ustxtxb_obs_1961_04_25_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Ministers Respond Welch’s ‘Dark Grey Instrumentalities’ `The Flight to Amorality’ .. . and Zbranek Takes Issue tences with adjectives and adverbs “diabolical,” “tyrannical,” “mammoth”; “busily,” “successfully,” “satanically”and is therefore hard to follow. Although no spellbinder, he can lay forth a punchy line. He had a few preliminary points. One, his speech was copyrighted, and all TV and commercial rights were sold to “a commercial sponsor” he did not name. Two, the publication of the “private letter” in which he called Eisenhower a communist was unethical journalism and a violation of his property rights in his letter. Furthermore, he said, the Birch society disavowed the letter in 1958, at a time when he still had about half of “the offset reproductions we had made of the last typing.” Three, he asked “all communists in the audience, please hold up your hands,” and was gratified there were none in the house. His charges and alarms tend to cluster around a few main ideas. ‘ We are seeing, he said, “the gradual but visible loss of the independence and sovereignty of the U.S. to an international socialist government,” or “the socialist super-government.” Prospects are good that we will be “living under a slave state with brutal communist masters, and in just a very few years,” at which time we will be able to resist only by becoming our s el v es “conspirators against the government.” To put this another way, he gave his guess that “the communists have been heavily influencing all major decisions in our government since 1941.” He referred to “their invisible influence” and declared:. “Our government has been the most powerful single force supporting the communist advance while pretending to oppose the communist advance.” “Communist riot tactics” are being used in the U.S., as in the breaking up of the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee” as shown in the film, ‘Operation Abolition,’ ” and in the “brutal physical attack” on a young newspaperman he said was beaten up for “writing anti-communist things in his newspaper.” “Just what does it take,” he demanded, “to make the American people see the communist steamroller at work?” Down the Road Communists violate various rules: they do not declare wars they are waging, break treaties, and prostitute art to politics. Welch read a poem he has written in which he warns of the loss of freedom in “the dull collective monotone of universal serfdom.” “This whole imminent prospect is a cause for deep and ceaseless anxiety,” Welch said. The “most important worry” is “the flight to amorality,” which he called “sinister . . . far-reaching . . . diabolical in the most literal meaning of that word.” Crime, sin, and falsehood are being elevated into “a world-wide cult,” “and the evil in nature” is being revered in the communists’ “satanically cruel downward reach.” We have been going down the road to communism by means that are supposed to oppose it. “The whole foreign aid program is an excellent example.” It has done “some good, of course. The communists . . . do not believe in using solid black instrumentalities, but only dark grey ones.” But “this whole big lie called foreign aid” has been “a tremendous help to the advance of communism. It was planned by the corn THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 8 April 25, 1961 munists for that purpose.” \(This Russians do not want “an honest war” with the U.S. because they are overcoming us so well “by internal subversion.” “Our principal danger is communist influences right in our midst and treason right in our government,” Welch continued to intense applause. The goal is so to change the U.S. government, “it can be comfortably merged with a oneworld communist government.” We should stay armed, but there has been “incredible waste” on the arms program, and “the socialization of government” has proceeded with “this completely phony threat of outside war as the excuse.” The chief doctrine-giver of the Birchers enunciated the communists’ “principle of reversal,” which he said is their trick of conceding a point in a prefatory clause to convince the people of a brazen lie in a concluding clause. For instance, Welch said: In 1940, Roosevelt had decided to bring the U.S. into the European war, but “had to overcome” the people’s opposition. “Of course,” Welch said, “by 1940 Roosevelt’s whole New Deal had been shown to be foreign, phony, and a failure.” The communists therefore adopted the catchphrase, “I can’t stand Roosevelt” \(the concession to the people’s him because of his foreign policy” explained. In 1952, there was evidence