All Souls Unitarian Church

3425 BALTIMORE AVENUE

KANSAS CITY, MO.

November 10, 1927

Dear Red:-

We had a session yesterday of the boys of the S.S.class, with
of Detroit
Lynn Harold Hough as guest. Bill was not invited because we thought
that it might be embarrassing. But Bill heard that we were to have the
meeting and he wondered why he wasn't invited. The matter came up
at the mtg. and it was the unanimous opinion of the group that Bill
was liar. Hough told a story that reveals Bill's "Christian"
character. While Bill was still in Detroit Hough met him one Monday
morning in front of the Central M.E. Ch, and the following conversation
ensued:

Bill-"Hello Lynn, I'm darned glad to see you. My brother-in-law
was at your church last night and he said that you
preached a carking good sermon, about the best he ever
heard."

Hough-"That's very nice but I didn't preach last night"

Bill-embarrassed somewhat, stutters, hesitates, then "Well, as
a matter of fact, I haven't seen my brother-in-law yet
this morning, but I knew that what I said was about what he
would have said if he had heard you preach and I
had seen him this morning."

I am enclosing an address on "Elmer" by Dietrich which I thought
was a pretty good sermon.

Before I forget about Bill I must tell you that I received what
I considered an insulting letter from him. I am enclosing it or rather
a copy because I want to preserve it. I am simply ignoring Bill. I've
permanently crossed him off my list of friends. Attached to this
letter of Bill's was a clipping which quoted freely from Lippman's
book, "Men of Destiny", which has a chapter about you. I think that
Bill had seen my articles about "Elmer" and was inspired to write the
letter.

All Souls Unitarian Church

Brother Hargett had much to say the other Sunday night about "the muckraking critics of the preachers". "The good old Protestant Church of Martin Luther and his preachers will be here long after H. L. Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Haldeman-Julius, and L. M. Birkhead are dead and their bones dried and forgotten", is his faith.

I don't know what to tell you about Earl and Burris. From all that I can see and hear it looks like Earl's young people's enterprise is going to be a success. Earl will write you more fully. Burris has about recovered from his operation and will be able to carry on and I believe that he will stand by Earl.

I am much interested about the appearance of Elmer in German. I shall be very much interested in the comments of the German press. I have noticed recently that "Gantry" is now appearing in the articles of the religious press about like "Babbitt" has been appearing in the Mercury. You have simply made it impossible for any one to write an article about their church or preachers without bringing "Gantry" in someplace.

What are the latest figures you have about the circulation of Gantry in the U.S.? I haven't heard from Harcourt recently.

Agnes and Kenneth both join me in love to you. We would give most anything to see you,

FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY, INC.

FOUNDED 1937

137 EAST 57th STREET

NEW YORK 22

TELEPHONE PLAZA 8-2588

National Headquarters

818 Grand Ave.
Kansas City, Missouri

Rex Stout
Chairman

L. M. Birkhead
National Director

Clarence H. Low
Acting Treasurer

National Committee

Mary McLeod Bethune
Walter Russell Bowie
Horace J. Bridges
Van Wyck Brooks
Struthers Burt
Sydney Z. Carr
Alfred E. Cohn
David Cushman Coyle
Russell Davenport
Lee DeForest
John Dewey
Frederick M. Eliot
Arthur J. Goldsmith
Frank Porter Graham
G. Charles Gray
Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd
Jay William Hudson
Eliot Janeway
Oscar Jaszi
E. Dent Lackey
David M. Levy
Eduard C. Lindeman
Howard Lindsay
Clarence H. Low
Thomas Mann
S. Stanwood Menken
Philip Murray
Louis Nizer
Peter H. Odegard
John S. Penman
Dwight L. Rogers, Jr.
Hal Sims
Mrs. William Dick Sporborg
Edward A. Steiner
Frederic R. Stettenheim
Marion B. Sulzberger
Ordway Tead
Jerome Walsh
Walter Wanger
Albert Edward Wiggam

January 31, 1946

Mr. Sinclair Lewis
2601 E. 2nd
Duluth, Minn.

Dear Red:

If you decide to give up your profession as a writer, we will take you on as an investigator for Friends of Democracy. As you used to say, "Fiction is stranger than truth." That "Birkhead snooper" turns out to be non-existent so far as we are concerned. No one around our place ever heard of Barbara Krenger. Brother Herrstrom has a very vivid imagination. His publication, by the way, has a very wide circulation throughout the country, and is widely quoted by the "anti" outfits. Minneapolis has more than its share of these "antis" -- for example, our old friend, W. B. Riley, Luke Rader, Stadsklev, Herrstrom and numerous lesser lights.

One of the Professors at the University of Minnesota and a student, Miss Fanny Hoffer, is making a study of the Minneapolis propaganda. All of the "anti" propaganda seems to be tied up with these extreme fundamentalists.

I will be looking for you in New York very soon.

Yours for the democratic way of life,

L. M. Birkhead

LMB:rc

303

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News Flashes

CHARLES A. LINDBERGH, hero of the pro-Fascists, is being urged to return to the fold. Gerald L. K. Smith quoted a *Chicago Tribune* build-up of the flyer and predicted that Lindbergh "is due for a rapid comeback." X-Ray dubs Lindbergh the "Billy Mitchell" of World War II. Raymond E. Willis, isolationist "nationalist" Senator from Indiana, recently inserted a Lindbergh speech into the *Congressional Record*. In his address, the American Firster mourned the absence of "integrity, humility and compassion" in the post war world, giving as examples Mussolini's execution, the Nuremburg trials and the lack of "security" in Germany.

