chiang Kai-shek).[3][4] Her books and lecture tours established her as the pre-eminent female right-wing activist of the 1930s, and one of the most effective opponents of the New Deal.[5][6]

Dilling was the most well-known leader of the World War II women's isolationist movement, a popular grass-roots campaign that pressured Congress to refrain from helping the Allies.[7][8] She was among 28 anti-war campaigners charged with sedition in 1942; the charges were dropped in 1946. Although academic studies have customarily neglected both the anti-war "mothers' movement" and right-wing activist women in general, and no biography of Dilling has been published, her books secured her a lasting influence among right-wing groups.[9][10][11]

Early life and family

Dilling was born Elizabeth Kirkpatrick in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Lafayette Kirkpatrick, was a surgeon of Scotch-Irish ancestry; her mother, Elizabeth Harding, was of English and French ancestry. Her father died when she was six weeks old, after which her mother added to the family's income by selling real estate. Dilling's brother, Kirkpatrick, who was seven years her senior, also sold real estate and became wealthy by the age of 23, after developing properties in Hawaii. Dilling had an Episcopalian upbringing, and attended a Catholic girls' school. She was extremely religious, and was known to send her friends 40-page letters about scripture. Prone to bouts of depression, she went on vacations in the US, Canada, and Europe with her mother. In 1912 she enrolled at the University of Chicago, where she studied music and languages. She learned French, and studied the harp, intending to become an orchestral musician; she left after three years before graduating, lonely and bitterly disillusioned.[12]

In 1918, she married Albert Dilling, an engineer studying law, who attended the same Episcopalian church as Elizabeth. The couple were well off financially, thanks to Elizabeth's inherited money and Albert's job as chief engineer for the Chicago Sewerage District. They lived in Wilmette, a Chicago suburb, and had two offspring: Kirkpatrick, born in 1920, who joined his mother's crusade against communism, and Elizabeth Jane ("Babe"), born in 1925.[12][13]

The family travelled extensively abroad at least ten times between 1923 and 1939, an experience that focussed Dilling's political outlook and served to convince her of American superiority. In 1923, offended by the lack of gratitude from allies for American intervention in World War I, she vowed to oppose any future American involvement in European conflict. She spent a month in the Soviet Union in 1931, where her local guides, who she claimed were Jews, showed her a map of the US with Soviet city names, and told her that communism would take over the world. She documented her travels in home movies, filming such scenes as bathers swimming nude in a river beneath a Moscow church. She was shocked by communism's "atheism, sex degeneracy, broken homes [and] class hatred."[14][15]

She also toured Germany in 1931, and returned in 1938, when she noted a "great improvement of conditions". She attended Nazi party meetings, and the German government paid her expenses. She wrote that "The German people under Hitler are contented and happy. ... don't believe the stories you hear that this man has not done a great good for this country."[lower-roman 2] She toured Palestine in 1938, where she filmed what she described as Jewish immigrants ruining the country, and Spain, where she filmed "Red torture chambers" and burnt-out churches, "ruined by the Reds with the same satanic Jewish glee shown in Russia."[17] She also visited Japan, which she saw as the only Christian nation in Asia, and in 1939 returned to visit Spain, for a second time.[18][19]

Anti-communism

Our family trip to Red Russia in 1931 started my dedication to anti-Communism. We were taken behind the scenes by friends working for the Soviet Government and saw deplorable conditions, first hand. We were appalled, not only at the forced labor, the squalid crowded living quarters, the breadline ration card workers’ stores, the mothers pushing wheelbarrows and begging children of the State nurseries besieging us. The open virulent anti-Christ campaign, every-where, was a shock. In public places were the tirades by loud speaker, in Russian, (our friends translated). Atheist cartoons representing Christ as a villain, a drunk, and the object of a cannibalistic orgy (Holy Communion): as an oppressor of labor; again as trash being dumped from a wheelbarrow by the Soviet Five-Year-Plan – these lurid cartoons filled the big bulletin boards in the churches our Soviet guides took us to visit.
— The Plot against Christianity, 1954[20]

Dilling's political activism was spurred by the "bitter opposition" she encountered, on her return to Illinois in 1931, "against my telling the truth about Russia... from suburbanite 'intellectual' friends and from my own Episcopal minister." Dilling began public speaking as a hobby, on her doctor's advice. Iris McCord, a Chicago radio broadcaster who taught at the Moody Bible Institute, arranged for her to address local church groups.[lower-roman 3] Within a year she was touring the Midwest, the Northeast and occasionally the West coast, accompanied by her husband, showing her home movies of the Soviet Union and making the same speech several times a week to audiences sometimes as large as several hundred, hosted by organisations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the American Legion, and local civic and women's clubs.[22][23]

