Shaking Hands with the Devil

or Withholding judgment of thoroughly demonized historical figures

This is my introductory editorial in defense of William Dudley Pelley, a minor mid-century political figure who is only mentioned in the same breath as ‘fascist,’ ‘nazi’ and ‘white supremacist.’ He was more than that and maybe none of it. He was a charismatic leader who made himself a perpetual nuisance to the Roosevelt administration leading up to World War Two.

His most prominent historical footnote is that of political prisoner. He served the longest sentence for federal sedition in America handed down at the outset of the war. He was persecuted by Hoover’s FBI at the personal behest of Franklin Roosevelt and, though the war had been over and FDR dead for five years, kept in federal prison until 1950 for good measure.

Never heard of him? You weren’t supposed to.

I took a B.A. in journalism just as the internet was coming to life. I discovered W.D. Pelley while taking a course on Mass Media Law. His name turned up as I did some homework for the chapter “Exceptions to Freedom of Speech and Press,” specifically regarding sedition.

My first expanded portrait, and actual photograph, of the man came from bound volumes of Time magazine, aromatic with decades spent in the college library stacks. There was electricity in those brittle, tanning pages. This peculiar character stepped out of the mists of the past and introduced himself.

I shook the devil’s hand and he is never far from my thoughts since.

This newsletter will run parallel to a manuscript of the same working title.

At least until a routine of regular contributions is established, I do not invite comments here. I have maintained some sort of interactive format for discussion about Pelley since shortly after I found him. This is not that place. Frankly, I do not value the opinions of passive readers or Wikipedia scholars. I value feedback from fanatics, people who are passionate about history and entertain a healthy inkling that all is not what it seems. There’s always more than meets the eye in every good story.