Robert Noble

Robert Noble (born Robert Coker, ca. 1897) was a real estate salesman, radio commentator and the originator of the Ham and Eggs California Pension Plan. He founded the anti-war group The Friends of Progress and was later a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

Early life

Robert Noble was born Robert Coker and had his name legally changed in 1928. He was born into a pacifist family who encouraged him to pursue religious studies. As a result of his upbringing he became a divinity student. He enlisted in the US Navy in November 1915 but later deserted and was sent to Portsmouth Prison.

Politics

Noble supported socialist Upton Sinclair’s bid for governor of California in 1934 and ran Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth program in California.

Nobel headed the organization The Friends of Progress during World War II. Earl Warren who was California Attorney General and later US Supreme Court Justice said the Friends of Progress "is subversive in character and is designed to destroy our war effort and with it our country."

In testimony to a California un-American activities committee Robert Noble freely admitted his admiration for Adolf Hitler and his policies in Germany.

Robert Noble and his associate in Friends of Progress, Ellis O. Jones, were convicted of violating the California sedition law on August 11, 1942. Robert Noble was given a five year sentence. They were convicted for ridiculing President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other Allied war leaders. Two years later they were both defendants in a federal roundup of nationalists and isolationists in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944.

External links

• Photo of Robert Noble
• REPORT ON JOINT FACT-FINDING COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES IN CALIFORNIA
• People v. Noble 68 Cal. App. 2d 853
• Robert Noble featured in News Letter of the News Research Service November 12, 1941