1. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “Awake America!” (Los Angeles, [1934?]), 3Google Scholar; on the number of people who attended McPherson's services, see “Divorce Action Filed by Aimee, “Los Angeles Times, 21 December 1933; Orlando, Guido, Confessions of a Scoundrel (Philadelphia, 1954), 101Google Scholar. McPherson apparently expressed her enthusiastic support of Long to Canadian journalist Gordon Sinclair. See Sinclair, Gordon, Will the Real Gordon Sinclair Please Stand Up (Toronto, 1966), 4.Google Scholar

2. Ribuffo, Leo P. focuses primarily on the extremists in The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia, 1983)Google Scholar, while Carpenter, Joel A. overlooks the theological conservatives like McPherson who were politically engaged in Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York, 1997)Google Scholar. Even historians who focus on pentecostalism have overemphasized their apolitical tendencies while ignoring those people who were more active. See, for example, Wacker, Grant, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)Google Scholar, and Anderson, Robert Mapes, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Peabody, 1979).Google Scholar

3. McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001)Google Scholar. Chuck Smith was a product of McPherson's Bible college and a pastor within her denomination until he ventured out to form his own. Brinkley, Alan, “The Passions of Oral Roberts,” in Liberalism and Its Discontents (Cambridge, Mass., 1998), 266–276Google Scholar; Lienesch, Michael, Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill, 1993).Google Scholar

4. Italics hers. Ernest Williams, , “The Christian and Politics,” Pentecostal Evangel, 24 06 1939Google Scholar; Luce, Alice, “Seed Thoughts,” Pentecostal Evangel, 4 05 1935Google Scholar. See also Williams, Ernest, “Our Duty as Christian Citizens,” Pentecostal Evangel, 28 11 1936.Google Scholar

5. McPherson, Aimee Semple, The Second Coming of Christ (Los Angeles, 1921).Google Scholar

6. Religious Bodies: 1936 (Washington D. C., 1941), 14Google Scholar; on the denomination's size, see their Web site: www.foursquare.org. Biographers and historians of pentecostalism have minimized the political element of McPherson's work. Edith Blumhofer writes, “Sister [McPherson] generally shied away from political sermons … she carefully avoided showdowns in the pulpit. … Sister did not use her pulpit to stir up political controversy”; in his biography of the evangelist, Daniel Mark Epstein ignores McPherson's political dimension; Grant Wacker argues that McPherson's politics were “not conspicuous enough … to merit comment”; and Robert Mapes Anderson overlooks McPherson's political and humanitarian contributions to her community in his discussion of pentecostal cultural engagement. Blumhofer, Edith, Aimee Semple McPherson: Everybody's Sister (Grand Rapids, 1993), 365–366Google Scholar; Epstein, Daniel Mark, Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Wacker, Heaven Below, 222; Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited, 195–222.

7. Leo Ribuffo's path-breaking study, The Old Christian Right, does an excellent job of analyzing the “villains” of the Depression era. My work seeks to build on his, by adding another dimension and a new set of actors to this important topic.

8. Greg Mitchell argues that the Sinclair election was the first mass-media political campaign. See Mitchell, Greg, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair's Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (New York, 1992).Google Scholar

9. On the significance of McPherson's influence on early pentecostalism, see Vinson Synan, who argues, “The advent of Aimee Semple McPherson marked a turning point in the history of the Pentecostal movement in the United States. The first Pentecostal well-known to the public at large, McPherson did much to gain tolerance and respect for a religion generally associated with the lowest social strata.” Synan, Vinson, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, 1997), 203Google Scholar. Grant Wacker, in Heaven Below (145) makes a strong case for McPherson's significance as well; see also Butler, Jon, “The Faith of Narrative,” The Yale Review 82 (07 1994): 145.Google Scholar

