Amos Alfred Fries (March 17, 1873 – December 30, 1963) was a general in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

and 1898 graduate of the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...

. Fries was the second chief of the army's

Chemical Warfare Service The Chemical Corps is the branch of the United States Army tasked with defending against and using chemical weapon, chemical, biological agent, biological, radiological weapon, radiological, and nuclear weapon, nuclear (Chemical, biological, r ...

, established during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. Fries served under John J. Pershing in the Philippines and oversaw the construction of the roads and bridges in

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...

. He eventually became an important commander in World War I. After he retired from the Army in 1929, Fries wrote two

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...

books. He died in 1963 and is buried in

Arlington National Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is the largest cemetery in the United States National Cemetery System, one of two maintained by the United States Army. More than 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington County, Virginia. ...

Early life

Amos Alfred Fries was born March 17, 1873, in

Viroqua, Wisconsin Viroqua is the county seat of Vernon County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 4,504 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is in the Viroqua (town), Wisconsin, town of Viroqua. Etymology The town was originally name ...

. His family moved to Missouri after he was born and then moved to Oregon. Fries earned an appointment to the United States Military Academy and graduated there in 1898.Russell, Edward. ''War and Nature'',
Google Books
, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 38, (), accessed October 21, 2008.

Military career

After graduating West Point Fries joined the Army Corps of Engineers and served in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

during the

Philippine–American War The Philippine–American War, known alternatively as the Philippine Insurrection, Filipino–American War, or Tagalog Insurgency, emerged following the conclusion of the Spanish–American War in December 1898 when the United States annexed th ...

. During that time he saw combat under the leadership of Captain John J. Pershing, later the

American Expeditionary Force The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was a formation of the United States Armed Forces on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front during World War I, composed mostly of units from the United States Army, U.S. Army. The AEF was establis ...

s (AEF) commander during

. From 1914 to 1917 Fries oversaw the construction of roads and bridges in

; he gained some notoriety for that work.Harber, Ludwig Fritz. ''The Poisonous Cloud''
Google Books
, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 135. ()., accessed October 21, 2008. Fries arrived in Europe as World War I raged, he expected to do more engineering work but was instead thrust into heading the fledgling Gas Service Section, AEF. The Gas Service Section was mostly constituted by the 1st Gas Regiment (originally the 30th Engineer Regiment (Gas and Flame)) and Fries commanded the section. He became the chief of the Overseas Division of the

in 1919, and when William L. Sibert retired in 1919, Fries became the first peacetime overall chief of the Chemical Warfare Service the following year. Committee on Finance, United States Senate ''Hearings Before the Committee on Finance, United States Senate on the proposed Tariff Act of 1921'',
Google Books
, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1922, p. 374. He served at that post until he retired from the Army in 1929.van Courtland Moon, John Ellis. "United States Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II: A Captive of Coalition Policy?"
JSTOR
, ''The Journal of Military History'', Vol. 60, No. 3. (July, 1996), pp. 495–511. Retrieved October 21, 2008. For his work with the Chemical Warfare Service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

Anti-communism and chemical warfare advocacy

During the

interwar period In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period, also known as the interbellum (), lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days) – from the end of World War I (WWI) to the beginning of World War II ( ...

, the Chemical Warfare Service maintained its arsenal despite public pressure and presidential wishes in favor of disarmament. Fries viewed calls for chemical disarmament as a

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

plot. As CWS chief, Fries created a secret military intelligence unit within the Chemical Warfare Service to monitor domestic subversion. Fries accused the National Council for Prevention of War (NCPW) of being a Communist front. He also leveled similar accusations at Florence Watkins, the executive secretary of the National Congress of Parent Teacher Associations. The pressure generated by Fries' accusations led to the National Congress of Parent Teacher Associations withdrawing its membership in the NCPW. The General Federation of Women's Clubs took the same action.Haar, Charlene K. ''The Politics of the PTA''
Google Books
, Transaction Publishers, 2002, pp. 61–62, (). Fries use race to justify some of his views. During a lecture at the General Staff College, he declared:

"The same training that makes for advancement in science, and success in manufacture in peace, gives the control of the body that hold the white man to the firing line no matter what its terrors. A great deal of this comes because the white man has had trained out of him nearly all superstition."

Fries declared that this training set apart from the "negro" as well as the "Gurkha and the Moroccan." In 1923 Fries' office distributed a "spider chart" to "patriotic groups" across the United States. The chart intended to show that all women's societies and church groups be regarded with suspicion concerning links to radical groups and Communist leadership.Evans, Sara Margaret. ''Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America'',
Google Books
, Simon and Schuster, 1997, p. 190, (). The spider chart listed 21 individual women and 17 organizations, among them the

Daughters of the American Revolution The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (often abbreviated as DAR or NSDAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a patriot of the American Revolutionary War. A non-p ...

. Later in his life, Fries lobbied for Congress to ban the "teaching or advocating" communism in public schools. In 1935, he also sought to ban books written by progressive historian Carl L. Becker, whom Fries labeled a "well known communist writer" despite Becker explicitly being an anti-communist. Fries two

books, ''Communism Unmasked'', published in 1937, and ''Sugar Coating Communism''. Fries was a supporter of both

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and

Fascist Italy Fascist Italy () is a term which is used in historiography to describe the Kingdom of Italy between 1922 and 1943, when Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. Th ...

as a bulwark against communism in Europe and believed that a fascist dictatorship was the only way to prevent the two countries from becoming communist. When Rabbi Stephen Wise pleaded for the admission of persecuted German Jews, Fries, a nativist who subscribed to the Jewish communist conspiracy theory, argued that the Nazis were only persecuting communists and their sympathizers.Bendersky, Joseph W. ''The "Jewish Threat"'',
Google Books
, Basic Books, 2000, p. 470, ().

Later life and death

Fries died at the age of 90 on December 30, 1963, and was buried at

.Burial Detail: Fries, Amos A
– ANC Explorer

Selected publications

* ''Chemical Warfare'' (1921), co-authored with Clarence J. West * ''Communism Unmasked'' (1937) * ''Sugar Coating Communism: A Plea for God and Country, Home and Family'' (c. 1930) * ''Sugar Coating Communism for Protestant Churches: Chart Showing Interlocking Membership of Churchmen, Socialists, Pacifists, Internationalists, and Communists'' (chart – 1923)

Notes

External links

ArlingtonCemetery.net, an unofficial website
Amos Fries papers
at University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Fries, Amos 1873 births 1963 deaths American conspiracy theorists American military personnel of the Philippine–American War American Nazis American white nationalists Burials at Arlington National Cemetery United States Military Academy alumni People from Viroqua, Wisconsin United States Army generals of World War I United States Army generals Chemical warfare Christian fascists Christian fundamentalists Writers from Missouri Writers from Oregon Writers from Wisconsin Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army) Military personnel from Wisconsin United States Army Corps of Engineers personnel 19th-century United States Army personnel