Gerald
Smith, the son of a church minister, was born in Wisconsin in 1898.
Ordanied in 1916, he was a minister of the Disciples of Christ, in
Indiana. As a result of his wife's poor health, Smith and his family
moved to Louisiana in 1928.
Smith
became minister at the Disciples of Christ Church in Shreveport. As
well as his church services, Smith started a series of radio broadcasts
in Louisiana. His support for trade unions and his attacks on local
utility companies and business corruption upset his more conservative
parishioners.
Smith
became a close friend of Huey Long and
in 1932 they launched the Share Our Wealth
Society. A scheme where the government would limit the income
of all citizens through taxation. Long told the Senate in April 1932:
"Unless
we provide for redistribution
of wealth in this country, the country is doomed." He added the
nation faced a choice, it could limit large fortunes and provide a
decent standard of life for its citizens, or it could wait for the
inevitable revolution.
Facing constant criticism
from his parishioners,
Smith resigned his ministery. Long now employed Smith
to travel throughout
the South to recruit members for the Share our Wealth Clubs. He claimed
that he was bringing in 20,000 new recruits a day and announced that
the Share
Our Wealth Society had
over 5 million members.
Smith was a outstanding
public speaker. H.
L. Mencken described
him as "the gustiest and goriest, loudest and lustiest, the deadliest
and damndest orator ever heard on this or any other earth."
After the assassination
of Huey
Long Smith took
over the leadership of the Share
Our Wealth Society but
was soon ousted by the politicians in Louisiana.
In
1936 Smith joined with Francis Townsend,
Charles Coughlin and followers of the
late Huey Long to form the National
Union of Social Justice. William Lepke
was selected as the party's candidate in the 1936 presidential election
but won only 882,479 votes compared to Franklin
D. Roosevelt (27,751,597) and Alfred Landon
(16,679,583).
In 1940
Smith became associated with the America
First Committee.
It soon became the most powerful isolationist group in the United
States. The AFC had four main principles: (1) The United States
must build an impregnable defense for America; (2) No foreign power,
nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America; (3)
American democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European
War; (4) "Aid short of war" weakens national defense at
home and threatens to involve America in war abroad.
The AFC
influenced public opinion through publications and speeches and within
a year had over 800,000 members. However, the AFC was dissolved four
days after the Japanese
Air Force attacked
Pearl Harbor on 7th December, 1941.
Smith refused
to give up the struggle and formed the America
First Party. He also published the magazine, The
Cross and The Flag. In 1944 Smith was the party's presidential
candidate. He received only 1,780 votes, mostly from Texas and Michigan,
and the election was easily won by
Franklin D. Roosevelt (25,602,504).
After the
war Smith established the Christian Nationalist Party. The party did
extremely badly in the 1948 residential election and Smith left the
political scene.
(1)
Gerald L. K. Smith, St Louis Post-Dispatch (3rd March, 1933)
He is Louisiana's
greatest humorist. He
abstains from alcohol. He uses no tobacco. Huey Long is a superman.
I actually believe that he can do as much in one day as any ten men
I know. He keeps all of his campaign promises. We, who follow him,
adore him and consider ourselves flattered when he asks our help.
He never lies to us. He never uses the fall-guy method of protecting
himself. He takes the blame for our mistakes.
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