It was 51 years ago at the Indianapolis home of Miss Marguerite Dice when businessman Robert Welch began his marathon two-day lecture that launched The John Birch Society. There were 11 friends and business associates present and they listened intently as the philosopher-historian and great lover of America told them during 17 hours why they should join with him in an organization designed to preserve the American dream. Most agreed on the spot to be the Society’s first members and the organization was born on December 9, 1958.

A child prodigy who had read a nine-volume history of the world at age seven and asked for more, Welch was a great student of history and world affairs. As early as 1939, he wrote that the country he was born into, loved so intensely, and was under attack from within was being “converted into a carbon copy of thousands of despotisms that had come before.” His concerns mounted after World War II when he went to England to study the inroads being made by the socialist takeover of that nation. He discovered that England was being victimized by a conspiracy, not by any unfolding of historical forces that no one could stop. When he returned to America, he saw the same conspiratorial influences at work within our shores.

After a try at politics and authorship of a few books and a small magazine, he decided that an organized educational program was the best answer to America’s ills. He named the Society after John Birch, a legendary Army captain who served as an intelligence specialist with U.S. forces in China throughout most of the war against Japan. Birch, killed by Chinese communists only days after the struggle against the Japanese had ended, was the subject of Welch’s small 1954 book, The Life of John Birch.   

In his founding presentation, Welch outlined three major problems facing our country: communism, collectivism and the rise of amorality. The Society quickly became known as an opponent of communism and most Americans thought that was its sole focus. But Welch and the organization he created have always targeted any form of total government, including not only communism but socialism, fascism, Nazism, and total government under any label. As for his concern about the rise of the amoral man, he worried about the loss of faith among so many who had adopted self-promotion as their only goal. These were persons who ignored the great rules of conduct handed down by the Ten Commandments and other religious proscriptions. Persons who had cast aside morality were, he claimed, easy recruits who would work to bring about the conspiracy’s aims that have always included a world rule by a few and virtual slavery for everyone else. 

Far from a purely negative stance, the Society has always praised the system of government created by America’s founders. Welch stressed spreading knowledge about the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as the basis of the best form of government ever created. He wanted their sound principles restored and even spread worldwide through the power of persuasion. He created a motto for all members to promote that summed up the organization’s long-range goal: “Less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world.”

The Society began to form chapters of ten or more persons in communities throughout the nation. Once its potential for awakening the sleeping American giant had been discovered, the organization became the target of a smear campaign that labeled it secret, fascist, subversive, racist, anti-Semitic and anything else that already had a bad smell. None of those labels had any basis in fact but the major organs of the mass media (that Welch said was largely controlled by the conspiracy he sought to expose and rout) repeated the slurs and had many Americans believing that the Society should be shunned.

Welch pleaded in vain for Congress to investigate his Society and the work it was doing. He said he never had anything to hide and was, therefore, completely willing to open to scrutiny all aspects of his creation. Finally, a California state senate committee took him up on his offer and spent two years exhaustively looking into every aspect of the organization’s work. In 1963, its official report concluded that the Society had succeeded in attracting many Americans who believed it to be “the most effective, indeed the only organization they could join in a national movement to learn the truth about the Communist menace and then take some positive concerted action to prevent its spread.” 

The California senate committee ended its 62-page report noting that its investigation had been requested by the Society that “had been publicly charged with being a secret, fascist, subversive, un-American, anti-Semitic organization.” Completely exonerating the organization from such vilification, the Democrat-led committee concluded, “We have not found any of these accusations to be supported by the evidence.” That should have stopped the intensive smear campaign against the privately-run Society, but it didn’t.

The Society’s potential to rouse many Americans into an educational army designed to stop our nation’s slide into centralized dictatorial government, and then into world government, has never been fully realized. Through its 50-plus years, the organization has achieved numerous successes such as blocking passage of the little-understood Equal Rights Amendment, impeding the plans of those who seek a constitutional convention that would invite destruction of the document, and prevention of a duplicate of the sovereignty-destroying European Union known here as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americans. Its reports on the voting records of all members of Congress have stimulated millions to become aware of the stark difference between the fancy rhetoric and dismal performance of many elected officials. 

Mostly, the Society claims success in awakening many Americans to the worth of our nation’s marvelous system of government and the many threats that have been mounted to alter or abolish it. Campaigns such as “Get US out of the United Nations,” “Support Your Local Police (from federal takeover)” and “Abolish the Federal Reserve” have not succeeded fully, but the potential for success in each grows as the Society’s Websites, books, magazines, pamphlets, DVDs and speakers reach more millions every year.

Asked about the organization’s efforts after 51 years, President John McManus who has held staff positions in the Society since 1966, stated, “We’re still on the same course and there are increasing numbers of Americans who have begun to realize that we have never deviated from our determination to rescue this country from the grip of a conspiracy intending to destroy it.” He insists that full adherence to the Constitution’s limitations would lead to the federal government being “twenty percent its size and twenty percent its cost.” He frequently quotes Robert Welch’s closing comment from the Society’s 1958 founding meeting: “All we must find and build and use, to win, is sufficient understanding.” 

McManus then added: “Membership in our organization is open to anyone of good conscience and humane ideals regardless of race, ethnic background or religious persuasion. Those who join The John Birch Society know that we mean business every step of the way. We intend to leave for our children and generations yet to come the marvelous heritage of freedom and good will given our nation by its founders more than 200 years ago.”       

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Lee Gonzales said:

	Sugar high will Eat your pancakes and settle down, will. Attacking Mr. McManus at every opportunity makes will appear like an embittered kid who's on a perpetual sugar high.
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December 09, 2009
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capo said:

... Robert Welch's well prepared presentation that was used to birth our movement became The Blue Book of The John Birch Society. Today, this founding document is available in both a free download version and an upgraded download version for $10. A sample of the insight contained within... It is not only that governments carry their peoples into horrible and utterly unnecessary wars, but it takes a very huge quantity of government to carry its people into the totalitarian struggle which war has now been made by this same quantity of government. Reduce all the governments of all the nations of the world to one-third of their present size -not one-third of their power, note, nor are we referring to their quality, but just to one-third of their bureaucratic numbers, their extensiveness, their meddling in the lives of their subjects -- and you would immediately accomplish two things. You would reduce the likelihood of war between hostile nations to at most one-ninth of its present probability, and the destructiveness of any wars that did take place in the same proportion. The greatest enemy of man is, and always has been, government. And the larger, the more extensive that government, the greater the enemy.

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December 09, 2009
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DDW said:

	And thank you JBS for always telling the truth.
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December 09, 2009
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Still Free said:

	Happy Annivresary to the Society. Profound thanks to Mr. Welch for his brilliant understanding and vision in founding the Society. Special thanks to each and every dedicated JBS member for all your efforts to save America. Where would we be without you?
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December 09, 2009
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Elaine M said:

Happy Anniversary My father was a member of your faithful organization in the 1960's. He taught us about the coming communist takeover of the United States as well as plans for the Global Government aka the "New World Order". He has been with the Lord now for 28 years and we are seeing the things he taught us come to pass. He was proud to be a member of the JBS. As a result his 4 girls were educated in what was happening. Happy Anniversary and may God Bless you and America

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December 10, 2009
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riverroach said:

Thank God for Robert Welch and the John Birch Society! After 17 years as a member of the JBS, I have come to the conclusion that Robert Welch was placed upon this earth for the purpose of destroying the Conspiracy. Were it not for the Society, we would already be living under Communist Rule. Thank you to all of the JBS members and staff for all you do. God Bless, Merry Christmas, JJ Suprise Sandy, Utah

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December 12, 2009 | url
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