The Silver Legion of America, commonly known as the Silver Shirts, was an underground American fascist organization founded by William Dudley Pelley that was headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina and announced publicly on January 31, 1933. The group was effectively dissolved on December 8, 1941 when police called for the open arrest of any individuals associated with the group.
History
A nationalist, fascist group modeled after Benito Mussolini's blackshirts, the paramilitary Silver Legion wore a silver shirt with a blue tie, along with a campaign hat and blue corduroy trousers with leggings. The uniform shirts bore a scarlet letterL over the heart: an emblem meant to symbolize Loyalty to the United States, Liberation from materialism, and the Silver Legion itself. The blocky slab serifL-emblem was in a typeface similar to the present-day Rockwell Extra Bold. The organizational flag was a plain silver field with such a red L in the canton at the upper left. By 1934, the Silver Shirts claimed to have about 15,000 members. Circa 1935, a Nazi agent befriended mining fortune heiress Jessie Murphy, convincing her to contribute cash, and the use of her ranch, recently purchased from screen cowboy Will Rogers, to the fascist movement. The Silver Shirts began construction of the Murphy Ranch, situated on a secluded, 55-acre site in the Los Angeles hills, meant to serve as a fortified world headquarters after the expected fascist global conquest. Silver Shirt leader Pelley called for a "Christian Commonwealth" in America that would combine the principles of racism, nationalism, and theocracy, while excluding Jews and non-whites. He claimed he would save America from Jewish communists just as "Mussolini and his Black Shirts saved Italy and as Hitler and his Brown Shirts saved Germany." Pelley ran for president of the United States in the 1936 election on a third-party ticket under the Christian Party banner. Pelley hoped to seize power in a "silver revolution" and set himself as dictator of the United States. He would be called "the Chief" just like other fascist world leaders who had similar titles such "The Fuhrer" for Adolf Hitler and "II Duce" for Benito Mussolini. However, the presidency remained in the hands of incumbent Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. By around 1938, the Silver Legion's membership was down to about 5,000. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, local police occupied the "world headquarters" bunker compound and detained members of the 50-man caretaker force. The declaration of war on the United States by Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy led to the rapid decline of the Silver Legion. On January 20, 1942, Pelley was sentenced to serve two to three years in prison by Superior Court Judge F. Don Phillips, in Asheville, North Carolina, for violating terms of probation of a 1935 conviction for violating North Carolina security laws. The same sentence had been suspended pending good behavior, but the court found that during that period Pelley had published false and libelous statements, published inaccurate reports and advertising, and supported a secret military organization.
A fictionalized depiction of the Silver Shirts forms a large part of the plot in The Night Letter by Paul Spike.
The character of Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, loosely modeled after Silver Legion founder William Dudley Pelley, was elected U.S. president in 1936 and became the dictator of America in It Can't Happen Here, a cautionary novel by Sinclair Lewis. Some literary scholars contend that the Windrip character was modeled after Louisiana politician Huey Long, who was not associated with the Silver Shirts.
The Silver Shirts appear in James Lee Burke's novel Dixie City Jam, a novel in the Dave Robicheaux series.
The Silver Legion of America is a political party in the video game Hearts of Iron IV. The in-game USA can turn into the Silver Legion-led Free American Empire if a fascist coup occurs or if the player changes their ideology.
