George Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, has encountered double trouble. A meeting he scheduled in nearby Front Royal failed to attract any audience at all, while his appearance in Domestic Relations Court here touched off a ruling by the court that his income tax statements are “phony and concocted.”
Rockwell tried to stage a Nazi recruiting rally at Front Royal. When Warren County Judge Elliott Marshall refused him a permit to hold his rally on the County Court House lawn, he called his meeting to order on the city’s public parking lot. However, aside from his own small group of followers, whom he brought from Arlington to Front Royal, and aside from some policemen watching the meeting, not a single resident of Front Royal attended the rally.
Here in Arlington, Rockwell appeared before Domestic Relations Court Judge Hugh Reid, seeking a reduction in a court order for the support of his three children, from $200 monthly to $150. To back his request, he showed the court a set of books, accounting for an income of $1,190 last year. Judge Reid said he was convinced the books were “phony and concocted.”
Commonwealth Attorney William Hassan, opposing Rockwell’s application for reducing the support order, told the court that Rockwell’s children are living in ill health in Connecticut. Mr. Hassan said the children occupy a house that has no running water or plumbing and heated only by a wood stove. The children, he stated, have no access to public or private transportation. The Commonwealth Attorney argued that Rockwell lives at his home here in relative comfort, and should support his children as long as he maintains his Arlington home as a haven for itinerant Nazis.
Testimony showed that Rockwell’s party has only 10 dues-paying members. Rockwell told the court that running a Nazi party these days is a “difficult proposition.” Judge Reid rejected Rockwell’s request for the reduction of the support to his children. He also ordered the Nazi to appear again to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for failing to have sent to the children the monies already ordered for their support.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
