ustxtxb_obs_1957_11_08_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

FIA PRINCIPLES, BOTH VERSIONS, LISTED I such discussion in a larger group.” “Do not … permit anyone to join … until it is certain that he or she is determined to support the plan permanently.” If a member does not sincerely believe the pledge, “expel him or her at once.” Special effort should be made with young people: “with them, zeal of idealism is most malleable and sensitive to the influence of Truth.” At conventions, Roberts Rules are recommended except when in conflict with a provision of the Plan of Action. “Unless authorized by your Freedom in Action director, none of the plans and operations within that organization should be discussed o r disclosed except among those who have signed the pledge.” The greatest trouble will be convincing of their error those who have been misled “by the promises of the welfare state,” it is warned. FREEDOM IN ACTION, a Plan to End the Threat of Communism, by Elwood Fouts. Provisional Executive Committee, S. Perry Brown, Beaumont; J. Roscoe Butler, Houston; Erie Cocke, Jr., Atlanta; Lamar Fleming, Houstos; Fouts; Clarence Ma n i o n, South Bend; James Ringley, Chicago, Benjamin Young, Detroit. 1955 \(re51 pages. Distributed to members only. “How in the world did you get all that infoirmation?” asked Judge Fouts when the Observer questioned him on the handbook of “Freedom in Action.” “Do you have the preliminary book or the textbook?” Presumably this is the textbook of the groupwhat one congressional leader calls its “bible,” and what Fouts calls the “plan of action.” “I don’t think,” Fouts said, “there’s anything likeljr to be of ill import to anybody” in the pamphlet. The book is copyrighted, he said, to prevent FIA of Freedom in Action and honored that I can sit on this same platform with these great Americans.” Porter, a top Republican leader in Texas, said he had been familiar with Fouts’s work “since its inception.” “His sole desire is to enlist the active work of good citizens in politics,” said Porter. “Organized minorities and segments of our population are running the country because good people will not take the trouble to get into the precincts.” “Your business, your profession, is in politics, and you better look after it,’ said the Republican leader. Porter appealed “for states’ rights, for America, fo’c liberty, and for private enterprise.” Among other noteworthy guests were Lamar Fleming, head of Anderson-Clayton; Jack Dillard, former Shivers aide, and Jimmy Blundell, now with Blakley; Weldon Hart, press aide and adviser to Shivers when he was governor, and now a business associate of Shivers in Western Pipe Line, Inc.; George Sandlin, Shivers’s chairman of the state Democratic executive committee; John Osorio, a legal aide to Shivers whom Shivers had serve a short time on the Insurance Commission before Daniel’s reorganization of the commission went into effect; Perry Brown, chairman and public member of the Texas Employment Commission, a charter director of “Freedom in Action”; Tom Reavley, secretary of state under Shivers; Ed Drake, Shivers leader, a n d chairman of the county Democratic committee, in Dallas; Presley Werlein, pro-Shivers chairman of the Harris County Democratic committee; and Hall Timanus, Houston conservative leader. Three wires of greeting were read to the assemblage: from Republican Bruce Alger of Dallas, telling Freedom in Action “I share your dedication to conservative principles” \(Alger was present at least at the end of the don, who has three Texas radio stations, which he “pledged” to FIIA’s work and purposes, and from Dr. W. R. White, president of Baylor University, who sent FIA “my enthusiastic endorsement.” Except for Alger no present elected officials were noted present. from being taken over “by outside groups.” The members’ pledge says the purpose of FIA is “to destroy Communism in our midst.” Fouts starts out saying that “every” political question affecting freedom can be measured by the standard of question: “Will the proposal reduce or will it increase the alarming concentration of power in Washington?” Says Fouts: “If it will reduce this power, it is good. If it will increase this poWer, it is bad …” “Control of the precinct ocnvention” on behalf of the American Way of Life as explicitly defined by FIA is the group’s objective. “You will undertake to gain control in your state of a majority of your party precinct conventions” of both parties, it is said. Each member must take “the pledge.” If a member has joined without believing, or has ceased believing, he must lose the right of the use of the copyrighted booklet, the name, and the trademark of FIA. When the Observer reporter