Prominent among the most recent organizations rapidly gaining strength throughout the country in a national wave of intolerance and racial bias is the Order of ’76.
Royal Scott Gulden, leader of the new order savoring of the old (and, incidentally, the new) Ku Klux Klan, is a real estate dealer with offices at 1 East Fifty-third Street. His office, unlike the average real estate office, is not littered with lease and property sale advertisements. He is not listed in the red book of the telephone directory under the classification of real estate; the only insignia on the door of his office is a large “76” circumscribed by an “O”; and other evidence points to the fact that real estate with Mr. Gulden is a side issue.
A large office divided into six or seven rooms is frequented by a motley aggregation of humanity, men with shabby shoes, men with spats, men with fur coats, men with patched jackets, men who smoke expensive cigars, men of the type who “shoot snipes” in the gutter.
OPINIONATED, WITH ACCENT
Mr. {SPAN}G###{/SPAN} resents an appearance {SPAN}so###at{/SPAN} reminiscent of a well known German patriot called Adolf Hitler. There is a note of abstraction in his conversation; at times a far-away gleam of ambition and righteousness comes into his rather bulging eyes. His voice, colored somewhat with the New Yorkese accent that transforms Third Avenue into “Toid Avenoo” and Jersey into “Joisey”, carries conviction which neither tolerates argument nor hesitates for views to the contrary.
As chief of the Order of ’76 Mr. Gulden is a versatile fellow. By his own admission he can mix with all classes of members to his organization. According to his story he is at home in the “palatial Park Avenue apartments” in which his group meets in New York. He would likewise be at home in the shabby little farm houses in the desolate wind-swept plains of Kansas.
For a real estate office the establishment is a good clipping bureau. Pending the arrival of the “big day” or the “opportune moment”, when the Order of ’76 will ascend to its rightful place at the head of the nation’s affairs, the organization appears to be biding its time by clipping news of Fascist activities in the United States, sending out circulars to members, and filing applications for membership.
THE SNIP, SNIP SOUNDS
Snip, snip, snip, go the shears through the daily papers. They are wielded by the dainty hands of a buxom miss in the main office of the Order of ’76. “Dickstein Launches Inquiry at Capital”, snip, snip; and the story becomes history in the large clipping book of the Order of ’76. “Spanknoebel Indicted”, snip, snip. “Griebl Testifies Before Grand Jury”, snip, snip. “Captain Schmitt Here to Lead Nazis”, snip, snip.
While Mr. Gulden stated that he wanted no publicity for his organization “yet”, he did admit that his organization, expanding every day in all parts of the country, had attained a membership well in excess of 100,000. “One hundred thousand men we can depend upon,” he said. “Finest fellows in the country.”
For those who take the Order of ’76 seriously, there is something ###minous about this snip, snip . . . a foreshadowing perhaps as fateful as that of the stitch, stitch of the days during the French Revolution, as all readers of “The Tale of Two Cities” will remember.
“DEFENDERS OF REPUBLIC”
Mr. Gulden personally refuses to be classified as a Fascist. “We are defenders of our Republican, or rather Democratic, (since Roosevelt became president) form of Government,” he said. “I have been telling my men that the time will soon come when we shall have to arise to defend this nation against the challenge of Fascist and Communist organizations. We are not in the shirt business, so we won’t be known as the pink shirts, or mauve shirts, or any other kind of shirts.”
Despite his statement, however, Mr. Gulden and his Order of ’76 are recognized as one of the most dangerous forces operating in the United States in the interests of Fascism and anti-Semitism. It is reliably related that this group has quietly begun the process of coordinating all Fascist elements in the United States, exclusive of the Pelley Silver Shirts, whose widespread publicity is regarded as sufficient to bring to public scorn any official suppression any plans they may entertain.
It is also understood that the Order of ’76 has established an international link with Fascist forces abroad, which suffices to make them formidable from the viewpoint of support, both moral and financial.
Perhaps one of the most perilous elements of the Order of ’76 is their enlistment of war veterans, men capable of offering organized armed resistance. By virtue of this factor the secret conspiracy of the order against the United States Government is regarded by the informed as the greatest menace to the present government of the country. Gulden has taken a leaf from the maneuver sheets of European dictotors, Mussolini, Pilsudski and Hitler, in banding about him war veterans. The history of all successful post-war uprisings indicate that power has been gained only when men trained in bloodshed executed the revolutionary orders.