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR, which in-
sists that Franco is not a Fascist, started
a new Northern Michigan edition of its
paper on January 6, which serves the
"81,000 Catholics of Michigan's Upper
Peninsula."

THE WALTHER LEAGUE MESSEN-
GER, edited by Rev. Walter A. Maier
(see Propaganda Battlefront, 7/15/45, p.
3) claims that Pastor Martin Niemoeller
offered to serve in the German Navy so
that he could help in the overthrow of
the Nazi government and aid in the con-
clusion of a negotiated peace with the
Allies. Maier's Lutheran Hour currently
is trying to obtain broadcasting time in
Europe.

CHURCH OF THE COVENANTS,
which quotes the *Chicago Tribune*, sus-
pended priest Arthur W. Terminiello and
Representative O'Konski, is now accept-
ing subscriptions for *Destiny* magazine.
Wistfully it adds: "We receive a commis-
sion therefrom for our work."

FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY, Inc.

137 East 57th Street

New York 22, N. Y.

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TRIBUTIONS.

FRANK E. GANNETT, of the Con-
stitutional Government League, recently
"made" the *Gentile News* when that
paper reprinted his speech attacking
planned economy and naming Felix
Frankfurter and Samuel Rosenman as
"fellow travelers."

EUGENE BRAND, owner of the store at 200 East 86th Street which peddles the *Broom, Dispatch*, "Forty Years of Roosevelt," and the yellow pencils inscribed "Jew money (plus) Jew Deal (plus) New Deal (equals) War," has broken into print in *Dispatch* with a letter "daring" Friends of Democracy to "sell their hate sheet on my newspaper stand."

REV. ARTHUR TERMINIELLO and
Gerald Smith conferred in New Orleans
on December 17.

HUMAN EVENTS declares the war crimes trials to be "political, rather than criminal in nature," and predicts they will go down in history as "highly organized lynchings."

CONSOLATION, a Jehovah Witness publication, claims that the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Mikado get on together because "they have similar objectives. Republics are an offense to both of them."

ADOLPH HITLER, according to a
letter to the editor in the *Broom*, turned
out to be "a natural man with a family
... why knock him? He never ate meat,
neither did he smoke or drink ..."

X-RAY says Tyler Kent has been in-
vited to make a nation-wide speaking
tour.

THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY BOARD of the Ancient Order of Herberians has notified President Truman that they are in accord with the Brooklyn Tablet's views on Spain, and has asked that Rep. Coffee who is propagandizing against "the interests of a friendly foreign power" be discouraged from so doing.

UPTON CLOSE will resume his weekly
broadcasts on January 24. (See Propa-
ganda Battlefront, 12/31/45). "Ameri-
cans of the Right," says Close, helped
make this possible.

KURT MERTIG, Ernest Elmhurst
and Homer Maertz, arrested at a Christian
Front meeting last October, have been
found guilty of holding unlawful as-
sembly. Anti-Semitic literature distrib-
uted by the three was characterized by
one of the Judges in the case as "false,
vicious and hate-inciting."

THE UNITED IRISH COUNTIES
Association is reported to have sent thou-
sands of members to the Friends of Frank
Fay Rally. The UICA also backed May
Quinn. According to the Gaelic Ameri-
can, "a committee was appointed . . . to
see that she was not to be made the victim
of racial prejudice." Mayor William
O'Dwyer has accepted an invitation to
act as Chairman of UICA's ball on
February 8.

EDITORIALS FOR
REPRINTING

NOTE: Each issue of the PROPAGANDA BATTLEFRONT carries an editorial by a well-known writer dealing with the fight for democracy. Subscribers to this bulletin are urged to pass these editorials to newspapers and magazines — suggesting they be used as in.

WORLD ORGANIZATION
INTO WORLD GOVERNMENT

Prepared by the Writer's Board

The supporters of international co-
operation seem to be divided into two
groups as a result of the development
of the atomic bomb. Alarmed by the
inadequacies of the San Francisco Char-
ter to meet the hard facts of interna-
tional life in the atomic age, one group
holding that only a World Government
can deal with the situation, would dis-
card the United Nations Organization
and build an entirely new structure. The
other group, stressing the obvious value
of the presently constituted United Na-
tions Organization and feeling no com-
pelling urge for immediate action, seek
leisurely to strengthen it.

However, there is growing public
opinion calling for immediate steps
leading to the ultimate development of
the United Nations Organization into a
World Government in which the indi-
vidual nations would retain maximum
autonomy in internal affairs but would
delegate to the World Government as
much sovereignty as necessary for the
maintenance of international security.
This proposal would mean building on
the foundation of the United Nations
Organization a super-structure which
would strengthen it and eliminate its
inadequacies in the light of the new
developments.

Much may be learned from the devel-
opments of the Constitution of the
United States. It originally consisted of
a preamble and six articles in which
form it was adopted in 1787. It soon
became manifest that it was less than a
perfect organism and did not ade-
quately promote the self-evident truths
proclaimed in the Declaration of Inde-
pendence. It was therefore decided to
adopt a series of amendments to the
Constitution to safeguard explicit indi-
vidual and state rights and these came
into force in 1791 in the form of the
Bill of Rights.

Similarly, there is no reason why the
Charter of the United Nations Organi-
zation should be scrapped despite its
manifest inadequacies but there is every
reason why it should be strengthened
by amendments so that a United States
of the World may be created, the surest
means of maintaining peace.