An American Hypocrite

 

Christ of the Ozarks 

AN AMERICAN HYPOCRITE

BY

DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS

 In the American colonies, the Anglo-American pioneers armed themselves with the Ten Commandments and fancied themselves as Hebrews founding the New Jerusalem.

'Tis grave philosophy's absurdest dream,

That Heavn's intentions are not what they seem,

That only shadows are dispens'd below,

And earth has no reality but woe."

-William Cowper, 'Hope' (1781)-

Hypocrites are a dime a dozen, but some hypocrites are much bigger than others. In fact, Reverend Jonathan Ellsworth Perkins wrote a book about the biggest hypocrite in America. Reverend Perkins was an aide to the radical minister of the Disciples of Christ Church, Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith. The mere title of the book - The Biggest Hypocrite in America, Gerald K. Smith Unmasked - gives those of us who are hypocrisy connoisseurs sufficient cause to suspect that its author was a hypocrite too. After all, we know a lot about hypocrisy, and it takes one to know one.

We hear that Reverend Smith was a hate-mongering anti-semite. We note that Perkins his biographer was also the author of Jesus Was Not a Jew. How can that be? Well, Britons of the Anglo-Israelite persuasion - frustrated Hebrews who spoke of New Canaan and New Jerusalem - persuaded each other that the Anglo-Saxons were one of the ten lost tribes of Israel. In the American colonies, the Anglo-American pioneers armed themselves with the Ten Commandments and fancied themselves as Hebrews founding the New Jerusalem. And it was no coincidence that the Germanic folk figured they were following in Moses' footsteps in South Africa. When anti-jewry gained ground and having distant Jewish relatives fell out of favor, an Anglo-Saxon could avoid being a Jew if not a semite and still be one of the lost semitic tribes simply by being in the right tribe - definitely not Judah's tribe - and if being a semite presented a problem, one could be a Hittite, and so on. Moreover, German theologians did their level best to take the Jew out of Jesus so he could be retained and the oriental Jews expelled from the occident. Some went so far as to claim that Jesus was a Greek. Reverend Perkins said Jesus was an Anglo-Saxon. In any case, he and Reverend Smith had a number of things in common until they had a falling out.

We do not have to take a disgruntled ex-employee's character assassination of his fellow Christian for granted. Reverend Smith granted Glen Jeansomme extensive, frank interviews for his book Gerald K. Smith, Minister of Hate - but was he a hypocrite? Vulgar religion stands accused of being a form of organized "better than thou" hypocrisy, or systematic hate-based group love; if that is the case, how could an honest minister of hate be a hypocrite? Perhaps hypocrisy is simply the sin of pride; maybe for that reason Reverend Smith was in fact the biggest hypocrite in America at the time; yet discriminating hypocrisy connoisseurs believe there is more to hypocrisy than arrogance.

Reverend Smith was the most vituperative bigot in the United States, and as such he was the mentor and associate of some of America's leading bigots. By-goddery or bigotry is the sin of pride. Again, for some judges, that alone might have qualified him for the Biggest Hypocrite in America title. Our elders remember Smith well. He preached politics for the Kingfisher - Huey Long - whom he idolized and called a "superman." Long served Louisiana as governor in 1928 and as U.S. senator in 1930. He led a populist movement to power, and he ruled Louisiana at will, hence he was called a demagogue and dictator by his enemies. Reverend Smith, his political organizer, pointed out that the people had in a referendum voted 7 to 1 in favor of Long's legislation. Smith said Louisiana had been a "feudal state" before Kingfisher, the peon's knight, appeared on the scene in shining armor. Smith went on to characterize oil and gas barons, bankers and other parasites with vested interests in free income as "the feudal lords of New Orleans and the plantations." The poor were thoroughly exploited by the rich. Big corporations imposed taxes on the poor, many of whom had little money because they worked under the commissary system - they were paid in scrip only good at the company store. The poor were taxed into abject poverty. The state itself was in shambles. The corporations were stripping its natural resources and investing nothing in public works. Existing roads, bridges, and ferries were in terrible disrepair. People were taxed at the polls and had to pay exorbitant tolls - a poor Depression Era person had to pay $8 to use the bridge into New Orleans. Illiteracy was high: half the kids were not in school. But the aristocrats basked in luxury and lived high off the hog. In short, the pseudo-conservatives were living their dream.