that Stalin thought that he, Stalin, was “in virtual control of our government,” but a revolt set in among U.S. citizens, and they had a “tremendously patriotic leader, Robert A. Taft.” \(At Taft’s name Now Taft, Welch said, if nominated, “would unquestionably win by one of the greatest landslides in all American history” and there would be “a weeding of communist agents out of our government.” Therefore, to stop Taft, “the communists behind the scenes pulled out all the stops.” * * Texas ROTC Unit To Hear Lewis III AUSTIN All Army ROTC cadets at the University of Texas this week were ordered to attend a closed-door showing of the controversial film “Operation Abolition” with a talk by Fulton Lewis III, or pay the penalty of a hour drill. A notice released by the Army ROTC Headquarters to all cadets stated: “Thursday evening, 27 April 1961, The Society of American Military Engineers will present Fulton Lewis III with ‘Operation Abolition’ in the Main Ballroom of the Texas Unionat 1930 hours. . . . “All Army ROTC Cadets WILL be required to attend either this meeting or the drill to be held at noon. . . . “THIS MEETING IS A CLOSED ROTC CLASS AND NO PERSON OTHER THAN ROTC CADETS WILL BE AL-LOWED TO ENTER WITH-OUT THE PERMISSION OF THE PMS COL. BROWN.” And what was their catch-phrase? “I like Taft, but he can’t win.” The communists ‘knew Taft would win “over any opponent by a huge margin,” but they used “lies which were staggering as to viciousness and brazenness.” For his third elucidation of “the principle of reversal,” Welch recalled the McCarthy years. “I’ve read more communist literature than any other kind,” he said, and therefore he knows that “the most important thing in the world to the communists was to destroy McCarthy.” Same Nonsense McCarthy was criticized, he said, for “supposedly helping communists by his supposedly extreme tacticsjust as the same nonsense is being peddled today against the John Birch Society!” The communists were frightened because instead of fighting communists with arguments and ideology as everybody had been doing “since the pack had got rid of Martin Dies and Parnell Thomas,” McCarthy “had decided that the way to stop communism was to expose communists, and he was right and the communists knew it.” For this he was pilloried with breathtaking harshness and “unspeakable charges” made “by the communists and their dupes and allies.” After saying that basically there was nothing wrong with McCarthy’s methods, Welch revealed the communists’ catch-phrase under the reversal principle for the destruction of McCarthy. It was, “I like what McCarthy is trying to do, but I can’t stand his methods.” Approaching his conclusion, Welch said the idea communism is a movement of the poor is “one of the biggest lies in all history.” Communism comes from “the very rich, the highly educated, the politically skilled,” and leading pioneer communists have been almost invariably “from the wealthy and well-educated circles.” Welch has “not the slightest ,doubt” that Herbert Philbrick and Dr. J. B. Matthews are correct saying there are more cornmunists per capita among Protestant clergymen than in any other U.S. group. What’s the explanation for this strange phenomenon? “Protestant ministers do not become communistsbut communists do become Protestant ministers,” Welch said to applause. Some few preachers might have “noble instincts” and look on “socialistic practices” as “welfarism,” but communists are willing to undergo “years of . . . blasphemous pretenses” to argue that Red China should be admitted into the UN or “that capitalism is just as bad as socialism.” He repeated that communists want to “make crime and immorality desirable in themselves.” There are many who “support amorality in theory and complete pragmatism in practice,” but “somewhere behind these moral neutralists there seems to be some demonic group or power” who want to elevate as an ideal “hate instead of love.” Marx, “one of the most foul individuals who ever lived,” created “the God of hatred,” while enemies of communism have “the God-given upward reach” toward “a God of love.” In this fight against “vastly entrenched evil,” Welch said, “some grow tired, some grow old, and some like myself grow bold,” but the issue is the nature of man in the future, “which they will have as an ideal or a taskmaster hatred or love, the God of hate or the God of love through all the days to be.” Rice P. Lynn, a San An gelo lawyer and prominent member of the John Birch Society, told the San Angelo Standard-Times: “This is a patriotic society trying to save the U.S. from communism. Every department of the government is infiltrated. Dean Acheson and George Marshall