APRIL 2, 1961

Among other Harrell enterprises is his mausoleum business. Magazines and periodicals carry classified advertisements offering information on "opportunity to earn $15,000 to $30,000 anually, franchice protection, etc." Years ago he ran a theater and several skating rinks. Several mail order type businesses are mentioned by townsmen. The postmaster says only, "he gets a lot of mail."

While many did not want their names used, none was unwilling to talk. Two interviewers, making their way around the square, could proceed but slowly from store to store. Each several steps they were stopped by one who cared to comment on the goings-on which had thrust their town into headlines, had put it "on the map" as Johnny Bob had predicted.

"I'm not afraid," said the obviously wrought-up mother of two elementary school children. "I'm not afraid for me," she qualified. "For the children's sake, I wonder if it would not perhaps be better to move away from here."

The woman, about 35, didn't want her name used. She spoke her piece, excused herself, explained she just wanted "to get in my say" and hurried home to attend to chores.

Vaughn Brown, manager of the Wabash Telephone Cooperative - a community enterprise he has guided from its inception - explained it thus: "I've got a stake in this town. So have the Morgans here. He's not going to run me out."

The Morgans are Jim and June Morgan who run an on-the-square hardware and sporting goods store.  In a way Mr. and Mrs. Morgan and Glenn are at the center of the tension between Johnny Bob and Louisville. Jim, who also is deputy sheriff and secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, grew up with Harrell and once worked for him when Harrell ran a movie-house and skating rink.

The Morgans say they think Harrell might have singled them out after Jim, who had a nervous breakdown several years ago, suggested to Johnny Bob that he needed medical care. Thus, explains June, when Harrell went on his anti-Red crusade, he picked on the Morgans.

Tension between Harrell and the town has built up since 1959 when Johnny Bob and A. Vance Comer - then Methodist pastor in Louisville - left the church over a dispute in procedure. The two wanted to concentrate church effort on an anti-communism crusade. When the congregation didn't go along  they pulled out. Convinced Clay County was crawling with Communists, Johnny Bob set up the Christian Conservative Church.

That didn't bother the citizens too much. As one woman put it, "so long as they were just holding church out there, it was okay with us."

A few fellow Methodists went to the Harrell group.

But the Harrell group started to go beyond "holding church out there" at his little white frame building, two miles east of here.

Harrell tossed his hat into the political ring. And at this point the political life of Johnny Bob Harrell and the religious life became one. And life in Louisville became even more complex.

Even before he left the Methodist Church, Harrell had reported spiritual manifestations and visions. He claims to have been cured miraculously of cancer in January 1959. Of this event Comer has written a 43-page booklet "The Manifestation of God in the Healing of John R. Harrell."

Now, Harrell claims, he and his wife can "hear the Lord speak in an audible voice."

Last spring, Johnny Bob placed fifth among six candidates for the Republican nomination for U.S. senator. After the primary he formed his own party, the Christian Conservatives, and campaigned mostly in churches on a theme of puttng the Lord back into government.

He said he ran "because the Lord told me to," just as he had begun the 24-room replica of George Washington's home some time before.

The election came and went and Johnny Bob was still just plain citizen Harrell of Louisville. He intensified his campaign against the Red Menace. The drive approached a climax in February with a series of anti-Communist rallies he sponsored at the little rural church. While the rallies went on certain disturbances occurred; crosses were burned, a swastika painted effigy was hanged.

"All this is the work of the Communists," cried Harrell and his group. "All this is the work of a bunch of kids having a little fun," echoed the town.

Sheriff Walter R. Welsh, who came under the verbal blasts of Harrell following the rallies, says the demonstrations at the church were unnoticed by persons inside and by him as he sat outside the church.

"He's (Harrell) always treated me the best in the world," says  Sheriff Welsh. "He never gives me a hard time except in the newspapers."

Louisville in February came on the map. Or since February anyway, weekend motorists have found Louisville on the map and have come up Illinois 45 the seven miles from Route 50 to satisfy their curiosities. It's a good business for the gas stations," said a man who doesn't run one.

"Sure it has hurt business," said a businessman. "Harrell has some backers not 'in' his retreat. And they quit trading with some of us."  Merchants cited the notoriety as driving away some business: "Folks from out about half way to, say Farina (18 miles west), now go there to shop. Some are really afraid to come here." 

One man who has an on-the-square business frankly admitted he'd "pull up stakes" if he got the chance." That man was in his middle age and this decision surely had come hard.

'Wish No Harm'

Comments by the most vehement citizens, of course, never can see print. But these are not in the majorily. "We are a religious people," explained one woman, a clerk, "We wish Johnny Bob no harm. We just wish he'd be like he used to be."

In this sentiment Jim Morgan and John say they concur.

Here are some other comments:

"It used to be funny. We would greet each other on the street with 'Hi, comrade' and term an evening with friends a 'cell meeting.' It isn't funny anymore."

'We know this will come outball right. But Louisville has been covered with a dark blot that will take years to erase. "We want to get something done before there is bloodshed, and we hope people will return to their senses and lead normal lives."

People seemingly had returned to normal living for a few days following the rallies, and the perils of Harrell seemed to subside. Then Johnny Bob called a religious retreat on his estate for those for whom the pressures of communism had become too great.

Quickly that retreat turned into a permanent religious colony. Entire families arrived. Parts of families arrived. Trailers were parked at the foot of Harrell's hill. And later cabins were started; these—like Mount Vernon—not yet complete.

School was set up. And with this private school came trouble for Johnny Bob and friends. Truancy charges were placed. A jury trial brought convictions. And the tension that is Louisville tightened.

Harrell at week's end talked of making his school conform to state educational requirements.

Meanwhile, several who had entered the refuge from Redism defected back to the town.

But Johnny Bob stands firm atop his hill. Armed guards stand in the cupola of his Mount Vernon. A pack of dogs stands ready to ward off trespassers. A guard stands beside an auto which blocks the main gate.

Friends may enter. The press may enter . . . unless the press comes with the wrong person.

The press in company of Jim Morgan, approaching in Morgan's fire red station wagon, gets out and begins to pop off some pictures of the estate.

Tod Harrell, 13, long tresses flying in the wind, is there to stop the press.

In addition to his son, appears Mrs. Natalie Harrell, mother of Johnny Bob. "There he is," shouts Mother Harrell to several previously admitted news photographers. Pointing to Morgan, she continues, "Take a picture of him. He's the main trouble around here."

Now Git, You'

The lad with the frontiersman haircut advances to the gate:

"Git, now git, you. And you, Jim, you and your John Law, git."

Although Mother Harrell restrains her grandson, the unwelcome ones 'git' as Tod pats his side and a man stirs inside the car which blocks the gate.

Driving back toward the square Jim Morgan, hardware storeman, Rotarian, chamber of commerce official, deputy sheriff and foe to Johnny Bob ventures that "We don't think there's danger here. We don't think he'll do anything."

But it is hard to be convinced. This seems an explosive and sad situation.

It seems sad to hear citizens tell of small children who, not understanding why, fear to sleep alone at night. And it seems sad to hear folks tell of marriages in trouble because of split allegiance, because one party is up there with Harrell. The other staying in town.

It seems sad to hear Methodists say the situation caused church attendance to drop 50 percent in their congregation and to attribute this drop to "folk's losing faith in religion what with the way religion is being used."

But with all the disruptive forces, the situation has forged a certain unity. As a man sitting in the courthouse put it: "It has been a long time since Democrats and Republicans put away differences and worked together on things. "It has drawn this community closer than it ever was. We've all gotten to know and work with people we'd never have met or known otherwise.

A clothing store clerk perhaps summed up 'the situation' in Louisville: "This is something you read about or see on television, but you never dream about it really happening.

But it really is happening.

In Illinois: Festival of the Fed-Up

Monday, Nov. 05, 1979

By Donald Morrison

Dennis Barrett, in camouflage fatigues and walrus mustache, is telling about the first man he killed. "He was running toward me and I got him with 18 bullets right in the chest, brrrrrrrt! So I go over to where he went down, and he's not there. I finally find his body 50 ft. away. Now it seems medically impossible he could have crawled that far with his heart and lungs tore clean out like that. But one thing you have to learn is that people don't die the way they do in John Wayne movies. It's disheartening."

Barrett, now 30 and a policeman, learned that lesson a decade ago in Viet Nam. This morning he is passing it on to about 50 men and women assembled in a rude, tin-roofed shed behind a convincing replica of George Washington's Mount Vernon home, only 20% larger. Barrett is ripe with other combat wisdom: "If you bring [an enemy] down, don't run up to him so he can shoot you back. Give him time to die ... When things break down there's going to be an initial surge of people from the cities. They'll kill you for a can of sardines ... You should band together with a few other families, because you're going to need all the firepower you can get. If you have a nine-or ten-year-old kid, teach him how to shoot ... Get yourself a good guard dog. And if worse comes to worst and you run out of food, you can eat him."

Barrett is teaching a class in "Special Weapons and Tactics," one of the several dozen survival-related courses offered at this fall's Freedom Festival. The weekend gathering is sponsored by the Christian-Patriots Defense League at its 55-acre headquarters on the outskirts of rural Louisville, Ill. (pop. 1,000), four hours and a million rows of corn south of Chicago. The festival has drawn 1,500 men, women and children from as far away as Mexico and Oregon. Clad in overalls, pedal pushers, business suits and military uniforms, they seem to represent every age group, income bracket, occupation—but only one race. "You're welcome to join us, as long as you're white," John R. Harrell, founder of the league, said over the phone a few days earlier. "We work with all races, but we don't believe in mixing them. We feel that almost 50% of the world's problems are caused by the mixing of races, which we believe to be totally against the natural makeup of man.

This is a Caucasian meeting only. We'll get together with other races elsewhere."