Things changed for the better when Huey Long took the reins on behalf of the people. Taxes were levied on natural resources. The poll-tax and property-tax burden on the poor was lifted; that alone added 300,000 new voters to rolls and freed 95% of the black population from taxation. Tolls were abolished and ferry rides were free. Public funds were invested in public works such as new roads and bridges. Schoolbooks were free; night schools were set up for adults; traveling libraries toured the state. That was just the beginning, but it is enough to understand why Huey Long was hated by the few and loved by the many.

And then there was the Share Our Wealth Society organized by Long and Smith in 1934. It soon had 326,000 members in Louisiana and 3,000,000 in the United States. Each member signed a registration card that bore the inscription, "Every Man a King, but No One Wears a Crown." The Society promised to outdo Roosevelt's New Deal - Roosevelt was duly worried. The Society had a plan. Huey Long really did not believe it would work, nor did the economists, but Reverend Smith liked the plan because, at least as far as he was concerned, it was based on the biblical principle of "sharing" the wealth of the rich with the poor. Others said the plan was to rob the rich to pay the poor. The plan appeared to be a national socialist or fascist scheme rather than a communist one, for private property and the profit principle would not have been abolished; however, whereas the fascists pandered to big business, their scheme would have restrained big business. Hodding Carter, a liberal newspaperman, said this of the approach:

"Of course, there is nothing new if the human fundamentals to which Huey and the Reverend appeal, or in the economic reforms they advocate. Class consciousness, envy of wealth and a desire for the creature comforts of life are strong in every nation in every age. This is especially true of the poor whites of the South, those near-disenfranchised, lethargic and doomed relics of a ruinous agricultural system. Old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, a balance supply and demand, wealth spread - these have been the war cries of modern economists long before the New Deal was supposed to begin its attack on Big Business. But where the student of economics presents his suggestions through an impersonal, systematic theory, whose appeal is primarily to the rational, Huey and his high priest strike home to the emotions, the hates and the desires, the superstitions of the under-privileged poor-white class."

Of course we recognize the rationalized hypocrisy of classical liberalism in Hodding's typical objection. The power elite, to maintain their interest in the power structure, assume an impersonal or scientific facade and resort to the drab metaphysical terms of their secular religion, such as "market forces", if not the Invisible Hand", to justify their immorality. "Let the market decide", said the airline executive just the other day, in response to objections to his company's price war on the new kid at the airline hub; then the MBA went back to his office and laughed up his sleeve - his airline raised prices to previous levels after crushing the upstart in its crib. Emotion, the intimate synthesis of thought and feeling, happens to be the source of moral values. Furthermore, we know very well that the "politically correct" snob is often a bigger [expletive deleted] and hypocrite than the guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

People are certainly emotional about the lack of food and shelter and the possibility of supplying the demand for it. As every scientific industrial revolutionary knows, if production were cranked up to full capacity, there would be plenty for everyone. Scarcity exists because it is created to make a few people rich at the expense of the poor. Under the Share Our Wealth plan, the wealth of the rich would have been limited to $10,000,000, an enormous sum in those days, surely enough for a moderately selfish family to live on. On the other hand, poverty would be limited to no less than $5,000 of real property per family. Not only would every family have a $5,000 home, they would have a job, a car, and a radio! Furthermore, the plan provided for free higher education for the mentally able, veteran's benefits, and old-age pensions. Full employment would be obtained by reduction of work hours and public works projects. Who could object to such a family-oriented plan for America, where every man would be a little king or capitalist?

Reverend Smith handled the propaganda, and he sang it out like a fundamentalist preacher. H.L. Mencken called Smith: "The greatest orator of them all. Not the greatest by an inch or a foot or a mile. But greatest by at least two light-years." When Smith was a young pastor, a member of his congregation said he was a promoter, not a preacher. That is to say that he was a hypocrite, we suppose, or, as Plato would say, a sophist, providing that the truth is so plainly self-evident that it wants not the deceptive art of persuasion.

"Let's pull down these huge piles of gold," sang Reverent Smith, "until there shall be a real job, not a little old sow-belly, black-eyed pea job but a real spending money, beefsteak and gravy, Chevrolet, Ford in the garage, new suit, Thomas Jefferson, Jesus Christ, red, white and blue job for every man! ... Lift us out of this wretchedness, O Lord, out of this poverty, lift us who stand in slavery tonight. Rally us under this young man who came out of the woods of north Louisiana, who leads us like a Moses out of the land of bondage into the land of milk and honey where every man is a king but no man wears a crown. Amen."

