Politics
Riker ran for political office on a White Supremacy platform, advocating that Black and Asian Americans be banned from owning businesses in California. In one of his political pamphlets titled The Emancipator, Riker wrote:
The White Man can take care of any and all kinds of business in our own, White Man's California State Home, and no longer will the White Man tolerate your undermining and polluting tactics. Farmers, Business Men and The Workers say: Orientals get out and stay out of our business. Our new Government will see that you get a job. Your polluting, undermining system of business must eternally stop in Our California. And besides this, keep your polluting hands off our White Race Women; they also belong only to the White Race Man. This is the true law of our original White Man's Constitution, these statements explain the real and true spirit of California.
He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California four times. In 1938, he entered the Progressive Party primary and received only 170 of the approximately 7500 total votes cast. In the subsequent three elections, he entered both the Republican and Democratic primaries. Riker lost the primaries in 1942, 1946 and 1950, averaging less than one percent of the total votes.
Riker was arrested in 1942 for sedition due to his support of Adolf Hitler whom Riker called "a second Martin Luther". A jury acquitted Riker who then sued his attorney Melvin Belli for defamation because Belli's successful defense was to present Riker as a "crackpot." Riker lost the suit.
Read more about this topic: William E. Riker
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