Likewise on the issue of anti-Semitism, it is understood that Gulden is extremely modest in his few public utterances regarding his attitude toward the Jews. In the privacy of his own clique he is more assertive.
Nor is Gulden considered the guiding genius of the movement by those who are most closely connected with the group. A number of men, publication of whose names would “create furor in Wall Street” and other pulse points of the world of affairs, are said to have contributed their prestige and power to the movement.
But to return to his office:
On his desk was a sheaf of applications for membership into his organization. He showed them to the writer who visited him. “Look ’em over,” he said, “but disregard the names. These are the applications for today.”
There were applications from Kansas, Texas, Montana, and other states, principally located in the west. “We get big support from the other side of the country,” Mr. Gulden announced.
“CAPTURES” THE ARMY
He related how he had “captured the second bonus army.” It seems that when this group descended upon Washington to be rebuffed by the government in their demands for bonus money, Mr. Gulden succeeded in listing practically every marcher in his organization. “At a dollar a throw,” he said.
Among other requirements for membership in the Order of ’76 is that of payment of $1 membership fee.
“A few of the members who couldn’t afford to pay the dollar,” Mr. Gulden explained, “we allowed to earn their dollar by delivering the mail or doing other chores for the order.”
The money, explained the leader, does not go into the pockets of any officer of the group. “There isn’t anybody in the outfit earning a dime,” Mr. Gulden declared.
The organization, ostensibly for the purpose of combatting crime, has a far deeper significance, Mr. Gulden admits. He refused to disclose the nature of communications being sent to the older members of the order. The first “bait” designed to lure prospective members into the fold, however, was turned over to one of his visitors.
THE PURPOSES
The aims of the organization are listed as: To expose and combat false propaganda and dishonest leadership; to suppress crime and racketeering; to support a registration bill to be introduced in congress for the registration of all people by fingerprint and photographic method, thus enabling the deportation of alien criminals as well as those who are here illegally, and thereby protecting the honest American.
It is signed, “vigilantly yours, Royal S. Gulden.” Application blanks are stamped with ten fingerprints of the applicant.
Mr. Gulden insists that there is no racial clause in his order, but he points an accusing finger at certain “criminal races”, which must be dealt with. “Good Jews,” he said, “may even become members of the order.” He says that many ministers have signed up.
First on the list of those to be attacked by the Order of ’76 are the “dirty crooks at Washington.” It is gathered from his conversation that these include many of the banker class who have recently become the target for verbal barrages fired from Asheville, North Carolina, by that sterling patriot and true Christian soldier, Dudley Pelley, head of the Silver Shirts and editor of the clairaudient copy dispatched from on high and published in his magazine, “Liberation.”
WHAT HE FINDS OUT
Mr. Gulden also points out that a large portion of our criminals are Jewish. The Jews, it seems, can’t fool Mr. Gulden by changing their names. “Take an instance like this,” Mr. Gulden pointed out, “a man by the name of Jack Lee is arrested for some crime or other. We get busy on the job right away, trace the man’s name through public school and other records, and the first thing we know we find out his name is really Jacob Leschinsky. See how it works?”
Mr. Gulden warns all “good Jews” not to become panicky when the big day arrives. “The trouble is,” he said, “all Jews get scared when we begin to clean up on the really bad element. We ain’t got nothing against the little Jew who minds his pushcart and his own business in an honest way. It’s the big fellows we’re after—those who don’t earn the money they get.”
Mr. Gulden relates a sad experience of his own with the Jews. At one time, according to his story, Gulden was a big real estate dealer in New York, worked like a dog, but he certainly did make the business pay. Handled the real estate transactions involved in the construction of the Woolworth Building and the New York Central Railroad, he did. And all went well until his company was sold to a Jew named Gold. Gold continued to use the good name of Gulden; and it cost something like $15,000 for Gulden to get his name back from the firm.
“Do you know anybody in New York making a success of their business outside of Jews?” Mr. Gulden asks.
He answers the question himself. His answer is, “No”.
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.
