Joe McWilliams

Joseph Elsberry "Joe" McWilliams (1904 – 1996) was an American right-wing political figure of the 1940s, and the principal defendant in the federal Smith Act sedition trial of 1944.

Biography

McWilliams was born in 1904 to a poor pioneer family in Hitchcock, Oklahoma. 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.[1]

In 1940, he ran for Congress as a Republican in the 18th Congressional District of New York, which is around the Yorkville section of Manhattan. After losing by a large margin,[2] he ran for Congress under the American Destiny Party, a political organization he'd founded and based on the Nazi Party. McWilliams was disqualified from the ballot after failing to gather enough signatures.[3]

In 1944, McWilliams was identified as the main defendant in the government prosecution of 30 suspected conspirators and sympathizers under the Smith Act. The 30 were widely varied, including the anti-Capitalist Fascist Lawrence Dennis. After seven months U.S. District Court Judge Edward C. Eicher died of a heart attack, causing a mistrial.[4] After the war ended, the government chose not to pursue the case.[5]

It was during and after these times that McWilliams, conscious of the hardships facing servicemen returning from war, and having three younger brothers who served honorably in the United States Armed Forces in World War II, two of them in the European theatre, worked on his Serviceman's Reconstruction Plan, one of the blueprints used, but not given credit to by others, for the G.I. Bill of Rights.

After World War II, he briefly worked on the campaign of North Carolina Democratic Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, who had been a fascist sympathizer.[6]

McWilliams died in 1996.

References

  1. ↑ Williams, Chester S. (January 1941). Ways of Dictatorship. Evanston, IL: Roy, Peterson and Company.
  2. ↑ "Leibowitz Wins in Primary Race; Both Labor Wings Claim Victory; McWilliams Swamped by Walker in Congress Contest in Yorkville--Fish Wins Up-State --O'Connor Fails in Comeback LEIBOWITZ VICTOR IN PRIMARY VOTING Fish Wins Easily". The New York Times. September 18, 1940. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  3. ↑ "M'WILLIAMS BARRED FROM CONGRESS RACE; 1,909 Names on Jailed Candidate's Petition Ruled Invalid". The New York Times. October 22, 1940. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  4. ↑ "Trial's End," Time Magazine, December 11, 1944.
  5. ↑ Stone, Geoffrey R. (2004). Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime. W.W. Norton & Co. p. 274. ISBN 0-393-05880-8.
  6. ↑ Hoke, Henry Reed (1946). It's a Secret. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock.
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