The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Thunder on The Far Right Until a few weeks ago, the John Birch Society was a surreptitious, underground organization. Its founder, Robert Welch of...
...So he retired from business and decided to devote the rest of his life to saving mankind...
...To have men going about calling in print and over the air for the impeachment of the Chief Justice of the United States is going a bit too far with free speech...
...Anyone who hoped that the society would fold if it were just politely ignored had better change his mind...
...The John Birch Society started in Massachusetts and has blazed a trail all the way to California...
...There is something unsound and unhealthy in the way in which they persistently attack a long list of our most distinguished citizens...
...I have seen no figures to prove its success, but there is evidence of activity in most of the states of the Union and the organization has published the names of members of the Society's Council and Committee of Endorsers...
...I suppose they will get around to President Kennedy in due course...
...What is evident to all is that they yearn to obliterate everything we have created during the past 40 years...
...I hope that sooner or later Senator Barry Goldwater or some other genuine conservative will rise up to defend his group against this association...
...During the short time since 1958, organizational work must have been carried forward with great skill and energy...
...the McCarthyites in that they gain adherents because of their hatreds...
...It has long been understood, that falsely calling a man a Communist falls within the purview of the libel laws...
...During the same period, a committee of the California Legislature began an investigation into his doings...
...One might think that this new uprising of backwardness had its chief support in the South...
...It was shown to a few friends and then quietly withdrawn from circulation, probably because its brutal denunciation of distinguished political and social leaders would have scared off most potential followers...
...I will begin by entering a protest against classifying the John Birch Society as a conservative organization...
...On March 8 he was referred to in a speech delivered in the Senate and on March 22 he was eloquently lauded in the House of Representatives...
...There seems to be something really perverse about the way in which they denounce men like former President Eisenhower and Chief Justice Earl Warren as secret leaders of the Communists...
...But even though this address became the Mein Kampf of the movement, the leader's book, The Politician, had a less happy fate...
...The Society was actually formed three years ago...
...To be sure, Welch had a bit of rough going at the start...
...He had been a successful candyman, a maker and vendor of sweets...
...As far as one can learn from the outside, this organization owes its existence exclusively to the personal drive of Robert Welch...
...There is in this group, too, an alarming number of physicians...
...Welch himself was for many years prominently connected with the National Association of Manufacturers and a large proportion of the names advertised among the endorsers are connected in one way or another with great business concerns...
...They are like the Nazis, the Communists, the Ku-Kluxers...
...I suppose this served as the ultimate test...
...The John Birchers, far from conserving, are driven by a bitter impulse to destroy...
...He met a group of 11 men in Indianapolis and made a speech to them which continued for two days...
...There is a good deal of evidence tying the society to big business elements...
...This list includes the names of many well-known citizens —among them, I am told, three expresidents of the National Association of Manufacturers...
...The most formal and impressive defense of Welch and his activities was made in the House by Representative L. Mendel Rivers (D.-S.C...
...This thing is both mean enough and big enough to require head-on opposition...
...He decided that Communism would, unless opposed in his own peculiar way, engulf the world...
...To throw a few of these blatherskites into jail would be the simplest and sharpest way of dealing with them...
...Only a psychiatrist could fathom their motivation...
...and a form letter speaking well of the whole movement was sent out by Senator James O. Eastland (D.Miss...
...As I write these words, every newspaper that comes in and every television broadcast brings evidence of new excitement about this latest outburst of subversion...
...There comes a time to call a halt...
...In the California Legislature and in Congress, legislators are crying out for a formal investigation...
...Its founder, Robert Welch of Belmont, Massachusetts, preferred it that way...
...I suppose he was used to selling his wares with a minimum of publicity or advertising...
...The simplest procedure would be to prosecute Welch and some of his underlings for criminal libel...
...but this does not seem to be the case...
...But regardless of his desires or tastes, last month saw his name carried across the country in a hurricane of publicity...
Vol. 44 • April 1961 • No. 16