10. As I use them in this article, the terms “evangelical,” “fundamentalist,” and “pentecostal” are closely related. Broadly defined, evangelicals are Christians who focus on conversion experiences, the individual's relationship with God, and missions. Fundamentalists are evangelicals in the Reformed and Wesleyan traditions who, during the Progressive Era, began militantly challenging changes in American Protestantism. They fought evolution, “higher” criticism of the scriptures, and new standards of morality characteristic of the era. Pentecostals are one of the various groups that at times contributed to the fundamentalist movement. What distinguished pentecostals from their fundamentalist peers was their emphasis on the “baptism in the Holy Spirit,” an emotional experience that occurred after conversion often associated with speaking in tongues. On these terms, see Matthew Sutton, A., “‘Between the Refrigerator and the Wildfire': Aimee Semple McPherson, Pentecostalism, and the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy,” Church History 72 (03 2003): 159–188Google Scholar. On publications and organizations mentioned in this essay: “Angelus Temple” was the individual church that McPherson pastored. It became the foundation for her incorporation in 1927 of hundreds more churches within her new “Foursquare” denomination. She published a monthly magazine with national distribution entitled the Bridal Call, which in 1924 became the Bridal Call Foursquare. She also published a local weekly newspaper called the Foursquare Crusader. In mid-1934, the two publications were combined and renamed the Bridal Call–Foursquare Crusader.

11. These constituted the four pillars of McPherson's “Foursquare Gospel.”

12. For McPherson's biography, see Blumhofer's Aimee Semple McPherson; Epstein's Sister Aimee; and McPherson's autobiography, This Is That: Personal Experiences, Sermons, and Writings of Aimee Semple McPherson, Evangelist, 2d rev. ed. (Los Angeles, 1923).Google Scholar

13. McPherson, Aimee Semple, This Is That: Personal Experiences, Sermons, and Writings of Aimee Semple McPherson, Evangelist (Los Angeles, 1919), 344–367.Google Scholar

14. On the cost of the Temple, see Winter Construction Company Memo, 10 July 1923, Personal Papers of Aimee Semple McPherson, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Los Angeles (hereafter ICFG).

15. Extant Angelus Temple membership records from the 1920s–1940s reinforce journalists’ impressions. The largest constituencies of Temple members who claimed to have converted outside California were from (beginning with the greatest constituency and proceeding in order): Texas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, Oregon, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Michigan. McWilliams, Carey, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City, 1946), 158Google Scholar; Gregory, James, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (New York, 1989), 150, 159Google Scholar; Bliven, Bruce, “Sister Aimee: Mrs. McPherson (Saint of Sinner?) and Her Flock,” The New Republic 48 (3 11 1926): 289Google Scholar. Writing for Harper's, Sarah Comstock also noted the Midwestern composition of McPherson's audience. Comstock, Sarah, “Aimee Semple McPherson: Prima Donna of Revivalism,” Harper's Monthly Magazine 156 (12 1927–May 1928): 11–19.Google Scholar

16. “Real Music Gratis for Angelenos,” Los Angeles Times, 20 March 1923.

17. Los Angeles Central Labor Council, Regular Session, 16 October 1944, Personal Papers of Aimee Semple McPherson, ICFG; Morrow Mayo, Los Angeles (New York, 1932), 285Google Scholar; Hall, Chapin, “Aimee M'Pherson Faces New Fight,” New York Times, 13 12 1936.Google Scholar

18. On religious conservative's views of the League of Nations, see Ruotsila, Markku, “Conservative American Protestantism in the League of Nations Controversy,” Church History 72 (09 2003): 593–616.Google Scholar

19. Hoover, Herbert, “The Reminiscences of Herbert Clark Hoover,” Columbia University Oral History Project, 1951 (New York, 1975), 11.Google Scholar

20. Adamic, Louis, “The Mystery of Aimee Semple McPherson,” in The Truth About Aimee Semple McPherson: A Symposium (Girard, Kan., [1926?]), 25Google Scholar; “Caesar's Ghost: From Pharaoh to Ford, Anonymous Writers Have Penned for the Great,” Literary Digest 123 (10 July 1937): 37; Orlando, Confessions of a Scoundrel; ”I Am God's Best Publicity Agent,” Look 2 (13 September 1938): 8–11.

21. Italics hers. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “God's Attitude Toward America—America's Attitude Toward God,” Bridal Call Foursquare 9 (03 1926): 5–6.Google Scholar

22. “Temple Head in New York City,” Los Angeles Times, 11 September 1928; “Mrs. McPherson to Sail,” New York Times, 11 September 1928; “Many Contests Demand All Foursquare Votes” and “Opinion Seems Solid for Hoover,” Foursquare Crusader, 31 October 1928. Sermons preached by those substituting for the vacationing McPherson reflected similar sentiments. Eva Craven Wheeler, the head of California's Women's Christian Temperance Union (WTCU), argued that Smith was an “insistent and powerful enemy of prohibition.” Hoover's mother, on the other hand, was a Quaker preacher and a member of the WCTU. “One man,” she concluded, “stands for all the flag embraces. One will bring back all the evils of the saloon, its brutal domination to local, city, and national political life with its corruption and graft, far greater than the bootlegging graft.” “Mrs. Wheeler to Speak in Angelus Temple,” Foursquare Crusader, 17 October 1928.

