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January 25, 1985 - Image 26

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1985-01-25

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

26

Friday, January 25, 1985 - . THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

LOOKING IN

END OF SEASON SALE
NOON TO 5 PM

SUNDAY, JANUARY 27

5 0 To 75%

OFF

Men's, Women's, Boys'
Fall, Winter Clothing & Accessories

The Claymore Shops

722 NORTH WOODWARD, BIRMINGHAM • 642-7755

GOING OUT OF
BUSINESS

SALE

We're selling out to the bare walls!

Winter, Holiday Cruise and Spring

Designer fashions brought in from

all three locations.

MON-SAT 10-5:30 THURS TILL 8:00 SUN 12-5:00

LATHRUP VILLAGE STORE ONLY

Lathrup Village
11 Mile at Evergreen

424-8750

G.O.B. #103

PACEGSETTEk,

G

FASHIONS

ROBERT ST. JOHN

Gerald L. K. Smith's
Hate Is Alive And Well

Gerald L. K. Smith, who was
proud of being one of this cen-
tury's most virulent anti-
Semites, died more than eight
years ago. His widow,. Elna
Smith, for several years there-
after carried on her husband's
campaign against Jews, blacks,
Catholics, the United Nations,
Communists and almost every-
one left of Calvin Coolidge. But
then she, too, passed from the
scene.
At that point many of us re-
joiced, assuming that, as there
were no legal offspring to
perpetuate the fanaticism, the
Smith Hate Regime had come to
an end.
Not so.
I have the unpleasant task of
reporting that Gerald L. K.
Smith's Christian Nationalist
Crusade is alive and thriving;
that the Smith printing presses
in Eureka, Arkansas, are still
turning out, every month, mil-
lions of copies of the many hate
books and pamphlets written by
Smith and his fellow bigots, and
that a slick, $17.95 hardcover
book, Besieged Patriot,
is now being distributed
nationwide.
The sub-title of the book is:
"Autobiographical Episodes
Exposing Communism, Traitor-
ism and Zionism, from the life of
Gerald L. K. Smith, Gifted
Speaker, Social Commentator,
Servant of God."
What is most disturbing is
that Charles F. Robertson, who
for many years worked as an
assistant to Smith, in a letter
that came with the book, reports
that of all their hundreds of
publications, the top-seller is
The Protocols of the Learned
Elders of Zion, that anti-Semitic
fabrication which played such a
great part in Nazi propaganda
and which purported to reveal a
Jewish plot to overthrow Chris-
tian governments and take
charge of the world.
Robertson urges all "Friends
of the Crusade" to get Besieged
Patriot into every public library
"because people must be en-
lightened as quickly as pos-
sible."
Besieged Patriot is 321 pages
of intellectual rubbish, in-
terspersed with anecdotes that
compound the damage. For
example:
In 1945, convinced that the
United Nations was part of a
Jewish plot to dominate all
mankind, Smith went to San
Francisco and campaigned night
and day, trying to convince
somebody, anyone who would
listen, of the "imminent
catastrophe."
In the book Smith says that
during his time in San Fran-
cisco, "an interview with a
Jewish tailor appeared in the
(sic!) local paper, believe it or
not, in which the tailor boasted
of the fact that I sent him a suit
to be cleaned and pressed, and
because of his contempt for me
he burned a hole in it
purposely."
The book is liberally sprinkled
with paranoiac claims by Smith

Gerald L. K. Smith:
Early hatemonger.

that his enemies (principally
Jews, of course) were always
plotting his assassination.
In San Francisco he was cer-
tain that wherever he went he
was being trailed by "a wide
variety of intelligence agencies,
including the San Francisco
police department, the Russian
Secret Police, the FBI, Military
Intelligence, Navy Intelligence,
and the investigating organiza-
tions of Jewry, such as the Anti-
Defamation League and the
American Jewish Congress." (If
he was followed wherever he
went by just one agent from
each, there would have been
seven men on his trail, quite a
parade.)
In the days when Henry Ford
was publishing anti-Semitic
material in his paper, The Dear-
born Independent; he and Smith
became friends. In Besieged
Patriot Smith quotes Ford as
having told a group of friends:
"I wish G. L. K. Smith could be
President of the United States."
When the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra was in financial trou-
ble, Smith says he was asked to
seek support for the orchestra
from his friend Ford. The book
quotes Ford's reaction:
"If these men can find a direc-
tor who doesn't look like the
leader of a Jewish street band,
I'll be glad to underwrite the
reorganization of the Detroit
Symphony."
From Page 1 to Page• 321 the
book seems designed to inject
the reader with a continuous
dose of the insidious Smith-
brand of hate.

The "heroes" in the book, in
addition to Ford, are General
Douglas McArthur, who, Smith
thought, would have. made an
excellent president; "Alfalfa
Bill" Murray of Oklahoma, "one
of the most dramatic and in-
telligent public officials ever to
live in the United States; Huey
P. Long of Louisiana, "the most
popular public figure in
America, with more mail than
all the Senators put together,
and with more mail than Presi-
dent Roosevelt;" (Smith was
with Long when he was shot by
an assassin and later built a
bronze statue of him.); Martin
Luther, whom Smith idolized
because of his anti-Semitism;
Senator Joseph McCarthy,

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