"Reverend Smith," wrote Hodding Carter, "who, next to Huey Long and Mississippi's [Senator Theodore] Bilbo, is probably the most talented rabble rouser in the South, can in an instant switch his mighty voice from piteously picturing Christ on the Cross to calling the local anti-Long leaders a 'bunch of dirty, thieving drunkards.' Escorted by force from one parish by a determined group of anti-administrationists, with the heeded warning not to turn up again, he bobs up in the next parish with a vitriolic attack on his 'persecutors' and proceeds upon his Christian way, describing the wife of a former Governor, who fought Long until her recent death, as 'two jumps ahead of the insane asylum,' and calling upon any hostile member in the crowd to 'shoot me while I stand here helpless,' his arms outstretched as though pinned to a cross and his sound truck surrounded by vigilant state police in plainclothes and uniform."

Louisiana already had the third largest debt in the nation: $150,000,000. No doubt money would have to be created to pay mounting debt. Inflation would run rampant; people would be able to pay off old debt at a big discount; the lenders would be wiped out. And the upper limit on wealth at $10,000,000 in 1934 dollars would be the ruination of many a feudal lord. No, the social disease must not be allowed to spread. It is no wonder that people on the right prayed every night for the early death of Huey Long. His prophet foresaw the 1935 assassination:

"Wall Street and its newspapers, and the radio liars say this is a scheme to make money for your friend, Huey Long," shouted Reverend Smith to the crowd. "They'd kill him if they could, my brethren. And they're going to have to kill him to keep him from helping you. As God is my judge, the only way they will keep Huey Long from the White House is to kill him. But when they do, his great work will go marching on. Share, brothers, share, and don't let those white-livered skunks laugh at you."

The assassin was shot dead by bodyguards - the controversial investigation of the crime was never completed. Smith continued to promote the Share Our Wealth plan for awhile after Long was assassinated, but with his "superman" dead and the economy improving, people sold the plan short. Smith graduated to unadulterated bigotry and racism. He lectured with the frustrated fascist and America Firster, Father Coughlin - he and Coughlin formed the Union Party in '36 to oppose Roosevelt. When Henry Ford, convinced that the Jews were about to grab his stuff, grew paranoid, Smith the conspiracy theorist was on hand to publicize 'The International Jew' and 'The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.' Smith offended quite a few people when he called General Eisenhower a "Swedish Jew." He published the hate-sheet, 'The Cross and the Flag.' (see excerpt below) The flag of Caesar next to the Cross of Jesus - what better symbol of hypocrisy could be devised?

Reverend Smith loved Nixon's hatred for communism although he did not care for Nixon as Vice President. He changed his mind soon enough, and said, "(Nixon) is the greatest president we have had in this country." Of course Nixon was an outstanding hypocrite, his reopening of relations with China being an egregious case on point. Smith defended Nixon during the impeachment; he said Nixon should have done a better job of covering up, and he that claimed Nixon was forced to resign by the Zionists, who were, as usual, conspiring to rule the world. But enough said: he eventually retired to Eureka Springs in Arkansas and erected a series of tourist attractions, the monuments known as The Passion Play, which include the impressive 'Christ of the Ozarks.'

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Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith was what we might call a nutcase if only the term were not politically incorrect today. Mind you, he was not unloved. His devoted wife, whom he married when he was a young man, cleaved to him throughout and survived him. He called himself "the outcast of Christ." He backed outrageous causes, attracting disgruntled outcasts, some of whom financed him. On the other hand, his ex-aide Reverend Perkins, as we can see from his character assassination, hated him as if he were the Satan of satans. Perkin's book did little or no harm to Reverend Smith's bad reputation, for people either love or hate a man like Smith - the latter camp was overflowing in his case. Some of his admirers are still alive. If it were not for his racism and bigotry, we would like the man better. But as hypocrisy connoisseurs we like him well enough to add this story to our stock.

Appendix:

This Is Christian Nationalism
by Gerald L. K. Smith
(The Cross & The Flag) December 1959

The Christian Nationalist Crusade is a nationwide political movement dedicated to the mobilization of citizens who respect American tradition and whose idealism is founded on Christian principle. General Douglas MaeArthur in one of his great public pronouncements said: "The two greatest symbols in this civilization are the Cross and the Flag." This statement overwhelmed me with inspiration in view of the fact that the official organ of the Christian Nationalist Crusade is the magazine "The Cross and the Flag."

