National Affairs: Moseley Roars

When Major General George Van Horn Moseley* retired last year, with a roar at the New Deal (TIME, Oct. 10), he sounded like a U. S. Army officer who at last could say what he thought. Roaring around the country since then, he has made sounds something like a U. S. Fascist. Last week, roaring for the Women’s National Defense Committee in Philadelphia, George Moseley finally made sounds that could not be mistaken:

He: 1) denounced Jews; 2) declared that the next war would be fought for their benefit; 3) rasped at Franklin Roosevelt for putting Felix Frankfurter on the U. S. Supreme Court; 4) predicted that the U. S. Army would “demur” if ordered by a leftist Administration “to execute orders which violate all American tradition”; 5) suggested that patrioteers be deputized and trained to handle “emergencies.” Strongest Moseley statement: Fascism and Naziism are good “antitoxins” for the U. S.; “in fact, the finest type of Americanism can breed under their protection as they neutralize the efforts of the Communists.”

Several uniformed war veterans walked out in disgust during the speech. Said the American Legion’s Pennsylvania Commander Frank E. Gwynn afterwards: “This man . . . mistakes freedom for license. . . . The Moseleys most certainly must be kept from poisoning the minds of America’s youth, from organizing the army which Moseley advocated for the overthrow of the Government.”

*No relative of Britain’s Fascist leader, Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley.