President of the Mothers of the United States of America, [Mrs. Rosa M. Farber], she had known as early as May, 1941, she confessed, that Laura Ingalls was on the Nazi pay roll. "There was a lot more about her than appeared in the newspapers," she said mysteriously. "What was printed was only half the story."

How did she know that?

And why had she continued to associate with her?

It was nearly ten o'clock. So far I had learned little from Mrs. Farber that was worth while. Then, as the hour hand on the living room clock pointed to ten, Mrs. Farber suddenly came out with: "There is no other way out for us than through a revolution."

"You mean a revolution with bloodshed?" I asked, surprised at her sudden remark.

She nodded: "It's the only way."

"I was going to start an underground organization last fall," she explained, "but they [meaning gossipy women] would not have been able to keep it secret and I gave up the idea. It's the only thing left to do now -- start an underground movement." Mrs. Farber wasn't holding meetings of any kind now. "You only make yourself a target," she said. "They'll shut you down. The only way to work now is through conversation."

She called it that. What she actually did was to outline a whispering campaign. She gave me her formula as she practiced it day by day. She recounted how she had spread defeatism at the local school. One of the teachers giving out ration cards had said that rationing was necessary for psychological reasons. But Mrs. Farber had argued back: "If the want us to know that we are in the war then let them publish the casualty lists and also send the bodies back." One of the teachers had commented, "Yes, come to think of it, those lists haven't been published, have they."

Mrs. Farber boasted, "You see? I planted an idea in her head, now she'll think of it again."

Thoroughly warmed up to her subject, she went on: "I just plant seeds like that every day. They are little ideas which I put in my conversations day by day. I do it all the time. That is all I do. That is all you can do now. Here, let me show you something." She got up from her chair and went over to the bureau. From it she pulled out a large pocketbook and drew out a newspaper picture of Attorney General Francis Biddle. "Look at that face," she said. "It's one hundred per cent Jewish." (footnote: Attorney General Biddle is a member of the famous non-Jewish Philadelphia family.)

From another folder in her pocketbook she took out a picture of a child whose grand-uncle was captioned as being General MacArthur. She said that his face, too, was Jewish. And then this statement from Mrs. Farber: "People say that MacArthur's little son looks like a little kike."

"Should we, in these conversations you suggest, use anti-Semitism?" I asked innocently.

"What do you think I'm doing when I show Biddle's picture and tell people he looks like a Jew?" she exploded. "Preach anti-Semitism all you can, the more the better."

After this Mrs. Farber lost all self-composure and all reason. Having controlled herself all through the early evening, she now let go and subjected me to a half hour of fantastic delusions. One of these was the amazing statement that Polish Jews had willingly and wantonly encouraged Hitler's attack on Poland. The Sanhedrin, or a mythical world Jewish Council (existing only in the imagination of Jew-baiters) had decreed this in order that Hitler devastate all of Europe.

"How would the Jews benefit from this?" I asked incredulously.

Mrs. Farber explained that it was to further a plot of world ruin so that Communist elements might be in a position to offer Communism as the only antidote for National-Socialism. "Hitler," Mrs. Farber said, out of all reason, "is being kept alive as a hate object by those who want our civilization destroyed in order to set up an international world order."

I could hardly believe my ears, for here was a woman, hitherto rational, whose blind hatreds and fanaticisms led her to believe and propagate the most fantastic lies. She became just like the crackpots I had met on countless occasions. In her defamation of Jewry, in her attempt to lay the blame of the war at the feet of persecuted Polish Jews, Mrs. Farber may have been attempting to absolve Hitler of all blame. In her lumping together of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill and Roosevelt Mrs. Farber followed another favorite Nazi device used to discredit the national leadership, and sow mistrust toward the national war effort. On leaving, she loaded me down with a huge stack of pre-Pearl Harbor isolationist literature.

I learned from Mrs. Farber that Mrs. Beatrice Knowles, president of American Mothers, was holding underground meeting. Phoning, I told her of my visits to Mrs. Farber, Vietig and Parker Sage. "Come right over," she invited...