# Transcript: Bedlam  ## Metadata - Author:: [[MSNBC Films]] - Full Title:: Transcript: Bedlam - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/transcript-bedlam-n1300516 ## Highlights > Governor Huey Long: Get out! Organize your friends! Let’s make the fight! Let’s make the politicians keep the promises, or vote somebody into office that will keep the promises! That in this land of abundance, none shall have too much! None shall have too little! ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439496)) > Huey Long took that to another level. He would say, “I am the Constitution.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439509)) > The Christian Front case. When the FBI and the Justice Department arrested and brought charges against 17 members of Father Coughlin’s Christian Front militia in 1940 – the guys who were stockpiling bombs, and ammunition, and U.S. military heavy machine guns, training for a violent takeover of the federal government – the man the Justice Department tapped to try that case in federal court was that rockstar lawyer, John Rogge, who had just come back from his triumph in Louisiana. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439515)) > Christian Fronters were all set free and even given their guns back ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439518)) > The case charged dozens of Americans with trying to violently overthrow the government. That implicated dozens of sitting members of Congress, as well. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439522)) > Franked envelopes from Congressman Hamilton Fish's office were used to send out literature from the armed fascist group the Silver Shirts, as well as a mail-order form for people to receive copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Jewish forgery promoted by the Nazi party and by anti-semites all over the world. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439540)) > The federal grand jury has indicted again 28 men and women on charges that they have conspired to establish a Nazi government in the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439549)) > And the members of Congress involved with Nazi agent George Sylvester Viereck, they were not off the hook after all. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439551)) > So, they're charged with essentially trying to create a revolt among the ranks of the troops. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439556)) > George Deatherage – had been caught planning a nationwide burst of violence to overthrow the 1940 presidential election results by force. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439560)) > Rogge collected evidence for his sedition indictment that it wasn't just Deatherage, it was defendant, after defendant, after defendant who had actually been brought over to Germany by the Hitler government and then sent back into the United States to resume their work. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439563)) > Edward James Smythe – who had headlined joint rallies between the Klu Klux Klan and the German American Bund, who had corresponded with the German Government asking their help in propagandizing the American people and targeting Jews – Mr. Smythe, when it came time for him to face trial, he was gone. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439587)) > caught him about 40 miles south of the Canadian border, and still heading north. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439594)) > 30 alleged seditionists, 22 defense attorneys, the prosecutors, the judge, the jury pool, reporters – lots of reporters reporters – members of the public, everybody in the same 38-by-40 foot room. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439604)) > Adolf Hitler, Joseph Paul Goebbels, Rudolph Hess, and Winston Churchill to witness the innocence of their clients. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439633)) > The judge allowed defense counsel to ask prospective jurors if they were Jewish, if they had Jewish relatives, or if they read Jewish publications. And it got even weirder than that. Prospective jurors were asked by defense counsel: "What does Jew mean?" "What does international bankers mean?" "What is meant by Mongolian Jew?" "What is zionism?" "Do you think the Jews are an international people?" "Do you think Jesus was a Jew." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439641)) > The resulting 12-person jury had zero Jewish people, zero African-Americans, and at least three German-Americans. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439645)) > The case finally got started today, and the prosecution tried to make opening statements. John Rogge tried to talk through cat calls and comments from the defense tables. Defense attorneys were popping up all over the place with motion after motion, and the 29 defendants themselves indulged in asides, shouts, stage whispers, and at one point broke into a kind of derisory chant. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439665)) > At one point, the defendants banded together and repeatedly shouted at John Rogge to sit down and shut up. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439668)) > And now and then, such strident screams from defendants as “that’s a damn lie” or “I’m a republican, not a Nazi.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439670)) > They don’t seem to have any more sense of self discipline in court than so many jackrabbits. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439674)) > “[The defendants] intended to impose on us a one-party system, just as the Nazis had done before them in Germany. The evidence will show that they intended to abolish the Republican and the Democratic parties. The evidence will show that they intended to abolish freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom from arrest without cause, and all the other civil liberties guaranteed to us by the constitution. > Thereafter, the evidence will show they intended to run this country not according to our constitution, but according to the so-called ‘fuhrer’ principle and the Nazi concept of Aryanism > The evidence will show that the defendants themselves talked in terms of bloodbaths, or blood flowing in the streets, [or] hanging people from lamp posts, of pogroms. One of the defendants stated that our pogroms in this country would make Hitler’s look like a Sunday school picnic. