As I was looking through “Fire: Herb Block History,” one passage that I came across stood out. It read:
"Even with Senator Joseph McCarthy on the wane, the general hysteria continued in many forms by assorted super patriots. In the summer of 1954, a branch of the American Legion denounced the Girl Scouts, calling the "one world" ideas advocated in their publications ‘un-American.’"
It came with this comic:
I was shocked, partially because girl scout cookie season had just begun and I was already munching on a Thin Mint, but mostly because I had seen Girl Scouts as a respectable, wholesome institution that nobody quite challenged when it came to their values. Certainly I didn’t expect that such an organization would be accused of being “un-American.”
The issue began with a new edition of the Intermediate Handbook, released in 1953. Robert Lefevre, a Florida-based television personality, condemned the revised handbook as UN propaganda promoting socialized medicine, agriculture experiments, prejudice, and other harmful, anti-American values. He published his criticism in “Even the Girl Scouts” in the March 31, 1954 issue of his newspaper, Human Events.
Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) was in the midst of revising its intermediate handbook before the next printing, and abased on reader responses, editors planned to better distinguish between the United Nations and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and include the full text of key citizenship documents (including the Bill of Rights) rather than only excerpts. They compiled a twelve page pamphlet detailing the corrections to be made, but LeFevre took full credit for triggering the revisions. Wanting to dampen the criticism, GSUSA emphasised that the revisions were already underway before LeFevre’s attack on the organization.
On August 6, 1954, EDward Clamage, head of the Anti-Subversive Commission for Illinois, introduced a resolution withdrawing American Legion support for the Girl Scouts. Almost verbatim, he repeated the pro-United Nations accusations first levelled by LeFevre, but he mentioned “certain pro-Communist authors” as contributing to the pamphlet edits.
At the National American Legion Convention set for August 30 to September 2 in Washington, D.C., legionnaires voted for a series of proposals calling for vigilance against communism, including universal military training. They commended GSUSA for taking “remedial action” (meaning the pamphlet revisions already underway prior to the criticism) and called for GSUSA to disclose those who had inserted the “un-American influences” into the text and whether or not they still worked for Girl Scouts.
As it turns out, the author of the Intermediate Handbook was Margarite Hall, who in 1953 was the Intermediate Program Advisor at GSUSA and was hardly a troublemaker. This is what she had to say about it all:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6icivpyjk0kbmxa/LeFevre_Article.pdf
https://gshistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/herblock_amer_legion.jpg
https://gshistory.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/american_legion_ill_resolution.jpg
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1955/05/what-happened-to-the-girl-scouts/306925/
Very interesting post, Elise! I was also quite surprised to read about the denouncement of Girl Scouts. As a former Girl Scout myself, I can't imagine anyone seeing this organization as anything less than wholly American. It really seems that this action was taken as part of a vast movement to so viciously denounce communism in an effort to make America appear stronger than ever. I think what happened with the Girl Scouts is similar to what happend in Hollywood under the House Committee on Un-American Activities. A variety of actors in Hollywood, including names like Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson, were blacklisted for being alleged proponents of communism. Nowadays, we see both of these actions to be somewhat strange and unnecessary, but at the time, these measures seemed necessary to defend the United States against anything remotely relating to communism.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/huac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee
I really appreciated your concise explanation of the Girl Scouts getting caught up in the Communist hysteria in the US. Especially during the Cold War, Americans were beginning to have their rights restricted for ludicrous reasons. It wasn't actually until Yates v. United States in 1957, when the Smith Act was re-intrepreted to mean specifically organizing to conspire to overthrow the government with proven intent. Other than that, the Court upheld the First Amendment, and ultimately, there was next to no significant reasons for why the government should restrict free speech.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1956/6
Elise, interesting post! I like how you delved into a topic which is not generally covered by textbooks. I was surprised to see that McCarthyism literally had no mercy. The movement was so powerful and so much propelled by fear, that it had no limit. Not only were prominent government officials like Marshall targeted, but other innocents like Paul Robeson and the United States Army... I was taken aback by the fact that due to this accusation that the Girl Scouts has some ties to communism, that the"Anti-Subversive Commission for Illinois, introduced a resolution withdrawing American Legion support for the Girl Scouts. " It is incredible how fear can cause such irrational behavior- especially as it threatened to get rid of such a prestigious organization.
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled across this blog post from a Google search. I agree that it is very well written. BECAUSE I WROTE IT. See:
ReplyDeletehttps://gshistory.com/2014/05/01/the-girl-scout-red-scare-part-one/
https://gshistory.com/2014/05/09/the-girl-scout-red-scare-part-two/
https://gshistory.com/2014/08/07/the-girl-scout-red-scare-part-three/
https://gshistory.com/2014/11/06/the-girl-scout-red-scare-part-four/
I will pursue your plagiarism to the fullest extent.