Fourteen Words
Fourteen Words (also abbreviated 14 or 1488) is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane,[1][2] one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization, The Order,[3] and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts". The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally.[4]
The primary slogan in the Fourteen Words is,
Followed by the secondary slogan,
The two slogans were coined prior to Lane being sentenced to 190 years in federal prison for violating the civil rights of the Jewish talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered by another member of the group in June 1984. They were popularized heavily after Lane's imprisonment.[8][9] The slogans were publicized through print company 14 Word Press, founded in St. Maries, Idaho in 1995 by Lane's wife, Katja, to disseminate her husband's writings,[9][10] along with Ron McVan who later moved his operation to Butte, Montana after a falling out with Katja.[11][12]
Lane used the 14-88 numerical coding extensively throughout his spiritual, political, religious, esoteric and philosophical tracts and notably in his "88 Precepts" manifesto. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, inspiration for the Fourteen Words "are derived from a passage in Adolf Hitler's autobiographical book Mein Kampf".[13] The Fourteen Words have been prominently used by neo-Nazis, white power skinheads and certain white nationalists and the alt-right.[14][15] "88" is used by some as a shorthand for "Heil Hitler", 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet,[16] though Lane viewed Nazism along with America as being part of the "Zionist conspiracy".[17]
Lane's ideology was anti-American, white separatist, and insurrectionist; he considered loyalty to the United States to be "racial treason" and upheld the acronym "Our Race Is Our Nation" ("ORION"),[18] viewing the United States as committing genocide against white people[19][20] and as having been founded as a New World Order to finalize a global Zionist government.
Being bitterly opposed to the continued existence of the United States as a political entity, and labeling it the "murderer of the White race",[9] Lane further advocated domestic terrorism as a tool to carve out a "white homeland" in the Northern Mountain States. To that end, Lane issued a declaration called "Moral Authority" published through now-defunct 14 Word Press and shared through the publications of Aryan Nations, World Church of the Creator, and other white separatist groups, referring to the United States as a "Red, White and Blue traveling mass murder machine", while asserting that "true moral authority belongs to those who resist genocide".[20]
Phrasing[edit]
After Lane's publication of the Fourteen Words, they were adopted by white supremacists[3] and neo-Nazis,[3] white nationalists, identitarians, and members of the far-right and alt-right. The most widely used variation is "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children";[1][5][6][7] a less commonly used variation is "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth".[21] They are sometimes combined with the number 88 to form the abbreviations "14/88" or "1488". The 8s represent the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, with "HH" standing for Heil Hitler, according to Neo-Nazis who use the code.[7] The number 88 was used by Lane as a reference to his "88 Precepts",[22] along with a secondary reference to his "88 Lines and 14 Words". "88", when combined with "14", refers to numerology in Lane's white supremacist neo-pagan religion, Wotanism.[23]
The slogan has been used in acts of white supremacist terrorism and violence.[3] It was central to the symbolism of 2008's Barack Obama assassination plot,[24] which intended to kill 88 African Americans, including future president Barack Obama (at that time the Democratic Party nominee), 14 of whom were to be beheaded.[25] Skinhead Curtis Allgier notably tattooed the words on to his body after he murdered corrections officer Stephen Anderson,[26] and Dylann Roof's race war-inspired Charleston church shooting was influenced by the slogan as was Robert Bowers' Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and Brenton Tarrant's Christchurch mosque shootings.