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439681)) # Transcript: Bedlam  ## Metadata - Author:: [[MSNBC Films]] - Full Title:: Transcript: Bedlam - Category: #articles - URL: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/transcript-bedlam-n1300516 ## Highlights > Governor Huey Long: Get out! Organize your friends! Let’s make the fight! Let’s make the politicians keep the promises, or vote somebody into office that will keep the promises! That in this land of abundance, none shall have too much! None shall have too little! ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439496)) > Huey Long took that to another level. He would say, “I am the Constitution.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439509)) > The Christian Front case. When the FBI and the Justice Department arrested and brought charges against 17 members of Father Coughlin’s Christian Front militia in 1940 – the guys who were stockpiling bombs, and ammunition, and U.S. military heavy machine guns, training for a violent takeover of the federal government – the man the Justice Department tapped to try that case in federal court was that rockstar lawyer, John Rogge, who had just come back from his triumph in Louisiana. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439515)) > Christian Fronters were all set free and even given their guns back ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439518)) > The case charged dozens of Americans with trying to violently overthrow the government. That implicated dozens of sitting members of Congress, as well. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439522)) > Franked envelopes from Congressman Hamilton Fish's office were used to send out literature from the armed fascist group the Silver Shirts, as well as a mail-order form for people to receive copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Jewish forgery promoted by the Nazi party and by anti-semites all over the world. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439540)) > The federal grand jury has indicted again 28 men and women on charges that they have conspired to establish a Nazi government in the United States. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439549)) > And the members of Congress involved with Nazi agent George Sylvester Viereck, they were not off the hook after all. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439551)) > So, they're charged with essentially trying to create a revolt among the ranks of the troops. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439556)) > George Deatherage – had been caught planning a nationwide burst of violence to overthrow the 1940 presidential election results by force. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439560)) > Rogge collected evidence for his sedition indictment that it wasn't just Deatherage, it was defendant, after defendant, after defendant who had actually been brought over to Germany by the Hitler government and then sent back into the United States to resume their work. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439563)) > Edward James Smythe – who had headlined joint rallies between the Klu Klux Klan and the German American Bund, who had corresponded with the German Government asking their help in propagandizing the American people and targeting Jews – Mr. Smythe, when it came time for him to face trial, he was gone. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439587)) > caught him about 40 miles south of the Canadian border, and still heading north. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439594)) > 30 alleged seditionists, 22 defense attorneys, the prosecutors, the judge, the jury pool, reporters – lots of reporters reporters – members of the public, everybody in the same 38-by-40 foot room. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439604)) > Adolf Hitler, Joseph Paul Goebbels, Rudolph Hess, and Winston Churchill to witness the innocence of their clients. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439633)) > The judge allowed defense counsel to ask prospective jurors if they were Jewish, if they had Jewish relatives, or if they read Jewish publications. And it got even weirder than that. Prospective jurors were asked by defense counsel: "What does Jew mean?" "What does international bankers mean?" "What is meant by Mongolian Jew?" "What is zionism?" "Do you think the Jews are an international people?" "Do you think Jesus was a Jew." ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439641)) > The resulting 12-person jury had zero Jewish people, zero African-Americans, and at least three German-Americans. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439645)) > The case finally got started today, and the prosecution tried to make opening statements. John Rogge tried to talk through cat calls and comments from the defense tables. Defense attorneys were popping up all over the place with motion after motion, and the 29 defendants themselves indulged in asides, shouts, stage whispers, and at one point broke into a kind of derisory chant. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439665)) > At one point, the defendants banded together and repeatedly shouted at John Rogge to sit down and shut up. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439668)) > And now and then, such strident screams from defendants as “that’s a damn lie” or “I’m a republican, not a Nazi.” ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439670)) > They don’t seem to have any more sense of self discipline in court than so many jackrabbits. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439674)) > “[The defendants] intended to impose on us a one-party system, just as the Nazis had done before them in Germany. The evidence will show that they intended to abolish the Republican and the Democratic parties. The evidence will show that they intended to abolish freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom from arrest without cause, and all the other civil liberties guaranteed to us by the constitution. > Thereafter, the evidence will show they intended to run this country not according to our constitution, but according to the so-called ‘fuhrer’ principle and the Nazi concept of Aryanism > The evidence will show that the defendants themselves talked in terms of bloodbaths, or blood flowing in the streets, [or] hanging people from lamp posts, of pogroms. One of the defendants stated that our pogroms in this country would make Hitler’s look like a Sunday school picnic. ([View Highlight](https://instapaper.com/read/1558272092/21439681))