| Subject: | [socialcredit] Request for info on Douglas in the U.S. | | Date: | Saturday, December 16, 2006 00:08:10 (-0600) | | From: | Wallace Klinck <wmklinck @....ca>
|
Hello Bill,
I am responding to your recent enquiry re Douglas's talks in the U.S.
after sending the following to Vic Bridger:
> Have you checked Elistas lately? Bill has asked for help in locating
> some specific presentations and broadcasts by Douglas while in New
> York at the invitation of Senator Bronson Cutting. I could look
> through some of Denis Byrne's papers but I am not optimistic about
> finding anything. Denis sent quite a bit of stuff to Australia and I
> think that some of this this material, according to Phillip
> [Butler], was
> donated to an Australian university--which one I cannot remember,
> possibly N.S.Wales. (?) I don't know what has happened to the
> material which Phillip had in his possession, if any. Were they
> [the items of Bill's enquiry]
> printed in TSC? [or in "Social Credit," "The New Age," or the "New
> English Weekly," etc.] I do have most of these [TSC], compliments
> of Jane Martin
> (nee Catmur) but haven't had time to search. It's interesting
> historical stuff which Bill is searching and I would like to see it
> myself.
Vic replied as follows:
"The Dennis Byrne papers referred to were given to the late Richard
Brockett
who was working with me and was doing a thesis on The League of
Rights but
developed into one on Social Credit. In his research Phillip gave the
papers
he had obtained from someone in the Canadian government taken from the
archives. All of these papers were given to the University of Queensland
library for safekeeping. I did see them and obtained copies. There is
nothing concerning what Bill has requested. I have made two parcels
of these
papers to send to the League on items that would be of interest to
them and
the other to the Secretariat. There is correspondence between Byrne
and Eric
Butler where Byrne wraps Eric on the knuckles for suggesting a
takeover of
the Secretartiat.
Regards
Vic"
So, I don't have anything for you at the moment and am not especially
optimistic about locating any of the material which you have
mentioned. I will, however, scan some of the issues of the Social
Credit Secretariat journals, initially "Social Credit" and "The
Social Crediter" (published by the Douglas group after a split in the
Secretariat) issued at the time but have not yet managed to do so. I
will contact you if I do find any references to this subject.
Probably at that time these addresses were not recorded privately
and whatever archives existed are probably lost or have long been
purged. Even the BBC claims no longer to have any of Douglas's talks
in their archives. We were just fortunate in requesting Douglas's
"The Causes of War" shortly before it also was purged. I wonder,
however, if the Social Credit movement under Munson leadership might
have published some of this content in "New Democracy" or if someone
familiar with the the New Economics Group in New York might have some
records. How one might go about finding such, I have no idea.
For your interest, I quote from John W. Hughes's recent book "Major
Douglas: The Policy of a Philosophy" (page 111):
"As a result of the efforts of Munson and the group in New York, a
few stirrings of interest in the subject continued to be heard on the
eastern seaboard of the U. S. A. It was, however ... Father
Coughlin ... and his broadcasts which were the big infuence in the U.
S. A. Only a sketchy account appears to exist as to Douglas's
reception in Washington and New York .... He is known to have given
an address at the New School for Social Research on April 23rd, 1934
so the likelihood must have been that he met Munson there. A
broadcast he made from New York was relayed coast to coast and an
audience of 90 million was claimed for it. However, Social Credit
did not grow further than the early embryonic stage there."
Hughes relates elsewhere that at that time there existed six or seven
Social Credit groups in the U. S., the New Economics Group in New
York and the San Francisco groups being the most active.
Despite the specific disagreement cited by Vic between Denis Byrne
and Eric Butler, the two remained in close and collaborative contact
until Denis's death.
Sincerely,
Wally
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