The Green Mountain Rifleman [28 issues]

Miller, Lucille S.

Bethel, VT: Lucille S. Miller, 1953-1958. Twenty-eight mimeographed newsletters, most of them a single sheet, plus a duplicate of one issue with identical text but typed in different format, apparently a re-issue. Numbers present are the newsletters for the following dates. 1953: July 13, Sept. 17. 1954: Aug. 18, Nov. 19. 1955: Jan. 25, March 23, April 3, June 24, July 14, July 30, August 11, Sept. 2, Sept. 15, Oct. 1, Oct. 28, Nov. 24, Dec. 10, Dec. 12. 1956: Feb. 13, May 5, May 23 (two versions; the title is "Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to jail we go"), May 27, May 29. 1958: Jan. 8, Feb. 5, March 17, July 26, and July 28. Faintly fold-creased, some have penciled notes such as "Anti-Semitic" or "Native Fascist" in the corner, otherwise very good. Several issues are stapled together with a handwritten note from Lucille Miller discussing her husband's legal problems and thanking the recipient for inquiring about back issues.

A local history piece by Mark Bushnell in the Vermont Digger says of Miller that "she created a newsletter, the Green Mountain Rifleman. Her dispatches were spare — usually just a page or two of typed text, which she and her husband would mimeograph and mail to a list of about 500 like-minded people across the country. The Millers used the Rifleman to hammer away at the issue of communism but also highlighted other issues, particularly those where they suspected conspiracies were at work. They voiced their opposition to the United Nations, the supposed infiltration of the U.S. government by a Jewish communist cabal, the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the use of fluoride in public drinking water." These issues include much discussion of her family's legal troubles after she was prosecuted for encouraging young men to avoid the draft (because she believed they would be fighting under UN authority). Earlier issues discuss her confinement at St. Elizabeth's asylum, where Ezra Pound was also held (she describes him as a political prisoner).

Cat.No: 287606

Price: $500.00