are the biggest s.o.b.’s that ever lived” . . . Eisenhower “let the communists run over him, and unconsciously helped the communists on foreign aid, the United Nations, and centralized government . .. Artificial flouridation to combat took decay in children is a “communist plot. A scientist has said the person who drinks flouridated water for one year will never be the same physically or mentally.” A f ter Robert Welch’s speech in Dallas this week, Rev. W. H. Dickinson, pastor of the Highland Park Methodist Church, largest Methodist Church in the world, said Welch’s “reckless charges” threatened the security of the nation and weakened the church.” Dr. William Elliott, minister of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church, accused Welch of “putting people in a mental strait-jacket” and said he was “particularly distressed” at Birch’s reiteration in Dallas that “about three percent of the nation’s ministers are communist sympathizers.” James Lehrer of the Dallas News, in a five-part series on the Birch Society, found there are 35 chapters and 700 members in Dallas and that the city has “one of the most flourishing, enthusiastic Birch movements in the country.” “Right now we have our film booked up for 23 nights,” an area co-ordinator said. “It’s the publicity adverse though most of it has beenthat is bringing them to us.” Former state representa tive Zeke Zbranek of Liberty took issue this week with George Roberts and Associates \(Obs., Apr. duct required lectures for Houston school teachers on socialism and communism. Jim Dobbs, one of Roberts’ lecturers, passed out literature in his fourth of six lectures on “American Freedom” being conducted at Liberty High School. Zbranek charged that the literature, entitled “Labor Boss Analysis of the Voting Records” of the 1959 Legislature, ‘brands him as a puppet of labor bosses. Zbranek, an attorney and state manager of the Maverick for Senate campaign, asked Dobbs at his fifth lecture for an opportunity to explain his legislative voting record to the audience. He was denied the request. “I think it only fair to tell the people that Mr. Roberts and Mr. Dobbs are seeking to get the people to draw false conclusions by showing the results of voting records without explaining what issues were involved,” Zbranek said. “The people who are financing him are the people I voted to tax in the legislature,” Zbranek charged, “and that’s why they’re taking this approach. I challenge Mr. Roberts or Mr. Dobbs or anybody else to debate me on my for free enterprise or against free enterprise.” Zbranek said the lectures are designed to make people grade the legislators on the same basis they are graded by lobbyists. “I voted for a bill to insure that rightful owners of property being held by pipeline companies would get it back. According to RobertsDobbs, that was a liberal approach. “I voted against a general sales tax twice. Again, according to them, this was a liberal view. I voted to tax gas pipelines rather than producers. According to these people, that was liberal too.” Zbranek said the Roberts people “mis-define liberalism in the first place. The practical Texas political analysis boils down to: if you favor big lobbyists and special interest groups, then you are a good conservative. If you support free competition and economic independence for all people, regardless of the size of the operation, then you are branded as a liberal.” Houston Press writer Ma rie Dauplaise, in a tape-recorded interview with Roberts, was told by the lecturer that he had once been enrolled at Rice Institute, but dropped out, and that he had graduated from the University of Arizona as a mechanical engineer and later taught there. On investigation, Miss Dauplaise was told by Rice officials, who checked permanent record cards, that “they could find no card on Mr. Roberts.” University of Arizona officials “could not confirm either Mr. Roberts’ graduation . . in 1946 as he claimed, nor his alleged two-year teaching career there.” F. W. Mattox, president of Lubbock Christian College, told the Press Roberts was fired as a teacher on “Americanism” because he “felt obligated to get into the field of political action and, in an evening adult class, criticized Waggoner Carr, speaker of the Texas House.” Mattox said Roberts claimed Carr’s support by labor unions “smacked of a tradeout with unions.” The school gave Carr an appreciation dinner for Carr to make up for the incident, Mattox said. Maj. Edgar Bundy, chair man of the Church League of America and a frequent Texas speaker, said in Dallas this week that Dr. Willis Tate, president of SMU, is allowing his students to be “indoctrinated with commu