Dilling earned little from these engagements. Her first anti-communist organisation, the Paul Reveres, founded in 1932 with headquarters in Chicago and several local chapters, closed due to lack of interest in 1934. With McCord's encouragement, her lectures were published in a local Wilmette newspaper in 1932, and then collected in a pamphlet entitled Red Revolution: Do We Want It Here? Dilling claimed that the DAR printed and distributed thousands of copies.[22][23]

The Red Network (1934)

Beginning in early 1933, Dilling spent twelve to eighteen hours a day for eighteen months researching and cataloguing suspected subversives. Her sources included the 1920 four-volume report of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, and Hamilton Fish's 1931 report of an anti-communist investigation. The result was The Red Network—A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots (self-published in 1934), hailed with irony in The New Republic as a "handy, compact reference work". The first half of the 352-page book was a collection of essays, mostly recycled from Red Revolution. The second half contained descriptions of more than 1,300 "Reds" and more than 460 organisations identified as "Communist, Radical Pacifist, Anarchist, Socialist [or] I.W.W. controlled".[24][25]

Far more than the Spider-Web chart of the 1920s – a chart composed by a member of the DAR that plotted suspected red-affiliated organisations with progressive individuals – The Red Network revealed the power of "guilt by association," a tactic that would be used all too often by future Red baiters with devastating effectiveness.
— Christine K. Erickson, Journal of American Studies, 2002[26]

By 1941 the book had been reprinted eight times and sold more than 16,000 copies. Thousands more were given away. It was sold in Chicago book stores and mail order from Dilling's house. It was distributed by the KKK, the Knights of the White Camellia, the German-American Bund and the Aryan Bookstores. Subscribers to Gerald Winrod's new journal The Revealer received a copy, noted fundamentalist preacher and president of the Northwest Bible Training School W. B. Riley claimed he had given away hundreds of copies, and it was advertised and sold by the Moody Bible Institute. The book was endorsed by officials in the DAR and the American Legion. Copies were bought by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the New York Police Department, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A Los Angeles arms manufacturer bought and distibuted 150 copies, and a tear gas manufacturer bought 1,500 copies which it distributed to the Standard Oil Company, the National Guard and hundreds of police departments.[24][27]

Dilling's next book, The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background, published two weeks before the 1936 presidential election, was less successful. Like much of her later writing, it was little more than a disjointed series of quotations. Roosevelt's "Jew Deal" was already a central theme of The Red Network, and moreover the New Deal was being debated elsewhere by more persuasive critics.[lower-roman 4] Dilling later claimed that the House Un-American Activities Committee was founded largely thanks to her two books. Dilling also wrote a pamphlet attacking Senator William Borah entitled Borah: "Borer from Within" the G.O.P., as she feared that if he won the Republican nomination, voters would be forced to choose between two communists. She distributed 5,000 copies at the 1936 Republican National Convention, and claimed credit for his defeat.[29][30][31]

In 1938 Dilling founded the Patriotic Research Bureau, a vast archive in Chicago with a staff of "Christian women and girls" from the Moody Bible Institute. She began regular publication of the Patriotic Research Bulletin, a newsletter outlining her political and personal views, which she mailed free of charge to her supporters. Often 25 to 30 pages long, with a youthful photograph of the author on the cover conveying a characteristically personal touch, the masthead of early issues proclaimed: "Patriotic Research Bureau. For the defense of Christianity and Americanism".[29][32]

Dilling was on the payroll of Henry Ford for six months in 1939.[33] She undertook an investigation of the University of Michigan library on his behalf, where she discovered hundreds of objectionable books.[34] As well as funding the Nazi Party and distributing his anti-semitic newspaper The Dearborn Independent in the 1920s, Ford was a financial supporter of dozens of anti-semitic propagandists.[35] In 1940, hoping to influence the presidential election, Dilling published The Octopus, in which she explained her theories of the Jewish nature of communism. The book was published under the pseudonym "Rev. Frank Woodruff Johnson". Avedis Derounian reported Dilling claiming that "The Jews can never prove that I'm anti-semitic, I'm too clever for them." Dilling's husband feared that allegations of anti-semitism could damage his law practice.[36]