The motive behind the term Christian Nationalist is easy to define and simple to interpret. We believe that the destiny of America in relationship to its governing authority must be in the hands of our own people. We must never be governed by aliens. We must keep control of our own money and our own blood. In other words, we must be true to the Declaration of Independence. That is Nationalism. Like General MacArthur, we believe that the spiritual symbol of our statesmanship is the Cross, which is indeed the symbol of Christianity. We believe that the inspiring dynamic out of which America grew is Christianity. We believe that there would be no real America such as we love and for which we are willing to die if there had been no Christianity. Thus, when a Christian is a Nationalist he becomes necessarily a Christian Nationalist. This movement, which now reaches into every state and community of the Nation, launched its campaign some years ago in relationship to ten high principles to which we have committed ourselves.

I. The first principle is: Preserve America as a Christian Nation being conscious of the fact that there is a highly organized campaign to substitute Jewish tradition for Christian tradition....

II. The second principle for which we stand reads as follows: Expose, fight and outlaw Communism.

III. The third principle on which Christian Nationalism has built its nation- wide movement reads as follows: Safeguard American liberty against the menace of bureaucratic Fascism. Bureaucratic Fascism has appeared in the American form. It has been a cross between Kremlin Communism, English-German Socialism and Italian Fascism. Fascism, as we now have it, is confiscating independent wealth by way of the income tax and destroying the liberty of the States by way of the Supreme Court. At this very moment we face the risk of a nine-man Fascist dictatorship, posing as the Supreme Court of the United States, completely contrary to our Constitutional traditions.

IV. The fourth principle to which this dynamic and much persecuted movement has been dedicated reads as follows: Maintain a government set up by the majority which abuses no minority and is abused by no minority. Fight mongrelization and all attempts being made to force the intermixture of the black and white races....

V. The fifth principle reads as follows: Protect and earmark national resources for our own citizens first....

VI. The sixth principle reads as follows: Maintain the George Washington Foreign Policy of friendship with all nations, trade with all nations, entangling alliances with none. Our failure to follow the George Washington policy has yielded the fruit of chaos which our foreign policy now portrays.

VII. Seventh: Oppose a World Government and a Super-State....

VIII. The eighth principle reads as follows: Prove that the Worker, the Farmer, the Businessman, the Veteran, the Unemployed, the Aged, and the Infirm can enjoy more abundance under the true American system than any alien system now being proposed by foreign propagandists. Subversives, superficial nitwits and mind-washed propagandists are always attacking the traditional American economic system of free enterprise....

IX. The ninth principle reads as follows: Sateguard America's tradition in relationship to immigration. The same conspirators who would destroy our Nation and its independence by treason from within, or by the establishment of a World Government - these same forces are ready to let down the bars and admit the Asiatic, African and European multitudes. This campaign to destroy our immigration tradition is supported by every Jewish and Communist organization in the world. They are ready to smear and assassinate the character of any statesman who stands in their way. Fortunately, we have been able to hold the line; but if the wall ever breaks we will be invaded and destroyed without the firing of a shot, merely by the act of indiscriminate admission of aliens to our shores.

X. The tenth principle reads as follows: Enforce the Constitution as it pertains to our monetary system. I claim to be no expert on the subject of monetary reform, but the Christian Nationalist Crusade takes its stand with those patriots who insist that we must free our Nation from the manipulating chicanery of the money-changer....

Upon these principles we take our stand, and I defy any cynic or critic to deny that these ten principles do not define traditional Americanism. This is not a negative Movement. We are not in the business of just being against something. It is our deep conviction that every Crusade must commit itself to a great positive and must be for that positive even at the risk of life itself. The positive in our Crusade is Christianity and the Constitution. Once we commit ourselves to this great spiritual patriotic implication, we naturally must be known as opposing every symptom, every gesture that appears in opposition to our Christian American tradition. These become the negatives. Negatives are valuable only when they appear in defense of a great positive. Men who are against things without being for great principles serve little constructive value in the affairs of this life....

Again quoting General MacArthur:

"Listen not to these voices that are raised against our (American tradition), be they from the one political party or from the other; be they from the high and the mighty, or the lowly and the forgotten. Heed them not. Visit upon them a righteous scorn born of the past sacrifices of your fighting sons and daughters.

"Repudiate them in the market place, on the platform, from the pulpit. Those who are our friends will understand. Those who are not we can pass by. Be proud to be called patriots or nationalists or what you will, if it means that you love your country above all else, and will place your life if need be at the service of our Flag."

References:

The Biggest Hypocrite in America, Gerald K. Smith Unmasked by Reverend Jonathan Ellsworth Perkins, Los Angeles: American Foundation 1949

Minister of Hate by Glen Jeansomme: Yale 1988

New Republic, Feb. 13, 1935, Article by Hodding Carter.

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