Harrell, 57, is a white-haired former millionaire (mausoleums, real estate) with a radio preacher's voice and the affable manner of a small-town politician. He founded the league's progenitor, the Christian Conservative Churches of America, two decades ago, between a bout with lymph cancer (he won) and his 1960 campaign to be one of Illinois' U.S. Senators (he lost). Shortly after he built this ersatz Mount Vernon—as a tribute to his beloved George Washington and a home for his family of nine—federal agents battered down the gate with an armored personnel carrier, and arrested him for harboring an alleged Marine deserter.

Harrell spent four years in prison, was cited for failing to file income tax returns since 1953 and says he still owes the Government more than $500,000.

The league's 25,000 members are aggressively Christian, patriotic, mad as hell and resolved not to take it any more. The nation is on the Interstate to ruin, they feel. And, well, who doesn't these days, what with Soviet troops off the shores of Key West, the dollar sinking like the Lusitania, drug pushers in the schools, homosexuals in the pulpit, bureaucrats in just about everything, and goodness and patriotism generally on the run. Yet Harrell's Louisville pilgrims have converted these common gripes into obsessions.

America is not just heading down the primrose path to perdition, they fear; it is already there. "We're going to have a full-scale revolution," says Harrell, his voice rising. "We've got half the world's wealth, and the rest of 'em are coming to take it from us. The black man's angry, the yellow man's angry. Everybody's angry but the white man, and he's asleep.

We've had it too good for too long. We're soft and we're weak. We're going to be chastised. We're going to be invaded and lose two-thirds of our territory, half our population. We're going to see blood and guts strewn all over this country. We'll be lucky if we have two more years."

The beginning of the end may start as a Communist invasion, a collapse of the debased dollar, revolt in the inner city, a fuel shortage or a famine. These folks aim to be ready. They are buying country retreats, stocking them with food and ammunition—and elevating the study of survival to a high art. The weekend festival is a kind of Woodstock for the Armageddon set. In "Emergency Tools and Weapons," Charles Kehrberg of Hillsdale, Mich., explains how to fumigate stored food grains (add dry ice). In "Food: Preparation, Production, Preservation," Ruth Anthony of Kansas City, Kans., talks about subsisting on wild plants (eat only the tender inner leaves of dandelions, the leafy tips of purslane). In "Guns and Reloading," Curt Putnam of Kansas City, Mo., demonstrates the best way of refilling shotgun shell casings.

The students take notes and volunteer hints of their own. ("I use distilled water for drinking; it stores longer"; "We plan to evacuate as a group in our mobile homes, and pull them into a circle for a wagon-train effect.") Jim Miller, 33, an auto service department manager from Boles, Ky., came for the food preservation and weapons courses. He now resolves to do more home canning, and to teach his ten-year-old son how to handle a gun. "He likes the idea, but his mother doesn't," says Miller. Charles Harrison, 31, a scholarly-looking accountant, says that the religious and racial rhetoric at the festival left him cold. But he adds that he and eight other families have bought a farm 150 miles from his St. Louis home, and plan to hole up there after the cataclysm. Says he:

"One reason I'm here is to make contacts, build a network of people in Missouri who have a particular skill or some tools so we can barter with them when the money system collapses."

Until then there are still a few debased dollars to be made. Among the preparedness-minded entrepreneurs on hand is Dennis Anderson of Chicago, who represents Long-Life Foods' line of dehydrated applesauce granules and powdered peanut butter. "I don't own any guns and hand grenades, but I believe in having a year's supply of food." Jack Elkins, a nuclear-weapons physicist from Oak Ridge, TN, got so fired up at the June festival that he went home and invented a home oil refinery. It is about the size of a 55-gal. oil drum and, he says, can refine crude oil into gasoline and home heating oil at the rate of 12 gal. of each a day. The cost is slightly higher than retail: "This is not something you'll use to save money, but in an OPEC emergency it's ideal." He offers to custom-build the refineries for about $1,500 (you supply the power source).

The weekend combines politics with survival. Participants work out a 16-point "platform to revitalize America." Among the proposals: U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations, an end to all foreign aid, repudiation of the national debt, abolition of the Federal Reserve System, and repeal of federal and state income tax laws. The delegates listen to a parade of speakers decry Communism, Zionism, U.S. foreign policy, Big Government, and politicians who ignore their constituents.

"Surround these officials," advises Colonel B.F.M. von Stahl, U.S. Army (ret.). "Walk in with four or five people and say, 'Are you going to do what the people want or do we have to tip over your desk?'"

While Von Stahl explains how to bring treason charges against a Communist-loving official, Courtney Smith, a representative of the conservative Liberty Lobby, sums up the mood of the participants. "They're really mad. I've heard people here actually talk about killing these so-called politicians. They figure they're traitors. Have not the Russians said they will bury us? And yet our Congressmen and Senators vote to aid and abet them. That's treason. They should be hanged— slowly."

Instructors in fatigues and mufti are still lecturing on the fine points of treason, gun handling and dandelion cookery. Off to the side, a group of apple-cheeked, grade-school-age girls in ging ham dresses, children of members of the audience, are sitting on swings, singing chorus after chorus of Jesus Loves Me.