arrived, Osorio advised him “you’re not welcome here,” but the reporter told him it was an open meeting and he intended to enter. Osorio, who is associated with FIA, took the matter up with other officers and told the reporter, “your presence has created something of a problem.” The reporter was introduced to Fouts, who looked him over and said to Osorio, “he looks all right to me.” The reporter proceeded to his seat. Osorio overtook him, patted him on the shoulder, and confided: “I was only kidding.” `Scare’ Em a Bit’ The first speaker was actor George Murphy, now president of the Motion Picture Industry Council. Ex-Rep. Jack Cox, the executive director of FIA, announced FIA has “made an arrangement” with Murphy to make a movie explaining. conservative principles. “It will need to be shown in every precinct your precinct,” said Cox. Murphy said he was pleased when he heard FIA had been formed. “There has never been been done as carefully, as concisely, as closely, as this one,” he said. Murphy said he first learned about communists when they tried to get control of the actors’ guild in 1935. “We stopped them in our industry, but they haven’t stopped in the country,” he said. At a “certain Russian embassy” a short plane hop from the U.S., he said, Russia has “476 accredited members of the embassy,” he said. Murphy said most people are apathetic about politics, and the movie he is to produce will first create “enough excitement to interest everyone.” Then it will review “some facts and occurrences … in the last five years that maybe for the lazy ones will scare ’em a bit.” Then, said Murphy, they may be “in the right mental condition and mood” to “take care of this great heritage of ours, freedom,” until we have “no worries about Sputnik or anything else.” Chester Louck, formerly o f “Lum and Abner,” now an executive of Continental Oil Co., was introduced as master of ceremonies. He told some jokes, as of the son of the sheik who was pre Sacrifices must be made, says the booklet, “until the poison of Communism, whether labelled as Liberalism, Socialism, Welfare Statism, or Communism, is completely removed from our land.” Members must be ready to accept nominations for public office to help stand off “alien attack on our ideals” at “the sacred precincts cf our homeland.” Members are to work through P-TA’s, churches, with friends, and at precinct conventions of either party. `Poison’ The basic feature of communism, says Fouts, is “unlimited power” in “Big Government.” “The Communist Attack” includes “the abuse of the power to tax,” and one “sinister” design of this abuse “is to level income to the plane of the least productive.” Such “poison” has “infiltrated” universities and public schools, and it is “the work of Communism, many times parading as Lib eralism, Socialism, and Welfare Statism.” Under free enterprise, says sented his first harem: he knew what he was supposed to do but he didn’t know where to start. Or again: he had spoken to many ladies’ groups: “I have a great deal of respect for women in industry, not to be confused with women in labor, an entirely different thing.” Louck said people who want “government control of the oil industry” may be “the same people who want the government to own all industry.” He compared American prosperity with Russian austerity in consumer goods. But he warned that great nations fall “from internal decay.” He said the U. S. has given or extended “dubious credit” a total of $60 billion, to foreign nations. This, he said, is equivalent to the real and personal properties of the 17 largest U. S. cities. If anyone suggested giving away our 17 largest cities, he said, “we’d want to burn him at the stakeand we should,” but that’s .-“about what has happened.” Ills at an End Fouts said FIA is for “training work. It works in small groups at the precinct level.” He said FIA teaches “our people how we got freedom and how to keep it.” FIFA is fighting only “those who work directly or indirectly to subvert our way of life.” Fouts said. FIA’s plan is “designed for nationwide use.” The idea is to ive political candidates “a foundation of trained workers on whom they can rely.” Fouts read out FIA’s abridged definition of the American Way of Life. It is made available to “associate members.” The fuller definition, which includes statements calling for somewhat more inflexible opposition to social planning and the welfare state, is ieserved for full members of FIA. \(See related story for comparison “As West Point teaches the cadets how and why to fight for their country, so Freedom in Action, teaches our citizens how to fight,” said Fouts. West Pointers do not fight as West Pointers, nor FIA members as FIA members. “In each case