Isolationism

Besides relying on a gendered appeal to patriotic duty, Dilling enjoyed portraying herself as a helpless victim confronted by diabolical evil. One telling example was when a federal subpoena in 1941, issued by the Justice Department, ordered her to Washington DC to explain her alleged affiliations with Nazi sympathizers. She described her experiences at the "New Deal O.G.P.U.," an unsubtle reference to Stalin's secret police, in the format of a play, in which she acted the part of the victim interrogated by an agent of the New Deal. The dramatic scene overflowed with "sinister glower[s]," "sarcastic questions" and "long harangue[s]." The victim, "a bit weary with the endless hectoring," answered unfair questions with righteous indignation. Throughout this little skit, Dilling downplayed her public role and denied the accusation that she was "an important woman" and that her "name carr[ied] weight." A sincere act of humility this was not, but it did reveal Dilling's inclination for martyrdom and self-importance, as well as a talent for propaganda.
— Erickson, 2002 (quoting from Patriotic Research Bulletin, October 1941)[37]

Dilling was a key figure in a mass movement of isolationist women's groups, which claimed to oppose US involvement in World War II from a "maternalist" perspective, while advancing a conservative social agenda which combined racial and populist elements with the preservation of traditional gender roles within the nuclear family. The combined membership of these groups by 1941 has been estimated at between one and six million.[38][39][40] According to historian Kari Frederickson: "They argued that war was the antithesis of nurturant motherhood, and that as women they had a particular stake in preventing American involvement in the European conflict ... they intertwined their maternalist arguments with appeals that were right-wing, anti-Roosevelt, anti-British, anti-communist and anti-Semitic."[41]

The movement was strongest in the Midwest, a conservative stronghold with a deeply rooted culture of anti-semitism, which had long resented the political dominance of the East coast.[lower-roman 5] It was the base of the America First Committee, a more narrowly anti-interventionist, mainstream group with 850,000 members, and influential far-right associates of Dilling such as Father Charles E. Coughlin, Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith and Lyrl Clark Van Hyning. Dilling spoke at America First meetings, and was involved in the founding of Van Hyning's "We the Mothers Mobilize for America", a highly active group with 150,000 members who were tasked with infiltrating other organisations. The Chicago Tribune, the newspaper with the highest circulation in the region, had a strong slant towards isolationism, and treated Dilling as a trusted expert on anti-communism, continuing to support her after she was charged with sedition in 1942.[31][43][44]

Roosevelt signing the Lend-Lease bill, 11 March 1941

In early 1941 Dilling spoke at rallies in Chicago and other cities in the Midwest, and recruited a group to coordinate her efforts to oppose Lend-Lease, the "Mothers' Crusade to Defeat H. R. 1776". Hundreds of these activists picketed the Capitol for two weeks in February 1941. Dilling was arrested when she and at least 25 other protesters staged a sit-down strike in the corridor outside the office of 84-year-old Senator Carter Glass. After a sensational trial lasting six days, Dilling was found guilty of disorderly conduct and fined $25.[40][45] Glass called for the FBI to investigate the women's groups, and stated in the New York Times on 7 March that the women had caused "a noisy disorder of which any self-respecting fishwife would be ashamed. I likewise believe that it would be pertinent to inquire whether they are mothers. For the sake of the race, I devoutly hope not." Fellow campaigner Cathrine Curtis believed that the image of the mothers' movement had been wrecked, and privately criticised Dilling's "hoodlum" tactics as "communistic" and "un-womanly".[46][47]

The women's groups continued to oppose the war after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, unlike most of their allies, including the America First Committee.[48] Dilling's political activity decreased as a result of her long drawn out and acrimonious divorce proceedings.[49] She campaigned for Thomas E. Dewey in the 1944 presidential election, although she felt he was tainted by his links with "international Jewry".[50]

A grand jury convened in 1941 to investigate fascist propaganda called several women's leaders to testify, including Dilling, Curtis and Van Hyning. Roosevelt prevailed upon Attorney General Francis Biddle, against his better judgement, to launch a prosecution, and on 21 July 1942 Dilling and 27 other anti-war activists were indicted on two counts of conspiracy to cause insubordination of the military in peacetime and wartime. The case, referred to by Dilling in her Bulletin on 29 July 1942 as a "Moscow purge trial", was the main part of a government campaign against domestic subversion described by historian Leo P. Ribuffo as "The Brown Scare". The charges and list of defendants were expanded on 4 January 1943, and the charges were again expanded on 3 January 1944. The trial judge died of a heart attack on 29 November 1944, and the case was declared a mistrial. The charges were dismissed on 22 November 1946. The prosecution had failed to present any evidence of a link with the German government; Biddle later called the trial "a dreary farce".[51][52][53] Dilling continued to publish the Patriotic Research Bulletin, and in 1954 she published The Plot Against Christianity, retitled after her death to The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today.[54]

The UN Charter and treaties are constructed to make way for the "man of sin," the Anti-Christ who will hold supreme power over life or death as he briefly heads this last Red satanic world empire.
— Patriotic Research Bulletin, September – October 1954[50]