23. Will Rogers quipped that prohibition debates were all the rage, “if you can find a crowd drunk enough to pay to hear it.” He even threatened to debate McPherson on the topic himself. Rogers, Will, Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Coolidge Years, 1926–1929, vol. 1, ed. Smallwood, James M. (Stillwater, 1978), 77Google Scholar. “Bone-dry Luncheon Proves All Wit,” Los Angeles Times, 29 July 1931; “Special Announcement,” Personal Papers of Aimee Semple McPherson, ICFG; “Aimee and Actor in Liquor Debate,” Los Angeles Times, 28 March 1932.

24. “E. R. Nelson to Upton Sinclair, 3 April 1932,” and “Rudolf Streit to Upton Sinclair, 11 April 1932,” Sinclair Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington; “Aimee Will Repeat Prohibition Debate,” Los Angeles Times, 2 April 1932; Chapin Hall, “Hollywood in Review,” New York Times, 17 April 1932.

25. Unfortunately, the church did not keep comprehensive data of its efforts, but occasional reports give some indication of the scope of the commissary. Over the first five months that the commissary was in operation, 1,400 families received food, which consisted of 21,500 canned goods, 3,910 pounds of potatoes, 2,830 loaves of bread, 606 pounds of butter, and many other essential items. Clothes went to 1,341 families, furniture to 191 people, and mattresses to 110 men and women. By the end of the commissary's first full year of service, 24,000 pieces of clothes were distributed and 17,000 people were fed. The onset of the Depression caused a significant increase in services and the quantity of people assisted. In 1930, commissary workers distributed 46,000 pieces of clothes and fed 20,500 people. By the end of 1933, the commissary had fed a total of 246,000 people and distributed just under 200,000 pieces of clothes. In a sixth-month period from January to June 1936, the Temple employment agency placed 3,610 people in permanent jobs and 1,240 into temporary positions. In 1940, the commissary purportedly fed and clothed 850 people a day. “Five Months’ Activity Proves Successful for Commissary in 1927,” Bridal Call Foursquare 12 (March 1928): 16; “Angelus Temple Commissary Report, August 1, 1927 to July 1, 1928,” Bridal Call Foursquare 12 (August 1928): 29; “Turn Backward, Time, In Your Flight,” Bridal Call Foursquare 14 (January 1931): 30; “Temple Commissary Gives Aid to Many,” Foursquare Crusader, 10 January 1934; “Angelus Temple Commissary Reports 25,000 Service Items,” Foursquare Crusader, August 1940; Report to the Board of Equalization, County of Los Angeles, from Angelus Temple, Personal Papers of Aimee Semple McPherson, ICFG. McPherson's was among the most active private welfare organizations in the city. On relief in this period, see Mullins, William H., The Depression and the Urban West Coast, 1929–1933: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland (Bloomington, 1991).Google Scholar

26. On the competition for worker loyalties, see Becky Nicolaides, M., My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (Chicago, 2002).Google Scholar

27. “Temple Commissary: Ministry of Mercy,” Bridal Call Foursquare 14 (July 1931): 18, 19, 33; “Temple Free Meals Dwindle in Work Test,” Los Angeles Examiner, 18 March 1932; City of Los Angeles, Council Minutes 231 (12 January 1932), 791; California State Unemployment Commission (CSUC), Report and Recommendations of the California State Unemployment Commission (Sacramento, 1932), 345. Epstein has written, “Aimee had a gift for making people give. … She flattered and cajoled. … She coaxed or bullied the meatpackers, millers, bakers, and grocers into donating supplies. … Society women who would not set foot in Angelus Temple ransacked their mansion closets after getting a call from Aimee on the telephone. And so did their friends, and their friends' friends.” Epstein, Sister Aimee, 370. The Los Angeles Country Welfare Department saw increases in the number of cases from 18,650 in fiscal year 1929 to 63,415 in fiscal year 1932. Demands on private charities in Los Angeles increased by 190 percent from 1930 to 1931. From 1929 to 1932, per capita personal income dropped 41 percent for Californians. See CSUC, Report and Recommendations, 335, 338; and Leonard Arrington, “The New Deal in the West: A Preliminary Statistical Inquiry,” Pacific Historical Review 38 (August 1969): 313. Los Angeles Parent Teacher Association (PTA) also tried to help with the city's problems. In the early 1930s, it created a milk and lunch program to provide thousands of lunches every day to public school children, many of whom suffered from hunger and malnutrition. When the PTA temporarily ran out of money in 1931, McPherson stepped in. Angelus Temple provided 16,256 lunches over a two-week period for hungry kids. “Temple Commissary: Ministry of Mercy,” Bridal Call Foursquare 14 (July 1931): 19.

