I wrote a few weeks past about my Villainous Prospectus and mentioned that I would like to include several highlights from the column ‘Cogitations’ which appeared weekly in pages of Pelley’s ‘Valor’ magazine during the 1950s. These are a largely untapped resource of Pelley autobiography.
They are usually grandpa yarns, the sort my father was locally revered for without WDP’s flowery prose. Though my own Pop had a fantastic vocabulary, his presentation was more simple in its delivery. Think Jerry Clower. Many times I have seen my father keep a small group in stitches for an hour or more with his mostly true tales. Of course, his was an oral tradition. He would recite stories about his grandfather, a man born before the Civil War, which had been handed down and I could see every detail in my mind’s eye.
When I read Pelley’s ‘Cogitations,’ and particularly when I laugh out loud at them, it reminds me of my own dear dad’s stories. We called Pop ‘Pop’ obviously, and Adelaide and the grandkids likewise called Chief Pelley ‘Pop.’ The crew around the printing plant continued to call him Chief. I think he may have picked that title up when he was editor of some New England newspaper while still in his 20s… ‘publisher and editor in chief’ is pretty common 20th century journalist jargon.
Some detractors have said that he tried to set himself up as the “Great White Chief” of the Native American population and thus took the title. He did allegedly have a devoted Indian following. Supposedly they had a soft spot for anyone who would take on the federal government, and who can blame them? More on that later. It only bears mention here, since the matter of personal monikers has come up, that an employer in the publishing world is as likely to be called ‘Chief’ as anything. You don’t even have to admire Pelley to refer to him as Chief. You only have to acknowledge that he was the boss of his operation.
Heck, use it with a hint of sarcasm or disdain if you like, as you might refer to a gang boss. Think “Chief Rabble-Rouser” or “Chief Trouble-Maker.” Call him what you will, he was head honcho of his affairs. Any of you who have worked construction might recognize the title HHIC. That was Pelley. Chief will do just fine.
To know the Chief as Pop, read a few pages of ‘Cogitations.’ My bound Vol. 1 of ‘Valor’ is inscribed “To a helpful son-in-law and a nice daughter, both of whom contributed to make these volumes. Affectionately from ‘Pop,’ William Dudley Pelley” It’s as personal a thing as I will probably ever own from the Chief, unless someone in the family decides to give me one of the pipes he clenched in his teeth as he wrote. Not likely to happen, though I have asked.
But the volumes of ‘Valor’ are probably better than the pipe. If I packed Pelley’s pipe with tobacco and smoked it over the keyboard I very much doubt I would be magically inspired to write like him or channel him. Reading ‘Cogitations,’ especially out loud, does inspire and channel. It turns him from a potential mass-murderer, as portrayed in the popular press, into a real flesh and blood character, and I argue a damn fine American one.
So, just yesterday you might have listened to my reading of ‘Cat Baptism’ straight from the bound volumes. Subscribers are in for more of that. I can produced a 10-minute podcast of a ‘Cogitations’ column a lot quicker than I can transcribe one. And I think they are good fun, anecdotal and conversational. Every now and then they reveal something about Pelley that reflects his character.
Maybe we can bump the description ‘story-teller’ a bit higher up his public resume nearer Nazi. He was certainly more one than the other. I’ll let you guess which.