Nelson A. Pryor: Guest Columnist
In the Spring of 1950, a small group of Americans unveiled an organization, the “Crusade for Freedom,” to “arouse private citizens of these united States to take the offensive in the cold war against Communism.”
The Crusade was run between 1953 and 1955, by the American Heritage Foundation-the, Crusade attracted the enthusiastic support of a broad range of citizens, from little government people to big government people.
In the early years of the decade, organizers clearly hoped to use a massive grassroots crusade in much the same way that U.S Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau had used war bond drives during WW II; to build broad public support for the basic assumptions underlying our Federal policy in the Cold War.
Sending A Message
In ads, speeches, and other materials, Crusade organizers and supporters repeatedly stressed that the United States was “confronted by a determined and ruthless Enemy…bent on world conquest.
Wendy L. Wall, in her Inventing the “American Way”: New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, outlined a citizen’s obligations. She said: “Only by ’enrolling’ personally in the Crusade-by exhibiting simple courage and unshakable action, could Americans help preserve their system of government and their birthright of freedom.”
This emphasis on personal involvement and national unity discourages both apathy and dissent.
Send A Message
Like the Treasury Department during WW II, Crusade organizers made heavy use of parades, mass rallies, and other public spectacles-including balloon launches and air drops of “freedom-grams” in many cities. The first publicity angle of the Crusade in 1950 was to commission a replica of Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell, which was designed to be hung in West Berlin. Cast in England, the “Freedom Bell” was shipped to New York City, paraded up Broadway, displayed before City Hall and then sent on a tour of 26 other cities across the country. When the Freedom Bell left New York Harbor, bound for Europe, Crusade organizers launched one thousand red, white, and blue balloons from the top of the Empire State Building. The Freedom Bell was installed in Berlin’s Rathaus Schoneberg on Oct. 24, 1950. At precisely 12:03 p.m. E.S.T. its first peals were broadcast by Radio Free Europe and all four U.S. radio networks. Churches and schools across the U.S. tolled their bells at the same moment.
What About our Spirit?
For seven years in the early to mid-1950s, the Crusade for Freedom inundated the airways, marked the landscape and plastered the print media with its message. The Crusade fueled fevered anti-communism while suggesting that Americans were bound by their shared belief in “the sacredness and dignity of the individual” and in “the God-given ‘right to freedom.’”
Lest We Forget
As the national character seemingly fades and the Freedom Trains fade into memory, we must still rebound and send a message: BY VOTING! This is our day! You’re an American! So act like it!