28. “The McPherson Mexicana Mission,” Bridal Call Foursquare 14 (August 1930): 17; Speaking Freely, WNBC Television, Edwin Newman interviewing Anthony Quinn (taped 12 November 1968, aired 30 November 1968); and Smith, Dave, “A Heady Homecoming for a Barrio Boy,” Los Angeles Times, 31 08 1981Google Scholar. The Mission had about 500 members in 1932. See Ortegon, Samuel M., “Mexican Religious Population of Los Angeles” (M.A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1932), 39Google Scholar. On repatriation, see Balderrama, Francisco, In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Community, 1929–1936 (Tucson, 1982)Google Scholar; Sanchez, George, Becoming Mexican-American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano L.A., 1900–1945 (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; and CSUC, Report and Recommendations, 370–71.

29. Weinstock, Matt, My L.A. (New York, 1947), 40Google Scholar. Adela Rogers St. John, a reporter for the Hearst papers, went “undercover,” living on the streets for six weeks in order to write an exposé of the region's welfare agencies. She concluded, “I hadn't seen anyone passing out manna or offering any loaves and fishes, yes—take that back—I'd seen Aimee Semple McPherson, God bless her. Feeding, encouraging, giving hope, hope, hope to the poor.” McPherson, she reported, “insulted” those with “folding money into parting with it for their destitute brothers.” St. John quoted in Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson, 347.

30. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “Little Women,” Bridal Call-Crusader, 13 06 1934Google Scholar; “Pulpit Sex Given Blow,” Los Angeles Times, 8 January 1936; Whitaker, Alma, “Aimee Turns Feminist,” Los Angeles Times, 12 01 1936Google Scholar; and International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Report of the Annual Convention, 1936 (Los Angeles).Google Scholar

31. “Bonus Marchers Return,” Los Angeles Times, 9 August 1932; “March-ing Events,” Bridal Call Foursquare 16 (03 1933): 2Google Scholar; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “God in American History in 1933,” Foursquare Crusader, 3 01 1934Google Scholar; “Aimee McPherson Thinks Roosevelt Is ‘Godsend’; Predicts World Conflict,” Foursquare Crusader, 21 March 1934. Editors did express fear, however, that he could use his popularity and the economic crisis to gain dictatorial powers, as had happened in Europe, although these fears did not appear in the Bridal Call again. Foursquare Crusader, ”White House Flooded with Beer,” 17 January 1934. Blumhofer argues that McPherson was critical of the New Deal. She writes, McPherson “seized on the ubiquitous ‘Blue Eagle’ of the New Deal's NRA as an apt illustration for what was wrong with Roosevelt's program.” In general, however, the evangelist was far more supportive of the New Deal than Blumhofer acknowledges. In 1933, the Angelus Temple Band marched in an NRA “victory parade.” Then in 1935, McPherson explained her limited critique of the program, writing, “The great Blue Eagle of National Recovery failed to soar above our economic problems. Why? … America must get back to God and the Bible. It is not the fault of our President. President Roosevelt said: ‘This nation can never return to prosperity until this nation returns to God.’” Blumhofer, Aimee Semple McPherson, 338–39; “Parade and Luncheon Hail N.R.A. Drive Victory,” Los Angeles Times, 2 September 1933; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “The Prodigal Called Sam,” Bridal Call-Crusader Foursquare, 3 07 1935.Google Scholar

32. “Signs of the Times,” Bridal Call-Crusader Foursquare 2 (16 October 1935): 20; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “God in American History in 1933,” Foursquare Crusader, 3 01 1934.Google Scholar

