I mention these to show the type of stuff Steele is willing to disseminate--if he is paid for it. And by permitting the use of their names, the sponsors, consciously or unconsciously, aid him in his anti-American activities.
The detailed aims of the _National Republic_ are to provide a "weekly service to twenty-three hundred editors, to defend American institutions against subversive radicalism; a national information service on subversive organizations and activities; an Americanization bureau serving schools, colleges and patriotic groups; conducted for the public good from Washington, D.C., by nationally known leaders."
The procedure of conducting the organization "for the public good" includes high-pressuring the shekels from the suckers. Steele, a former newspaperman, learned from his association with that other arch-patriot, Jung. So when Steele established his own racket, he found one of his early aids in former Senator Robinson of Indiana. Robinson was closely tied up with the Ku Klux Klan. Through Robinson and through other politicians reached with the cry "Save America," he got a long list of prominent sponsors and gradually increased it until now it reads like a _Who's Who_ of reactionary industrialists and innocent politicians. With letters of introduction from Senator Robinson, Steele's high pressure gang set out to collect in the name of patriotism.
The procedure was simple. Salesmen presented their letters of introduction to the mayor of a city. The mayor was impressed with the high "patriotic" motives and especially with the imposing list of names sponsoring the efforts. The mayor introduced the high-pressure fellows to other people--and the milking began.
Let me illustrate a little more specifically:
On March 4, 1936, Steele sent two of his ablest dollar-pullers, Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton, into the Oklahoma oil fields where the industrialists would like to see a minimum of 200 per cent Americanism instilled in the public mind. Messrs. Fahr and Hamilton had letters of introduction to Mayor T.A. Penny of Tulsa, Okla. When the salesmen approached the Mayor, they had not only the long and imposing list of names on the letterhead but additional letters of introduction from ex-Governor Curley of Mass., ex-Senator Robinson of Indiana and Congressman Martin Dies of Texas. The drummers wanted the Mayor to introduce them to the Chairman of the Tulsa Board of Education who could help them get funds in Tulsa and elsewhere. The funds were to be used to place the "patriotic" magazine in the public school system in order "to preserve this country against subversive activities, particularly Communism."