Media references

Theatre poster, 1936 or 1937

Bibliography

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The ("unverified") Library of Congress caption reads: "Assailing all liberals, including the Roosevelt family, before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee today, Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling, author of the Anti-Communist Volume 'The Red Network,' gave a regular show to a crowded hearing room in opposing the nomination of Felix Frankfurter to the Supreme Court. She challenged the committee collectively and individually to disprove anything she writes or says".[1]
  2. ↑ Dilling's perception of Hitler shifted after the war. In the June 1954 Patriotic Research Bulletin, she states: "Evidence piles up and up that Hitler himself was not only of Jewish ancestry, but had Jewish financing from the very beginning ... At no time did Hitler disturb the great Jewish bankers who own and run German industry."[16]
  3. ↑ In 1927, James Gray, the Principal of the Moody Bible Institute, published a defense of Henry Ford's anti-semitic propaganda in his journal the Moody Monthly: "We believe he had good grounds for some of the things about the Jews which he did publish." Dilling later quoted this approvingly in The Plot Against Christianity (1954).[21]
  4. ↑ Historian Glen Jeansonne notes: "Of all the ultraright womens' leaders, Dilling was the most critical of Eleanor Roosevelt. In The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background (Chicago: self-published, 1936), Dilling devoted more space to criticising Eleanor Roosevelt than she devoted to denouncing Franklin Roosevelt. Among her charges were that Eleanor entertained prostitutes, fraternized with Blacks, joined communist organisations, neglected her children, dominated her weak husband, and associated with Jews. Perhaps there was no better litmus test of a woman's political ideology than a woman's opinion of Eleanor Roosevelt."[28]
  5. ↑ The East coast was more pro-British, and had a large Jewish population and fewer Germans. It was also more Catholic; although the movement did attract many Catholic followers, some Catholics associated right-wing extremism with the anti-Catholic KKK.[42]

References

  1. 1 2 Harris & Ewing photographic studio (11 January 1939). "Assails all liberals as she opposes Frankfurter before Senate Committee. Washington, D.C., Jan. 11.". Library of Congress: Prints & photographs online catalog. Retrieved 1 April 2016.
  2. ↑ Dye, 6
  3. ↑ Cypkin 137
  4. ↑ Jeansonne 12
  5. ↑ Erickson 473, 489
  6. ↑ Smith 82
  7. ↑ Frederickson, 833
  8. ↑ Jenkins, 499
  9. ↑ Jeansonne 2, 12, 80
  10. ↑ Dye 5
  11. ↑ Frederickson 825–826
  12. 1 2 Jeansonne, p8
  13. ↑ Dye, 8
  14. ↑ Erickson, p474-475
  15. ↑ Jeansonne, p9
  16. ↑ Jeansonne 67
  17. ↑ Jeansonne, 9, 32
  18. ↑ Jeansonne, 67
  19. ↑ Erickson, 483
  20. ↑ Dye, 10
  21. ↑ Partridge and Geaves 87–88
  22. 1 2 Jeansonne, p10
  23. 1 2 Erickson, p478
  24. 1 2 Jeansonne, p12
  25. ↑ Erickson, 478
  26. ↑ Erickson 488
  27. ↑ Erickson, p480
  28. ↑ Jeansonne 80
  29. 1 2 Erickson, pp480-482
  30. ↑ Jeansonne, pp13-14, 68
  31. 1 2 Frederickson 833
  32. ↑ "Dilling bulletin". WorldCat. OCLC. Retrieved 4 April 2016.
  33. ↑ Jeansonne 11
  34. ↑ Erickson 482
  35. ↑ Jeansonne 16
  36. ↑ Jeansonne, pp13-14
  37. ↑ Erickson 484
  38. ↑ Mcenaney 48
  39. ↑ Jeansonne 5, 72
  40. 1 2 Erickson 485
  41. ↑ Frederickson 825 – 826
  42. ↑ Jeansonne 56
  43. ↑ Mcenany 47–48
  44. ↑ Jeansonne 20, 37, 49, 63
  45. ↑ Jeansonne 33–34
  46. ↑ Mcenaney 52
  47. ↑ Frederickson 836-7
  48. ↑ Jeansonne 2, 5
  49. ↑ Jeansonne 34
  50. 1 2 Jeansonne 89
  51. ↑ Jeansonne 62–67
  52. ↑ Erickson 486–487
  53. ↑ Walker 117
  54. ↑ Jeansonne 68
  55. ↑ Jeansonne 8
  56. ↑ Erickson, 273
  57. ↑ Jeansonne 37
  58. ↑ Johnson, 1044

External links

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