those who have been trained are the partici; pants in action,” said Fouts. If the plan succeeds, said Fouts, “All of our ills will be at an end ” Fouts, each individual should be able to provide for legitimate impulses, to protect against “the perils of old age, unemployment, and disability. Remove the depressing hand of Big Government and private enterprise will supply honest and satisfying answers for these legitimate impulses.” The directors maintain “supervision” over local groups but local groups are free to operate independently except for defections; nor can they “substantially alter” the definition of the “American Way of Life.” “From a practical standpoint” the directors advise the local groups on candidates and political leaders and other patriotic movements, says the booklet. A local director has “the power to direct and utilize his members” in educational and training work as set out. “As a rule, recruits can be enlisted with safety only by personal contact and conversation,” says the booklet. Small meetings are advocated three or four couples at first. “Experience may demonstrate sufficient freedom of He called on the group to resist “alien schemes whose price is the loss of liberty.” Abner McCall, dean of the Baylor University law school, was introduced as “the new state director” of FIA. He said that “freedom … must be translated into action.” Most believe in freedom for themselves, but not everybody believes in freedom for the other person, he observed. Then he introduced FIA’s director for each congressional district, including Fayton McKnight, Tyler; Jack Phinney, Greenville; Douglas Forde, Dallas; Harvey Abins, Houston; Dr. F. J. Blasingame; Mike Butler, Austin.; R. A. Kilpatrick, Clebur ne; Bruce Street, Graham; Ted Anderson, Corpus Christi, Harvey Richards, Harlingen; Price Campbell, Abilene; Wales Madden, Amarillo, and Jack Moore, Ballinger. Anderson, a homebuilder, said Corpus is “the worst city in Texas” politically. FIA has been working there almost a year. “Those people have taken on a new dedication in our precincts,” he said. Street, an independent oil man, said he has left the HA conservatives in the larger towns in his district. Forde, division attorney for Seaboard Oil Co. in Dallas, condemned “the disease of bigger and bigger ever-gobbling government and the emasculation of one of our states’ rights after another.” He said people in FIA are working now in North Dallas, Park Cities, Oak Cliff, Walnut Hill, and Richardson. Louck said he wondered what “our forefathers must think” of “a legacy” of the national debt of $275 billion. “They \(the forecompensation, unemployment insurance, social security,” he said. Dr. Milford Rouse, a former president of Texas Medical Assn., read a statement from Dr. Blasingame, the new general manager of the American Medical Assn. “This movement is right,” said Blasingame. The guests came out of their chairs with rebel yells when Shivers was introduced as a dedicated statesman who “put his love of country above his party ties.” Shivers said, “I who have been on many platforms, and some Two ‘Pledges’ The booklet includes two “pledges” which contain different versions of the American Way of Life. The first pledge, for associate members, has a fairly general definition; the second, fuller pledge, includes, in the definition of the American Way, many more extreme and more explicit statements. Fouts, at the public meeting of HA in Dallas, read out the definition of the American Way for associate members, thus not revealing to the meeting, or to the press assembled, the fuller principles of FIA as set out in its full definition of the American Way. The pledge is outlined below as Fouts read it publicly, with some of the statements in FIA’s fuller definition, however, added within parentheses: The American Way of Life “is defined” to include: 1.Maintenance of the Republic through the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. 2.Holding inviolate individual freedom and religion. \(“Communism is their most deadly enemy and must be completely stamped out. Welfare Statism and Socialism are early stages … which can lead to’ Russian Communism 3.Free enterprise, open competition and the incentive motive. \(“We must strip from all laws those provisions which hold back these … forces … or … punish or penalize a person for suc4.”Sound money, frugal economy, taxation for revenue only, and a balanced budget …” 5.Reservation to the state and people all powers not expressly granted to the federal government. \(“The many reserved powers that have been usurped must be recaptured …” 6.”… keep open the channels of opportunity and … prevent legislative inequity.” \(“This will dispense with all the deceptions