33. McPherson, “God in American History in 1933”; McPherson, “Awake, America!” (Los Angeles, [1934?]). One of the ironies of McPherson's position was that she believed the rise of the Antichrist was inevitable; it was part of God's foreordained plan. At the same time, however, she worked hard to try and turn the country around from the apocalyptic direction it was seemingly headed. Modern evangelicals have done exactly the same thing. See Boyer, Paul, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1992)Google Scholar; and Weber, Timothy P., Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–1982 (Grand Rapids, 1983)Google Scholar. McPherson also spent a good deal of time in the 1930s holding debates around the country with Charles Lee Smith, the founder of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. In one meeting, held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, McPherson argued that evolution and atheism would lead to a brutal, inhumane survival of the fittest. If the government embraced such secular ideas, McPherson argued, there would be an end to all social work. It was for this reason that religious organizations needed to be intimately involved with the state's welfare programs. “There is a God! Debate between Aimee Semple McPherson, Fundamentalist, and Charles Lee Smith, Atheist” (Los Angeles, [1934?]).Google Scholar

34. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “America Awake!” Bridal Call Foursquare 17 (02 1934): 18Google Scholar; “America Awake!” Bridal Call Foursquare 17 (January 1934): 17; see also “Awake, America!” (Los Angeles, [1934?]).

35. On the Sinclair campaign, see Harris, Leon, Upton Sinclair: American Rebel (New York, 1975)Google Scholar; Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century; and Rising, George G., “An Epic Endeavor: Upton Sinclair's 1934 California Gubernatorial Campaign,” Southern California Quarterly 79 (Spring 1997).Google Scholar

36. Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1934; “Pastors Pledge Support to Merriam's Candidacy,” Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1934; “W.T.C.U. Praises Merriam,” Los Angeles Times, 15 September 1934.

37. “Sinclair and Religion,” Los Angeles Times, 23 September 1934; “Sinclair on Christianity,” Los Angeles Times, 27 September 1934; “Ministers Will Discuss Governorship Campaign,” Los Angeles Times, 29 September 1934; Herring, Hubert C., “California Votes for God,” Christian Century (31 10 1934): 1370.Google Scholar

38. “Stand Up and Be Counted,” Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1934; Carr, Harry, “Reds Busy Undermining City Schools and Navy,” Los Angeles Times, 6 10 1934.Google Scholar

39. “Sister McPherson Guest of Associated Churches,” Bridal Call-Crusader Foursquare (7 November 1934): 13.

40. “Sister McPherson Guest of Associated Churches,” 13; “‘In Remembrance of Him,’ Service Melts Hearts in Christian Unity,” Bridal Call-Foursquare Crusader (7 November 1934): 12; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “Enemy Power Invades Christianity,” Bridal Call-Foursquare Crusader (14 11 1934)Google Scholar; and “Motion Picture People Send Appreciation to Sister for Service to Community,” Bridal Call-Foursquare Crusader (7 November 1934): 6.

41. Cochran, George I., “Old Age Pensions,” Los Angeles Times, 1 08 1934Google Scholar; “Aimee Plans Honeymoon,” Los Angeles Times, 28 January 1932; McWilliams, Carey, “High Spots in the Campaign,” The New Republic 80 (7 11 1934): 356.Google Scholar

42. On the city's changing religious demographics, see Singleton, Gregory H., Religion in the City of Angels: American Protestant Culture and Urbanization, Los Angeles, 1850–1930 (UMI Research Press, 1979).Google Scholar

43. Statement of the Vote at General Election Held on Nov. 6, 1934 (Sacramento, 1934); Sinclair, Upton, “The Future of EPIC,” Nation 139 (28 11 1934): 617Google Scholar; Sinclair, Upton, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1935), 181Google Scholar; Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century, 484.

44. Sinclair, Upton, Oil! (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1927), 305Google Scholar; “Oil,” chap. 18, p. 6, back, Sinclair Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.

45. “Charles Sharples to Upton Sinclair, 2 September 1934,” and “Anonymous to Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson Hutton, 2 November 1934,” Sinclair Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. The latter letter and another written to Sinclair about the pageant blame McPherson's assistant pastor, Rheba Crawford Splivalo, for manipulating McPherson into working against Sinclair. See “Jack Kirby to Upton Sinclair, 5 November 1934,” Sinclair Manuscript Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.

46. Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor, 63; Sinclair, , “The Future of EPIC,” Nation 139 (28 11 1934): 616Google Scholar; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “Enemy Power Invades Christianity,” Bridal Call-Foursquare Crusader (14 11 1934): 12.Google Scholar

47. Rogers, Will, Will Rogers' Daily Telegrams: The Roosevelt Years, 1933–1935, vol. 4, ed. Smallwood, James (Stillwater, 1979), 242Google Scholar; McPherson, Aimee Semple, Give Me My Own God (New York, 1936), 1–2Google Scholar. The evangelist returned to the United States as committed to Roosevelt as ever. When she learned that her assistant pastor, Rheba Crawford Splivalo, had preached critical sermons against Roosevelt and the New Deal while she was abroad, she penned a front-page column for her newspaper entitled “Pulpit and Politics.” McPherson explained in no uncertain terms that anyone attacking the nation's leaders “have done so entirely without authorization or sponsorship of myself as President.” She continued by citing the arguments of separatist pentecostals like the Assemblies of God as her own: “Our motto concerning politics and religion, is that ‘never the twain shall meet.’” Despite this claim, McPherson continued to integrate her political views, her reform agenda, and her support of Roosevelt. But unlike her assistant, McPherson was always careful to frame her political sermons in theological terms. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “Pulpit and Politics,” Foursquare Crusader, 24 06 1936Google Scholar. McPherson's assistant, Splivalo, was not the only person on the Right that McPherson broke with. For years she had been printing excerpts from Gerald Winrod's Defender in the “Signs of the Times” section of the Bridal Call. In 1938, he preached at Angelus Temple but was quickly asked to leave as a result of his inflammatory ideas. “Public Anger Believed Why Winrod Left,” Los Angeles Examiner, 18 November 1938.

48. “Aimee to Tell President of Reds’ School Activity,” Los Angeles Times, 29 August 1935; Thomas, Martin Luther, “America's Greatest Enemy,” Foursquare Crusader, 26 02 1936Google Scholar; Minutes of the Corporate Session, Corporate Documents, 9 January 1937, ICFG; Minutes of the Missionary Cabinet, Corporate Documents, 28 January 1941, ICFG.

49. “God's Country,” Bridal Call-Crusader 1 (4 July 1934): 9; “Revival of Faith Urged by Nation's Executive,” Foursquare Crusader 2 (26 February 1936): 1; “Amiee [sic] Semple McPherson to President and Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 4 November 1936,” Personal Correspondence, Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York. Although a couple of years earlier McPherson may have envisioned herself and Huey Long running on the same ticket, she seems to have settled on Roosevelt as the best candidate by the time of the election.

50. McPherson, Aimee Semple, “The Four Freedoms,” Foursquare Crusader 14 (02 1942): 5Google Scholar; McPherson, Aimee Semple, “The Church Triumphant,” Foursquare Crusader 14 (06 1942): 6Google Scholar. The evangelist's faith in the president derived not only from her approval of his agenda but also from her belief that he listened to her ideas. Speaking before church leaders about “The Foursquare Gospel's place in the present world crisis,” McPherson's corporate vice president observed that “our Government, our President has felt the need of the cooperation of the church in this great crisis.” He noted that McPherson had asked Roosevelt to call a national day of prayer, which the president apparently did, leading the aide to conclude, “our Leader … has influenced our President to look to God and call the nation to get on their knees before God.” Minutes of the Meeting of the Executive Council, Corporate Documents, 19 June 1942, ICFG. The Roosevelt library has a copy of a telegram sent by McPherson informing Roosevelt that she was calling a day of prayer in 1940, but this is not likely the message to which Knight referred. “Aimee Semple McPherson to Stephen T. Early, 28 June 1940,” Personal Correspondence, Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York.

51. Oral History Interview with Ernest E. Debs, by Caros Vásquez, UCLA, Department of Special Collections, 22–26.

52. Hutton, Aimee McPherson, “The Way to Disarm is to Disarm,” Los Angeles Times, 14 01 1932Google Scholar; Minutes of the Executive Council, 19 June 1942, ICFG; International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, Yearbook 1942 (Los Angeles); “Aimee Draws Record Crowd,” Los Angeles Times, 21 June 1942.