Acting Chairman Joe Starnes abruptly adjourned a public hearing of the Dies Committee today after Rep. Jerry Voorhis sought to broaden the field of the questioning directed at the witness, William Dudley Pelley, chief of the Silver Shirts. After objecting to several of Voorhis’ questions as “outside the scope of un-American activities,” Starnes adjourned the hearing until tomorrow morning. Pelley is expected to take the stand again at that time.
Meanwhile, Washington police said they had received a request from North Carolina authorities to hold Pelley under a capias issued against him. The Washington Department said it would take no action until a warrant had been received from the sheriff’s office at Asheville. It was indicated they expected to receive it tonight or tomorrow morning. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which had also been requested by State authorities to hold Pelley, does not plan to take any action in the matter, considering it the task of the local department.
In his first public appearance before the committee, Pelley asserted the objectives of his organization were precisely those of the committee itself. He denied that he had any foreign connections or had received foreign support in any for.
Every member of the committee, with the exception of Chairman Dies, was on hand, but the bulk of the questioning was by Starnes and Voorhis. Pelley said he launched his Silver Shirt organization in 1933, “with the advent of the so called New Deal.” Previously he had made his living “working on magazines and in free lance writing,” he said.
Asked the membership of his organization, he replied: “At the end of 1939 I had issued 25,000 membership certificates.” Under further questioning he added he would place the number of “active sympathizers of his group at 75,000 and the number of contributors at between 100 and 1,000. He declared he was active in 22 states.
Pelley declared he had assumed he was violating no laws in his activities after no action had been taken as a result of investigation by “three sets of G-men in May, 1939.” He stated he showed the F.B.I, investigators “everything but the membership lists,” and added he got the impression that “they sort of approved of my organization.”
“I have been engaged in the same activity as the Dies committee has been prosecuting–opposing subversive activities,” Pelley declared at one point.
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