Religion: MRA Over California

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Last week was Moral Re-Armament Week in San Francisco. MRA (or the Oxford Group or Buchmanism) seemed to have found in California its appropriate spiritual home. A hit-&-run sect which had done better at raiding than remaining, MRA and its guiding "Soul Surgeon" Frank Buchman had now been comfortably operating in California for eleven months. Something about its free-&-easy panacea appealed to the West Coast: "It's a world movement designed to build a world free from intolerance, greed, hatred and fear. You don't join anything, you don't pay anything, the idea is that you begin living the MRA standards. . . ." Leader Buchman, who last week celebrated his 62nd birthday, told the press that he found no objection to "50,000 airplanes for America," felt that "America may be God's last chance to save the world," vowed that he was "no peace-at-any-price man." MRA, he added firmly, was "above party, class, creed, point of view or personal advantage. Like electric light, it goes everywhere." Following the usual Buchmanite technique, MRA headquarters issued a list of current MRA "endorsers."-Among them: President Roosevelt, Admiral Byrd, Secretary of War Woodring, Secretary of the Navy Edison, Speaker Bankhead, David Dubinsky (International Ladies Garment Workers), Dan J. Tobin (International Brotherhood of Teamsters), Paul E. X.

Brown (Pullman Porters and Maids Protective Association), Dave Beck (Teamsters' Union tsar, and force-extraordinary in Seattle politics). Said one hopeful MRA missionary: "If MRA can convince a man like Beck, it may do the same for Hitler."