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SMITH, GERALD L. K. 1889-1976

MINISTER AND POLITICIAN

Early Ministry

Gerald L. K. Smith was born in Wisconsin and ordained when he was eighteen in the denomination that modestly called itself the Christian Church. After successfully serving a series of churches in Indiana, he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1928 to give his ailing wife a better climate. There he led the largest church of his denomination in that state. Smith quickly recognized the usefulness of radio and developed a large local following with the broadcasting of his sermons, which focused on reform topics.

From Preaching to Politics

In the early days of the Depression Smith began to attack the actions of important business leaders of Shreveport, including members of his own congregation. These people joined others in his church who charged that he was neglecting some of his pastoral responsibilities. The dissension in his church and his personal ambitions made Smith responsive to a chance to join Huey Long's organization. By 1934 Long was ready to challenge both the New Deal and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That year he established Share Our Wealth, which proposed a massive redistribution of individual fortunes and massive taxation of high incomes. Smith left his congregation in Shreveport to become the national organizer for Share Our Wealth and rapidly expanded the movement across the South and into the border states. Smith was a dynamic speaker, as his congregations well knew before he moved into politics. H. L. Mencken described him as "the gutsiest and goriest, loudest and lustiest, the deadliest and damndest orator ever heard on this or any other earth … , the champion boob-bumper of all epochs."

After Long

Smith seemed to have Long's confidence, but he did not have time to ingratiate himself with the politicians in the Long machine before the senator was assassinated in September 1935. Smith attempted to seize the leadership of the Long movement and gave the dramatic funeral address to more than a hundred thousand mourners at the new capitol building at Baton Rouge. But he then chose the weaker side of the splitting Long movement in Louisiana and was forced out of Long's organization. When Smith failed to find the crucial national mailing lists of Share Our Wealth he found himself with the shell of a movement and no real power.

The Union Party

Nevertheless, Smith attempted to parlay the assets he had and, claiming to speak for Share Our Wealth, aligned himself with Francis E. Townsend and his Old Age and Revolving Insurance Plan in early 1936. Smith then joined these two movements with Social Justice, the movement of radio priest Father Charles E. Coughlin, to support the presidential campaign of William Lemke's Union Party. Norman Thomas, the leader of the Socialist Party, called the Union Party "fascistic" and characterized Smith as having a "great and sinister influence" in the Union Party.

Fringe Politics

These ambitions came to nothing when Lemke's campaign failed to gain any electoral votes and disappeared. Share Our Wealth was never able to regain the membership of the Long days and disappeared into irrelevance. Smith cast about for a new way to remain in the political spotlight. He worked with a group he called the Committee of One Million for a couple of years, using the organization to preach for what he called Americanism, which he opposed to communism. He also consistently expressed anti-Semitic views that had become central to his thinking. He appeared in the last years of the decade at various sites of union activity, which he opposed. He was particularly opposed to the efforts of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which he charged was infiltrated by Jews and their communist allies. He continued what became a lifelong career of fringe politics and gained a reputation as the nation's leading anti-Semite. Almost all his efforts attempted to use Christianity to justify his attacks on Jews and communists, usually linking the two groups together. Never again, however, did he have the spotlight he obtained for a few short months with Share Our Wealth.